"Nearly every malodorous myth about the Great War can be traced back to the literary septic tank that is Lloyd George’s War Memoirs."
An article in the Express that is interesting and amusing?!!??
End Times....
It describes Grey's school, Winchester, as "the thinking boy's Eton"!
I've got Lewis-Stempel's book, Six Weeks – the short and gallant life of the British officer in the First World War. It is mainly about the subalterns, iirc, the Lieutenant Georges in Blackadder terms.
Labour needs to reinstate her whip. She is sorely missed by the party, an intellectual powerhouse who was absolutely definitely not parachuted into Leicester East.
I am in awe of your indefatigability and persistence. You are seriously watching this?
Some of it was interesting (Tugendhat, Bryant), some of it reasonably well informed (Kearns, ex-FCO), some of it was pretty pathetic (McDonald, SNP), some of it from the John Humphrys school of interruption interrogation (Coyle, Lab) and some downright embarrassing (Webbe - who thought we'd been in there forty years.....)
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
It wouldn't, No even if it won would win more narrowly than in 2014 most likely and the Nationalists would then start pushing for indyref3 the next day.
If you give in once that a generation does not mean a generation what is to stop Nats believing you would give in to them again?
Because the Scots would not be up for continually having votes on this. You need a caricatured and jaundiced view of them to think otherwise. These exercises are not trivial. They convulse a country and expend enormous energy. Same applied with our EU one. That's why I knew - KNEW - that for all the rational seeming argument for it Ref2 was a total pipedream. We were not going through that again anytime soon.
Here with Sindy there is (just about) sufficient rationale and and appetite for holding another vote just a touch less than 10 years since the last one but that will be it for the foreseeable if it's another No.
It won't, the Nationalists are like a crocodile, once you feed it once it will not appease it, it will be back for more.
A generation is a generation, the UK government must not weakly appease the Nats and give an indyref2 before a genuine generation is up since 2014 otherwise they will be demanding indyref3 in less than a generation too
Your basic problem with this "argument" is that the 2014 referendum was not "once in a generation" - and frankly you either know this and are happy to lie about it are don't know this and are clueless about politics in Scotland.
If you want to make something once in a generation you legislate it as such. It was not, so it is not. An off-the-cuff campaigning comment by the first minister is not the same as the law.
It was because there was no referendum held before it and all parties, including Sturgeon's SNP, agreed at the time it was a once in a generation vote in their guide for an independent Scotland.
They can whinge as much as they want, this Tory UK government will refuse them an indyref2 and under the Scotland Act 1998 the UK government gets the final say on the union's future
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
It wouldn't, No even if it won would win more narrowly than in 2014 most likely and the Nationalists would then start pushing for indyref3 the next day.
If you give in once that a generation does not mean a generation what is to stop Nats believing you would give in to them again?
Because the Scots would not be up for continually having votes on this. You need a caricatured and jaundiced view of them to think otherwise. These exercises are not trivial. They convulse a country and expend enormous energy. Same applied with our EU one. That's why I knew - KNEW - that for all the rational seeming argument for it Ref2 was a total pipedream. We were not going through that again anytime soon.
Here with Sindy there is (just about) sufficient rationale and and appetite for holding another vote just a touch less than 10 years since the last one but that will be it for the foreseeable if it's another No.
It won't, the Nationalists are like a crocodile, once you feed it once it will not appease it, it will be back for more.
A generation is a generation, the UK government must not weakly appease the Nats and give an indyref2 before a genuine generation is up since 2014 otherwise they will be demanding indyref3 in less than a generation too
Your basic problem with this "argument" is that the 2014 referendum was not "once in a generation" - and frankly you either know this and are happy to lie about it are don't know this and are clueless about politics in Scotland.
If you want to make something once in a generation you legislate it as such. It was not, so it is not. An off-the-cuff campaigning comment by the first minister is not the same as the law.
It was because there was no referendum held before it and all parties, including Sturgeon's SNP, agreed at the time it was a once in a generation vote in their guide for an independent Scotland.
They can whinge as much as they want, this Tory UK government will refuse them an indyref2 and under the Scotland Act 1998 the UK government gets the final say on the union's future
Labour needs to reinstate her whip. She is sorely missed by the party, an intellectual powerhouse who was absolutely definitely not parachuted into Leicester East.
I am in awe of your indefatigability and persistence. You are seriously watching this?
It was on in the background whilst I wrote a lengthy reply to one client's sanity-challenged marketing team. The soporific Raab drone helped calm my own tone.
Maybe I have underestimated him. Making a catastrophe like the retreat from Kabul (#2021 version) soporific and boring is a real skill in itself.
Labour needs to reinstate her whip. She is sorely missed by the party, an intellectual powerhouse who was absolutely definitely not parachuted into Leicester East.
I am in awe of your indefatigability and persistence. You are seriously watching this?
The headline "Raab grilled live" delivered way less than it promised.
Labour needs to reinstate her whip. She is sorely missed by the party, an intellectual powerhouse who was absolutely definitely not parachuted into Leicester East.
I am in awe of your indefatigability and persistence. You are seriously watching this?
The headline "Raab grilled live" delivered way less than it promised.
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
Well, look at Ms Baillie - IIRC she's very keen on nukes at Faslane yet that is against Slab policy. And as my Scottish colleagues and I have pointed out, Slab can be a bit apt to urge voting for Tories. I seem to remember that HYUFD supports voting for Labour and LD in Scotland to keep the SNP out, which again is hardly party policy.
If I am elected as a Tory I will vote for and implement the Tory manifesto, tactical voting as the best means to preserve the Union, which is Tory policy does not change that
Either tactical voting yourself or advocating voters vote against your party is grounds to get you expelled from the party.
Well, he needs ot be expelled promptly [edit] from the SCUP. He'd give the red card to anyone running onto the pitch in the wrong shirt.
You can't expel the elected leader and plenty of Scottish Tories felt the same way, Labour only held Dumbarton and Edinburgh Southern and the LDs only held Edinburgh Western and North East Fife because of tactical votes from Scottish Tories to keep out the SNP.
The SNP failed to get a majority due to Unionist tactical voting
Haw, pal, I've got news for you. You and Mr Ross'd better get your resignation in ...
"General Terms and Conditions of Membership of the Conservative Party
[...]
7. To be a member or supporter of no other UK-registered political party nor a supporter of any candidate of such a party.
[...] Approved by the Board of the Conservative Party October 2020"
For UK elections yes, this was a Scotland only election for Scotland only parties.
Scottish Conservatives set their own rules for Holyrood elections and Ross is the Scottish Conservative leader at Holyrood elections who decides what goes for there, Boris only leads the UK Conservative Party and the Conservative Party in England
Source? I’d be astonished if the SCAUP has its own terms and conditions of membership.
The terms are quite clear you cannot support another UK registered party for UK elections, for a vote for Labour or the LDs as much as SNP at UK elections is a vote against a UK Tory majority government.
For Scottish elections however a vote for any Unionist party is a vote against an SNP majority or an SNP and Green government, hence the rules do not disallow votes for Scottish parties at Scotland only elections for Holyrood.
The Scottish Conservatives run the Conservative campaign in Scotland from their office in Northumberland Street, Edinburgh and set the rules for Holyrood elections. CCHQ only has full remit over UK general elections and local elections in England (and in the latter the approved council candidates list is determined by local associations, CCHQ only determines the approved candidates list for UK parliamentary candidates)
You are just making it up as you go along.
Show us a paragraph in the conditions of membership that says it is OK to vote Labour or Lib Dem.
There is nothing in the terms of membership saying a vote against the SNP at Holyrood elections is disallowed.
Slab and the SLDs are Scottish only parties standing for Scotland only elections at Holyrood, they only become part of the UK parties at UK general elections when they stand for Westminster
Of course nothing says you can't vote against the SNP. That is quite different from saying it is OK to vote for another party.
I maintain that if a Conservative member revealed that they had voted Labour or Lib Dem then they would face expulsion.
And if a member advocates voting for another party, they too would face potential expulsion.
