If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Well the EU should have thought about Unionist opinion as well as Nationalist opinion then before it demanded a border in the Irish Sea for a trade deal with the UK.
The GFA was supposed to give equal weight to Unionist and Nationalist opinion in NI to keep the peace, not just Nationalists. That means no border in the Irish Sea as well as no border in Ireland
OK wiseguy. No border in the North Channel and no border at Dundalk. Where do you pin the tail on the donkey... I mean place the border?
There is no border needed, a technical solution can be found in Ireland to avoid it
Show me this fantastic "Norwegian" technology to be used in a country that can't even achieve a competent broadband signal outside city limits.
Its up to the EU and UK to compromise and create one.
In the meantime simply turning a blind eye to all traffic across both borders works as one.
So you are quite happy for asylum seekers to find their way across the land border from the Republic and NI, thus into GB?
Yes.
Not sure that Priti Patel will agree. If we should have an open door and unchecked migration then the good burghers of Daily Mail land may have an aneurysm. I mean, think what that means for the boats in the channel! Never mind dragging them back to France or sinking them, we'd just say "come in".
My opinion is my own and not Patel's. Far from the first time, won't be the last I disagree with Patel.
I'll happily credit you with that! Its a fascinating perspective from someone so demanding of a hard Brexit that we forget about stopping freedom of movement.
Which only really highlights that there was no single Leave position which explains why we are still stuck in all this years on.
We have a Common Travel Area with Ireland. That's not new. 🤷♂️
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Well the EU should have thought about Unionist opinion as well as Nationalist opinion then before it demanded a border in the Irish Sea for a trade deal with the UK.
The GFA was supposed to give equal weight to Unionist and Nationalist opinion in NI to keep the peace, not just Nationalists. That means no border in the Irish Sea as well as no border in Ireland
OK wiseguy. No border in the North Channel and no border at Dundalk. Where do you pin the tail on the donkey... I mean place the border?
There is no border needed, a technical solution can be found in Ireland to avoid it
Show me this fantastic "Norwegian" technology to be used in a country that can't even achieve a competent broadband signal outside city limits.
Brexiteers offered the techno-border as the solution during negotiations. Very simple to implement. Asked if they would sit in the transition period until their very simple techno-border was active, the answer was always a very angry no.
There is no technological solution. If there was other borders would use it.
There is no technological solution. It needs to be invented.
It can be invented once all parties are willing to compromise. If we're waiting on the never-never for it to be invented it never will be. If the alternative is a free-for-all across the border then a compromise is an improvement for both parties so it will be.
Be very careful of those stampeding unicorns.
No unicorns necessary. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Having a complete open border between both even though the laws are different on both sides is OK for me as an interim solution. If the EU wish to put a border on their side that's their choice, but if they're not prepared to its OK for them too. No unicorn necessary.
The problem with your approach is that so many of your countrymen do not want unlimited numbers of people entering their country. Their vote for Brexit was to shut the border, not to leave it wide open. The right to travel freely was one of the main drivers to get people voting to leave.
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Well the EU should have thought about Unionist opinion as well as Nationalist opinion then before it demanded a border in the Irish Sea for a trade deal with the UK.
The GFA was supposed to give equal weight to Unionist and Nationalist opinion in NI to keep the peace, not just Nationalists. That means no border in the Irish Sea as well as no border in Ireland
OK wiseguy. No border in the North Channel and no border at Dundalk. Where do you pin the tail on the donkey... I mean place the border?
There is no border needed, a technical solution can be found in Ireland to avoid it
Show me this fantastic "Norwegian" technology to be used in a country that can't even achieve a competent broadband signal outside city limits.
Brexiteers offered the techno-border as the solution during negotiations. Very simple to implement. Asked if they would sit in the transition period until their very simple techno-border was active, the answer was always a very angry no.
There is no technological solution. If there was other borders would use it.
There is no technological solution. It needs to be invented.
It can be invented once all parties are willing to compromise. If we're waiting on the never-never for it to be invented it never will be. If the alternative is a free-for-all across the border then a compromise is an improvement for both parties so it will be.
Be very careful of those stampeding unicorns.
No unicorns necessary. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Having a complete open border between both even though the laws are different on both sides is OK for me as an interim solution. If the EU wish to put a border on their side that's their choice, but if they're not prepared to its OK for them too. No unicorn necessary.
Firstly you have to identify what you want the solution to do and then work out if it's actually possible to do that.
Given the benefits it would have for international trade you then have to ask why does it not already exist - because surely it would make sense in Norway / Sweden and other similar places where both sides trust each other.
And yet it hasn't been created - at which point you have to ask, what are the reasons why it hasn't been created.
So it is a unicorn because otherwise there is at least 1 border on which it should currently exist.
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Good try mate. Your prejudice stinks like a nest of dead rats.
What prejudice?
We must have a way to elect governments that can change our laws. If we don't, we're no longer a liberal democracy.
Being in the EU is entirely reasonable, as we have a say in those laws. Being subject to their laws, without a say in them - how is that democratic?
I should be laughing really at the ignorance and arrogance of your simplistic statements, but we are talking about Northern Ireland, so I am not laughing at all. I suggest you and HYUFD take a visit to Belfast, maybe a tourist trip down the Falls Road (you can do those now). Try telling a few people in a pub there your views. If you come out of that alive, or not in need of a trip to the nearby Royal Victoria, maybe repeat the views on the Shankhill and see what happens there
Border Force authorised to turn back migrants, 50 years of Genesis and Radacando! Another day in Normalania.
Will there now be a race between BF vessels and the RNLI to reach the boat people?
I should imagine that the Border Force boats will patrol the maritime boundary to try to catch the dinghies, the occupants of the dinghies will throw themselves into the water (or just fall in when the authorities try to shunt or tow their pathetic, flimsy vessels back towards France,) and the Border Force officers will then be obliged to fish them out.
Any that get through the screen will then be met by RNLI welcome committees instead. So, it'll make no difference to anything. Just one more example of something-must-be-done-ism.
Its stupid and dangerous to be messing around with people in the water. Anyone in the water should be removed from the water.
The only sustainable way to deal with it is to determine what happens next once they're out of the water. If they know they'll end up in the UK, people will continue doing it, risking more lives on a very dangerous and deadly crossing.
If they know that they'll end up in somewhere like Nauru or Papua New Guinea as has been done by the Australian Labor and Liberal governments, or Rwanda as has been proposed by Denmark's Social Democrat government, then that would actually stop the dinghies getting in the water in the first place.
The solution is to do a deal with France where we and they intercept them all and land them back on French beaches. They will then never try again.
The quid pro quo for France is less "pull" for them into the Calais area, lots of money to help them out, and border force and RN boats in the Med to help them out in turn - it needs someone who can really flatter, understand and build strong relationships with the huffy and proud French.
That's clearly not Patel.
That reminds me that I finally watched the Tory Boy the Movie documentary last night weekend aka In Search of Sir Stuart Bell, a self-made film of a Northern working class convert to the Conservatives campaigning for the Middlesbrough Constituency in the 2010 Election.
Interesting stuff about disillusionment with the party in power, and how Cameron opened it up.
Now on Amazon Prime.
SB would be able to flatter the French - they gave him the Legion D'Honneur after he spent much of his time in Paris, not his constituency.
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Nice of you to admit how democratic the EU is.
I've never denied it!
Its not the best form of democracy (but nor is the USA nowadays). I prefer the UK Parliament and UK electoral system. But its a democracy in its own way and I've never said otherwise.
But if we aren't in the EU and are subject to EU laws we can't change democratically - that's an end to liberal democracy. That's a price I'm not prepared to pay for anything, democracy trumps everything else.
Gavin Williamson doesn't turn up in person to Universities UK conference in Newcastle - but uses his videolink speech to warn universities to get back to in person teaching....
Excellent... doing his bit for the environment....
I’m amazed that many more people are not making that point. Getting everyone back in offices and commuting full time, will be a serious negative to the COP26 pledges.
If we can all WFH most of the week, it’s environmentally-friendly as well as better for mental health, work-life balance and in many cases productivity.
In addition, it opens up new options for commuting and changes the value proposition of owning a car. My work practices haven't actually changed that much: 2-3 days in office pre-pandemic, looks like 2 post-pandemic, but we've sold my car and I'm now cycling. I can do that twice a week (4 hours total commute versus probably 3 hours by car, but I gain 4 hours of good exercise - have cut down on running a bit, probably net time neutral or better). Plus cost savings in only having one car. Other people might make similar assessments on public transport...
But I don't think I'd be up for 10 hours per week (full time in office) cycle commuting, versus 7.5 by car (and 150 miles of cycling)
Good point.
I should agree, but I’d be a hypocrite. Wife and I used to commute together, but my new job is in the other direction so I’m getting a new car today. Well, a new old car, which is better environmentally than a new new car - even if it is a V8!
Westminster voting intention (changes on 3rd May):
SNP 51% (+4) Conservative 21% (-4) Labour 17% (-3) Lib Dems 5% (+1) Other 6% (+4)
51/49 pro independence
It is perfectly rational from a self interested view to vote SNP while not supporting independence. Such a vote can be seen as vote for the status quo: your own Scottish megaphone voice even though your population is the same as Yorkshire, lots of English money, lots of free stuff that England doesn't have, your own parliament + one in Westminster, someone else to blame for everything you don't like, and the promise of Ref2 in a future everyone knows either won't come or won't succeed.
Yes I think that's right and I would say Sturgeon derives most of her electoral popularity from socially liberal soft yes and soft no voters so I can't really see any threat to the SNP even if a 2nd referendum doesn't happen any time soon. I'm not a fan of Sturgeon personally and I think she doesn't deserve any particular credit for Scotland's pandemic response but it would be silly to say that she is not still relatively popular in the real world at least among a lot of younger voters.
Strangely I think the media is continually significantly overestimating the chances of a 2nd referendum occurring in the medium term and underestimating the SNP at the same time.
Not to rule things out without due consideration but this has an air of taking the piss.
If they’re escaping persecution, they will be happy to be given an opportunity of a new life in a safe country.
If they’re primarily economic migrants, desparate specifically to get to the UK, on the other hand…
Yes. This proposal is imo mainly about expressing the following 2 sentiments: Most asylum seekers are on the make rather than fleeing persecution. They should be grateful for anything they get, aka 'beggars can't be choosers'.
One issue that never seems to get discussed is that it is not a case of "pure" asylum vs "pure" economic migration.
For example, my wife left her country to emigrate here, partly for economic opportunity, and partly because the process of killing the Moaists who were trying to blow up everything was running into the usual issues with government projects.
Yes, the grey area must be huge. All you can say with confidence about every person who makes a long and arduous (often perilous) journey seeking to resettle in a country far from their own is that they'll have a good reason for it.
I completely agree with that.
Are those who make the arduous and perilous journey and are willing and able to pay thousands to criminal people smuggling gangs more worthy than those who make arduous and perilous journeys but are neither willing nor able to pay smugglers?
No. I await the killer follow-up with great interest and not a little trepidation.
If we facilitate easy migration for those paying thousands to criminal gangs, how do you facilitate migration for those that don't? Or are we delegating our responsibilities to the gangs?
Not an easy question. People smuggling is a crime that should be prosecuted. But is it right to count it a black mark against their victims by discriminating against them? No, not for me.
Are they victims if they knowingly pay for doing something that is known to be illegal?
I think so. They're desperate and aren't calling the shots. Eg girls trafficked for sex are heartbreakingly also charged for the privilege, have to "work off their debt". Still victims, though, surely to goodness.
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Good try mate. Your prejudice stinks like a nest of dead rats.
What prejudice?
We must have a way to elect governments that can change our laws. If we don't, we're no longer a liberal democracy.
Being in the EU is entirely reasonable, as we have a say in those laws. Being subject to their laws, without a say in them - how is that democratic?
I should be laughing really at the ignorance and arrogance of your simplistic statements, but we are talking about Northern Ireland, so I am not laughing at all. I suggest you and HYUFD take a visit to Belfast, maybe a tourist trip down the Falls Road (you can do those now). Try telling a few people in a pub there your views. If you come out of that alive, or not in need of a trip to the nearby Royal Victoria, maybe repeat the views on the Shankhill and see what happens there
Perhaps also try telling the residents of Antrim, East Belfast or East Londonderry the border in the Irish Sea should stay too and trying to come out alive. Yes I have been to NI too.
The GFA only worked because it respected the views of Unionists and Nationalists, not just Nationalists
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Good try mate. Your prejudice stinks like a nest of dead rats.
What prejudice?
We must have a way to elect governments that can change our laws. If we don't, we're no longer a liberal democracy.
Being in the EU is entirely reasonable, as we have a say in those laws. Being subject to their laws, without a say in them - how is that democratic?
I should be laughing really at the ignorance and arrogance of your simplistic statements, but we are talking about Northern Ireland, so I am not laughing at all. I suggest you and HYUFD take a visit to Belfast, maybe a tourist trip down the Falls Road (you can do those now). Try telling a few people in a pub there your views. If you come out of that alive, or not in need of a trip to the nearby Royal Victoria, maybe repeat the views on the Shankhill and see what happens there
I'll happily go to Falls Road and honestly say that I think there must be a completely free and open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. I'll happily go to Shankhill and honestly say that I think there must be a completely free and open border between Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Both of those positions are true.
