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
When did opinion polling gain seniority over actual votes cast in ballot boxes?
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
When did opinion polling gain seniority over actual votes cast in ballot boxes?
When did Holyrood get any right to hold a referendum on independence without Westminster consent?
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.
He "struggles" by having the best vaccine procurement in the world of all major nations.
He "struggles" by being by far favoured by the public over the LOTO.
He "struggles" by having large opinion poll leads.
While no PM would like to face something like Covid19, I bet most PMs would love to have "struggles" like that.
Nicola Sturgeon is proposing to introduce vaxports for nightclubs and football matches before the end of the month, but she says the Scottish government does not "believe" they should "ever be a requirement for any key services or in settings where people have no choice over attendance - for example, public transport, education, access to medical services or shops."
Would it be reading too much into this pompous woman's words to wonder about non-essential use of public transport and things like visiting a family member in hospital?
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.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
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.
That was unfortunate. But, hey, it's "Boris" so we don't get even a teeny bit angry about it. He is not an ordinary politician. Fact, he's not a politician at all. He's "Boris".
I've got my head around this now. I'm not that agitated anymore. There's a certain background hum of frustration, that's all. I'm waiting it out, Zen like.
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
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.
That's enough of that, Philip. This is not ToryStory.com. That's on another server.
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.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
Looking a lot better than they did 13 years ago, yes. They're recovering fast as we come out of recession thanks to sound Tory stewardship.
If in a couple of years time at the next election the Tory government is borrowing £1 for every £3 spent (or whatever it was for Brown) you have my blessing to call that a Tory mess.
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
He was. A folder full of facts to cover absolute minutiae, but when asked basic questions about actual issues his answer was always that he didn't have the answer with him.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday. "I have already given a statement" "Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
Sky are not known for supporting HMG but these were the words of Sam Coates after Raab's appearance
'Dominic Raab should be pleased with his performance with lots of information and points'
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.
That's enough of that, Philip. This is not ToryStory.com. That's on another server.
The fact that Labour left a mess in 2010 years after the recession is not a Tory Story it's a matter of public record.
The fact that the Tories had a best in the world (literally) vaccine procurement and rollout is not a Tory Story it's a matter of public record.
That 11 years later you are still incapable of admitting Labour left a mess to be cleaned up in 2010 shows fully why you're not fit to be in charge of the finances again. Same old Labour, hasn't changed.
You're like a hoarder who can't even see the mess while others look on in horror.
"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
Soil was specially brought from Winchester for the foundation of Eton.
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
He was. A folder full of facts to cover absolute minutiae, but when asked basic questions about actual issues his answer was always that he didn't have the answer with him.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday. "I have already given a statement" "Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
Only 14% of British voters think Biden has been a good or a great President so far, 32% think he has been average, 16% think he has been poor and 16% think he has been terrible.
50% of Tory voters think he has been poor or terrible, 30% think he has been average.
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
He was. A folder full of facts to cover absolute minutiae, but when asked basic questions about actual issues his answer was always that he didn't have the answer with him.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday. "I have already given a statement" "Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
So prurient nonsense and ephemera then?
It's none of the committee's business his travel arrangements for his holiday.
If he neglected to do something that should have been done, or failed to ensure something was covered that should have been, then that is something political.
I'm one of those dk. Sure he wasn't the essence of dynamism, drive or on top of the situation. But I struggle to see what would have been better had he been. Indeed, someone more active could have made it much worse in their zeal to "sort it out". Somehow.
Only 14% of British voters think Biden has been a good or a great President so far, 32% think he has been average, 16% think he has been poor and 16% think he has been terrible.
50% of Tory voters think he has been poor or terrible, 30% think he has been average..
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
He was. A folder full of facts to cover absolute minutiae, but when asked basic questions about actual issues his answer was always that he didn't have the answer with him.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday. "I have already given a statement" "Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
Sam Coates of Sky has a different perspective
It will be a sad day when a Minister of the Crown can't have a few well earned days of peace on a beach, without having to answer a lot of impertinent questions from a lot of unwashed oicks.
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.”
The Greens have essentially already said they support it. Sturgeon won't say she's sorry but she can't assure them it won't hit the vulnerable the hardest.
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?
"...to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee..."
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?
Don’t NI schools schools go back at the same time? Yes their cases have dropped this week, albeit from a fairly high rate.