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
It wouldn't, No even if it won would win more narrowly than in 2014 most likely and the Nationalists would then start pushing for indyref3 the next day.
If you give in once that a generation does not mean a generation what is to stop Nats believing you would give in to them again?
Because the Scots would not be up for continually having votes on this. You need a caricatured and jaundiced view of them to think otherwise. These exercises are not trivial. They convulse a country and expend enormous energy. Same applied with our EU one. That's why I knew - KNEW - that for all the rational seeming argument for it Ref2 was a total pipedream. We were not going through that again anytime soon.
Here with Sindy there is (just about) sufficient rationale and and appetite for holding another vote just a touch less than 10 years since the last one but that will be it for the foreseeable if it's another No.
It won't, the Nationalists are like a crocodile, once you feed it once it will not appease it, it will be back for more.
A generation is a generation, the UK government must not weakly appease the Nats and give an indyref2 before a genuine generation is up since 2014 otherwise they will be demanding indyref3 in less than a generation too
Your basic problem with this "argument" is that the 2014 referendum was not "once in a generation" - and frankly you either know this and are happy to lie about it are don't know this and are clueless about politics in Scotland.
If you want to make something once in a generation you legislate it as such. It was not, so it is not. An off-the-cuff campaigning comment by the first minister is not the same as the law.
It was because there was no referendum held before it and all parties, including Sturgeon's SNP, agreed at the time it was a once in a generation vote in their guide for an independent Scotland.
They can whinge as much as they want, this Tory UK government will refuse them an indyref2 and under the Scotland Act 1998 the UK government gets the final say on the union's future
Comedy. That was in the legislation was it?
That the UK gets the final say is in the Scotland Act 1998 yes, it explicitly says the union and the constitution is a reserved matter.
But HYUFD's position is silly. The UK is a democracy and if people vote for change, even if its less than 20 years later, that should happen.
And its completely untrue that a generation is at least ten years. Its entirely possible for two different generations to be less than ten years apart. While I was in primary school I had friends who became uncles because their older siblings had children. People are in the same generation as their siblings and a different generation to their nieces and nephews, even if there's less than 10 years in it.
I would say we're now in a different generation of politics than we were in, in 2014. I would suggest 1993-2020 as a generation of 27 years that the UK was in the EU. In 2016 a new generation was conceived, the post-Brexit generation, which after a very long and difficult childbirth was finally born in 2020.
"Nearly every malodorous myth about the Great War can be traced back to the literary septic tank that is Lloyd George’s War Memoirs."
An article in the Express that is interesting and amusing?!!??
End Times....
It describes Grey's school, Winchester, as "the thinking boy's Eton"!
I've got Lewis-Stempel's book, Six Weeks – the short and gallant life of the British officer in the First World War. It is mainly about the subalterns, iirc, the Lieutenant Georges in Blackadder terms.
Wykehamists tend to be less posh than Etonians but more intellectual
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
Scottish numbers in hospital rising pretty fast -> doubled in last 12 days. Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
The UK Government is destroying public trust, as well as increasing the human cost in lives and health harm.......
In the wake of the existing generational injustice made worse by Covid, vaccine passports would deepen discrimination against those who have not yet been vaccinated. It would deepen inequality at a time when the country needs collective effort. Worse still, the confusion allows the anti-vaxxers who marched in London to spread misinformation about the safety and purpose of the vaccine itself.
Lets see what tune he sings when Scotland does it....
Does Harvie have no idea how hard it is to get to see your dentist during lockdown? They cancelled on me again today for the second time. He makes not grinding your teeth almost impossible.
Perhaps the Harvie could become a unit of stupidity. Bloody daft but not the full Harvie, that sort of thing.
Not having much problem here. Indeed got an extra appointment when she found a new hole after yanking a temporary crown off.
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
Well, look at Ms Baillie - IIRC she's very keen on nukes at Faslane yet that is against Slab policy. And as my Scottish colleagues and I have pointed out, Slab can be a bit apt to urge voting for Tories. I seem to remember that HYUFD supports voting for Labour and LD in Scotland to keep the SNP out, which again is hardly party policy.
If I am elected as a Tory I will vote for and implement the Tory manifesto, tactical voting as the best means to preserve the Union, which is Tory policy does not change that
Either tactical voting yourself or advocating voters vote against your party is grounds to get you expelled from the party.
Well, he needs ot be expelled promptly [edit] from the SCUP. He'd give the red card to anyone running onto the pitch in the wrong shirt.
You can't expel the elected leader and plenty of Scottish Tories felt the same way, Labour only held Dumbarton and Edinburgh Southern and the LDs only held Edinburgh Western and North East Fife because of tactical votes from Scottish Tories to keep out the SNP.
The SNP failed to get a majority due to Unionist tactical voting
Haw, pal, I've got news for you. You and Mr Ross'd better get your resignation in ...
"General Terms and Conditions of Membership of the Conservative Party
[...]
7. To be a member or supporter of no other UK-registered political party nor a supporter of any candidate of such a party.
[...] Approved by the Board of the Conservative Party October 2020"
For UK elections yes, this was a Scotland only election for Scotland only parties.
Scottish Conservatives set their own rules for Holyrood elections and Ross is the Scottish Conservative leader at Holyrood elections who decides what goes for there, Boris only leads the UK Conservative Party and the Conservative Party in England
Source? I’d be astonished if the SCAUP has its own terms and conditions of membership.
The terms are quite clear you cannot support another UK registered party for UK elections, for a vote for Labour or the LDs as much as SNP at UK elections is a vote against a UK Tory majority government.
For Scottish elections however a vote for any Unionist party is a vote against an SNP majority or an SNP and Green government, hence the rules do not disallow votes for Scottish parties at Scotland only elections for Holyrood.
The Scottish Conservatives run the Conservative campaign in Scotland from their office in Northumberland Street, Edinburgh and set the rules for Holyrood elections. CCHQ only has full remit over UK general elections and local elections in England (and in the latter the approved council candidates list is determined by local associations, CCHQ only determines the approved candidates list for UK parliamentary candidates)
You are just making it up as you go along.
Show us a paragraph in the conditions of membership that says it is OK to vote Labour or Lib Dem.
There is nothing in the terms of membership saying a vote against the SNP at Holyrood elections is disallowed.
Slab and the SLDs are Scottish only parties standing for Scotland only elections at Holyrood, they only become part of the UK parties at UK general elections when they stand for Westminster
Of course nothing says you can't vote against the SNP. That is quite different from saying it is OK to vote for another party.
I maintain that if a Conservative member revealed that they had voted Labour or Lib Dem then they would face expulsion.
And if a member advocates voting for another party, they too would face potential expulsion.
You are lucky to still be in the party.
Given the leader of the Scottish Party said exactly the same you are wrong and he has remit over Scotland only elections not Boris and that has been the case ever since devolution.
In England and the UK as a whole Labour is the Tories main enemy, in Scotland the Tories many enemy is the SNP
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
Well, look at Ms Baillie - IIRC she's very keen on nukes at Faslane yet that is against Slab policy. And as my Scottish colleagues and I have pointed out, Slab can be a bit apt to urge voting for Tories. I seem to remember that HYUFD supports voting for Labour and LD in Scotland to keep the SNP out, which again is hardly party policy.
If I am elected as a Tory I will vote for and implement the Tory manifesto, tactical voting as the best means to preserve the Union, which is Tory policy does not change that
Either tactical voting yourself or advocating voters vote against your party is grounds to get you expelled from the party.
Well, he needs ot be expelled promptly [edit] from the SCUP. He'd give the red card to anyone running onto the pitch in the wrong shirt.
You can't expel the elected leader and plenty of Scottish Tories felt the same way, Labour only held Dumbarton and Edinburgh Southern and the LDs only held Edinburgh Western and North East Fife because of tactical votes from Scottish Tories to keep out the SNP.
The SNP failed to get a majority due to Unionist tactical voting
Haw, pal, I've got news for you. You and Mr Ross'd better get your resignation in ...