Now how about you go to Shankhill and you say that purity of the Single Market trumps their place in the United Kingdom. See how far you go?
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Well the EU should have thought about Unionist opinion as well as Nationalist opinion then before it demanded a border in the Irish Sea for a trade deal with the UK.
The GFA was supposed to give equal weight to Unionist and Nationalist opinion in NI to keep the peace, not just Nationalists. That means no border in the Irish Sea as well as no border in Ireland
OK wiseguy. No border in the North Channel and no border at Dundalk. Where do you pin the tail on the donkey... I mean place the border?
There is no border needed, a technical solution can be found in Ireland to avoid it
Show me this fantastic "Norwegian" technology to be used in a country that can't even achieve a competent broadband signal outside city limits.
Brexiteers offered the techno-border as the solution during negotiations. Very simple to implement. Asked if they would sit in the transition period until their very simple techno-border was active, the answer was always a very angry no.
There is no technological solution. If there was other borders would use it.
There is no technological solution. It needs to be invented.
It can be invented once all parties are willing to compromise. If we're waiting on the never-never for it to be invented it never will be. If the alternative is a free-for-all across the border then a compromise is an improvement for both parties so it will be.
Be very careful of those stampeding unicorns.
No unicorns necessary. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Having a complete open border between both even though the laws are different on both sides is OK for me as an interim solution. If the EU wish to put a border on their side that's their choice, but if they're not prepared to its OK for them too. No unicorn necessary.
Firstly you have to identify what you want the solution to do and then work out if it's actually possible to do that.
Given the benefits it would have for international trade you then have to ask why does it not already exist - because surely it would make sense in Norway / Sweden and other similar places where both sides trust each other.
And yet it hasn't been created - at which point you have to ask, what are the reasons why it hasn't been created.
So it is a unicorn because otherwise there is at least 1 border on which it should currently exist.
No because Northern Ireland is a special case.
Where else in the world do people born in a region get the citizenship of TWO countries by right of birth? How does that region handle the border between those countries?
On the channel I am opposed to sending migrants to any foreign country, other than back to France
I do not know how this is resolved as France is lukewarm on taking them back, but all the migrants must be kept safe whenever entering UK waters either by the border force or RNLI
The idea of us exporting migrants to far away places is just unacceptable
Genuine question. Why is "exporting migrants to far away places" unacceptable? Trying to understand everyones position on this. I'm not doubting you have a moral/ethical/practical view on this, nor am I questioning the validity of such views....
Maybe exporting is too strong but I just do not like the idea that illegal migrants are sent to far away places and that we cannot find a compassionate solution to this very difficult problem
Send them to Scotland. If England has been overcome with xenophobia, Scotland hasn't. We don't have the devolved power to settle migrants and have asked for it.
The Scots are dead lucky to have acquired such a forthright new spokesman.
PB has always been a generous supplier of those happy to speak on our behalf. At least RP has put his doup on the line, if necessary ready to face a face-painted, graip wielding mob baying for English blood.
I emigrated to Scotland with the intention to settle here. If it was a foreign state I'd look to take citizenship.
I have/had no real view on Scottish Independence, other than now we have Brexited it makes it much harder eg the NI issue. The only plus point from a selfish point of view is if they do and then manage to get into the EU my children will be able to get an EU passport and even I might manage it, possibly? (provided I'm not dead by then).
Seems bizarre you can do this. A friend of mine was born in NI, the daughter of a serviceman serving there at the time. Her son, who is a performer so a EU passport is really useful, has now got one even though he has no Irish background whatsoever.
Westminster voting intention (changes on 3rd May):
SNP 51% (+4) Conservative 21% (-4) Labour 17% (-3) Lib Dems 5% (+1) Other 6% (+4)
51/49 pro independence
It is perfectly rational from a self interested view to vote SNP while not supporting independence. Such a vote can be seen as vote for the status quo: your own Scottish megaphone voice even though your population is the same as Yorkshire, lots of English money, lots of free stuff that England doesn't have, your own parliament + one in Westminster, someone else to blame for everything you don't like, and the promise of Ref2 in a future everyone knows either won't come or won't succeed.
Yes I think that's right and I would say Sturgeon derives most of her electoral popularity from socially liberal soft yes and soft no voters so I can't really see any threat to the SNP even if a 2nd referendum doesn't happen any time soon. I'm not a fan of Sturgeon personally and I think she doesn't deserve any particular credit for Scotland's pandemic response but it would be silly to say that she is not still relatively popular in the real world at least among a lot of younger voters.
Strangely I think the media is continually significantly overestimating the chances of a 2nd referendum occurring in the medium term and underestimating the SNP at the same time.
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Good try mate. Your prejudice stinks like a nest of dead rats.
What prejudice?
We must have a way to elect governments that can change our laws. If we don't, we're no longer a liberal democracy.
Being in the EU is entirely reasonable, as we have a say in those laws. Being subject to their laws, without a say in them - how is that democratic?
I should be laughing really at the ignorance and arrogance of your simplistic statements, but we are talking about Northern Ireland, so I am not laughing at all. I suggest you and HYUFD take a visit to Belfast, maybe a tourist trip down the Falls Road (you can do those now). Try telling a few people in a pub there your views. If you come out of that alive, or not in need of a trip to the nearby Royal Victoria, maybe repeat the views on the Shankhill and see what happens there
Perhaps also try telling the residents of Antrim, East Belfast or East Londonderry the border in the Irish Sea should stay too and trying to come out alive. Yes I have been to NI too.
The GFA only worked because it respected the views of Unionists and Nationalists, not just Nationalists
Nope the GFA worked because with both the UK and Ireland in the EU it didn't really matter which country nominally controlled Northern Ireland because the ultimate legal authority was identical.
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Good try mate. Your prejudice stinks like a nest of dead rats.
What prejudice?
We must have a way to elect governments that can change our laws. If we don't, we're no longer a liberal democracy.
Being in the EU is entirely reasonable, as we have a say in those laws. Being subject to their laws, without a say in them - how is that democratic?
I should be laughing really at the ignorance and arrogance of your simplistic statements, but we are talking about Northern Ireland, so I am not laughing at all. I suggest you and HYUFD take a visit to Belfast, maybe a tourist trip down the Falls Road (you can do those now). Try telling a few people in a pub there your views. If you come out of that alive, or not in need of a trip to the nearby Royal Victoria, maybe repeat the views on the Shankhill and see what happens there
I'll happily go to Falls Road and honestly say that I think there must be a completely free and open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. I'll happily go to Shankhill and honestly say that I think there must be a completely free and open border between Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Both of those positions are true.
Now how about you go to Shankhill and you say that purity of the Single Market trumps their place in the United Kingdom. See how far you go?
You may get away with it if you were wearing a bowler hat, twirling a baton whilst playing a kazoo.
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Good try mate. Your prejudice stinks like a nest of dead rats.
What prejudice?
We must have a way to elect governments that can change our laws. If we don't, we're no longer a liberal democracy.
Being in the EU is entirely reasonable, as we have a say in those laws. Being subject to their laws, without a say in them - how is that democratic?
I should be laughing really at the ignorance and arrogance of your simplistic statements, but we are talking about Northern Ireland, so I am not laughing at all. I suggest you and HYUFD take a visit to Belfast, maybe a tourist trip down the Falls Road (you can do those now). Try telling a few people in a pub there your views. If you come out of that alive, or not in need of a trip to the nearby Royal Victoria, maybe repeat the views on the Shankhill and see what happens there
Perhaps also try telling the residents of Antrim, East Belfast or East Londonderry the border in the Irish Sea should stay too and trying to come out alive. Yes I have been to NI too.
The GFA only worked because it respected the views of Unionists and Nationalists, not just Nationalists
So there is a border in the Irish Sea? Something doesn't compute here. Boris said that would never happen / isn't happening.
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Good try mate. Your prejudice stinks like a nest of dead rats.
What prejudice?
We must have a way to elect governments that can change our laws. If we don't, we're no longer a liberal democracy.
Being in the EU is entirely reasonable, as we have a say in those laws. Being subject to their laws, without a say in them - how is that democratic?
I should be laughing really at the ignorance and arrogance of your simplistic statements, but we are talking about Northern Ireland, so I am not laughing at all. I suggest you and HYUFD take a visit to Belfast, maybe a tourist trip down the Falls Road (you can do those now). Try telling a few people in a pub there your views. If you come out of that alive, or not in need of a trip to the nearby Royal Victoria, maybe repeat the views on the Shankhill and see what happens there
Perhaps also try telling the residents of Antrim, East Belfast or East Londonderry the border in the Irish Sea should stay too and trying to come out alive. Yes I have been to NI too.
The GFA only worked because it respected the views of Unionists and Nationalists, not just Nationalists
Nope the GFA worked because with both the UK and Ireland in the EU it didn't really matter which country nominally controlled Northern Ireland because the ultimate legal authority was identical.
That is no longer the case...
So now we need a new arrangement that continues to recognise and respect NI's special case nature. That neither puts a border between NI and Eire, nor NI and the UK, nor demands the UK be in the EU.
The only way to do that is to compromise and realise that both the sanctity or purity of the EU's Single Market, and the sanctity or purity of the UK's, may be compromised by NI but that's the price we're willing to pay for peace.
I'm willing to pay that price. If Brussels isn't, that's on them and let them impose a hard border between themselves and NI and let them deal with the consequences - we should play no part in imposing a border anywhere.
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Good try mate. Your prejudice stinks like a nest of dead rats.
What prejudice?
We must have a way to elect governments that can change our laws. If we don't, we're no longer a liberal democracy.
Being in the EU is entirely reasonable, as we have a say in those laws. Being subject to their laws, without a say in them - how is that democratic?
I should be laughing really at the ignorance and arrogance of your simplistic statements, but we are talking about Northern Ireland, so I am not laughing at all. I suggest you and HYUFD take a visit to Belfast, maybe a tourist trip down the Falls Road (you can do those now). Try telling a few people in a pub there your views. If you come out of that alive, or not in need of a trip to the nearby Royal Victoria, maybe repeat the views on the Shankhill and see what happens there
Perhaps also try telling the residents of Antrim, East Belfast or East Londonderry the border in the Irish Sea should stay too and trying to come out alive. Yes I have been to NI too.
The GFA only worked because it respected the views of Unionists and Nationalists, not just Nationalists
No shit Sherlock! Fuck me, the ignorance of the two of you, and your inability to STFU on subjects you clearly have no real life perspective when others on here have on is staggering. We are talking about a place that not long ago (when you were both still in nappies) was a war zone. I am leaving before I say something I regret.
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Good try mate. Your prejudice stinks like a nest of dead rats.
What prejudice?
We must have a way to elect governments that can change our laws. If we don't, we're no longer a liberal democracy.
Being in the EU is entirely reasonable, as we have a say in those laws. Being subject to their laws, without a say in them - how is that democratic?
I should be laughing really at the ignorance and arrogance of your simplistic statements, but we are talking about Northern Ireland, so I am not laughing at all. I suggest you and HYUFD take a visit to Belfast, maybe a tourist trip down the Falls Road (you can do those now). Try telling a few people in a pub there your views. If you come out of that alive, or not in need of a trip to the nearby Royal Victoria, maybe repeat the views on the Shankhill and see what happens there
Perhaps also try telling the residents of Antrim, East Belfast or East Londonderry the border in the Irish Sea should stay too and trying to come out alive. Yes I have been to NI too.
The GFA only worked because it respected the views of Unionists and Nationalists, not just Nationalists
No shit Sherlock! Fuck me, the ignorance of the two of you, and your inability to STFU on subjects you clearly have no real life perspective when others on here have on is staggering. We are talking about a place that not long ago (when you were both still in nappies) was a war zone. I am leaving before I say something I regret.
What part of me saying we should compromise instead of putting a hard border down anywhere do you object to?
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Good try mate. Your prejudice stinks like a nest of dead rats.
What prejudice?
We must have a way to elect governments that can change our laws. If we don't, we're no longer a liberal democracy.
Being in the EU is entirely reasonable, as we have a say in those laws. Being subject to their laws, without a say in them - how is that democratic?
I should be laughing really at the ignorance and arrogance of your simplistic statements, but we are talking about Northern Ireland, so I am not laughing at all. I suggest you and HYUFD take a visit to Belfast, maybe a tourist trip down the Falls Road (you can do those now). Try telling a few people in a pub there your views. If you come out of that alive, or not in need of a trip to the nearby Royal Victoria, maybe repeat the views on the Shankhill and see what happens there
Perhaps also try telling the residents of Antrim, East Belfast or East Londonderry the border in the Irish Sea should stay too and trying to come out alive. Yes I have been to NI too.
The GFA only worked because it respected the views of Unionists and Nationalists, not just Nationalists
No shit Sherlock! Fuck me, the ignorance of the two of you, and your inability to STFU on subjects you clearly have no real life perspective when others on here have on is staggering. We are talking about a place that not long ago (when you were both still in nappies) was a war zone. I am leaving before I say something I regret.
What part of me saying we should compromise instead of putting a hard border down anywhere do you object to?
We had the perfect compromise with Theresa's Deal. Your man Boris destroyed it.
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Good try mate. Your prejudice stinks like a nest of dead rats.
What prejudice?
We must have a way to elect governments that can change our laws. If we don't, we're no longer a liberal democracy.