Only 14% of British voters think Biden has been a good or a great President so far, 32% think he has been average, 16% think he has been poor and 16% think he has been terrible.
50% of Tory voters think he has been poor or terrible, 30% think he has been average.
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
When did opinion polling gain seniority over actual votes cast in ballot boxes?
When did Holyrood get any right to hold a referendum on independence without Westminster consent?
Self-determination does not require anybody’s consent.
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
He was. A folder full of facts to cover absolute minutiae, but when asked basic questions about actual issues his answer was always that he didn't have the answer with him.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday. "I have already given a statement" "Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
So prurient nonsense and ephemera then?
It's none of the committee's business his travel arrangements for his holiday.
If he neglected to do something that should have been done, or failed to ensure something was covered that should have been, then that is something political.
His private life isn't.
PB never fails to disappoint. I came here curious to see whether anyone would be saying "it's none of their business".
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
He was. A folder full of facts to cover absolute minutiae, but when asked basic questions about actual issues his answer was always that he didn't have the answer with him.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday. "I have already given a statement" "Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
So prurient nonsense and ephemera then?
It's none of the committee's business his travel arrangements for his holiday.
If he neglected to do something that should have been done, or failed to ensure something was covered that should have been, then that is something political.
His private life isn't.
Before your email, I had not the remotest idea that Mr Raab might have been doing other than playing sandcastles on the beach. The mind now boggles.
Only 14% of British voters think Biden has been a good or a great President so far, 32% think he has been average, 16% think he has been poor and 16% think he has been terrible.
50% of Tory voters think he has been poor or terrible, 30% think he has been average.
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.
I concur. The Tank Commander and his neo-Unionist fellow travellers are shooting themselves in the feet.
This particular Unionist has no issue with Indyref2 and I agree with @kinabalu
However, the first problem the SNPs has is calling indyref2 before the majority of Scots are ready for it , and secondly it would be very brave without a majority in favour of independence
Additionally I really cannot understand Nicola agreeing a deal with the Greens as it was not necessary
How many times do we have to do this? 1. Scottish voters are ready for the referendum having voted for parties to deliver it 2. A comfortable majority of MSPs pledged to deliver it were elected in a record turnout
We cannot have a "votes cast count, seats elected don't count" argument without also accepting that the Labour / LibDem / Green / SNP group won the UK election.
As many times as you need to understand
The composition of seats in Westminster does not determine Switzerland’s foreign policy because it is not within their sphere of competence no matter how interesting it might be
The composition of seats in Holyrood does not determine whether there will be a referendum because it is not within their sphere of competence
It is purely a political argument that the UK government has been willing to ignore. A clear majority of votes cast would be more compelling to demonstrate that there is a demand from the voters of Scotland
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?
Don’t NI schools schools go back at the same time? Yes their cases have dropped this week, albeit from a fairly high rate.
The Michael Cockerell BBC documentary – How to be an ex-Prime Minister – is worth a watch. It was made as Tony Blair departed Downing Street. A fascinating look at the human side of our former leaders, with not much on lobbying by text message.
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 fairness, it is not just The Tank Commander’s position. (Nearly) the whole Conservative Party seems to have gone bonkers. Neo-Unionism has rotted their brains.
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
He was. A folder full of facts to cover absolute minutiae, but when asked basic questions about actual issues his answer was always that he didn't have the answer with him.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday. "I have already given a statement" "Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
Sam Coates of Sky has a different perspective
It will be a sad day when a Minister of the Crown can't have a few well earned days of peace on a beach, without having to answer a lot of impertinent questions from a lot of unwashed oicks.
Sam Coates was talking about the evidence on tensions among the allies and the failure of intelligence and the consequences going forward
Not whether he missed a phone call by going on leave
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
He was. A folder full of facts to cover absolute minutiae, but when asked basic questions about actual issues his answer was always that he didn't have the answer with him.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday. "I have already given a statement" "Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
So prurient nonsense and ephemera then?
It's none of the committee's business his travel arrangements for his holiday.
If he neglected to do something that should have been done, or failed to ensure something was covered that should have been, then that is something political.
His private life isn't.
PB never fails to disappoint. I came here curious to see whether anyone would be saying "it's none of their business".
Bingo!
Well? How is it any of their business?
Private lives aren't politics and I say that about anyone.
If he failed politically then where's the grilling on that? Where's the "this happened and there was no cover arranged and you let us down"? Where's the politics?