"General Terms and Conditions of Membership of the Conservative Party
[...]
7. To be a member or supporter of no other UK-registered political party nor a supporter of any candidate of such a party.
[...] Approved by the Board of the Conservative Party October 2020"
For UK elections yes, this was a Scotland only election for Scotland only parties.
Scottish Conservatives set their own rules for Holyrood elections and Ross is the Scottish Conservative leader at Holyrood elections who decides what goes for there, Boris only leads the UK Conservative Party and the Conservative Party in England
Source? I’d be astonished if the SCAUP has its own terms and conditions of membership.
The terms are quite clear you cannot support another UK registered party for UK elections, for a vote for Labour or the LDs as much as SNP at UK elections is a vote against a UK Tory majority government.
For Scottish elections however a vote for any Unionist party is a vote against an SNP majority or an SNP and Green government, hence the rules do not disallow votes for Scottish parties at Scotland only elections for Holyrood.
The Scottish Conservatives run the Conservative campaign in Scotland from their office in Northumberland Street, Edinburgh and set the rules for Holyrood elections. CCHQ only has full remit over UK general elections and local elections in England (and in the latter the approved council candidates list is determined by local associations, CCHQ only determines the approved candidates list for UK parliamentary candidates)
You are just making it up as you go along.
Show us a paragraph in the conditions of membership that says it is OK to vote Labour or Lib Dem.
There is nothing in the terms of membership saying a vote against the SNP at Holyrood elections is disallowed.
Slab and the SLDs are Scottish only parties standing for Scotland only elections at Holyrood, they only become part of the UK parties at UK general elections when they stand for Westminster
Slab is not a Scottish only party. It's not even a separate accounting unit from the UK Labour Party, for heaven's sake! You should know that. It's only allowed to have a different name for elections because Labour fiddled the electoral legislation in the first place.
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
It wouldn't, No even if it won would win more narrowly than in 2014 most likely and the Nationalists would then start pushing for indyref3 the next day.
If you give in once that a generation does not mean a generation what is to stop Nats believing you would give in to them again?
Because the Scots would not be up for continually having votes on this. You need a caricatured and jaundiced view of them to think otherwise. These exercises are not trivial. They convulse a country and expend enormous energy. Same applied with our EU one. That's why I knew - KNEW - that for all the rational seeming argument for it Ref2 was a total pipedream. We were not going through that again anytime soon.
Here with Sindy there is (just about) sufficient rationale and and appetite for holding another vote just a touch less than 10 years since the last one but that will be it for the foreseeable if it's another No.
It won't, the Nationalists are like a crocodile, once you feed it once it will not appease it, it will be back for more.
A generation is a generation, the UK government must not weakly appease the Nats and give an indyref2 before a genuine generation is up since 2014 otherwise they will be demanding indyref3 in less than a generation too
Your basic problem with this "argument" is that the 2014 referendum was not "once in a generation" - and frankly you either know this and are happy to lie about it are don't know this and are clueless about politics in Scotland.
If you want to make something once in a generation you legislate it as such. It was not, so it is not. An off-the-cuff campaigning comment by the first minister is not the same as the law.
It was because there was no referendum held before it and all parties, including Sturgeon's SNP, agreed at the time it was a once in a generation vote in their guide for an independent Scotland.
They can whinge as much as they want, this Tory UK government will refuse them an indyref2 and under the Scotland Act 1998 the UK government gets the final say on the union's future
Comedy. That was in the legislation was it?
That the UK gets the final say is in the Scotland Act 1998 yes, it explicitly says the union and the constitution is a reserved matter.
But HYUFD's position is silly. The UK is a democracy and if people vote for change, even if its less than 20 years later, that should happen.
And its completely untrue that a generation is at least ten years. Its entirely possible for two different generations to be less than ten years apart. While I was in primary school I had friends who became uncles because their older siblings had children. People are in the same generation as their siblings and a different generation to their nieces and nephews, even if there's less than 10 years in it.
I would say we're now in a different generation of politics than we were in, in 2014. I would suggest 1993-2020 as a generation of 27 years that the UK was in the EU. In 2016 a new generation was conceived, the post-Brexit generation, which after a very long and difficult childbirth was finally born in 2020.
So we're in a different generation now anyway.
In any case as the polling I gave earlier showed even most Scots don't want indyref2 before 2026 ie after the next UK general election.
So until the next UK general election indyref2 is a non issue. If Starmer becomes PM in 2023/24 then he and the UK government would probably allow indyref2 and it would become an issue again
"Nearly every malodorous myth about the Great War can be traced back to the literary septic tank that is Lloyd George’s War Memoirs."
An article in the Express that is interesting and amusing?!!??
End Times....
It describes Grey's school, Winchester, as "the thinking boy's Eton"!
I've got Lewis-Stempel's book, Six Weeks – the short and gallant life of the British officer in the First World War. It is mainly about the subalterns, iirc, the Lieutenant Georges in Blackadder terms.
Wykehamists tend to be less posh than Etonians but more intellectual
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
It wouldn't, No even if it won would win more narrowly than in 2014 most likely and the Nationalists would then start pushing for indyref3 the next day.
If you give in once that a generation does not mean a generation what is to stop Nats believing you would give in to them again?
Because the Scots would not be up for continually having votes on this. You need a caricatured and jaundiced view of them to think otherwise. These exercises are not trivial. They convulse a country and expend enormous energy. Same applied with our EU one. That's why I knew - KNEW - that for all the rational seeming argument for it Ref2 was a total pipedream. We were not going through that again anytime soon.
Here with Sindy there is (just about) sufficient rationale and and appetite for holding another vote just a touch less than 10 years since the last one but that will be it for the foreseeable if it's another No.
It won't, the Nationalists are like a crocodile, once you feed it once it will not appease it, it will be back for more.
A generation is a generation, the UK government must not weakly appease the Nats and give an indyref2 before a genuine generation is up since 2014 otherwise they will be demanding indyref3 in less than a generation too
Your basic problem with this "argument" is that the 2014 referendum was not "once in a generation" - and frankly you either know this and are happy to lie about it are don't know this and are clueless about politics in Scotland.
If you want to make something once in a generation you legislate it as such. It was not, so it is not. An off-the-cuff campaigning comment by the first minister is not the same as the law.
It was because there was no referendum held before it and all parties, including Sturgeon's SNP, agreed at the time it was a once in a generation vote in their guide for an independent Scotland.
They can whinge as much as they want, this Tory UK government will refuse them an indyref2 and under the Scotland Act 1998 the UK government gets the final say on the union's future
Comedy. That was in the legislation was it?
That the UK gets the final say is in the Scotland Act 1998 yes, it explicitly says the union and the constitution is a reserved matter.
But HYUFD's position is silly. The UK is a democracy and if people vote for change, even if its less than 20 years later, that should happen.
And its completely untrue that a generation is at least ten years. Its entirely possible for two different generations to be less than ten years apart. While I was in primary school I had friends who became uncles because their older siblings had children. People are in the same generation as their siblings and a different generation to their nieces and nephews, even if there's less than 10 years in it.
I would say we're now in a different generation of politics than we were in, in 2014. I would suggest 1993-2020 as a generation of 27 years that the UK was in the EU. In 2016 a new generation was conceived, the post-Brexit generation, which after a very long and difficult childbirth was finally born in 2020.
So we're in a different generation now anyway.
FUDHY is a Maoist: political power grows out of the barrel of a tank.
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
Well, look at Ms Baillie - IIRC she's very keen on nukes at Faslane yet that is against Slab policy. And as my Scottish colleagues and I have pointed out, Slab can be a bit apt to urge voting for Tories. I seem to remember that HYUFD supports voting for Labour and LD in Scotland to keep the SNP out, which again is hardly party policy.
If I am elected as a Tory I will vote for and implement the Tory manifesto, tactical voting as the best means to preserve the Union, which is Tory policy does not change that
Either tactical voting yourself or advocating voters vote against your party is grounds to get you expelled from the party.