Being in the EU is entirely reasonable, as we have a say in those laws. Being subject to their laws, without a say in them - how is that democratic?
I should be laughing really at the ignorance and arrogance of your simplistic statements, but we are talking about Northern Ireland, so I am not laughing at all. I suggest you and HYUFD take a visit to Belfast, maybe a tourist trip down the Falls Road (you can do those now). Try telling a few people in a pub there your views. If you come out of that alive, or not in need of a trip to the nearby Royal Victoria, maybe repeat the views on the Shankhill and see what happens there
Perhaps also try telling the residents of Antrim, East Belfast or East Londonderry the border in the Irish Sea should stay too and trying to come out alive. Yes I have been to NI too.
The GFA only worked because it respected the views of Unionists and Nationalists, not just Nationalists
No shit Sherlock! Fuck me, the ignorance of the two of you, and your inability to STFU on subjects you clearly have no real life perspective when others on here have on is staggering. We are talking about a place that not long ago (when you were both still in nappies) was a war zone. I am leaving before I say something I regret.
What part of me saying we should compromise instead of putting a hard border down anywhere do you object to?
We had the perfect compromise with Theresa's Deal. Your man Boris destroyed it.
That wasn't the perfect compromise.
That was saying the UK was subject to EU laws without a say in writing or changing them. That's an end to democracy.
A perfect compromise is the UK controls UK laws democratically, the EU controls EU laws democratically, and there's no border between NI and either the EU or the UK.
Parliament was hung. Labour opposed May's deal thrice. I believe most Conservative MPs backed it.
Not for the only time, pro-EU MPs pushed us into a more sceptical/hardline position. I'd call it a Pyrrhic victory, but that's rather unfair on Pyrrhus.
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Good try mate. Your prejudice stinks like a nest of dead rats.
What prejudice?
We must have a way to elect governments that can change our laws. If we don't, we're no longer a liberal democracy.
Being in the EU is entirely reasonable, as we have a say in those laws. Being subject to their laws, without a say in them - how is that democratic?
I should be laughing really at the ignorance and arrogance of your simplistic statements, but we are talking about Northern Ireland, so I am not laughing at all. I suggest you and HYUFD take a visit to Belfast, maybe a tourist trip down the Falls Road (you can do those now). Try telling a few people in a pub there your views. If you come out of that alive, or not in need of a trip to the nearby Royal Victoria, maybe repeat the views on the Shankhill and see what happens there
Perhaps also try telling the residents of Antrim, East Belfast or East Londonderry the border in the Irish Sea should stay too and trying to come out alive. Yes I have been to NI too.
The GFA only worked because it respected the views of Unionists and Nationalists, not just Nationalists
Nope the GFA worked because with both the UK and Ireland in the EU it didn't really matter which country nominally controlled Northern Ireland because the ultimate legal authority was identical.
That is no longer the case...
So now we need a new arrangement that continues to recognise and respect NI's special case nature. That neither puts a border between NI and Eire, nor NI and the UK, nor demands the UK be in the EU.
The only way to do that is to compromise and realise that both the sanctity or purity of the EU's Single Market, and the sanctity or purity of the UK's, may be compromised by NI but that's the price we're willing to pay for peace.
I'm willing to pay that price. If Brussels isn't, that's on them and let them impose a hard border between themselves and NI and let them deal with the consequences - we should play no part in imposing a border anywhere.
On what foundations do you build that agreement - given that the former foundations no longer exist...
Slim-looking Kim Jong Un looks on as hazmat-wearing 'special force' of Covid-tackling troops take part in parade... watched by huge crowd of maskless and non-vaccinated civilians
The Prole FPT 'At which point, they might suddenly discover that the problem is the planning system / greenbelt, and vote to abolish it.
If the South ever gets below 50% home ownership, it becomes in most voters interest to demolish the planning system, build like crazy and crash the price of housing.
One of the interesting things about the economics of housing is that being so essential, it's very price sensitive to supply and demand. Ten people fighting over nine houses will result in the richest nine all putting at least more the maximum amount that the tenth man can afford. Ten people fighting over ten houses - whoever is willing to take the crummiest one pays nearly nothing, then it just comes down to the margin people will pay for the nicer ones. You only have to build one extra house to get from one of these scenarios to the other. I wonder how many extra houses it would take to collapse house prices in the SE back to the value of the agricultural land plus the building costs. Maybe a million - possibly half that, especially if it was obvious that anyone who wanted to pay the minimum could just buy a lump of farmland and build on it.'
No, they do not want the entirety of the South East turned into a concrete jungle and urban sprawl either.
Plus unless you end all foreign investment in London property, severely restrict immigration and ensure new affordable homes are restricted to local first time buyers who have lived there for 7 years or more only new housing alone would not solve the problem
Who is "they" in this instance? Existing homeowners obviously don't want to concrete over the SE for any number of reasons. I think if you offered those who are paying £1k a month to rent a small flat the opportunity to pay ~£150k for a 3 bed semi, providing they don't mind concreting over some of the greenbelt, they will mostly bite your hands off. As I said in my original post, the magic tipping point where this leads to a change of policy will arrive when a little more than half of residents are renting.
And yes, enough new housing would solve the problem of it being too expensive. Imagine I could snap my fingers and create 10 million houses in the SE, then auction them off at the rate of 100,000 a day, no reserve. By the end of week two, I suspect they would be fetching less than the building cost. Especially if it was known that I could snap my fingers and do it again once I'd sold them all, so there was no incentive to buy them as rental investments.
Don't get me wrong, there might be practical issues with my just plonking millions more houses down overnight, and it would create a whole raft of other issues, but it would indisputably reduce house prices to a fraction of what they are today.
The existing residents of the SE, see the LD win in Chesham and Amersham for instance over too much building on the greenbelt. Nor do those moving there from London to buy, they don't want to live in a concrete jungle.
Oh, I don't doubt that existing/new homeowners won't want more houses built. My point is that as prices spiral further and further out of reach, the proportion of homeowners will drop, and as BTL landlords only get one vote each, regardless of how many houses they own (and foreign investors get no votes) at some point there is likely to be a majority of voters renting. They won't care about trashing house prices, and will only care a little bit about concreting over everything. They only need to have the upper hand in a 52:48 sort of way, and there could be massive changes to planning rules.
Unless every new home is limited to locals who are first time buyers who have lived in the area for 7 years or more, foreign property investment in London is banned reducing the numbers of Londoners forced into the Home Counties to buy and immigration is severely restricted reducing demand, new homes alone will not make much difference to affordability in the SE
You just don't get it do you. If you make the supply of houses infinite, they will cease to have much value. For all that there is a massive housing shortage in the SE, it isn't say 50% short of houses (maybe 10% short), but only about half of land is built on, so there is physically enough room to build enough housing to collapse prices. If you abolished planning permission, and could find enough builders, it wouldn't take very long for prices to revert to agricultural land value + building costs.
Anyway, time for my fun proposal of the day, which would annoy all the right people... Change the classification of land used as golf courses from agricultural to development land. All existing land used as golf courses gets automatic reclassification. To create a new course on a greenfield requires change of use from agricultural.
Potentially room for quite a lot of building made available at the stroke of a pen, without losing a single bit of actual farmland... What's not to like!
Just catching up in speed mode. Seems to be a general consensus that Gavin Williamson should be sent to Rwanda. Have I got that right?
Isn't that near Dover? Oh no, I think I have mixed Williamson up with Raab. Easily done, mixing one Cabinet halfwit up with another. Anyway, they all look the same!
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Good try mate. Your prejudice stinks like a nest of dead rats.
What prejudice?
We must have a way to elect governments that can change our laws. If we don't, we're no longer a liberal democracy.
Being in the EU is entirely reasonable, as we have a say in those laws. Being subject to their laws, without a say in them - how is that democratic?
I should be laughing really at the ignorance and arrogance of your simplistic statements, but we are talking about Northern Ireland, so I am not laughing at all. I suggest you and HYUFD take a visit to Belfast, maybe a tourist trip down the Falls Road (you can do those now). Try telling a few people in a pub there your views. If you come out of that alive, or not in need of a trip to the nearby Royal Victoria, maybe repeat the views on the Shankhill and see what happens there
Perhaps also try telling the residents of Antrim, East Belfast or East Londonderry the border in the Irish Sea should stay too and trying to come out alive. Yes I have been to NI too.
The GFA only worked because it respected the views of Unionists and Nationalists, not just Nationalists
Nope the GFA worked because with both the UK and Ireland in the EU it didn't really matter which country nominally controlled Northern Ireland because the ultimate legal authority was identical.
That is no longer the case...
So now we need a new arrangement that continues to recognise and respect NI's special case nature. That neither puts a border between NI and Eire, nor NI and the UK, nor demands the UK be in the EU.
The only way to do that is to compromise and realise that both the sanctity or purity of the EU's Single Market, and the sanctity or purity of the UK's, may be compromised by NI but that's the price we're willing to pay for peace.
I'm willing to pay that price. If Brussels isn't, that's on them and let them impose a hard border between themselves and NI and let them deal with the consequences - we should play no part in imposing a border anywhere.
On what foundations do you build that agreement - given that the former foundations no longer exist...
A foundation of compromise.
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
If we eliminate a border between NI and Eire as impossible And eliminate a border between NI and the UK as impossible And eliminate the UK being subject to EU laws as impossible
Then from there we do as much as we can to ensure "the integrity of our markets" is respected without compromising that foundation. Anything that can be done without compromising those positions becomes the solution - and any problems that can't be fixed, aren't fixed and are accepted as a compromise because we're putting peace first.
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Good try mate. Your prejudice stinks like a nest of dead rats.
What prejudice?
We must have a way to elect governments that can change our laws. If we don't, we're no longer a liberal democracy.
Being in the EU is entirely reasonable, as we have a say in those laws. Being subject to their laws, without a say in them - how is that democratic?
I should be laughing really at the ignorance and arrogance of your simplistic statements, but we are talking about Northern Ireland, so I am not laughing at all. I suggest you and HYUFD take a visit to Belfast, maybe a tourist trip down the Falls Road (you can do those now). Try telling a few people in a pub there your views. If you come out of that alive, or not in need of a trip to the nearby Royal Victoria, maybe repeat the views on the Shankhill and see what happens there
Perhaps also try telling the residents of Antrim, East Belfast or East Londonderry the border in the Irish Sea should stay too and trying to come out alive. Yes I have been to NI too.
The GFA only worked because it respected the views of Unionists and Nationalists, not just Nationalists
No shit Sherlock! Fuck me, the ignorance of the two of you, and your inability to STFU on subjects you clearly have no real life perspective when others on here have on is staggering. We are talking about a place that not long ago (when you were both still in nappies) was a war zone. I am leaving before I say something I regret.
What part of me saying we should compromise instead of putting a hard border down anywhere do you object to?
We had the perfect compromise with Theresa's Deal. Your man Boris destroyed it.
That wasn't the perfect compromise.
That was saying the UK was subject to EU laws without a say in writing or changing them. That's an end to democracy.
A perfect compromise is the UK controls UK laws democratically, the EU controls EU laws democratically, and there's no border between NI and either the EU or the UK.
You're always saying that breaking international agreements is a sign of robust statesmanship. If we eventually decided that we didn't like Theresa's arrangement then address it then. What's the big deal?
If the DUP walk out of the power-sharing exec., and there are new elections, what are the chances, given the divisions in Unionism, that SF will end up with the most seats and therefore provide the First Minister? With, possibly Alliance coming second and therefore providing the Deputy?
If the DUP walk out there might be new elections but even if SF win most seats it will make little difference, if the Unionist parties refuse to cooperate there would be no working FM or Deputy FM and no NI executive.
The combined Unionist Parties ie DUP, TUV and UUP will still win more seats combined than SF and the SDLP.
On the latest poll both the UUP on 16% and TUV on 14% were ahead of the Alliance on 13% so highly unlikely now the Alliance would come second. Indeed on the last poll the Alliance, DUP and SDLP were all tied on 4th on 13%.
Then if the Unionist parties refuse to join the NI executive until the Irish Sea Border is removed then effectively the NI executive will be over and London and Dublin will have to agree to reimpose direct rule for the foreseeable future
Simples!
P.S. If only life were as carefree as your political commentary.
Other than SF and smaller groups like the Greens and People Before Profit the percentages are all within easy touching distance and a nasty storm (of some sort) on, or just before, polling day could easily move things a point or two in several directions.
If the Unionist parties pull out of the NI executive until the Irish Sea border is removed then that is it, Stormont is over and direct rule will be reimposed on NI from Westminster.
The election result would then be for a redundant parliament
...and all ******* hell breaks loose.
Time crafting the GFA was not just expended for frivolity. It may be flawed but it had a purpose, namely to keep a fragile peace.
Absolutely 100% agreed.
And that fragile peace should be upheld by keeping the spirit of compromise, blind eyes and fudge that underpinned the GFA as opposed to the dogmatic binary "rule following" that the EU have demanded until now.
The GFA achieved peace by allowing the people of NI to consider themselves Irish if they wanted to, and British if they wanted to. That needs to be achieved again with compromise, so that there is neither a border in Ireland, nor in the Irish Sea, nor is Britain in the EU.
There's only one way to achieve that and that is for all parties to compromise, just as the GFA originally required. The GFA didn't achieve the fragile peace by telling one community they were getting all they wanted and the other one they could suck an egg.