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
When did opinion polling gain seniority over actual votes cast in ballot boxes?
Last week when the government said it would hold a Sindy referendum if opinion polls showed consistent support for one, and before that in the Good Friday Agreement.
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
He was. A folder full of facts to cover absolute minutiae, but when asked basic questions about actual issues his answer was always that he didn't have the answer with him.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday. "I have already given a statement" "Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
So prurient nonsense and ephemera then?
It's none of the committee's business his travel arrangements for his holiday.
If he neglected to do something that should have been done, or failed to ensure something was covered that should have been, then that is something political.
His private life isn't.
Before your email, I had not the remotest idea that Mr Raab might have been doing other than playing sandcastles on the beach. The mind now boggles.
On Sky's headline he's quoted as saying it's part of a modern Foreign Secretary's job that he needs to be able to his job overseas and that he attended every COBR meeting.
That seems more relevant than what flight number he took on what day.
"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
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?
You have repaid £1,720 in “contested expenses” (ahem) to War on Want, and I claim my five pounds.
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.
Relief is a perfect word for it.
I have absolutely no problem with someone either wearing a mask or eschewing a mask, it's their choice.
What I cannot grasp however, is the idea among some that wearing a mask in public is normal or should be normalised.
It is not normal. Human beings relate to each other by seeing each others' faces. There are metric tonnes of research on this. It is a fundamental part of the way we interact and bond with each other.
Masks are a temporary physical medical intervention, like neck brace or a cast. They are not a normal – or even desirable – part of daily life.
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.
How can they be transmission vectors without catching it?
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
He was. A folder full of facts to cover absolute minutiae, but when asked basic questions about actual issues his answer was always that he didn't have the answer with him.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday. "I have already given a statement" "Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
So prurient nonsense and ephemera then?
It's none of the committee's business his travel arrangements for his holiday.
If he neglected to do something that should have been done, or failed to ensure something was covered that should have been, then that is something political.
His private life isn't.
Before your email, I had not the remotest idea that Mr Raab might have been doing other than playing sandcastles on the beach. The mind now boggles.
On Sky's headline he's quoted as saying it's part of a modern Foreign Secretary's job that he needs to be able to his job overseas and that he attended every COBR meeting.
That seems more relevant than what flight number he took on what day.
Be much better placed to deal with often secret business in Whitehall. So the date of the flight was very, very relevant. For one thing, I don't know how secure modern telecoms are from luxury hotels.
It was your 'prurient' that made me wonder for a moment if he had been doing a Hancock!
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.
How can they be transmission vectors without catching it?
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
When did opinion polling gain seniority over actual votes cast in ballot boxes?
Last week when the government said it would hold a Sindy referendum if opinion polls showed consistent support for one, and before that in the Good Friday Agreement.
Fairy nuff. UK PM’s with strongly negative approval ratings have no mandate in Scotland. Fine by me.
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
When did opinion polling gain seniority over actual votes cast in ballot boxes?
When did Holyrood get any right to hold a referendum on independence without Westminster consent?
Self-determination does not require anybody’s consent.
It does actually under the Scotland Act 1998 require the consent of the UK government
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.
How can they be transmission vectors without catching it?
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
When did opinion polling gain seniority over actual votes cast in ballot boxes?
When did Holyrood get any right to hold a referendum on independence without Westminster consent?
Self-determination does not require anybody’s consent.
It does actually under the Scotland Act 1998 require the consent of the UK government
One cannot legislate away fundamental democratic rights.
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.
Are you making the choice of avoiding pubs, gala dinners, weddings, bar mitzvahs, skittle nights, darts competitions, snooker halls, fun, friends, family or indeed anywhere where you might transmit or receive covid?
It's an Israeli study, and they don't offer a second dose for people who've had an existing Covid infection, and as a result don't have data.
However, as Covid plus one dose was something like 99% effective against symptomatic Delta, I doubt it makes much difference.
Probably a better way to get to vaccinated-plus-acquired-immunity.
After all, if catching the virus is fine in the first place, why worry about whether or not one is infected? If not, getting a trained immune system first is better. Massively reducing one’s chances of having a bad outcome.
So the best route would be two jabs, then infection. Assuming one can get a breakthrough infection; if not, it’s a result, anyway.
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
When did opinion polling gain seniority over actual votes cast in ballot boxes?
When did Holyrood get any right to hold a referendum on independence without Westminster consent?