Well, he needs ot be expelled promptly [edit] from the SCUP. He'd give the red card to anyone running onto the pitch in the wrong shirt.
You can't expel the elected leader and plenty of Scottish Tories felt the same way, Labour only held Dumbarton and Edinburgh Southern and the LDs only held Edinburgh Western and North East Fife because of tactical votes from Scottish Tories to keep out the SNP.
The SNP failed to get a majority due to Unionist tactical voting
Haw, pal, I've got news for you. You and Mr Ross'd better get your resignation in ...
"General Terms and Conditions of Membership of the Conservative Party
[...]
7. To be a member or supporter of no other UK-registered political party nor a supporter of any candidate of such a party.
[...] Approved by the Board of the Conservative Party October 2020"
For UK elections yes, this was a Scotland only election for Scotland only parties.
Scottish Conservatives set their own rules for Holyrood elections and Ross is the Scottish Conservative leader at Holyrood elections who decides what goes for there, Boris only leads the UK Conservative Party and the Conservative Party in England
Source? I’d be astonished if the SCAUP has its own terms and conditions of membership.
The terms are quite clear you cannot support another UK registered party for UK elections, for a vote for Labour or the LDs as much as SNP at UK elections is a vote against a UK Tory majority government.
For Scottish elections however a vote for any Unionist party is a vote against an SNP majority or an SNP and Green government, hence the rules do not disallow votes for Scottish parties at Scotland only elections for Holyrood.
The Scottish Conservatives run the Conservative campaign in Scotland from their office in Northumberland Street, Edinburgh and set the rules for Holyrood elections. CCHQ only has full remit over UK general elections and local elections in England (and in the latter the approved council candidates list is determined by local associations, CCHQ only determines the approved candidates list for UK parliamentary candidates)
You are just making it up as you go along.
Show us a paragraph in the conditions of membership that says it is OK to vote Labour or Lib Dem.
There is nothing in the terms of membership saying a vote against the SNP at Holyrood elections is disallowed.
Slab and the SLDs are Scottish only parties standing for Scotland only elections at Holyrood, they only become part of the UK parties at UK general elections when they stand for Westminster
Of course nothing says you can't vote against the SNP. That is quite different from saying it is OK to vote for another party.
I maintain that if a Conservative member revealed that they had voted Labour or Lib Dem then they would face expulsion.
And if a member advocates voting for another party, they too would face potential expulsion.
You are lucky to still be in the party.
Given the leader of the Scottish Party said exactly the same you are wrong and he has remit over Scotland only elections not Boris and that has been the case ever since devolution.
In England and the UK as a whole Labour is the Tories main enemy, in Scotland the Tories many enemy is the SNP
"You are wrong because a Tory says so" is not scintillating logic.
And you STILL have not demonstrated that the SCUP MEMBERSHIP REGULATIONS are different. it is no good you going on about how Mr Ross decides to interpret the offside rule on the pitch is irrelevant if we are arguing about the conduct of corner kicks.
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
Scottish numbers in hospital rising pretty fast -> doubled in last 12 days. Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
Yep. And thats with high school kids wearing masks. Just think what fun you will have when yours go back without them.
But don't worry. Gavin Williamson will be on the case.
"Nearly every malodorous myth about the Great War can be traced back to the literary septic tank that is Lloyd George’s War Memoirs."
An article in the Express that is interesting and amusing?!!??
End Times....
It describes Grey's school, Winchester, as "the thinking boy's Eton"!
I've got Lewis-Stempel's book, Six Weeks – the short and gallant life of the British officer in the First World War. It is mainly about the subalterns, iirc, the Lieutenant Georges in Blackadder terms.
Wykehamists tend to be less posh than Etonians but more intellectual
Didn't Rishi Sunak go there?
He did, he is less posh by background than Boris and Cameron but more intellectual.
Geoffrey Howe and Hugh Gaitskell were also prominent postwar Wykehamist politicians and both intellectuals too.
Winchester is also technically older than Eton, founded in 1382, Eton was only founded in 1440
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
It wouldn't, No even if it won would win more narrowly than in 2014 most likely and the Nationalists would then start pushing for indyref3 the next day.
If you give in once that a generation does not mean a generation what is to stop Nats believing you would give in to them again?
Because the Scots would not be up for continually having votes on this. You need a caricatured and jaundiced view of them to think otherwise. These exercises are not trivial. They convulse a country and expend enormous energy. Same applied with our EU one. That's why I knew - KNEW - that for all the rational seeming argument for it Ref2 was a total pipedream. We were not going through that again anytime soon.
Here with Sindy there is (just about) sufficient rationale and and appetite for holding another vote just a touch less than 10 years since the last one but that will be it for the foreseeable if it's another No.
It won't, the Nationalists are like a crocodile, once you feed it once it will not appease it, it will be back for more.
A generation is a generation, the UK government must not weakly appease the Nats and give an indyref2 before a genuine generation is up since 2014 otherwise they will be demanding indyref3 in less than a generation too
Assume there IS a Sindy vote in 2023 and it's No again. The SNP then run in the next Holyrood elections with yet another one front and centre of their platform. What do you think happens?
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
Scottish numbers in hospital rising pretty fast -> doubled in last 12 days. Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
Have Scotland's lockdowns been more severe than England's? Lockdowns don't prevent cases, they just store them up for another day....
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
It wouldn't, No even if it won would win more narrowly than in 2014 most likely and the Nationalists would then start pushing for indyref3 the next day.
If you give in once that a generation does not mean a generation what is to stop Nats believing you would give in to them again?
Because the Scots would not be up for continually having votes on this. You need a caricatured and jaundiced view of them to think otherwise. These exercises are not trivial. They convulse a country and expend enormous energy. Same applied with our EU one. That's why I knew - KNEW - that for all the rational seeming argument for it Ref2 was a total pipedream. We were not going through that again anytime soon.
Here with Sindy there is (just about) sufficient rationale and and appetite for holding another vote just a touch less than 10 years since the last one but that will be it for the foreseeable if it's another No.
It won't, the Nationalists are like a crocodile, once you feed it once it will not appease it, it will be back for more.
A generation is a generation, the UK government must not weakly appease the Nats and give an indyref2 before a genuine generation is up since 2014 otherwise they will be demanding indyref3 in less than a generation too
Assume there IS a Sindy vote in 2023 and it's No again. The SNP then run in the next Holyrood elections with yet another one front and centre of their platform. What do you think happens?
And add the Scottish Greens, and the Trots if they are back in action then.
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
Scottish numbers in hospital rising pretty fast -> doubled in last 12 days. Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
Yep. And thats with high school kids wearing masks. Just think what fun you will have when yours go back without them.
But don't worry. Gavin Williamson will be on the case.
Except that cases are rising fastest in the non-schiool aged, in Scotland, I believe. And that the rise started before the schools went back..
Why would I advocate voting Labour outside 1 or 2 Holyrood seats in Scotland, they are the Tories main enemy in England, in Scotland the Tories main enemy is the SNP
Pretty sure the Green co-leaders are bound by collective responsibility on the issue, given it's not listed as an 'excluded area' in the agreement, so they could in theory be sent out to defend it in response to questions from their own MSPs...
Scottish Greens have just released a statement on vaccination certification. They’re seeking “assurances” from the Scottish Government that it “doesn’t adversely affect vulnerable people.”
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
Scottish numbers in hospital rising pretty fast -> doubled in last 12 days. Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
Yep. And thats with high school kids wearing masks. Just think what fun you will have when yours go back without them.
But don't worry. Gavin Williamson will be on the case.
On BBC news this morning they were interviewing English school heads who apparently have been given autonmy to put in place whatever covid safe requirements they feel necessary including mask wearing
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
It wouldn't, No even if it won would win more narrowly than in 2014 most likely and the Nationalists would then start pushing for indyref3 the next day.
If you give in once that a generation does not mean a generation what is to stop Nats believing you would give in to them again?