There was a way to Brexit and have borderless, friction- free trade. Johnson opted against that with no forethought for Northern Ireland.
If we are allowed to defend our turf, why are the EU not supposed to?
Philip's tribal prejudice and hatred of the EU is of a similar order of magnitude to that is regrettably still on display in Northern Ireland. Thankfully the folk of NI on all sides understand that some issues are a little more complicated than shouting yah boo sucks at the people in the other camp.
I don't hate the EU, I just believe in liberal democracy.
If we're in and have European Commissioners, votes in the European Council etc then that is entirely fair enough and I used to support that.
If we're out and have no say in European laws, then European laws should not apply in this country.
That's liberal democracy, not hatred.
Good try mate. Your prejudice stinks like a nest of dead rats.
What prejudice?
We must have a way to elect governments that can change our laws. If we don't, we're no longer a liberal democracy.
Being in the EU is entirely reasonable, as we have a say in those laws. Being subject to their laws, without a say in them - how is that democratic?
I should be laughing really at the ignorance and arrogance of your simplistic statements, but we are talking about Northern Ireland, so I am not laughing at all. I suggest you and HYUFD take a visit to Belfast, maybe a tourist trip down the Falls Road (you can do those now). Try telling a few people in a pub there your views. If you come out of that alive, or not in need of a trip to the nearby Royal Victoria, maybe repeat the views on the Shankhill and see what happens there
Perhaps also try telling the residents of Antrim, East Belfast or East Londonderry the border in the Irish Sea should stay too and trying to come out alive. Yes I have been to NI too.
The GFA only worked because it respected the views of Unionists and Nationalists, not just Nationalists
No shit Sherlock! Fuck me, the ignorance of the two of you, and your inability to STFU on subjects you clearly have no real life perspective when others on here have on is staggering. We are talking about a place that not long ago (when you were both still in nappies) was a war zone. I am leaving before I say something I regret.
What part of me saying we should compromise instead of putting a hard border down anywhere do you object to?
We had the perfect compromise with Theresa's Deal. Your man Boris destroyed it.
That wasn't the perfect compromise.
That was saying the UK was subject to EU laws without a say in writing or changing them. That's an end to democracy.
A perfect compromise is the UK controls UK laws democratically, the EU controls EU laws democratically, and there's no border between NI and either the EU or the UK.
You're always saying that breaking international agreements is a sign of robust statesmanship. If we eventually decided that we didn't like Theresa's arrangement then deal with it then. What's the big deal?
We would have been legally and internationally subject to their laws and without our own independence for things like the WTO etc unless the EU agreed to release us. They would also have the jurisdiction to enforce those laws.
Instead with the revised deal we were legally and internationally independent and any obligations we made were for us to enforce.
Not to rule things out without due consideration but this has an air of taking the piss.
If they’re escaping persecution, they will be happy to be given an opportunity of a new life in a safe country.
If they’re primarily economic migrants, desparate specifically to get to the UK, on the other hand…
Yes. This proposal is imo mainly about expressing the following 2 sentiments: Most asylum seekers are on the make rather than fleeing persecution. They should be grateful for anything they get, aka 'beggars can't be choosers'.
Being an economic migrant doesn't mean "on the make" though does it. It just means that you want to live where you choose without regard for the entry laws of the country that you want to move to.
If you are happy to accept, say, 1000 migrants now (I assume you are) then what about the next 1000 and what about the 1000 after that. Logically, there must be a limit to your position surely (small island and all that). And if logically you do have a limit then at that point you must be in favour of applying the laws and our boundary defences to ensure that "your" limit is not breached?
And if that is the case why not do that now?
It means seeking a better life and most come legally under our Immigration system (which we have to have since the nirvana of global open borders is a long way off). Then you have the people - also seeking a better life - who are in addition fleeing something, ie the push factor is bigger than the pull. Asylum seekers, refugees, ad hoc (rather than formalized) economic migrants, with these categories overlapping and muddy in reality as opposed to what the boxes on forms say. I think we should take more of these people than we do, and so should other rich countries, which needs a degree of co-operation that seems lacking for one reason or another.
When we can ask the following and get sensible answers, then we can have a proper national conversation on immigration...
- What is the intended population of the county 10, 20, 30, 50 years into the future? - What is the plan for matching the housing and other infrastructure to that population? - What is the difference between the intended population (and in what demographics/skills) and the population that will be present in the country already.
This makes sense but it's a Not Happening Event in a country like ours. We don't do plans beyond electoral timeframes. TBF, it's probably a necessary price of democracy.
As a general point I'm never quite sure what a "proper national conversation" looks and feels like, outside of elections and referendums.
The standard answer is we can't plan that. But apparently we have plans for the NHS for 20 years. Plans for house building. Plans for road building.....
As to "proper national conversation".... Something beyond -
"You smell!!" "You smell worse!"
etc etc...
DO we have serious robust plans like that going out 20 years? That's a revelation to me.
Border Force authorised to turn back migrants, 50 years of Genesis and Radacando! Another day in Normalania.
Will there now be a race between BF vessels and the RNLI to reach the boat people?
I should imagine that the Border Force boats will patrol the maritime boundary to try to catch the dinghies, the occupants of the dinghies will throw themselves into the water (or just fall in when the authorities try to shunt or tow their pathetic, flimsy vessels back towards France,) and the Border Force officers will then be obliged to fish them out.
Any that get through the screen will then be met by RNLI welcome committees instead. So, it'll make no difference to anything. Just one more example of something-must-be-done-ism.
Its stupid and dangerous to be messing around with people in the water. Anyone in the water should be removed from the water.
The only sustainable way to deal with it is to determine what happens next once they're out of the water. If they know they'll end up in the UK, people will continue doing it, risking more lives on a very dangerous and deadly crossing.
If they know that they'll end up in somewhere like Nauru or Papua New Guinea as has been done by the Australian Labor and Liberal governments, or Rwanda as has been proposed by Denmark's Social Democrat government, then that would actually stop the dinghies getting in the water in the first place.
Yes, but as I understand it neither PNG nor Rwanda are willing.
If Rwanda are willing would you be happy for the UK to follow Denmark's Social Democrat government in doing that?
Yes, I have long advocated refugees being put into internment camps to be rapidly assessed, evidence collated, medically treated, and either approved or deported. I think this probably should be in the UK, as I don't think any country elsewhere is willing.
Not to rule things out without due consideration but this has an air of taking the piss.
If they’re escaping persecution, they will be happy to be given an opportunity of a new life in a safe country.
If they’re primarily economic migrants, desparate specifically to get to the UK, on the other hand…
Yes. This proposal is imo mainly about expressing the following 2 sentiments: Most asylum seekers are on the make rather than fleeing persecution. They should be grateful for anything they get, aka 'beggars can't be choosers'.
Being an economic migrant doesn't mean "on the make" though does it. It just means that you want to live where you choose without regard for the entry laws of the country that you want to move to.
If you are happy to accept, say, 1000 migrants now (I assume you are) then what about the next 1000 and what about the 1000 after that. Logically, there must be a limit to your position surely (small island and all that). And if logically you do have a limit then at that point you must be in favour of applying the laws and our boundary defences to ensure that "your" limit is not breached?
And if that is the case why not do that now?
It means seeking a better life and most come legally under our Immigration system (which we have to have since the nirvana of global open borders is a long way off). Then you have the people - also seeking a better life - who are in addition fleeing something, ie the push factor is bigger than the pull. Asylum seekers, refugees, ad hoc (rather than formalized) economic migrants, with these categories overlapping and muddy in reality as opposed to what the boxes on forms say. I think we should take more of these people than we do, and so should other rich countries, which needs a degree of co-operation that seems lacking for one reason or another.
When we can ask the following and get sensible answers, then we can have a proper national conversation on immigration...
- What is the intended population of the county 10, 20, 30, 50 years into the future? - What is the plan for matching the housing and other infrastructure to that population? - What is the difference between the intended population (and in what demographics/skills) and the population that will be present in the country already.
This makes sense but it's a Not Happening Event in a country like ours. We don't do plans beyond electoral timeframes. TBF, it's probably a necessary price of democracy.
As a general point I'm never quite sure what a "proper national conversation" looks and feels like, outside of elections and referendums.
The standard answer is we can't plan that. But apparently we have plans for the NHS for 20 years. Plans for house building. Plans for road building.....
As to "proper national conversation".... Something beyond -
"You smell!!" "You smell worse!"
etc etc...
DO we have serious robust plans like that going out 20 years? That's a revelation to me.
Politics in the UK is never planned further forward than six months out from the next General Election.
Not to rule things out without due consideration but this has an air of taking the piss.
If they’re escaping persecution, they will be happy to be given an opportunity of a new life in a safe country.
If they’re primarily economic migrants, desparate specifically to get to the UK, on the other hand…
Yes. This proposal is imo mainly about expressing the following 2 sentiments: Most asylum seekers are on the make rather than fleeing persecution. They should be grateful for anything they get, aka 'beggars can't be choosers'.
Being an economic migrant doesn't mean "on the make" though does it. It just means that you want to live where you choose without regard for the entry laws of the country that you want to move to.
If you are happy to accept, say, 1000 migrants now (I assume you are) then what about the next 1000 and what about the 1000 after that. Logically, there must be a limit to your position surely (small island and all that). And if logically you do have a limit then at that point you must be in favour of applying the laws and our boundary defences to ensure that "your" limit is not breached?
And if that is the case why not do that now?
It means seeking a better life and most come legally under our Immigration system (which we have to have since the nirvana of global open borders is a long way off). Then you have the people - also seeking a better life - who are in addition fleeing something, ie the push factor is bigger than the pull. Asylum seekers, refugees, ad hoc (rather than formalized) economic migrants, with these categories overlapping and muddy in reality as opposed to what the boxes on forms say. I think we should take more of these people than we do, and so should other rich countries, which needs a degree of co-operation that seems lacking for one reason or another.
When we can ask the following and get sensible answers, then we can have a proper national conversation on immigration...
- What is the intended population of the county 10, 20, 30, 50 years into the future? - What is the plan for matching the housing and other infrastructure to that population? - What is the difference between the intended population (and in what demographics/skills) and the population that will be present in the country already.
This makes sense but it's a Not Happening Event in a country like ours. We don't do plans beyond electoral timeframes. TBF, it's probably a necessary price of democracy.
As a general point I'm never quite sure what a "proper national conversation" looks and feels like, outside of elections and referendums.
The standard answer is we can't plan that. But apparently we have plans for the NHS for 20 years. Plans for house building. Plans for road building.....
As to "proper national conversation".... Something beyond -
"You smell!!" "You smell worse!"
etc etc...
DO we have serious robust plans like that going out 20 years? That's a revelation to me.
Concrete plans - no. Projections and plans, yes.
TfL, for example, has robust plans for the next few years and a series of plans, based on various projections of usage, going out to 20 years.
The NHS has plans for various bits of itself that look a decade ahead, similarly.
It's not all made up on the day.
This is the reason that the permanent portion of government (civil servants etc) has its own views and policies. Because this is a chunk of what they are doing.
Thanks all. Excited (and slightly apprehensive since I'm going to be a Director with a multi-million revenue target) but everyone is very confident in me and I feel the time is ripe!
Good luck ! Will this mean no time to post for a bit ?
Very funny phishing email received just now purporting to be from the NHS Covid Pass dept. Apart from the somewhat giveaway hotmail address it has this elegant phrasing:
"The COVID-19 travel certificate has been created in a bid to restore the freedom of travel, which has been put at a halt for over a year now, since the pandemic erupted all over the block."
"Since the pandemic erupted all over the block." Indeed.
Gavin Williamson doesn't turn up in person to Universities UK conference in Newcastle - but uses his videolink speech to warn universities to get back to in person teaching....
Excellent... doing his bit for the environment....
I’m amazed that many more people are not making that point. Getting everyone back in offices and commuting full time, will be a serious negative to the COP26 pledges.
If we can all WFH most of the week, it’s environmentally-friendly as well as better for mental health, work-life balance and in many cases productivity.
In addition, it opens up new options for commuting and changes the value proposition of owning a car. My work practices haven't actually changed that much: 2-3 days in office pre-pandemic, looks like 2 post-pandemic, but we've sold my car and I'm now cycling. I can do that twice a week (4 hours total commute versus probably 3 hours by car, but I gain 4 hours of good exercise - have cut down on running a bit, probably net time neutral or better). Plus cost savings in only having one car. Other people might make similar assessments on public transport...
But I don't think I'd be up for 10 hours per week (full time in office) cycle commuting, versus 7.5 by car (and 150 miles of cycling)
Good point.
I should agree, but I’d be a hypocrite. Wife and I used to commute together, but my new job is in the other direction so I’m getting a new car today. Well, a new old car, which is better environmentally than a new new car - even if it is a V8!
There's also the risk that people take all their commuting savings and use it to buy a big car/brand new car, or jet off on an extra foreign holiday....
We need a proper analysis to work out whether the extra money will be used for good or ill... If ill, one solution might be to encourage home working but double/triple fuel prices, aviation tax etc
(obviously horrendously regressive, hits on-site often lower paid jobs most etc etc - I'm not serious)
Not to rule things out without due consideration but this has an air of taking the piss.
If they’re escaping persecution, they will be happy to be given an opportunity of a new life in a safe country.