It's an Israeli study, and they don't offer a second dose for people who've had an existing Covid infection, and as a result don't have data.
However, as Covid plus one dose was something like 99% effective against symptomatic Delta, I doubt it makes much difference.
Probably a better way to get to vaccinated-plus-acquired-immunity.
After all, if catching the virus is fine in the first place, why worry about whether or not one is infected? If not, getting a trained immune system first is better. Massively reducing one’s chances of having a bad outcome.
So the best route would be two jabs, then infection. Assuming one can get a breakthrough infection; if not, it’s a result, anyway.
Yes: what you really want is a very mild (preferably entirely asymptomatic) infection following a couple of doses of the vaccine.
Which is what is happening to a lot of Brits right now.
The Michael Cockerell BBC documentary – How to be an ex-Prime Minister – is worth a watch. It was made as Tony Blair departed Downing Street. A fascinating look at the human side of our former leaders, with not much on lobbying by text message.
Of course until Major most PMs went to the Lords, except if they stayed in the Commons like Heath or Churchill.
Since Major and Blair not a single ex PM has gone to the Lords, they have all gone into the private sector to make money and/or set up a charitable foundation, albeit May is still an MP
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
When did opinion polling gain seniority over actual votes cast in ballot boxes?
When did Holyrood get any right to hold a referendum on independence without Westminster consent?
Classic avoidance of answering the question.
I don't recall that he ever actually answered the question of whether the UKk should have given India (as it was called then) independence. He just blamed Labour instead. Rather like his attitude to indyref2 - to blame Mr Starmer for it.
"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
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.
That's enough of that, Philip. This is not ToryStory.com. That's on another server.
The fact that Labour left a mess in 2010 years after the recession is not a Tory Story it's a matter of public record.
The fact that the Tories had a best in the world (literally) vaccine procurement and rollout is not a Tory Story it's a matter of public record.
That 11 years later you are still incapable of admitting Labour left a mess to be cleaned up in 2010 shows fully why you're not fit to be in charge of the finances again. Same old Labour, hasn't changed.
You're like a hoarder who can't even see the mess while others look on in horror.
Tory repeats Story. Impervious to all reason and record, he and it sails on. There's a certain doggedness that one has to, despite oneself, almost admire.
It's an Israeli study, and they don't offer a second dose for people who've had an existing Covid infection, and as a result don't have data.
However, as Covid plus one dose was something like 99% effective against symptomatic Delta, I doubt it makes much difference.
Probably a better way to get to vaccinated-plus-acquired-immunity.
After all, if catching the virus is fine in the first place, why worry about whether or not one is infected? If not, getting a trained immune system first is better. Massively reducing one’s chances of having a bad outcome.
So the best route would be two jabs, then infection. Assuming one can get a breakthrough infection; if not, it’s a result, anyway.
Yes: what you really want is a very mild (preferably entirely asymptomatic) infection following a couple of doses of the vaccine.
Which is what is happening to a lot of Brits right now.
How does one know a patient has had an asymptomatic infection, anyway? An antibody test won't help as it would be confoiunded by the effect of the vaccinations, surely.
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..
It does seem to have accelerated pretty quickly since schools went back though? It could be a coincidence but it does seem like the rise & falls over the Summer have correlated neatly with schools.
The link between schools -> cases could be kids catching, passing on to parents. But could also be that parents are now freed up to go into work/offices/cafes more rather than working from home/holiday/looking after kids.
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.
How can they be transmission vectors without catching it?
"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
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..
It does seem to have accelerated pretty quickly since schools went back though? It could be a coincidence but it does seem like the rise & falls over the Summer have correlated neatly with schools.
The link between schools -> cases could be kids catching, passing on to parents. But could also be that parents are now freed up to go into work/offices/cafes more rather than working from home/holiday/looking after kids.
Also testing went up in preparation for schools, too, as Alastair et al have pointed out (explaining the timing anomaly to some extent).
"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
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
When did opinion polling gain seniority over actual votes cast in ballot boxes?
When did Holyrood get any right to hold a referendum on independence without Westminster consent?
Classic avoidance of answering the question.
I don't recall that he ever actually answered the question of whether the UKk should have given India (as it was called then) independence. He just blamed Labour instead. Rather like his attitude to indyref2 - to blame Mr Starmer for it.