Because the Scots would not be up for continually having votes on this. You need a caricatured and jaundiced view of them to think otherwise. These exercises are not trivial. They convulse a country and expend enormous energy. Same applied with our EU one. That's why I knew - KNEW - that for all the rational seeming argument for it Ref2 was a total pipedream. We were not going through that again anytime soon.
Here with Sindy there is (just about) sufficient rationale and and appetite for holding another vote just a touch less than 10 years since the last one but that will be it for the foreseeable if it's another No.
It won't, the Nationalists are like a crocodile, once you feed it once it will not appease it, it will be back for more.
A generation is a generation, the UK government must not weakly appease the Nats and give an indyref2 before a genuine generation is up since 2014 otherwise they will be demanding indyref3 in less than a generation too
Assume there IS a Sindy vote in 2023 and it's No again. The SNP then run in the next Holyrood elections with yet another one front and centre of their platform. What do you think happens?
They put indyref3 in their manifesto and unless SLab make a drastic revival would probably win most seats again and we are back to square 1 again
'Afghanistan has been destabilised by 40 years of Western intervention."
USSR? What's that?
Jezza needs to take her on a Tardis holiday through COMECON.
Well, poor Afghanistan has certainly been destabilised by 40+ years of assorted cack-handed interventions.
The West intervened by funding and arming the Mujahideen. 40 years ago. So Claudia was spot on!
The Mujahideen were opposed to the imposition of Communist rule as a result of the Soviet invasion of 1979. Unless I'm reading it wrong Afghanistan as a whole was slowly moving along a 'liberalising' (relatively, anyway) path prior to that. Basically it was left to get on with itself. We'd had a bloody nose or two and consequently kept quite a low profile.
Pretty sure the Green co-leaders are bound by collective responsibility on the issue, given it's not listed as an 'excluded area' in the agreement, so they could in theory be sent out to defend it in response to questions from their own MSPs...
Scottish Greens have just released a statement on vaccination certification. They’re seeking “assurances” from the Scottish Government that it “doesn’t adversely affect vulnerable people.”
Why would I advocate voting Labour outside 1 or 2 Holyrood seats in Scotland, they are the Tories main enemy in England, in Scotland the Tories main enemy is the SNP
Very fact of advocating it at all is sufficient. You can't be just a little adulterous.
"Nearly every malodorous myth about the Great War can be traced back to the literary septic tank that is Lloyd George’s War Memoirs."
An article in the Express that is interesting and amusing?!!??
End Times....
It describes Grey's school, Winchester, as "the thinking boy's Eton"!
I've got Lewis-Stempel's book, Six Weeks – the short and gallant life of the British officer in the First World War. It is mainly about the subalterns, iirc, the Lieutenant Georges in Blackadder terms.
Wykehamists tend to be less posh than Etonians but more intellectual
Didn't Rishi Sunak go there?
He did, he is less posh by background than Boris and Cameron but more intellectual.
Geoffrey Howe and Hugh Gaitskell were also prominent postwar Wykehamist politicians and both intellectuals too.
Winchester is also technically older than Eton, founded in 1382, Eton was only founded in 1440
"Nearly every malodorous myth about the Great War can be traced back to the literary septic tank that is Lloyd George’s War Memoirs."
An article in the Express that is interesting and amusing?!!??
End Times....
It describes Grey's school, Winchester, as "the thinking boy's Eton"!
I've got Lewis-Stempel's book, Six Weeks – the short and gallant life of the British officer in the First World War. It is mainly about the subalterns, iirc, the Lieutenant Georges in Blackadder terms.
Wykehamists tend to be less posh than Etonians but more intellectual
Didn't Rishi Sunak go there?
He did, he is less posh by background than Boris and Cameron but more intellectual.
Geoffrey Howe and Hugh Gaitskell were also prominent postwar Wykehamist politicians and both intellectuals too.
Winchester is also technically older than Eton, founded in 1382, Eton was only founded in 1440
Nouveau riche right enough.
You can't just get into Winchester on your parents money alone however, you also have to pass a competitive entrance exam
"Nearly every malodorous myth about the Great War can be traced back to the literary septic tank that is Lloyd George’s War Memoirs."
An article in the Express that is interesting and amusing?!!??
End Times....
It describes Grey's school, Winchester, as "the thinking boy's Eton"!
I've got Lewis-Stempel's book, Six Weeks – the short and gallant life of the British officer in the First World War. It is mainly about the subalterns, iirc, the Lieutenant Georges in Blackadder terms.
Wykehamists tend to be less posh than Etonians but more intellectual
Didn't Rishi Sunak go there?
He did, he is less posh by background than Boris and Cameron but more intellectual.
Geoffrey Howe and Hugh Gaitskell were also prominent postwar Wykehamist politicians and both intellectuals too.
Winchester is also technically older than Eton, founded in 1382, Eton was only founded in 1440
Nouveau riche right enough.
You can't just get into Winchester on your parents money alone however, you also have to pass a competitive entrance exam
Not much of a pool if your parents are rich. Elementary point of statistical analysis.
I see Kevin McCarthy and Marjorie Taylor Greene are threatening telecoms companies with being banned from trading if they turn over evidence to Congress. America is not in a good place.
Pretty sure the Green co-leaders are bound by collective responsibility on the issue, given it's not listed as an 'excluded area' in the agreement, so they could in theory be sent out to defend it in response to questions from their own MSPs...
Scottish Greens have just released a statement on vaccination certification. They’re seeking “assurances” from the Scottish Government that it “doesn’t adversely affect vulnerable people.”
Which way will the other parties vote? labour/tories etc?
Liberals are opposed to vaccine certification, which represents the introduction of a medical ID card on a domestic basis for the first time. You should not be compelled to present private medical data in order to access freedoms in our society.
I see Kevin McCarthy and Marjorie Taylor Greene are threatening telecoms companies with being banned from trading if they turn over evidence to Congress. America is not in a good place.
I had to check that you hadn't left out a 'didn't' before 'turn over'. Turns out that even includes evidence under subpoena from Congress.
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
Scottish numbers in hospital rising pretty fast -> doubled in last 12 days. Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
Yep. And thats with high school kids wearing masks. Just think what fun you will have when yours go back without them.
But don't worry. Gavin Williamson will be on the case.
Except that cases are rising fastest in the non-schiool aged, in Scotland, I believe. And that the rise started before the schools went back..
I didn't say the kids were catching it. They are transmission vectors for it. And of course it isn't a singular issue, but it does accelerate it. Just as you already have a huge pile of cases already in England before your kids go back next week.
Why would I advocate voting Labour outside 1 or 2 Holyrood seats in Scotland, they are the Tories main enemy in England, in Scotland the Tories main enemy is the SNP
We aren't your enemy. We are political opponents.
If we were standing against each other in an election and you beat me, I'd shake your hand and say "Well Done!"
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
It wouldn't, No even if it won would win more narrowly than in 2014 most likely and the Nationalists would then start pushing for indyref3 the next day.
If you give in once that a generation does not mean a generation what is to stop Nats believing you would give in to them again?
Because the Scots would not be up for continually having votes on this. You need a caricatured and jaundiced view of them to think otherwise. These exercises are not trivial. They convulse a country and expend enormous energy. Same applied with our EU one. That's why I knew - KNEW - that for all the rational seeming argument for it Ref2 was a total pipedream. We were not going through that again anytime soon.
Here with Sindy there is (just about) sufficient rationale and and appetite for holding another vote just a touch less than 10 years since the last one but that will be it for the foreseeable if it's another No.
It won't, the Nationalists are like a crocodile, once you feed it once it will not appease it, it will be back for more.
A generation is a generation, the UK government must not weakly appease the Nats and give an indyref2 before a genuine generation is up since 2014 otherwise they will be demanding indyref3 in less than a generation too
Assume there IS a Sindy vote in 2023 and it's No again. The SNP then run in the next Holyrood elections with yet another one front and centre of their platform. What do you think happens?
They put indyref3 in their manifesto and unless SLab make a drastic revival would probably win most seats again and we are back to square 1 again
There's our line of difference then. With a 2nd "No" in a decade, the SNP would imo need to backburner the issue to prevent leaking support. Their dominance of Scottish politics would be over if they kept pushing for yet another vote. This is not square 1 and back to the future, it's a different future.