If they’re primarily economic migrants, desparate specifically to get to the UK, on the other hand…
Yes. This proposal is imo mainly about expressing the following 2 sentiments: Most asylum seekers are on the make rather than fleeing persecution. They should be grateful for anything they get, aka 'beggars can't be choosers'.
One issue that never seems to get discussed is that it is not a case of "pure" asylum vs "pure" economic migration.
For example, my wife left her country to emigrate here, partly for economic opportunity, and partly because the process of killing the Moaists who were trying to blow up everything was running into the usual issues with government projects.
Yes, the grey area must be huge. All you can say with confidence about every person who makes a long and arduous (often perilous) journey seeking to resettle in a country far from their own is that they'll have a good reason for it.
I completely agree with that.
Are those who make the arduous and perilous journey and are willing and able to pay thousands to criminal people smuggling gangs more worthy than those who make arduous and perilous journeys but are neither willing nor able to pay smugglers?
No. I await the killer follow-up with great interest and not a little trepidation.
If we facilitate easy migration for those paying thousands to criminal gangs, how do you facilitate migration for those that don't? Or are we delegating our responsibilities to the gangs?
Not an easy question. People smuggling is a crime that should be prosecuted. But is it right to count it a black mark against their victims by discriminating against them? No, not for me.
But if you allow them in, but not others, then you're counting not paying people smuggler's as a black mark.
Unfair spin. As I assess each application, I tick no box for whether or not they were a victim of people smugglers.
If you're only assessing those applications where people have paid people smugglers, but not those who haven't, then yes you are whether you realised it or not.
Think of people smugglers as the private schools of asylum but on steroids.
Very funny phishing email received just now purporting to be from the NHS Covid Pass dept. Apart from the somewhat giveaway hotmail address it has this elegant phrasing:
"The COVID-19 travel certificate has been created in a bid to restore the freedom of travel, which has been put at a halt for over a year now, since the pandemic erupted all over the block."
"Since the pandemic erupted all over the block." Indeed.
Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got I'm still, I'm still TOPPING from the block
Westminster voting intention (changes on 3rd May):
SNP 51% (+4) Conservative 21% (-4) Labour 17% (-3) Lib Dems 5% (+1) Other 6% (+4)
51/49 pro independence
It is perfectly rational from a self interested view to vote SNP while not supporting independence. Such a vote can be seen as vote for the status quo: your own Scottish megaphone voice even though your population is the same as Yorkshire, lots of English money, lots of free stuff that England doesn't have, your own parliament + one in Westminster, someone else to blame for everything you don't like, and the promise of Ref2 in a future everyone knows either won't come or won't succeed.
Yes I think that's right and I would say Sturgeon derives most of her electoral popularity from socially liberal soft yes and soft no voters so I can't really see any threat to the SNP even if a 2nd referendum doesn't happen any time soon. I'm not a fan of Sturgeon personally and I think she doesn't deserve any particular credit for Scotland's pandemic response but it would be silly to say that she is not still relatively popular in the real world at least among a lot of younger voters.
Strangely I think the media is continually significantly overestimating the chances of a 2nd referendum occurring in the medium term and underestimating the SNP at the same time.
A very astute observation
Agree. The two polls which have come out today one showing a No lead of 14% and the other a Yes lead of 2% give encouragement to both sides, and keep the whole thing bubbling away, but the reality is that we are looking at stasis. SNP remaining dominant but no progress at all with IndyRef.
Gavin Williamson doesn't turn up in person to Universities UK conference in Newcastle - but uses his videolink speech to warn universities to get back to in person teaching....
Excellent... doing his bit for the environment....
I’m amazed that many more people are not making that point. Getting everyone back in offices and commuting full time, will be a serious negative to the COP26 pledges.
If we can all WFH most of the week, it’s environmentally-friendly as well as better for mental health, work-life balance and in many cases productivity.
In addition, it opens up new options for commuting and changes the value proposition of owning a car. My work practices haven't actually changed that much: 2-3 days in office pre-pandemic, looks like 2 post-pandemic, but we've sold my car and I'm now cycling. I can do that twice a week (4 hours total commute versus probably 3 hours by car, but I gain 4 hours of good exercise - have cut down on running a bit, probably net time neutral or better). Plus cost savings in only having one car. Other people might make similar assessments on public transport...
But I don't think I'd be up for 10 hours per week (full time in office) cycle commuting, versus 7.5 by car (and 150 miles of cycling)
Good point.
I should agree, but I’d be a hypocrite. Wife and I used to commute together, but my new job is in the other direction so I’m getting a new car today. Well, a new old car, which is better environmentally than a new new car - even if it is a V8!
There's also the risk that people take all their commuting savings and use it to buy a big car/brand new car, or jet off on an extra foreign holiday....
We need a proper analysis to work out whether the extra money will be used for good or ill... If ill, one solution might be to encourage home working but double/triple fuel prices, aviation tax etc
(obviously horrendously regressive, hits on-site often lower paid jobs most etc etc - I'm not serious)
Look out for employers expecting all kinds of space and equipment to be provided by the employee.
"WFH resource poverty" - a meme coming to this space. Real soon.
Slim-looking Kim Jong Un looks on as hazmat-wearing 'special force' of Covid-tackling troops take part in parade... watched by huge crowd of maskless and non-vaccinated civilians
Very funny phishing email received just now purporting to be from the NHS Covid Pass dept. Apart from the somewhat giveaway hotmail address it has this elegant phrasing:
"The COVID-19 travel certificate has been created in a bid to restore the freedom of travel, which has been put at a halt for over a year now, since the pandemic erupted all over the block."
"Since the pandemic erupted all over the block." Indeed.
Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got I'm still, I'm still TOPPING from the block
Mr. Malmesbury, an advantage of the traditional office is a hub of hardware. Most people have a printer and many have scanners, but stumping up for ink then becomes a shifting cost from business to employee.
Mr. Malmesbury, an advantage of the traditional office is a hub of hardware. Most people have a printer and many have scanners, but stumping up for ink then becomes a shifting cost from business to employee.
Don't forget socialisation as well. Home offices can feel very cold, remote places, even when they're in the heart of the home.
Mr. Malmesbury, an advantage of the traditional office is a hub of hardware. Most people have a printer and many have scanners, but stumping up for ink then becomes a shifting cost from business to employee.
I remember the old days working from home for Nestle. Major global blue chip, and the kit they issued to their field-based teams were purposefully the throw-outs from head office.
Printer not working? Advice from IT was to accidentally knock it onto the floor and swap it for a non-broken one when next in the office (usually monthly). And if printing was needed before that? Simply go to a print shop as payment through the nose for printing was apparently a cheaper option than issuing the replacement printer.
Procurement was always a fun field. Kit had to be ordered through the approved supplier, travel booked through the approved agency despite their costs being in some cases multiples of the walk off the street price.
Westminster voting intention (changes on 3rd May):
SNP 51% (+4) Conservative 21% (-4) Labour 17% (-3) Lib Dems 5% (+1) Other 6% (+4)
51/49 pro independence
It is perfectly rational from a self interested view to vote SNP while not supporting independence. Such a vote can be seen as vote for the status quo: your own Scottish megaphone voice even though your population is the same as Yorkshire, lots of English money, lots of free stuff that England doesn't have, your own parliament + one in Westminster, someone else to blame for everything you don't like, and the promise of Ref2 in a future everyone knows either won't come or won't succeed.
Yes I think that's right and I would say Sturgeon derives most of her electoral popularity from socially liberal soft yes and soft no voters so I can't really see any threat to the SNP even if a 2nd referendum doesn't happen any time soon. I'm not a fan of Sturgeon personally and I think she doesn't deserve any particular credit for Scotland's pandemic response but it would be silly to say that she is not still relatively popular in the real world at least among a lot of younger voters.
Strangely I think the media is continually significantly overestimating the chances of a 2nd referendum occurring in the medium term and underestimating the SNP at the same time.
Yes. I don't support Sturgeon but greatly admire her political skills. Responsibility lies with the folly of a Scottish parliament when Scotland has the population of Yorkshire, and half that of London, and should have local government, with county council offices and local government responsibilities.
Out of the Pandora's box a Trojan horse has emerged!
Mr. Malmesbury, an advantage of the traditional office is a hub of hardware. Most people have a printer and many have scanners, but stumping up for ink then becomes a shifting cost from business to employee.
I remember the old days working from home for Nestle. Major global blue chip, and the kit they issued to their field-based teams were purposefully the throw-outs from head office.
Printer not working? Advice from IT was to accidentally knock it onto the floor and swap it for a non-broken one when next in the office (usually monthly). And if printing was needed before that? Simply go to a print shop as payment through the nose for printing was apparently a cheaper option than issuing the replacement printer.
Procurement was always a fun field. Kit had to be ordered through the approved supplier, travel booked through the approved agency despite their costs being in some cases multiples of the walk off the street price.
You always have to wonder with those restrictions who is getting the kickback.
Mr. Malmesbury, an advantage of the traditional office is a hub of hardware. Most people have a printer and many have scanners, but stumping up for ink then becomes a shifting cost from business to employee.
More than that - WFH... ok...
- You need an office space. - A computer - A monitor - laptop screens are awful.... - etc etc
Alot of employers will simply employee people who BYO, and don't make silly request like expecting the employer to provide kit.
Mr. Malmesbury, an advantage of the traditional office is a hub of hardware. Most people have a printer and many have scanners, but stumping up for ink then becomes a shifting cost from business to employee.
I remember the old days working from home for Nestle. Major global blue chip, and the kit they issued to their field-based teams were purposefully the throw-outs from head office.
Printer not working? Advice from IT was to accidentally knock it onto the floor and swap it for a non-broken one when next in the office (usually monthly). And if printing was needed before that? Simply go to a print shop as payment through the nose for printing was apparently a cheaper option than issuing the replacement printer.
Procurement was always a fun field. Kit had to be ordered through the approved supplier, travel booked through the approved agency despite their costs being in some cases multiples of the walk off the street price.
You always have to wonder with those restrictions who is getting the kickback.
It's more about someone thinking that if they negotiate a single source for the entire of MegaCorp Plc, then the cost savings will be awesome.
Move forward x years, and the whole of MegaCorp is locked into a series of agreements to buy obsolete stuff at high prices.....
Gavin Williamson doesn't turn up in person to Universities UK conference in Newcastle - but uses his videolink speech to warn universities to get back to in person teaching....
Excellent... doing his bit for the environment....
I’m amazed that many more people are not making that point. Getting everyone back in offices and commuting full time, will be a serious negative to the COP26 pledges.
If we can all WFH most of the week, it’s environmentally-friendly as well as better for mental health, work-life balance and in many cases productivity.
In addition, it opens up new options for commuting and changes the value proposition of owning a car. My work practices haven't actually changed that much: 2-3 days in office pre-pandemic, looks like 2 post-pandemic, but we've sold my car and I'm now cycling. I can do that twice a week (4 hours total commute versus probably 3 hours by car, but I gain 4 hours of good exercise - have cut down on running a bit, probably net time neutral or better). Plus cost savings in only having one car. Other people might make similar assessments on public transport...
But I don't think I'd be up for 10 hours per week (full time in office) cycle commuting, versus 7.5 by car (and 150 miles of cycling)
Good point.
I should agree, but I’d be a hypocrite. Wife and I used to commute together, but my new job is in the other direction so I’m getting a new car today. Well, a new old car, which is better environmentally than a new new car - even if it is a V8!
There's also the risk that people take all their commuting savings and use it to buy a big car/brand new car, or jet off on an extra foreign holiday....
We need a proper analysis to work out whether the extra money will be used for good or ill... If ill, one solution might be to encourage home working but double/triple fuel prices, aviation tax etc
(obviously horrendously regressive, hits on-site often lower paid jobs most etc etc - I'm not serious)
Look out for employers expecting all kinds of space and equipment to be provided by the employee.
"WFH resource poverty" - a meme coming to this space. Real soon.
Good point. Mine was really good (during the pandemic) as I think they realised (a) it was important; (b) they might be on the hook for any health and safety issues and (c) they could afford to be due to facilities savings. Online order form to tick what you needed - desk, chair, laptop, screen (I was already partly WFH, so didn't actually take anything - I didn't have space for another desk or chair, were worse than I had, already had work laptop, had better screen than was offered). Not sure whether that extends to new starters now though - I'll have to ask some.
Edit: winter heating etc is also going to be a noticeable issue for those whose homes were previously unoccupied in the day.
Mr. Malmesbury, an advantage of the traditional office is a hub of hardware. Most people have a printer and many have scanners, but stumping up for ink then becomes a shifting cost from business to employee.
Don't forget socialisation as well. Home offices can feel very cold, remote places, even when they're in the heart of the home.
Yes. A friend, living on his own in a 1 bed flat, basically went nuts over the period of lock down. Totally stuffed up.
Mr. Malmesbury, an advantage of the traditional office is a hub of hardware. Most people have a printer and many have scanners, but stumping up for ink then becomes a shifting cost from business to employee.
I remember the old days working from home for Nestle. Major global blue chip, and the kit they issued to their field-based teams were purposefully the throw-outs from head office.
Printer not working? Advice from IT was to accidentally knock it onto the floor and swap it for a non-broken one when next in the office (usually monthly). And if printing was needed before that? Simply go to a print shop as payment through the nose for printing was apparently a cheaper option than issuing the replacement printer.