Churchill as Tory leader and PM (and great hero of Boris) of course opposed giving India independence as he judged, correctly, that it would seal the end of the British Empire and our superpower status.
It was the Attlee Labour government that gave India independence, which may morally have been right but of course India never elected MPs like Scotland does so was never in a Union anyway, it was always a colony.
You are correct that for Scotland's government to get a legal indyref2 would also require another Labour government ie Starmer as Attlee to Boris' Churchill
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.
Are you not aware that Scotland currently has some of the worst Covid hotspots in Europe?
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.
That's enough of that, Philip. This is not ToryStory.com. That's on another server.
The fact that Labour left a mess in 2010 years after the recession is not a Tory Story it's a matter of public record.
The fact that the Tories had a best in the world (literally) vaccine procurement and rollout is not a Tory Story it's a matter of public record.
That 11 years later you are still incapable of admitting Labour left a mess to be cleaned up in 2010 shows fully why you're not fit to be in charge of the finances again. Same old Labour, hasn't changed.
You're like a hoarder who can't even see the mess while others look on in horror.
Tory repeats Story. Impervious to all reason and record, he and it sails on. There's a certain doggedness that one has to, despite oneself, almost admire.
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
When did opinion polling gain seniority over actual votes cast in ballot boxes?
When did Holyrood get any right to hold a referendum on independence without Westminster consent?
Classic avoidance of answering the question.
I don't recall that he ever actually answered the question of whether the UKk should have given India (as it was called then) independence. He just blamed Labour instead. Rather like his attitude to indyref2 - to blame Mr Starmer for it.
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.
I concur. The Tank Commander and his neo-Unionist fellow travellers are shooting themselves in the feet.
This particular Unionist has no issue with Indyref2 and I agree with @kinabalu
However, the first problem the SNPs has is calling indyref2 before the majority of Scots are ready for it , and secondly it would be very brave without a majority in favour of independence
Additionally I really cannot understand Nicola agreeing a deal with the Greens as it was not necessary
How many times do we have to do this? 1. Scottish voters are ready for the referendum having voted for parties to deliver it 2. A comfortable majority of MSPs pledged to deliver it were elected in a record turnout
We cannot have a "votes cast count, seats elected don't count" argument without also accepting that the Labour / LibDem / Green / SNP group won the UK election.
As many times as you need to understand
The composition of seats in Westminster does not determine Switzerland’s foreign policy because it is not within their sphere of competence no matter how interesting it might be
The composition of seats in Holyrood does not determine whether there will be a referendum because it is not within their sphere of competence
It is purely a political argument that the UK government has been willing to ignore. A clear majority of votes cast would be more compelling to demonstrate that there is a demand from the voters of Scotland
I am not making an argument as to whether such a thing is a devolved matter or not (and it isn't) so most of your post is irrelevant.
The latter point is fascinating though. If members elected is not the correct measure and votes cast is, then Jeremy Corbyn would be prime minister as the Labour / LD / SNP / Green block received more votes than the Tory / Brexit / UKIP / DUP one
It's an Israeli study, and they don't offer a second dose for people who've had an existing Covid infection, and as a result don't have data.
However, as Covid plus one dose was something like 99% effective against symptomatic Delta, I doubt it makes much difference.
Probably a better way to get to vaccinated-plus-acquired-immunity.
After all, if catching the virus is fine in the first place, why worry about whether or not one is infected? If not, getting a trained immune system first is better. Massively reducing one’s chances of having a bad outcome.
So the best route would be two jabs, then infection. Assuming one can get a breakthrough infection; if not, it’s a result, anyway.
Yes: what you really want is a very mild (preferably entirely asymptomatic) infection following a couple of doses of the vaccine.
Which is what is happening to a lot of Brits right now.
How does one know a patient has had an asymptomatic infection, anyway? An antibody test won't help as it would be confoiunded by the effect of the vaccinations, surely.
Well in my case, I took a test to travel & it came back positive!
"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
Soil was specially brought from Winchester for the foundation of Eton.
I have never heard that. Eton was initially seeded, as you might say, with Wykehamists (the thickest ones, according to Wykehamists), and I think you may be taking a metaphor for that, literally?
"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
I was right that Winchester is the older of the two and also generally the more intellectual of the two, 9th on A level and pre U grades to Eton's 13th in the league table of top 100 independent schools
It's an Israeli study, and they don't offer a second dose for people who've had an existing Covid infection, and as a result don't have data.