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
Scottish numbers in hospital rising pretty fast -> doubled in last 12 days. Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
Yep. And thats with high school kids wearing masks. Just think what fun you will have when yours go back without them.
But don't worry. Gavin Williamson will be on the case.
This madness thinking remains that cases zoom up despite people wearing masks and people just think it would be worse if people didn't wear masks.
In England now in many settings including pubs,clubs football grounds no one is wearing a mask and people are in very close proximity to each other, yet cases here have been falling slightly over the past 8 days..
@MattW FPT. Why are rabbits sentimentalised in Taiwan?
They are simply a common pet, and an animal not eaten. My observation, which kicked off quite a discussion, was in response to someone getting grief for eating guinea pig in Peru. The point being that all cultures divide animals into pets, food, vermin and indifferent. Not always similarly, nor logically.
Thanks. Is there a rabbit-eating history similar to how traditionally urban Chinese used to keep carp in the back garden for consumption? Compare England and the household pig fed on scraps.
So a good comparison in some ways might actually be dogs in the UK?
Horses probably more relevant
The Brits sentimalise - the French eat them
And the Swedes. I had cold sliced horse meat on my open sandwich for breakfast this morning.
I take it your neigh joking?
You gymkhana beat it.
What do you have to pony up for that?
At 22 kronor for 100 grammes, my wallet takes it at a canter.
Can't we rein in this discussion?
I was just getting the bit between my teeth.
I'm sorry if colleagues are beginning to bridle at my remark.
Surprised @ydoethur isn't around to snaffle the punning opportunity.
@MattW FPT. Why are rabbits sentimentalised in Taiwan?
They are simply a common pet, and an animal not eaten. My observation, which kicked off quite a discussion, was in response to someone getting grief for eating guinea pig in Peru. The point being that all cultures divide animals into pets, food, vermin and indifferent. Not always similarly, nor logically.
Thanks. Is there a rabbit-eating history similar to how traditionally urban Chinese used to keep carp in the back garden for consumption? Compare England and the household pig fed on scraps.
So a good comparison in some ways might actually be dogs in the UK?
Horses probably more relevant
The Brits sentimalise - the French eat them
And the Swedes. I had cold sliced horse meat on my open sandwich for breakfast this morning.
I take it your neigh joking?
You gymkhana beat it.
What do you have to pony up for that?
At 22 kronor for 100 grammes, my wallet takes it at a canter.
Can't we rein in this discussion?
I was just getting the bit between my teeth.
I'm sorry if colleagues are beginning to bridle at my remark.
Surprised @ydoethur isn't around to snaffle the punning opportunity.
Perhaps he is out to pasture?
Certainly would not be out to stud
Well, no. Given where I work, that would be a safeguarding issue.
Why would I advocate voting Labour outside 1 or 2 Holyrood seats in Scotland, they are the Tories main enemy in England, in Scotland the Tories main enemy is the SNP
We aren't your enemy. We are political opponents.
If we were standing against each other in an election and you beat me, I'd shake your hand and say "Well Done!"
So would I but you would still be my political enemy and you would still try and beat me the next time
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
Ardern's Labour still leads the Nationals, the main opposition party, just she has lost votes to her left to the Greens and to her libertarian right to the ACT
I see Kevin McCarthy and Marjorie Taylor Greene are threatening telecoms companies with being banned from trading if they turn over evidence to Congress. America is not in a good place.
I had to check that you hadn't left out a 'didn't' before 'turn over'. Turns out that even includes evidence under subpoena from Congress.
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
Scottish numbers in hospital rising pretty fast -> doubled in last 12 days. Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
Yep. And thats with high school kids wearing masks. Just think what fun you will have when yours go back without them.
But don't worry. Gavin Williamson will be on the case.
This madness thinking remains that cases zoom up despite people wearing masks and people just think it would be worse if people didn't wear masks.
In England now in many settings including pubs,clubs football grounds no one is wearing a mask and people are in very close proximity to each other, yet cases here have been falling slightly over the past 8 days..
Not worn one for several weeks now (last time was cos I nipped on the Tube in London); cricket matches, trains (including several cross country journeys as well as trips to Town), trade shows, weddings etc. Such a relief.
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
Why would I advocate voting Labour outside 1 or 2 Holyrood seats in Scotland, they are the Tories main enemy in England, in Scotland the Tories main enemy is the SNP
We aren't your enemy. We are political opponents.
If we were standing against each other in an election and you beat me, I'd shake your hand and say "Well Done!"
All a bit off if you ask me, this 'enemy' business. Tanks for nothing.
Why would I advocate voting Labour outside 1 or 2 Holyrood seats in Scotland, they are the Tories main enemy in England, in Scotland the Tories main enemy is the SNP
We aren't your enemy. We are political opponents.
If we were standing against each other in an election and you beat me, I'd shake your hand and say "Well Done!"
Could somebody please explain this to Laura Pidcock as well?
Why would I advocate voting Labour outside 1 or 2 Holyrood seats in Scotland, they are the Tories main enemy in England, in Scotland the Tories main enemy is the SNP
We aren't your enemy. We are political opponents.
If we were standing against each other in an election and you beat me, I'd shake your hand and say "Well Done!"
So would I but you would still be my political enemy and you would still try and beat me the next time
The UK Government is destroying public trust, as well as increasing the human cost in lives and health harm.......
In the wake of the existing generational injustice made worse by Covid, vaccine passports would deepen discrimination against those who have not yet been vaccinated. It would deepen inequality at a time when the country needs collective effort. Worse still, the confusion allows the anti-vaxxers who marched in London to spread misinformation about the safety and purpose of the vaccine itself.
Lets see what tune he sings when Scotland does it....
Does Harvie have no idea how hard it is to get to see your dentist during lockdown? They cancelled on me again today for the second time. He makes not grinding your teeth almost impossible.
Perhaps the Harvie could become a unit of stupidity. Bloody daft but not the full Harvie, that sort of thing.
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
It wouldn't, No even if it won would win more narrowly than in 2014 most likely and the Nationalists would then start pushing for indyref3 the next day.
If you give in once that a generation does not mean a generation what is to stop Nats believing you would give in to them again?
Because the Scots would not be up for continually having votes on this. You need a caricatured and jaundiced view of them to think otherwise. These exercises are not trivial. They convulse a country and expend enormous energy. Same applied with our EU one. That's why I knew - KNEW - that for all the rational seeming argument for it Ref2 was a total pipedream. We were not going through that again anytime soon.
Here with Sindy there is (just about) sufficient rationale and and appetite for holding another vote just a touch less than 10 years since the last one but that will be it for the foreseeable if it's another No.
It won't, the Nationalists are like a crocodile, once you feed it once it will not appease it, it will be back for more.
A generation is a generation, the UK government must not weakly appease the Nats and give an indyref2 before a genuine generation is up since 2014 otherwise they will be demanding indyref3 in less than a generation too
Assume there IS a Sindy vote in 2023 and it's No again. The SNP then run in the next Holyrood elections with yet another one front and centre of their platform. What do you think happens?
They put indyref3 in their manifesto and unless SLab make a drastic revival would probably win most seats again and we are back to square 1 again
Then why haven't the Bloc Quebecois held an IndyRef3?
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
It wouldn't, No even if it won would win more narrowly than in 2014 most likely and the Nationalists would then start pushing for indyref3 the next day.
If you give in once that a generation does not mean a generation what is to stop Nats believing you would give in to them again?
Because the Scots would not be up for continually having votes on this. You need a caricatured and jaundiced view of them to think otherwise. These exercises are not trivial. They convulse a country and expend enormous energy. Same applied with our EU one. That's why I knew - KNEW - that for all the rational seeming argument for it Ref2 was a total pipedream. We were not going through that again anytime soon.
Here with Sindy there is (just about) sufficient rationale and and appetite for holding another vote just a touch less than 10 years since the last one but that will be it for the foreseeable if it's another No.