Procurement was always a fun field. Kit had to be ordered through the approved supplier, travel booked through the approved agency despite their costs being in some cases multiples of the walk off the street price.
You always have to wonder with those restrictions who is getting the kickback.
It's more about someone thinking that if they negotiate a single source for the entire of MegaCorp Plc, then the cost savings will be awesome.
Move forward x years, and the whole of MegaCorp is locked into a series of agreements to buy obsolete stuff at high prices.....
Before he went totally tonto, Scott Adams made the point that most businesses would be better off giving their employees a fairly large number of dollars a month for supplies rather than trying to do it all centrally.
Depending on your view they have either stemmed the bleeding on the basis of at least that poll, or on another view we are a week closer to the election and the SPD remain meaningfully ahead
I'm off cycling France for a week this weekend so you will all be pleased to know I (probably) won't be challenging HYUFD's unique application of the use of statistics, numbers and logic for a bit.
Stop cheering at the back.
Cycling for Softies? I did one of those in the Loire - absolutely fantastic although I do remember at one stage tearing* along what must be the equivalent of their A1(M) in torrential rain to get to my next stop.
Gavin Williamson doesn't turn up in person to Universities UK conference in Newcastle - but uses his videolink speech to warn universities to get back to in person teaching....
Excellent... doing his bit for the environment....
I’m amazed that many more people are not making that point. Getting everyone back in offices and commuting full time, will be a serious negative to the COP26 pledges.
If we can all WFH most of the week, it’s environmentally-friendly as well as better for mental health, work-life balance and in many cases productivity.
In addition, it opens up new options for commuting and changes the value proposition of owning a car. My work practices haven't actually changed that much: 2-3 days in office pre-pandemic, looks like 2 post-pandemic, but we've sold my car and I'm now cycling. I can do that twice a week (4 hours total commute versus probably 3 hours by car, but I gain 4 hours of good exercise - have cut down on running a bit, probably net time neutral or better). Plus cost savings in only having one car. Other people might make similar assessments on public transport...
But I don't think I'd be up for 10 hours per week (full time in office) cycle commuting, versus 7.5 by car (and 150 miles of cycling)
Good point.
I should agree, but I’d be a hypocrite. Wife and I used to commute together, but my new job is in the other direction so I’m getting a new car today. Well, a new old car, which is better environmentally than a new new car - even if it is a V8!
There's also the risk that people take all their commuting savings and use it to buy a big car/brand new car, or jet off on an extra foreign holiday....
We need a proper analysis to work out whether the extra money will be used for good or ill... If ill, one solution might be to encourage home working but double/triple fuel prices, aviation tax etc
(obviously horrendously regressive, hits on-site often lower paid jobs most etc etc - I'm not serious)
Look out for employers expecting all kinds of space and equipment to be provided by the employee.
"WFH resource poverty" - a meme coming to this space. Real soon.
Good point. Mine was really good (during the pandemic) as I think they realised (a) it was important; (b) they might be on the hook for any health and safety issues and (c) they could afford to be due to facilities savings. Online order form to tick what you needed - desk, chair, laptop, screen (I was already partly WFH, so didn't actually take anything - I didn't have space for another desk or chair, were worse than I had, already had work laptop, had better screen than was offered). Not sure whether that extends to new starters now though - I'll have to ask some.
Edit: winter heating etc is also going to be a noticeable issue for those whose homes were previously unoccupied in the day.
Mine was very good - sent via courier, free, whatever of your desk at work you wanted. Desk, chair, computer, phone, etc as requested.
Mr. Malmesbury, an advantage of the traditional office is a hub of hardware. Most people have a printer and many have scanners, but stumping up for ink then becomes a shifting cost from business to employee.
I remember the old days working from home for Nestle. Major global blue chip, and the kit they issued to their field-based teams were purposefully the throw-outs from head office.
Printer not working? Advice from IT was to accidentally knock it onto the floor and swap it for a non-broken one when next in the office (usually monthly). And if printing was needed before that? Simply go to a print shop as payment through the nose for printing was apparently a cheaper option than issuing the replacement printer.
Procurement was always a fun field. Kit had to be ordered through the approved supplier, travel booked through the approved agency despite their costs being in some cases multiples of the walk off the street price.
You always have to wonder with those restrictions who is getting the kickback.
It's more about someone thinking that if they negotiate a single source for the entire of MegaCorp Plc, then the cost savings will be awesome.
Move forward x years, and the whole of MegaCorp is locked into a series of agreements to buy obsolete stuff at high prices.....
I used to work for one that used to make us buy "direct" from a certain supplier through their "great deal" even though it would be literally cheaper to go to Costco than it was to buy direct. Getting it from any other source was grounds for termination.
Came out that the supplier was giving a kickback to head office's marketing budget, which of course didn't go towards our budget at all.
Eventually, covid-19 will become endemic everywhere in the world. There can be benefits in locally delaying, and carefully controlling the transition to endemicity, but claims about indefinite elimination are just empty slogans.
I'm off cycling France for a week this weekend so you will all be pleased to know I (probably) won't be challenging HYUFD's unique application of the use of statistics, numbers and logic for a bit.
Stop cheering at the back.
Cycling for Softies? I did one of those in the Loire - absolutely fantastic although I do remember at one stage tearing* along what must be the equivalent of their A1(M) in torrential rain to get to my next stop.
Gavin Williamson doesn't turn up in person to Universities UK conference in Newcastle - but uses his videolink speech to warn universities to get back to in person teaching....
Excellent... doing his bit for the environment....
I’m amazed that many more people are not making that point. Getting everyone back in offices and commuting full time, will be a serious negative to the COP26 pledges.
If we can all WFH most of the week, it’s environmentally-friendly as well as better for mental health, work-life balance and in many cases productivity.
In addition, it opens up new options for commuting and changes the value proposition of owning a car. My work practices haven't actually changed that much: 2-3 days in office pre-pandemic, looks like 2 post-pandemic, but we've sold my car and I'm now cycling. I can do that twice a week (4 hours total commute versus probably 3 hours by car, but I gain 4 hours of good exercise - have cut down on running a bit, probably net time neutral or better). Plus cost savings in only having one car. Other people might make similar assessments on public transport...
But I don't think I'd be up for 10 hours per week (full time in office) cycle commuting, versus 7.5 by car (and 150 miles of cycling)
Good point.
I should agree, but I’d be a hypocrite. Wife and I used to commute together, but my new job is in the other direction so I’m getting a new car today. Well, a new old car, which is better environmentally than a new new car - even if it is a V8!
There's also the risk that people take all their commuting savings and use it to buy a big car/brand new car, or jet off on an extra foreign holiday....
We need a proper analysis to work out whether the extra money will be used for good or ill... If ill, one solution might be to encourage home working but double/triple fuel prices, aviation tax etc
(obviously horrendously regressive, hits on-site often lower paid jobs most etc etc - I'm not serious)
Look out for employers expecting all kinds of space and equipment to be provided by the employee.
"WFH resource poverty" - a meme coming to this space. Real soon.
Good point. Mine was really good (during the pandemic) as I think they realised (a) it was important; (b) they might be on the hook for any health and safety issues and (c) they could afford to be due to facilities savings. Online order form to tick what you needed - desk, chair, laptop, screen (I was already partly WFH, so didn't actually take anything - I didn't have space for another desk or chair, were worse than I had, already had work laptop, had better screen than was offered). Not sure whether that extends to new starters now though - I'll have to ask some.
Edit: winter heating etc is also going to be a noticeable issue for those whose homes were previously unoccupied in the day.
Before I retired I was in a Civil Service job, classified as a home-based worker (with a lot of travel). We were provided with everything we needed - laptop, home landline and mobile, docking station with large monitor, office chair, office desk, printer and so on. All delivered and installed for us. Other perks included a small, but appreciated, heating allowance predicated on the fact that working from home during winter would incur higher heating bills. Also we had annual health and safety checks - physical or online - and regular PAT testing.
It sounds like I was fortunate, but the list I've given seems reasonable as the cost is much less to the employer than providing me (and many others in the same role) with office space.
Mr. Malmesbury, an advantage of the traditional office is a hub of hardware. Most people have a printer and many have scanners, but stumping up for ink then becomes a shifting cost from business to employee.
I remember the old days working from home for Nestle. Major global blue chip, and the kit they issued to their field-based teams were purposefully the throw-outs from head office.
Printer not working? Advice from IT was to accidentally knock it onto the floor and swap it for a non-broken one when next in the office (usually monthly). And if printing was needed before that? Simply go to a print shop as payment through the nose for printing was apparently a cheaper option than issuing the replacement printer.
Procurement was always a fun field. Kit had to be ordered through the approved supplier, travel booked through the approved agency despite their costs being in some cases multiples of the walk off the street price.
You always have to wonder with those restrictions who is getting the kickback.
For us, the dodgy over-priced suppliers are all university-owned, so I assume it's some kind of tax/accounting dodge.
(Example: grant application, you cost it up, you apply, you convince, you get the money. But you have to hand back the money you don't spend at the end. If you buy some things at over the odds prices from a university owned supplier, you give back less of the money/put a larger amount in the grant application and the university gets more of it.)
I'm off cycling France for a week this weekend so you will all be pleased to know I (probably) won't be challenging HYUFD's unique application of the use of statistics, numbers and logic for a bit.
Stop cheering at the back.
Cycling for Softies? I did one of those in the Loire - absolutely fantastic although I do remember at one stage tearing* along what must be the equivalent of their A1(M) in torrential rain to get to my next stop.
Mr. Malmesbury, an advantage of the traditional office is a hub of hardware. Most people have a printer and many have scanners, but stumping up for ink then becomes a shifting cost from business to employee.
More than that - WFH... ok...
- You need an office space. - A computer - A monitor - laptop screens are awful.... - etc etc
Alot of employers will simply employee people who BYO, and don't make silly request like expecting the employer to provide kit.
Back when I was doing it, I discovered a major issue was setting things up so I could sit at my desk for eight or ten hours and code comfortably. At the sort of places I worked, the offices would be checked to see if monitors were at the correct height, did you need a footstool etc, which were then provided. That doesn't happen in the home.
A couple I know have to work at the kitchen table, as they have no spare rooms or place to put a desk. Since they don't work at the same firm, confidentiality was also potentially an issue.
I expect lots of back complaints from people using unsuitable desks and chairs.
I'm also expecting the WfH trend to take a big reversal in the next year or two as health, security and socialisation issues all start to rear their ugly heads.
I'm off cycling France for a week this weekend so you will all be pleased to know I (probably) won't be challenging HYUFD's unique application of the use of statistics, numbers and logic for a bit.
Stop cheering at the back.
Cycling for Softies? I did one of those in the Loire - absolutely fantastic although I do remember at one stage tearing* along what must be the equivalent of their A1(M) in torrential rain to get to my next stop.
In the Loire, it's the number of dégustations per day ?
I was originally thinking of doing a tour by car but thought if I'm going to have a large, liquid lunch followed by driving into a hedge I had better be in something less likely to cause damage.
Then again, as I routinely hit 280-290W ftp it was out of the frying pan into the frying pan.
Depending on your view they have either stemmed the bleeding on the basis of at least that poll, or on another view we are a week closer to the election and the SPD remain meaningfully ahead
It's hard to see how the CDU/CSU wins excluding the possibility of a shy CDU/CSU vote but that is dubious considering the age splits (more undecided voters among the young). The regional voting is even worse for the CDU/CSU with polls out today showing them at at only 23% in Rhineland Palatinate (down 13% in 2017) and a huge swing in Mecklenburg Pomerania from CDU to SPD where Merkel's seat is.
The only crumb of comfort for the CDU/CSU was the GMS poll which had only a 2% lead for the SPD and was firmly in the margin of error.
I don't think the SPD will end up with more than about 26% but we will see what happens.
Of all the items of office equipment regarded as essential the ubiquitous 'printer/scanner' puzzles me. For 99% of my requirements I use the app on my phone to scan and save/send documents needed for tax, etc. I'm currently selling and building new homes - almost everything is being done digitally. I cannot be alone in this. In Spain there is still a lot of paper produced by the banks but I'm now seeing signs of this changing finally. Adiós al papel y impresoras!
Mr. Malmesbury, an advantage of the traditional office is a hub of hardware. Most people have a printer and many have scanners, but stumping up for ink then becomes a shifting cost from business to employee.
I remember the old days working from home for Nestle. Major global blue chip, and the kit they issued to their field-based teams were purposefully the throw-outs from head office.
Printer not working? Advice from IT was to accidentally knock it onto the floor and swap it for a non-broken one when next in the office (usually monthly). And if printing was needed before that? Simply go to a print shop as payment through the nose for printing was apparently a cheaper option than issuing the replacement printer.
Procurement was always a fun field. Kit had to be ordered through the approved supplier, travel booked through the approved agency despite their costs being in some cases multiples of the walk off the street price.
You always have to wonder with those restrictions who is getting the kickback.
It's more about someone thinking that if they negotiate a single source for the entire of MegaCorp Plc, then the cost savings will be awesome.
Move forward x years, and the whole of MegaCorp is locked into a series of agreements to buy obsolete stuff at high prices.....
Before he went totally tonto, Scott Adams made the point that most businesses would be better off giving their employees a fairly large number of dollars a month for supplies rather than trying to do it all centrally.