However, as Covid plus one dose was something like 99% effective against symptomatic Delta, I doubt it makes much difference.
Probably a better way to get to vaccinated-plus-acquired-immunity.
After all, if catching the virus is fine in the first place, why worry about whether or not one is infected? If not, getting a trained immune system first is better. Massively reducing one’s chances of having a bad outcome.
So the best route would be two jabs, then infection. Assuming one can get a breakthrough infection; if not, it’s a result, anyway.
Yes: what you really want is a very mild (preferably entirely asymptomatic) infection following a couple of doses of the vaccine.
Which is what is happening to a lot of Brits right now.
How does one know a patient has had an asymptomatic infection, anyway? An antibody test won't help as it would be confoiunded by the effect of the vaccinations, surely.
Well in my case, I took a test to travel & it came back positive!
Was that before travel or before return to UK? LFT or PCR?
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.
I concur. The Tank Commander and his neo-Unionist fellow travellers are shooting themselves in the feet.
This particular Unionist has no issue with Indyref2 and I agree with @kinabalu
However, the first problem the SNPs has is calling indyref2 before the majority of Scots are ready for it , and secondly it would be very brave without a majority in favour of independence
Additionally I really cannot understand Nicola agreeing a deal with the Greens as it was not necessary
How many times do we have to do this? 1. Scottish voters are ready for the referendum having voted for parties to deliver it 2. A comfortable majority of MSPs pledged to deliver it were elected in a record turnout
We cannot have a "votes cast count, seats elected don't count" argument without also accepting that the Labour / LibDem / Green / SNP group won the UK election.
As many times as you need to understand
The composition of seats in Westminster does not determine Switzerland’s foreign policy because it is not within their sphere of competence no matter how interesting it might be
The composition of seats in Holyrood does not determine whether there will be a referendum because it is not within their sphere of competence
It is purely a political argument that the UK government has been willing to ignore. A clear majority of votes cast would be more compelling to demonstrate that there is a demand from the voters of Scotland
I am not making an argument as to whether such a thing is a devolved matter or not (and it isn't) so most of your post is irrelevant.
The latter point is fascinating though. If members elected is not the correct measure and votes cast is, then Jeremy Corbyn would be prime minister as the Labour / LD / SNP / Green block received more votes than the Tory / Brexit / UKIP / DUP one
Except he wouldn't as the LDs made clear they would not make Corbyn PM, they might make Starmer PM now though
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.
Are you making the choice of avoiding pubs, gala dinners, weddings, bar mitzvahs, skittle nights, darts competitions, snooker halls, fun, friends, family or indeed anywhere where you might transmit or receive covid?
I can only assume you are.
I was in the pub a week ago. Had the joiner in my office earlier with no mask (but the door open)
"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
I was right that Winchester is the older of the two and also generally the more intellectual of the two, 9th on A level and pre U grades to Eton's 13th in the league table of top 100 independent schools
Not a lot in it, these days. Eton often outperforms Winchester on that metric and on Oxbridge places per capita. 40 years ago Eton was markedly unselective, hence the joke "Slough comp.", with only the truly thick being relegated to Stowe. It's different now, Eton lives or dies by league table results.
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.
Relief is a perfect word for it.
I have absolutely no problem with someone either wearing a mask or eschewing a mask, it's their choice.
What I cannot grasp however, is the idea among some that wearing a mask in public is normal or should be normalised.
It is not normal. Human beings relate to each other by seeing each others' faces. There are metric tonnes of research on this. It is a fundamental part of the way we interact and bond with each other.
Masks are a temporary physical medical intervention, like neck brace or a cast. They are not a normal – or even desirable – part of daily life.
You say that you have no problem with someone either wearing a mask or eschewing a mask, and I agree, but how do you feel about corporations and other entities insisting on mask-wearing even though employees/customers are not legally obliged to?
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.
Are you making the choice of avoiding pubs, gala dinners, weddings, bar mitzvahs, skittle nights, darts competitions, snooker halls, fun, friends, family or indeed anywhere where you might transmit or receive covid?
I can only assume you are.
I was in the pub a week ago. Had the joiner in my office earlier with no mask (but the door open)
Perhaps you might want to try again.
No that's fine and I'm happy for you, but proves my point that you are irrational (almost to the point of being hysterical).