It won't, the Nationalists are like a crocodile, once you feed it once it will not appease it, it will be back for more.
A generation is a generation, the UK government must not weakly appease the Nats and give an indyref2 before a genuine generation is up since 2014 otherwise they will be demanding indyref3 in less than a generation too
Assume there IS a Sindy vote in 2023 and it's No again. The SNP then run in the next Holyrood elections with yet another one front and centre of their platform. What do you think happens?
They put indyref3 in their manifesto and unless SLab make a drastic revival would probably win most seats again and we are back to square 1 again
Then why haven't the Bloc Quebecois held an IndyRef3?
As Quebec's indyref2 was 15 years after the first one ie pretty much a genuine generation and as the Quebec Liberals revived to beat them under Jean Charest in the 2000s
Why would I advocate voting Labour outside 1 or 2 Holyrood seats in Scotland, they are the Tories main enemy in England, in Scotland the Tories main enemy is the SNP
We aren't your enemy. We are political opponents.
If we were standing against each other in an election and you beat me, I'd shake your hand and say "Well Done!"
So would I but you would still be my political enemy and you would still try and beat me the next time
Why would I advocate voting Labour outside 1 or 2 Holyrood seats in Scotland, they are the Tories main enemy in England, in Scotland the Tories main enemy is the SNP
We aren't your enemy. We are political opponents.
If we were standing against each other in an election and you beat me, I'd shake your hand and say "Well Done!"
So would I but you would still be my political enemy and you would still try and beat me the next time
Very very easy. You will get the address (google or recommendation from your hotel) of a friendly doctor's practice, you will rock up, they will wave the swab around in the general vicinity of your face and pronounce you fit to fly.
€25 very badly spent but what can you do. I slightly bridled at the fact that were it positive you would NOT BE ALLOWED TO FLY INTO YOUR OWN COUNTRY.
Thanks, I was looking into the self administered ones from here which are £30 or so, they also feel like a rip off, especially given that you don't have to actually do them, just get a negative result.
Yep there is zero incentive to relay the results accurately or even take them.
But you will need a fit to fly and unless you trust your internet to do one using that then a local docs is your best bet - took me all of 5-8 mins from turning up to the clinic to (miraculous) negative result.
I then did take the Randox Day 2 test (negative) but pondered the use of doing so.
I suspect the whole thing is really intended to reduce the volume of travellers (looking at Monday’s Eurotunnel, it is clearly working; fewer cars than last year), in which case fairly soon now it might all be dropped, once the holiday season is done.
In Europe my first impressions are that the French are more relaxed even than last year while the Germans are still doing everything ‘properly’.
Austria, Italy and Hungary have all recently relaxed their restrictions on British travellers.
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
It wouldn't, No even if it won would win more narrowly than in 2014 most likely and the Nationalists would then start pushing for indyref3 the next day.
If you give in once that a generation does not mean a generation what is to stop Nats believing you would give in to them again?
Because the Scots would not be up for continually having votes on this. You need a caricatured and jaundiced view of them to think otherwise. These exercises are not trivial. They convulse a country and expend enormous energy. Same applied with our EU one. That's why I knew - KNEW - that for all the rational seeming argument for it Ref2 was a total pipedream. We were not going through that again anytime soon.
Here with Sindy there is (just about) sufficient rationale and and appetite for holding another vote just a touch less than 10 years since the last one but that will be it for the foreseeable if it's another No.
It won't, the Nationalists are like a crocodile, once you feed it once it will not appease it, it will be back for more.
A generation is a generation, the UK government must not weakly appease the Nats and give an indyref2 before a genuine generation is up since 2014 otherwise they will be demanding indyref3 in less than a generation too
Assume there IS a Sindy vote in 2023 and it's No again. The SNP then run in the next Holyrood elections with yet another one front and centre of their platform. What do you think happens?
They put indyref3 in their manifesto and unless SLab make a drastic revival would probably win most seats again and we are back to square 1 again
Then why haven't the Bloc Quebecois held an IndyRef3?
As Quebec's indyref2 was 15 years after the first one ie pretty much a genuine generation and as the Quebec Liberals revived to beat them under Jean Charest in the 2000s
Because politics moves on. BQ voters divided after losing the second time, just as SNP ones would after a second defeat.
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
It wouldn't, No even if it won would win more narrowly than in 2014 most likely and the Nationalists would then start pushing for indyref3 the next day.
If you give in once that a generation does not mean a generation what is to stop Nats believing you would give in to them again?
Because the Scots would not be up for continually having votes on this. You need a caricatured and jaundiced view of them to think otherwise. These exercises are not trivial. They convulse a country and expend enormous energy. Same applied with our EU one. That's why I knew - KNEW - that for all the rational seeming argument for it Ref2 was a total pipedream. We were not going through that again anytime soon.
Here with Sindy there is (just about) sufficient rationale and and appetite for holding another vote just a touch less than 10 years since the last one but that will be it for the foreseeable if it's another No.
It won't, the Nationalists are like a crocodile, once you feed it once it will not appease it, it will be back for more.
A generation is a generation, the UK government must not weakly appease the Nats and give an indyref2 before a genuine generation is up since 2014 otherwise they will be demanding indyref3 in less than a generation too
Your basic problem with this "argument" is that the 2014 referendum was not "once in a generation" - and frankly you either know this and are happy to lie about it are don't know this and are clueless about politics in Scotland.
If you want to make something once in a generation you legislate it as such. It was not, so it is not. An off-the-cuff campaigning comment by the first minister is not the same as the law.
It was because there was no referendum held before it and all parties, including Sturgeon's SNP, agreed at the time it was a once in a generation vote in their guide for an independent Scotland.
They can whinge as much as they want, this Tory UK government will refuse them an indyref2 and under the Scotland Act 1998 the UK government gets the final say on the union's future
Why would I advocate voting Labour outside 1 or 2 Holyrood seats in Scotland, they are the Tories main enemy in England, in Scotland the Tories main enemy is the SNP
We aren't your enemy. We are political opponents.
If we were standing against each other in an election and you beat me, I'd shake your hand and say "Well Done!"
So would I but you would still be my political enemy and you would still try and beat me the next time
Enemy is too strong a word. Yes?
Nemesis? Eternal foes?
Traitors? Subversives?
Edit: Nah, that's just ordinary PB banter. Is it?
Depends if one uses a smiley emoji while doing it.
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
Credit where it's due. It is fortunate for the Conservative Party that no one minds the 150,000 Covid fatalities due to late lockdowns etc.
Anyway "Labour jabber, Conservatives jab" is a perfect Johnsonian retort even when he is being questioned on low conviction rates for rape. Maybe Raab missed a trick by not giving Bryant that same reply to his questions this afternoon.
Why would I advocate voting Labour outside 1 or 2 Holyrood seats in Scotland, they are the Tories main enemy in England, in Scotland the Tories main enemy is the SNP
We aren't your enemy. We are political opponents.
If we were standing against each other in an election and you beat me, I'd shake your hand and say "Well Done!"
Could somebody please explain this to Laura Pidcock as well?
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
I note England cases down on last week again, and this time the tests were 20% higher than last week - is this trend going to survive the schools return asymptomatic testing bonanza?
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
Why would I advocate voting Labour outside 1 or 2 Holyrood seats in Scotland, they are the Tories main enemy in England, in Scotland the Tories main enemy is the SNP
We aren't your enemy. We are political opponents.
If we were standing against each other in an election and you beat me, I'd shake your hand and say "Well Done!"
Could somebody please explain this to Laura Pidcock as well?
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
Scottish numbers in hospital rising pretty fast -> doubled in last 12 days. Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
Yep. And thats with high school kids wearing masks. Just think what fun you will have when yours go back without them.
But don't worry. Gavin Williamson will be on the case.
This madness thinking remains that cases zoom up despite people wearing masks and people just think it would be worse if people didn't wear masks.
In England now in many settings including pubs,clubs football grounds no one is wearing a mask and people are in very close proximity to each other, yet cases here have been falling slightly over the past 8 days..