Many have made the same point, over the years.
What has actually happened is illustrated by the fate of the business mobile phone.
Form employer provided, it is now gone (or a special request). Instead you bring your own. Bought at your own cost, paid for on your contract.
Depending on your view they have either stemmed the bleeding on the basis of at least that poll, or on another view we are a week closer to the election and the SPD remain meaningfully ahead
It's hard to see how the CDU/CSU wins excluding the possibility of a shy CDU/CSU vote but that is dubious considering the age splits (more undecided voters among the young). The regional voting is even worse for the CDU/CSU with polls out today showing them at at only 23% in Rhineland Palatinate (down 13% in 2017) and a huge swing in Mecklenburg Pomerania from CDU to SPD where Merkel's seat is.
The only crumb of comfort for the CDU/CSU was the GMS poll which had only a 2% lead for the SPD and was firmly in the margin of error.
I don't think the SPD will end up with more than about 26% but we will see what happens.
Seems reasonable but I was going to sit down with some of the laender polling at some point. Sadly not yet a full house in terms of coverage
Ministers are having second thoughts on plans to introduce mandatory Covid passports for nightclubs and other “high-risk” venues after Tory MPs tore into the proposals in the Commons.
Serious doubts have emerged over the policy, with officials now looking at whether case rates will require such measures.
A Whitehall source said “no decisions have been made yet” on the proposals, despite the Government insisting that the passes will be mandatory from the end of the month.
I'm off cycling France for a week this weekend so you will all be pleased to know I (probably) won't be challenging HYUFD's unique application of the use of statistics, numbers and logic for a bit.
Stop cheering at the back.
Cycling for Softies? I did one of those in the Loire - absolutely fantastic although I do remember at one stage tearing* along what must be the equivalent of their A1(M) in torrential rain to get to my next stop.
Ministers are having second thoughts on plans to introduce mandatory Covid passports for nightclubs and other “high-risk” venues after Tory MPs tore into the proposals in the Commons.
Serious doubts have emerged over the policy, with officials now looking at whether case rates will require such measures.
A Whitehall source said “no decisions have been made yet” on the proposals, despite the Government insisting that the passes will be mandatory from the end of the month.
Depending on your view they have either stemmed the bleeding on the basis of at least that poll, or on another view we are a week closer to the election and the SPD remain meaningfully ahead
It's hard to see how the CDU/CSU wins excluding the possibility of a shy CDU/CSU vote but that is dubious considering the age splits (more undecided voters among the young). The regional voting is even worse for the CDU/CSU with polls out today showing them at at only 23% in Rhineland Palatinate (down 13% in 2017) and a huge swing in Mecklenburg Pomerania from CDU to SPD where Merkel's seat is.
The only crumb of comfort for the CDU/CSU was the GMS poll which had only a 2% lead for the SPD and was firmly in the margin of error.
I don't think the SPD will end up with more than about 26% but we will see what happens.
Seems reasonable but I was going to sit down with some of the laender polling at some point. Sadly not yet a full house in terms of coverage
There has been a reasonable amount of Länder polling for the some states and we have a very clear idea of what is going on in East Germany in particular with the CDU collapsing below the SPD and AfD but we could do with polling for BaWü, Hesse, NRW and Lower Saxony etc as well.
It's been clear that they've been cratering in urban areas and East for a while but they seem to be collapsing almost as badly in their strongholds (at least at Bundestagswahl level) now as the Bavaria and RLP polls show.
Extrapolating all the Länder polls it is hard to see how the CDU/CSU gets more than 20-22% nationally.
Ministers are having second thoughts on plans to introduce mandatory Covid passports for nightclubs and other “high-risk” venues after Tory MPs tore into the proposals in the Commons.
Serious doubts have emerged over the policy, with officials now looking at whether case rates will require such measures.
A Whitehall source said “no decisions have been made yet” on the proposals, despite the Government insisting that the passes will be mandatory from the end of the month.
Perhaps the shambles north of the border - "vote for it today, details to follow, (like "what a nightclub is")"......will help them think again....
If the vaccinated can still spread COVID, what's the point of "vaccine passports"?
Bit in Bold: That's like saying "if driving at 20 can still cause fatal accidents, what's the point of "speed limits?"".
The risk is much lower post vaccination. I oppose vaccine passports on principle, but lets not pretend they're not practical or would not work in reducing risk.
The question that needs answering is if that risk is worth sacrificing for. To me, no.
Ministers are having second thoughts on plans to introduce mandatory Covid passports for nightclubs and other “high-risk” venues after Tory MPs tore into the proposals in the Commons.
Serious doubts have emerged over the policy, with officials now looking at whether case rates will require such measures.
A Whitehall source said “no decisions have been made yet” on the proposals, despite the Government insisting that the passes will be mandatory from the end of the month.
Perhaps the shambles north of the border - "vote for it today, details to follow, (like "what a nightclub is")"......will help them think again....
If the vaccinated can still spread COVID, what's the point of "vaccine passports"?
Bit in Bold: That's like saying "if driving at 20 can still cause fatal accidents, what's the point of "speed limits?"".
The risk is much lower post vaccination. I oppose vaccine passports on principle, but lets not pretend they're not practical or would not work in reducing risk.
The question that needs answering is if that risk is worth sacrificing for. To me, no.
Do we know what the difference is? My sister and family caught COVID from someone who was double jabbed.
Not to rule things out without due consideration but this has an air of taking the piss.
If they’re escaping persecution, they will be happy to be given an opportunity of a new life in a safe country.
If they’re primarily economic migrants, desparate specifically to get to the UK, on the other hand…
Yes. This proposal is imo mainly about expressing the following 2 sentiments: Most asylum seekers are on the make rather than fleeing persecution. They should be grateful for anything they get, aka 'beggars can't be choosers'.
One issue that never seems to get discussed is that it is not a case of "pure" asylum vs "pure" economic migration.
For example, my wife left her country to emigrate here, partly for economic opportunity, and partly because the process of killing the Moaists who were trying to blow up everything was running into the usual issues with government projects.
Yes, the grey area must be huge. All you can say with confidence about every person who makes a long and arduous (often perilous) journey seeking to resettle in a country far from their own is that they'll have a good reason for it.
I completely agree with that.
Are those who make the arduous and perilous journey and are willing and able to pay thousands to criminal people smuggling gangs more worthy than those who make arduous and perilous journeys but are neither willing nor able to pay smugglers?
No. I await the killer follow-up with great interest and not a little trepidation.
If we facilitate easy migration for those paying thousands to criminal gangs, how do you facilitate migration for those that don't? Or are we delegating our responsibilities to the gangs?
Not an easy question. People smuggling is a crime that should be prosecuted. But is it right to count it a black mark against their victims by discriminating against them? No, not for me.
But if you allow them in, but not others, then you're counting not paying people smuggler's as a black mark.
Unfair spin. As I assess each application, I tick no box for whether or not they were a victim of people smugglers.
If you're only assessing those applications where people have paid people smugglers, but not those who haven't, then yes you are whether you realised it or not.
Think of people smugglers as the private schools of asylum but on steroids.
That's not a bad comparison actually. Both toxic and so embedded as to be almost impossible to eradicate.
The time to introduce vaccine passports was three or four months ago, when they might have actually made a difference to case numbers & hospitalisations, and helped normalise the need for near 100% take-up as part of re-opening. Now we've had the re-opening, so introducing them is taking people's freedom away rather than adding to them, and in any case people quite rightly won't be able to understand why they are necessary now, and it's now necessary to get jabbed, when the government effectively indicated that this wasn't the case previously.
It's a major failure of policy and planning that this has been bodged so badly. TBH I think it's too late now. As a result of this faffing about, people have died, and been seriously ill, unnecessarily.
Ministers are having second thoughts on plans to introduce mandatory Covid passports for nightclubs and other “high-risk” venues after Tory MPs tore into the proposals in the Commons.
Serious doubts have emerged over the policy, with officials now looking at whether case rates will require such measures.
A Whitehall source said “no decisions have been made yet” on the proposals, despite the Government insisting that the passes will be mandatory from the end of the month.
Perhaps the shambles north of the border - "vote for it today, details to follow, (like "what a nightclub is")"......will help them think again....
If the vaccinated can still spread COVID, what's the point of "vaccine passports"?
Bit in Bold: That's like saying "if driving at 20 can still cause fatal accidents, what's the point of "speed limits?"".
The risk is much lower post vaccination. I oppose vaccine passports on principle, but lets not pretend they're not practical or would not work in reducing risk.
The question that needs answering is if that risk is worth sacrificing for. To me, no.
I'm up for much more targeted and swingeing measures against those who are unvaccinated by choice, they're disproportionately the hospitalisations; and even more so the ICU occupancy. They're the ones blocking the beds at the start of the NHS backlog; which means that waiting list isn't being got through, which means the money can't head more quickly into social care and has cost us all a packet in NI to try and start sorting the problem.
Vaccine passports for entry everywhere should just be the start.
I'm off cycling France for a week this weekend so you will all be pleased to know I (probably) won't be challenging HYUFD's unique application of the use of statistics, numbers and logic for a bit.
Stop cheering at the back.
Cycling for Softies? I did one of those in the Loire - absolutely fantastic although I do remember at one stage tearing* along what must be the equivalent of their A1(M) in torrential rain to get to my next stop.
Whereas if you pootle along with your triple (and a few tripels) at 110W you do about 25km/h.
That's a lot of effort just to push wind...
drag force = 1/2ρv^2CdA
So you need 4x the power to double the speed. Ignoring rolling resistance and drivetrain losses (about 3% if you are using a non junk groupset like DURA ACE).
The Prole FPT 'At which point, they might suddenly discover that the problem is the planning system / greenbelt, and vote to abolish it.
If the South ever gets below 50% home ownership, it becomes in most voters interest to demolish the planning system, build like crazy and crash the price of housing.
One of the interesting things about the economics of housing is that being so essential, it's very price sensitive to supply and demand. Ten people fighting over nine houses will result in the richest nine all putting at least more the maximum amount that the tenth man can afford. Ten people fighting over ten houses - whoever is willing to take the crummiest one pays nearly nothing, then it just comes down to the margin people will pay for the nicer ones. You only have to build one extra house to get from one of these scenarios to the other. I wonder how many extra houses it would take to collapse house prices in the SE back to the value of the agricultural land plus the building costs. Maybe a million - possibly half that, especially if it was obvious that anyone who wanted to pay the minimum could just buy a lump of farmland and build on it.'
No, they do not want the entirety of the South East turned into a concrete jungle and urban sprawl either.
Plus unless you end all foreign investment in London property, severely restrict immigration and ensure new affordable homes are restricted to local first time buyers who have lived there for 7 years or more only new housing alone would not solve the problem
Who is "they" in this instance? Existing homeowners obviously don't want to concrete over the SE for any number of reasons. I think if you offered those who are paying £1k a month to rent a small flat the opportunity to pay ~£150k for a 3 bed semi, providing they don't mind concreting over some of the greenbelt, they will mostly bite your hands off. As I said in my original post, the magic tipping point where this leads to a change of policy will arrive when a little more than half of residents are renting.
And yes, enough new housing would solve the problem of it being too expensive. Imagine I could snap my fingers and create 10 million houses in the SE, then auction them off at the rate of 100,000 a day, no reserve. By the end of week two, I suspect they would be fetching less than the building cost. Especially if it was known that I could snap my fingers and do it again once I'd sold them all, so there was no incentive to buy them as rental investments.
Don't get me wrong, there might be practical issues with my just plonking millions more houses down overnight, and it would create a whole raft of other issues, but it would indisputably reduce house prices to a fraction of what they are today.
The existing residents of the SE, see the LD win in Chesham and Amersham for instance over too much building on the greenbelt. Nor do those moving there from London to buy, they don't want to live in a concrete jungle.
Oh, I don't doubt that existing/new homeowners won't want more houses built. My point is that as prices spiral further and further out of reach, the proportion of homeowners will drop, and as BTL landlords only get one vote each, regardless of how many houses they own (and foreign investors get no votes) at some point there is likely to be a majority of voters renting. They won't care about trashing house prices, and will only care a little bit about concreting over everything. They only need to have the upper hand in a 52:48 sort of way, and there could be massive changes to planning rules.
Unless every new home is limited to locals who are first time buyers who have lived in the area for 7 years or more, foreign property investment in London is banned reducing the numbers of Londoners forced into the Home Counties to buy and immigration is severely restricted reducing demand, new homes alone will not make much difference to affordability in the SE
You just don't get it do you. If you make the supply of houses infinite, they will cease to have much value. For all that there is a massive housing shortage in the SE, it isn't say 50% short of houses (maybe 10% short), but only about half of land is built on, so there is physically enough room to build enough housing to collapse prices. If you abolished planning permission, and could find enough builders, it wouldn't take very long for prices to revert to agricultural land value + building costs.
Anyway, time for my fun proposal of the day, which would annoy all the right people... Change the classification of land used as golf courses from agricultural to development land. All existing land used as golf courses gets automatic reclassification. To create a new course on a greenfield requires change of use from agricultural.
Potentially room for quite a lot of building made available at the stroke of a pen, without losing a single bit of actual farmland... What's not to like!