"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
I was right that Winchester is the older of the two and also generally the more intellectual of the two, 9th on A level and pre U grades to Eton's 13th in the league table of top 100 independent schools
Not a lot in it, these days. Eton often outperforms Winchester on that metric and on Oxbridge places per capita. 40 years ago Eton was markedly unselective, hence the joke "Slough comp.", with only the truly thick being relegated to Stowe.
"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
I was right that Winchester is the older of the two and also generally the more intellectual of the two, 9th on A level and pre U grades to Eton's 13th in the league table of top 100 independent schools
Not a lot in it, these days. Eton often outperforms Winchester on that metric and on Oxbridge places per capita. 40 years ago Eton was markedly unselective, hence the joke "Slough comp.", with only the truly thick being relegated to Stowe.
SOMEBODY MAKE IT STOP
Form a political party with Kinabalu, put a manifesto together and off you go. I'm highly sympathetic to your position btw, just a sworn opponent of wrongness on the internet.
It's an Israeli study, and they don't offer a second dose for people who've had an existing Covid infection, and as a result don't have data.
However, as Covid plus one dose was something like 99% effective against symptomatic Delta, I doubt it makes much difference.
Probably a better way to get to vaccinated-plus-acquired-immunity.
After all, if catching the virus is fine in the first place, why worry about whether or not one is infected? If not, getting a trained immune system first is better. Massively reducing one’s chances of having a bad outcome.
So the best route would be two jabs, then infection. Assuming one can get a breakthrough infection; if not, it’s a result, anyway.
Yes: what you really want is a very mild (preferably entirely asymptomatic) infection following a couple of doses of the vaccine.
Which is what is happening to a lot of Brits right now.
How does one know a patient has had an asymptomatic infection, anyway? An antibody test won't help as it would be confoiunded by the effect of the vaccinations, surely.
Assymptomatic detection can be by swabbing contacts, eg with LFTs then confirmed by PCR testing.
Antibody testing can discriminate between vaccinated and infection, as the latter have antibodies to core proteins, not just spike.
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.
Relief is a perfect word for it.
I have absolutely no problem with someone either wearing a mask or eschewing a mask, it's their choice.
What I cannot grasp however, is the idea among some that wearing a mask in public is normal or should be normalised.
It is not normal. Human beings relate to each other by seeing each others' faces. There are metric tonnes of research on this. It is a fundamental part of the way we interact and bond with each other.
Masks are a temporary physical medical intervention, like neck brace or a cast. They are not a normal – or even desirable – part of daily life.
You say that you have no problem with someone either wearing a mask or eschewing a mask, and I agree, but how do you feel about corporations and other entities insisting on mask-wearing even though employees/customers are not legally obliged to?
I think if it's a venue – eg bar – then they should be free to do, as it's no different to any other dress code (i.e. no trainers, no denim)*
If it's a workplace, then I guess I'd hope there was a strong medical reason for it specific to that workplace. Is it a common stipulation?
(*I suspect most wouldn't as it would reduce great significantly the amount of people who wanted to go – who wants to wear a mask in a bar/pub/restaurant??)
Comments
He "struggles" by being by far favoured by the public over the LOTO.
He "struggles" by having large opinion poll leads.
While no PM would like to face something like Covid19, I bet most PMs would love to have "struggles" like that.
Would it be reading too much into this pompous woman's words to wonder about non-essential use of public transport and things like visiting a family member in hospital?
I've got my head around this now. I'm not that agitated anymore. There's a certain background hum of frustration, that's all. I'm waiting it out, Zen like.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
If in a couple of years time at the next election the Tory government is borrowing £1 for every £3 spent (or whatever it was for Brown) you have my blessing to call that a Tory mess.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday.
"I have already given a statement"
"Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
'Dominic Raab should be pleased with his performance with lots of information and points'
The fact that the Tories had a best in the world (literally) vaccine procurement and rollout is not a Tory Story it's a matter of public record.
That 11 years later you are still incapable of admitting Labour left a mess to be cleaned up in 2010 shows fully why you're not fit to be in charge of the finances again. Same old Labour, hasn't changed.
You're like a hoarder who can't even see the mess while others look on in horror.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1433103728354201607?s=20
(1) Two doses of Pfizer
(2) An infection and no vaccine
(3) An infection and a single dose of Pfizer
Spoiler: infection plus single dose is best - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1
50% of Tory voters think he has been poor or terrible, 30% think he has been average.