The big surge in cases started in June, fell back from the peak but is still holding at a very high level. It did not start last week.
I am happy for you in England to make your choices on this matter. I am happy that we have made different choices in Scotland.
I note England cases down on last week again, and this time the tests were 20% higher than last week - is this trend going to survive the schools return asymptomatic testing bonanza?
Testing for school returns should already have started given the numbers due to go back tomorrow or more likely Friday.
I note England cases down on last week again, and this time the tests were 20% higher than last week - is this trend going to survive the schools return asymptomatic testing bonanza?
I think that test figures are becoming less reliable as people turn off their NHS app. Hospitalisations and deaths are now a more reliable metric, are they not?
Behr: Johnson has been doing the job for two years, but still seems surprised by the constant nagging of events. Meanwhile, Tory MPs are still surprised when their leader fails some test of leadership, as if they had not met him before and his reprobate tendency had been a secret.
If there were only two steps in delivering effective government – making promises and writing cheques – Johnson would be on track for the transformational legacy he craves. But there are more, longer strides, which get harder to take because they go uphill and the way isn’t lined with cheering fans. That is usually where the prime minister’s attention fades.
There will be surprises, too, demanding rapid reaction and executive competence supported by a strong cabinet. Without those conditions in place, it hardly matters what the prime minister thinks his agenda should be. He can choose what to talk about in the autumn, and persuade some audiences that he means it. But his powers run out almost as soon as the clapping stops. That is not a problem in election campaigns, where success can be measured in pleased crowds. But it is disastrous in government, where decisions must be taken with some other purpose in mind. The prime minister knows that he needs such a purpose, but not what it feels like to have one.
The pandemic has been an exceptional event that would challenge any leader, but it is not the abnormal nature of the crisis that causes Johnson’s difficulties. He struggles because the way he does the job makes crisis the norm.
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Comments
I've got Lewis-Stempel's book, Six Weeks – the short and gallant life of the British officer in the First World War. It is mainly about the subalterns, iirc, the Lieutenant Georges in Blackadder terms.
There's been multiple new hospitals I believe, with the Australian trade deal as the one truly new deal.
EDIT: Correction there's at least two trade deals, we've got one with the EU too which certainly does not mirror what we had before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-hV_nPhzzs
A generation is defined as 'a period of about 25 to 30 years' certainly not less than 10 years since the last one
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/generation
They can whinge as much as they want, this Tory UK government will refuse them an indyref2 and under the Scotland Act 1998 the UK government gets the final say on the union's future
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
https://twitter.com/KateEMcCann/status/1433074871739768837?s=20
I maintain that if a Conservative member revealed that they had voted Labour or Lib Dem then they would face expulsion.
And if a member advocates voting for another party, they too would face potential expulsion.
You are lucky to still be in the party.
But HYUFD's position is silly. The UK is a democracy and if people vote for change, even if its less than 20 years later, that should happen.
And its completely untrue that a generation is at least ten years. Its entirely possible for two different generations to be less than ten years apart. While I was in primary school I had friends who became uncles because their older siblings had children. People are in the same generation as their siblings and a different generation to their nieces and nephews, even if there's less than 10 years in it.
I would say we're now in a different generation of politics than we were in, in 2014. I would suggest 1993-2020 as a generation of 27 years that the UK was in the EU. In 2016 a new generation was conceived, the post-Brexit generation, which after a very long and difficult childbirth was finally born in 2020.
So we're in a different generation now anyway.
Our investigation shows how a secretive compound in Kabul — the site of the Salt Pit, where the C.I.A. previously carried out torture on detainees — became the agency's hub for clandestine evacuations before parts of it were deliberately destroyed. https://nytimes.com/2021/09/01/world/asia/cia-afghanistan-evacuations-demolitions.html
https://twitter.com/heytherehaIey/status/1433056608595193858?s=20
Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
In England and the UK as a whole Labour is the Tories main enemy, in Scotland the Tories many enemy is the SNP
So until the next UK general election indyref2 is a non issue. If Starmer becomes PM in 2023/24 then he and the UK government would probably allow indyref2 and it would become an issue again
Do you think the trade deal we have signed with Australia is the old trade deal rolled forward?
And you STILL have not demonstrated that the SCUP MEMBERSHIP REGULATIONS are different. it is no good you going on about how Mr Ross decides to interpret the offside rule on the pitch is irrelevant if we are arguing about the conduct of corner kicks.
But don't worry. Gavin Williamson will be on the case.
Geoffrey Howe and Hugh Gaitskell were also prominent postwar Wykehamist politicians and both intellectuals too.
Winchester is also technically older than Eton, founded in 1382, Eton was only founded in 1440
The SNP then run in the next Holyrood elections with yet another one front and centre of their platform.
What do you think happens?
Do you think 35,000 cases and 207 reported deaths from Covid means that the pandemic is over, as you keep claiming?
"Essex Tory Councillor says 'Vote Labour!'"
*I don't know if such a publication exists.
Scottish Greens have just released a statement on vaccination certification. They’re seeking “assurances” from the Scottish Government that it “doesn’t adversely affect vulnerable people.”
https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1433086289595797509?s=20
https://www.eppingforestguardian.co.uk/news/19490347.deborah-barlow-councillor-kicked-50k-debt-allegations/
Unless I'm reading it wrong Afghanistan as a whole was slowly moving along a 'liberalising' (relatively, anyway) path prior to that.
Basically it was left to get on with itself.
We'd had a bloody nose or two and consequently kept quite a low profile.
Which UK prime minister do you think has set the worst example since leaving office? @SebastianEPayne looks at the need to find a better role for our past prime ministers https://ft.com/content/f7ec5c53-3cdb-4584-b221-86483e2b15ee
https://twitter.com/FinancialTimes/status/1433088536706752516?s=20
Is this the 'big spike' that @RochdalePioneers was alluding to earlier?
America is not in a good place.
I think that's endemic not an epidemic.
https://twitter.com/agcolehamilton/status/1433088699386974210?s=20
Ross & Sarwar hedged their bets.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/kevin-mccarthy-threatens-firms-not-to-help-january-6-probe.html
If we were standing against each other in an election and you beat me, I'd shake your hand and say "Well Done!"
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
In England now in many settings including pubs,clubs football grounds no one is wearing a mask and people are in very close proximity to each other, yet cases here have been falling slightly over the past 8 days..
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Edit; WTF autocorrect?
Seriously ?
Yes I can too.
sorry, I meant a new packet of paracetomol.
(thanks to J O'Brien for that...
Edit: Nah, that's just ordinary PB banter. Is it?
In Europe my first impressions are that the French are more relaxed even than last year while the Germans are still doing everything ‘properly’.
Austria, Italy and Hungary have all recently relaxed their restrictions on British travellers.
Ok, probably too soon.
Anyway "Labour jabber, Conservatives jab" is a perfect Johnsonian retort even when he is being questioned on low conviction rates for rape. Maybe Raab missed a trick by not giving Bryant that same reply to his questions this afternoon.
I am happy for you in England to make your choices on this matter. I am happy that we have made different choices in Scotland.
If there were only two steps in delivering effective government – making promises and writing cheques – Johnson would be on track for the transformational legacy he craves. But there are more, longer strides, which get harder to take because they go uphill and the way isn’t lined with cheering fans. That is usually where the prime minister’s attention fades.
There will be surprises, too, demanding rapid reaction and executive competence supported by a strong cabinet. Without those conditions in place, it hardly matters what the prime minister thinks his agenda should be. He can choose what to talk about in the autumn, and persuade some audiences that he means it. But his powers run out almost as soon as the clapping stops. That is not a problem in election campaigns, where success can be measured in pleased crowds. But it is disastrous in government, where decisions must be taken with some other purpose in mind. The prime minister knows that he needs such a purpose, but not what it feels like to have one.
The pandemic has been an exceptional event that would challenge any leader, but it is not the abnormal nature of the crisis that causes Johnson’s difficulties. He struggles because the way he does the job makes crisis the norm.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.