No as the South East will continue to have a majority of homeowners, just more of them will be coming from London with London salaries to buy as they cannot afford to buy in the capital which will remain majority rent.
We also do not want to see the destruction of the greenspace and countryside in the Home Counties, nor do those new ex London homeowners as once it is lost it will not come back.
I don't disagree on allowing a few golf courses to be developed however
If they are going for Zero Covid forever then they are going for zero tourism industry forever. Completely cutting themselves off from the outside world. I'm sure it sounds good to people now, how about in 3 years time?
Ministers are having second thoughts on plans to introduce mandatory Covid passports for nightclubs and other “high-risk” venues after Tory MPs tore into the proposals in the Commons.
Serious doubts have emerged over the policy, with officials now looking at whether case rates will require such measures.
A Whitehall source said “no decisions have been made yet” on the proposals, despite the Government insisting that the passes will be mandatory from the end of the month.
Perhaps the shambles north of the border - "vote for it today, details to follow, (like "what a nightclub is")"......will help them think again....
If the vaccinated can still spread COVID, what's the point of "vaccine passports"?
If the vaccinated can still spread COVID, what's the point of "vaccine passports"?
Lower individual risk. Which translates to fewer cases.
Given over 80% of the population who can go to night clubs have been double jabbed - which has significantly reduced their chances of hospitalisation, serious illness or death - and the vast majority of the remaining 20% have had the option to (and 89% have had one jab), when would you stop requiring proof of vaccination?
If they are going for Zero Covid forever then they are going for zero tourism industry forever. Completely cutting themselves off from the outside world. I'm sure it sounds good to people now, how about in 3 years time?
Clearly nobody told NZ Tourist Board...I regularly get targeted ads saying come visit.
The time to introduce vaccine passports was three or four months ago, when they might have actually made a difference to case numbers & hospitalisations, and helped normalise the need for near 100% take-up as part of re-opening. Now we've had the re-opening, so introducing them is taking people's freedom away rather than adding to them, and in any case people quite rightly won't be able to understand why they are necessary now, and it's now necessary to get jabbed, when the government effectively indicated that this wasn't the case previously.
It's a major failure of policy and planning that this has been bodged so badly. TBH I think it's too late now. As a result of this faffing about, people have died, and been seriously ill, unnecessarily.
Months ago people hadn't all been offered the vaccine. Should nightclubs have reopened but only been open to young care workers and NHS staff since nobody else young was jabbed yet?
Plus the spread of the virus over the summer is a good thing, not a bad thing. It means more immunity going into the winter and at no stage in the summer has the NHS been overwhelmed.
If you're going to have vaxxports, which we shouldn't, it should only be once everyone has had the opportunity to be jabbed and for the winter when the threat of the NHS being overwhelmed returns.
Comments
Given the benefits it would have for international trade you then have to ask why does it not already exist - because surely it would make sense in Norway / Sweden and other similar places where both sides trust each other.
And yet it hasn't been created - at which point you have to ask, what are the reasons why it hasn't been created.
So it is a unicorn because otherwise there is at least 1 border on which it should currently exist.
That’ll be a happy difference to reconcile going forward. And if you thought Brexit was tough..
Its not the best form of democracy (but nor is the USA nowadays). I prefer the UK Parliament and UK electoral system. But its a democracy in its own way and I've never said otherwise.
But if we aren't in the EU and are subject to EU laws we can't change democratically - that's an end to liberal democracy. That's a price I'm not prepared to pay for anything, democracy trumps everything else.
I should agree, but I’d be a hypocrite. Wife and I used to commute together, but my new job is in the other direction so I’m getting a new car today. Well, a new old car, which is better environmentally than a new new car - even if it is a V8!
Strangely I think the media is continually significantly overestimating the chances of a 2nd referendum occurring in the medium term and underestimating the SNP at the same time.
The GFA only worked because it respected the views of Unionists and Nationalists, not just Nationalists
I'll happily go to Shankhill and honestly say that I think there must be a completely free and open border between Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Both of those positions are true.
Now how about you go to Shankhill and you say that purity of the Single Market trumps their place in the United Kingdom. See how far you go?
Where else in the world do people born in a region get the citizenship of TWO countries by right of birth? How does that region handle the border between those countries?
Seems bizarre you can do this. A friend of mine was born in NI, the daughter of a serviceman serving there at the time. Her son, who is a performer so a EU passport is really useful, has now got one even though he has no Irish background whatsoever.
That is no longer the case...
The only way to do that is to compromise and realise that both the sanctity or purity of the EU's Single Market, and the sanctity or purity of the UK's, may be compromised by NI but that's the price we're willing to pay for peace.
I'm willing to pay that price. If Brussels isn't, that's on them and let them impose a hard border between themselves and NI and let them deal with the consequences - we should play no part in imposing a border anywhere.
That was saying the UK was subject to EU laws without a say in writing or changing them. That's an end to democracy.
A perfect compromise is the UK controls UK laws democratically, the EU controls EU laws democratically, and there's no border between NI and either the EU or the UK.
Parliament was hung. Labour opposed May's deal thrice. I believe most Conservative MPs backed it.
Not for the only time, pro-EU MPs pushed us into a more sceptical/hardline position. I'd call it a Pyrrhic victory, but that's rather unfair on Pyrrhus.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9972607/Kim-Jong-looks-hazmat-wearing-special-force-Covid-tackling-troops-parade.html
My point is that as prices spiral further and further out of reach, the proportion of homeowners will drop, and as BTL landlords only get one vote each, regardless of how many houses they own (and foreign investors get no votes) at some point there is likely to be a majority of voters renting. They won't care about trashing house prices, and will only care a little bit about concreting over everything. They only need to have the upper hand in a 52:48 sort of way, and there could be massive changes to planning rules. You just don't get it do you. If you make the supply of houses infinite, they will cease to have much value.
For all that there is a massive housing shortage in the SE, it isn't say 50% short of houses (maybe 10% short), but only about half of land is built on, so there is physically enough room to build enough housing to collapse prices.
If you abolished planning permission, and could find enough builders, it wouldn't take very long for prices to revert to agricultural land value + building costs.
Anyway, time for my fun proposal of the day, which would annoy all the right people...
Change the classification of land used as golf courses from agricultural to development land.
All existing land used as golf courses gets automatic reclassification. To create a new course on a greenfield requires change of use from agricultural.
Potentially room for quite a lot of building made available at the stroke of a pen, without losing a single bit of actual farmland... What's not to like!
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
If we eliminate a border between NI and Eire as impossible
And eliminate a border between NI and the UK as impossible
And eliminate the UK being subject to EU laws as impossible
Then from there we do as much as we can to ensure "the integrity of our markets" is respected without compromising that foundation. Anything that can be done without compromising those positions becomes the solution - and any problems that can't be fixed, aren't fixed and are accepted as a compromise because we're putting peace first.
Instead with the revised deal we were legally and internationally independent and any obligations we made were for us to enforce.
Yes, I have long advocated refugees being put into internment camps to be rapidly assessed, evidence collated, medically treated, and either approved or deported. I think this probably should be in the UK, as I don't think any country elsewhere is willing.
TfL, for example, has robust plans for the next few years and a series of plans, based on various projections of usage, going out to 20 years.
The NHS has plans for various bits of itself that look a decade ahead, similarly.
It's not all made up on the day.
This is the reason that the permanent portion of government (civil servants etc) has its own views and policies. Because this is a chunk of what they are doing.
Will this mean no time to post for a bit ?
"The COVID-19 travel certificate has been created in a bid to restore the freedom of travel, which has been put at a halt for over a year now, since the pandemic erupted all over the block."
"Since the pandemic erupted all over the block." Indeed.
There's also the risk that people take all their commuting savings and use it to buy a big car/brand new car, or jet off on an extra foreign holiday....
We need a proper analysis to work out whether the extra money will be used for good or ill... If ill, one solution might be to encourage home working but double/triple fuel prices, aviation tax etc
(obviously horrendously regressive, hits on-site often lower paid jobs most etc etc - I'm not serious)
Think of people smugglers as the private schools of asylum but on steroids.
I'm still, I'm still TOPPING from the block
"WFH resource poverty" - a meme coming to this space. Real soon.
Printer not working? Advice from IT was to accidentally knock it onto the floor and swap it for a non-broken one when next in the office (usually monthly). And if printing was needed before that? Simply go to a print shop as payment through the nose for printing was apparently a cheaper option than issuing the replacement printer.
Procurement was always a fun field. Kit had to be ordered through the approved supplier, travel booked through the approved agency despite their costs being in some cases multiples of the walk off the street price.
Out of the Pandora's box a Trojan horse has emerged!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/12/new-zealand-covid-ardern-quarantine-free-travel-vaccine-reopening
- You need an office space.
- A computer
- A monitor - laptop screens are awful....
- etc etc
Alot of employers will simply employee people who BYO, and don't make silly request like expecting the employer to provide kit.
Move forward x years, and the whole of MegaCorp is locked into a series of agreements to buy obsolete stuff at high prices.....
Edit: winter heating etc is also going to be a noticeable issue for those whose homes were previously unoccupied in the day.
Depending on your view they have either stemmed the bleeding on the basis of at least that poll, or on another view we are a week closer to the election and the SPD remain meaningfully ahead
Came out that the supplier was giving a kickback to head office's marketing budget, which of course didn't go towards our budget at all.
https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1435927405470916610?s=20
It sounds like I was fortunate, but the list I've given seems reasonable as the cost is much less to the employer than providing me (and many others in the same role) with office space.
(Example: grant application, you cost it up, you apply, you convince, you get the money. But you have to hand back the money you don't spend at the end. If you buy some things at over the odds prices from a university owned supplier, you give back less of the money/put a larger amount in the grant application and the university gets more of it.)
A couple I know have to work at the kitchen table, as they have no spare rooms or place to put a desk. Since they don't work at the same firm, confidentiality was also potentially an issue.
I expect lots of back complaints from people using unsuitable desks and chairs.
I'm also expecting the WfH trend to take a big reversal in the next year or two as health, security and socialisation issues all start to rear their ugly heads.
Then again, as I routinely hit 280-290W ftp it was out of the frying pan into the frying pan.
The only crumb of comfort for the CDU/CSU was the GMS poll which had only a 2% lead for the SPD and was firmly in the margin of error.
I don't think the SPD will end up with more than about 26% but we will see what happens.
What has actually happened is illustrated by the fate of the business mobile phone.
Form employer provided, it is now gone (or a special request). Instead you bring your own. Bought at your own cost, paid for on your contract.
I can't see much risk in either case, but sitting on the top of a hill of your own making isn't ideal.
Serious doubts have emerged over the policy, with officials now looking at whether case rates will require such measures.
A Whitehall source said “no decisions have been made yet” on the proposals, despite the Government insisting that the passes will be mandatory from the end of the month.
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/vaccine-passport-policy-ditched-fierce-tory-backlash-1190148
Perhaps the shambles north of the border - "vote for it today, details to follow, (like "what a nightclub is")"......will help them think again....
If the vaccinated can still spread COVID, what's the point of "vaccine passports"?
Whereas if you pootle along with your triple (and a few tripels) at 110W you do about 25km/h.
That's a lot of effort just to push wind...
Lower individual risk.
Which translates to fewer cases.
It's been clear that they've been cratering in urban areas and East for a while but they seem to be collapsing almost as badly in their strongholds (at least at Bundestagswahl level) now as the Bavaria and RLP polls show.
Extrapolating all the Länder polls it is hard to see how the CDU/CSU gets more than 20-22% nationally.
The risk is much lower post vaccination. I oppose vaccine passports on principle, but lets not pretend they're not practical or would not work in reducing risk.
The question that needs answering is if that risk is worth sacrificing for. To me, no.
It's a major failure of policy and planning that this has been bodged so badly. TBH I think it's too late now. As a result of this faffing about, people have died, and been seriously ill, unnecessarily.
Vaccine passports for entry everywhere should just be the start.
So you need 4x the power to double the speed. Ignoring rolling resistance and drivetrain losses (about 3% if you are using a non junk groupset like DURA ACE).
For all that there is a massive housing shortage in the SE, it isn't say 50% short of houses (maybe 10% short), but only about half of land is built on, so there is physically enough room to build enough housing to collapse prices.
If you abolished planning permission, and could find enough builders, it wouldn't take very long for prices to revert to agricultural land value + building costs.
Anyway, time for my fun proposal of the day, which would annoy all the right people...
Change the classification of land used as golf courses from agricultural to development land.
All existing land used as golf courses gets automatic reclassification. To create a new course on a greenfield requires change of use from agricultural.
Potentially room for quite a lot of building made available at the stroke of a pen, without losing a single bit of actual farmland... What's not to like!
No as the South East will continue to have a majority of homeowners, just more of them will be coming from London with London salaries to buy as they cannot afford to buy in the capital which will remain majority rent.
We also do not want to see the destruction of the greenspace and countryside in the Home Counties, nor do those new ex London homeowners as once it is lost it will not come back.
I don't disagree on allowing a few golf courses to be developed however
Going to be like the tv show the Prisoner.
Plus the spread of the virus over the summer is a good thing, not a bad thing. It means more immunity going into the winter and at no stage in the summer has the NHS been overwhelmed.
If you're going to have vaxxports, which we shouldn't, it should only be once everyone has had the opportunity to be jabbed and for the winter when the threat of the NHS being overwhelmed returns.