62% of Labour voters think he has been great, good or average
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1433100777560723456?s=20
It's none of the committee's business his travel arrangements for his holiday.
If he neglected to do something that should have been done, or failed to ensure something was covered that should have been, then that is something political.
His private life isn't.
Sure he wasn't the essence of dynamism, drive or on top of the situation. But I struggle to see what would have been better had he been.
Indeed, someone more active could have made it much worse in their zeal to "sort it out". Somehow.
Seems an odd one to miss out!
Bingo!
Which is a humongous improvement.
The composition of seats in Westminster does not determine Switzerland’s foreign policy because it is not within their sphere of competence no matter how interesting it might be
The composition of seats in Holyrood does not determine whether there will be a referendum because it is not within their sphere of competence
It is purely a political argument that the UK government has been willing to ignore. A clear majority of votes cast would be more compelling to demonstrate that there is a demand from the voters of Scotland
Not whether he missed a phone call by going on leave
Private lives aren't politics and I say that about anyone.
If he failed politically then where's the grilling on that? Where's the "this happened and there was no cover arranged and you let us down"? Where's the politics?
However, as Covid plus one dose was something like 99% effective against symptomatic Delta, I doubt it makes much difference.
That seems more relevant than what flight number he took on what day.
I have absolutely no problem with someone either wearing a mask or eschewing a mask, it's their choice.
What I cannot grasp however, is the idea among some that wearing a mask in public is normal or should be normalised.
It is not normal. Human beings relate to each other by seeing each others' faces. There are metric tonnes of research on this. It is a fundamental part of the way we interact and bond with each other.
Masks are a temporary physical medical intervention, like neck brace or a cast. They are not a normal – or even desirable – part of daily life.
They aren’t fomites
It was your 'prurient' that made me wonder for a moment if he had been doing a Hancock!
I can only assume you are.
After all, if catching the virus is fine in the first place, why worry about whether or not one is infected? If not, getting a trained immune system first is better. Massively reducing one’s chances of having a bad outcome.
So the best route would be two jabs, then infection. Assuming one can get a breakthrough infection; if not, it’s a result, anyway.
Efficacy and safety of baricitinib for the treatment of hospitalised adults with COVID-19 (COV-BARRIER): a randomised, double-blind, parallel-group, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(21)00331-3/fulltext
Which is what is happening to a lot of Brits right now.
ETA Snap Robert!
Since Major and Blair not a single ex PM has gone to the Lords, they have all gone into the private sector to make money and/or set up a charitable foundation, albeit May is still an MP
Hmmm
It could be a coincidence but it does seem like the rise & falls over the Summer have correlated neatly with schools.
The link between schools -> cases could be kids catching, passing on to parents. But could also be that parents are now freed up to go into work/offices/cafes more rather than working from home/holiday/looking after kids.
@HYUFD was just wrong
It was the Attlee Labour government that gave India independence, which may morally have been right but of course India never elected MPs like Scotland does so was never in a Union anyway, it was always a colony.
You are correct that for Scotland's government to get a legal indyref2 would also require another Labour government ie Starmer as Attlee to Boris' Churchill
The latter point is fascinating though. If members elected is not the correct measure and votes cast is, then Jeremy Corbyn would be prime minister as the Labour / LD / SNP / Green block received more votes than the Tory / Brexit / UKIP / DUP one
This information is of little use without telling us what the proportions of vaccinated/unvaccinated are in the population.
https://www.best-schools.co.uk/uk-school-league-tables/list-of-league-tables/top-100-schools-by-a-level
Perhaps you might want to try again.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=GBR~SWE
56% fully vaxxed, 12% one-dosed, 32% unvaxxed.
So 68% (concentrated in the more vulnerable) account for 8% of admissions.
Looks pretty significant.
Sky report:
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-people-with-severely-weakened-immune-systems-to-be-offered-third-coronavirus-vaccine-dose-12396839
They are expecting all vulnerable patients to be called for both shortly but at the vaccine centres, not surgeries
Antibody testing can discriminate between vaccinated and infection, as the latter have antibodies to core proteins, not just spike.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58410584
Hmm.
If it's a workplace, then I guess I'd hope there was a strong medical reason for it specific to that workplace. Is it a common stipulation?
(*I suspect most wouldn't as it would reduce great significantly the amount of people who wanted to go – who wants to wear a mask in a bar/pub/restaurant??)