Yougov figures now out, Tories retention rate up and 85% of 2019 Tory voters still voting Tory. Only 78% of 2019 Labour voters still back Labour though.
More 2019 Tory voters, 5%, now back ReformUK than the 4% who back Starmer Labour and 5% of 2019 Labour voters now back the Tories.
Almost all Labour gains have come from the LDs, 35% of 2019 LD voters now back Starmer Labour but 10% of 2019 Labour voters now back the Greens
Potentially bad news for Labour because I think most LD voters from 2019 will eventually go back to supporting the party. Labour needs direct switchers from the Tories.
I rather doubt that. Most had probably voted Labour in 2017 and have now returned home. Very little of a core LD vote.
Although perhaps one might be a bit forgiving given the UK's natural tendency to awful Summers.
I know this is Guido, but it's beyond laughable. It's not even as if this summer was particularly warm – it was pretty dull for the most part with September by the far the best month.
It's also the case that a lot of people have got more used to socialising outdoors, even in not terribly good weather. I'm still sitting outdoors at pubs by default.
Any currency choice for a newly independent Scotland would require its government to bring borrowing down to a sustainable level and commit to low and stable inflation....
This report.... explains how three currency options – a formal currency union with the rest of the UK, joining the euro, and ‘pegging’ a new Scottish currency to the value of another – are not initially viable.
Whatever currency arrangement it chose, Scotland’s ability to borrow would be restricted by what international investors were willing to lend. The implicit Scottish deficit was over 8% of GDP before coronavirus. No advanced economy – especially no small, advanced economy – has consistently borrowed anything like that much in normal times. A sustainable medium-term deficit would be closer to 3%. But this gap cannot be closed by spending less on defence or – at least initially – through higher growth, so some tax increases or spending cuts would be necessary.
It borrows ZERO at present so should not be difficult. Given they would not borrow for the rubbish the UK lumber them with as "Supposed deficit" which in reality is English deficit decision. So usual bollox, as the Scottish spending would bear no resemblance to the drunken spree that constitutes English UK "spending".
More analysis than you've ever had from the SNP!
Joining a formal currency union does not seem to be a feasible option for Scotland in the short term. Launching a pegged currency also appears unrealistic given the mismatch between Scotland’s prospects of accumulating foreign reserves and the amount needed to manage the exchange rate. Only two options, therefore, are truly open to Scotland straight after independence: informally adopting sterling and launching a new, free-floating currency.
Informally adopting sterling comes with various downsides. But in the short term at least, it may be preferable to launching a new currency. A new currency would probably be particularly volatile in the period straight after independence, when there would be uncertainty about Scotland’s future path and Scotland’s new institutions would lack credibility with markets because of the absence of a track record of prudent fiscal and monetary policy. This volatility, as described in this report, could discourage investment and trade with Scotland and elicit high premiums on the sovereign borrowing rates.
You are obsessed with SNP and hatred of all things Scottish.
As ever you conflate the SNP with "all things Scottish"!
Why not read the reports and educate yourself?
Salmond said independence would be achieved within 18months at a cost of £200 million......of course rUK could say "here's your hat, where's your hurry?" and cut off the subsidy immediately - to help you get used to lower levels of spending.....
I will wait for the real thing rather than waste my time on pointless unionist propaganda. I repeat all countries have currencies why would Scotland be the only country in the world unable to have one. Educate me on that oh wise one.
PS: Yet again I repeat you almost always talk about "Scotland" not the SNP. Read your post and tell me where you talk about SNP or Scottish Government, it is all SCOTLAND. I rest my case, your pathological hatred is well practiced.
All countries that have a currency have a central bank which we currently don’t. We also don’t have any employees with any experience of running same.
Assuming we get over that issue ( and presumably get a finance minister with rather more knowledge of gilt rates than dear Kate showed recently) the question is what that currency would be worth.
A significant depreciation against Sterling looks completely nailed on in such a scenario. We have a very serious fiscal deficit and a trade deficit. In the medium term such a depreciation may be exactly what Scotland needs to be competitive again but in the short term we would all be somewhere near 20% poorer and vulnerable to capital flight.
"The Netherlands still boasts the tallest people in the world, but according to research published on Friday, the towering Dutch are shrinking.
The diminution of the famously giant populace is partly explained by the immigration of smaller people from other countries and their children being born in the Netherlands.
But mystery surrounds the reason why people with exclusively Dutch roots, which is defined as all parents and grandparents having been born in the country, are also not as tall as they used to be."
As I remember (from accounts, I may be an old git but not that old) he murdered Catiline extra-judicially because he perceived, as did many around him, that he posed a clear and present threat to the Republic and it was only when his, Catiline's*, allies regained power in the second Triumvirate that they literally caught up with him, Cicero*.
*No prizes for guessing which book I'm now reading.
Nunavut Riding covers a mere 1.88 MILLION square kilometres. The largest electoral unit in the world which elects just one MP. Folk who spot Labour's failure to win in rural areas may be surprised it is an NDP seat.
Interesting to note that a day after Australia bought those Submarines China applied to join the CPTPP - I suspect just to see what will happen and take umbridge when they discover it's purpose
As I remember (from accounts, I may be an old git but not that old) he murdered Catiline extra-judicially because he perceived, as did many around him, that he posed a clear and present threat to the Republic and it was only when his, Catiline's*, allies regained power in the second Triumvirate that they literally caught up with him, Cicero*.
*No prizes for guessing which book I'm now reading.
Cataline died on the battlefield.
It was his associates who got the chop. Even Cicero wasn't clear in explaining why they had to die immediately. The conspiracy was exposed and was a flop... unless he (Cicero) was worried about who they might implicate?
Any currency choice for a newly independent Scotland would require its government to bring borrowing down to a sustainable level and commit to low and stable inflation....
This report.... explains how three currency options – a formal currency union with the rest of the UK, joining the euro, and ‘pegging’ a new Scottish currency to the value of another – are not initially viable.
Whatever currency arrangement it chose, Scotland’s ability to borrow would be restricted by what international investors were willing to lend. The implicit Scottish deficit was over 8% of GDP before coronavirus. No advanced economy – especially no small, advanced economy – has consistently borrowed anything like that much in normal times. A sustainable medium-term deficit would be closer to 3%. But this gap cannot be closed by spending less on defence or – at least initially – through higher growth, so some tax increases or spending cuts would be necessary.
It borrows ZERO at present so should not be difficult. Given they would not borrow for the rubbish the UK lumber them with as "Supposed deficit" which in reality is English deficit decision. So usual bollox, as the Scottish spending would bear no resemblance to the drunken spree that constitutes English UK "spending".
More analysis than you've ever had from the SNP!
Joining a formal currency union does not seem to be a feasible option for Scotland in the short term. Launching a pegged currency also appears unrealistic given the mismatch between Scotland’s prospects of accumulating foreign reserves and the amount needed to manage the exchange rate. Only two options, therefore, are truly open to Scotland straight after independence: informally adopting sterling and launching a new, free-floating currency.
Informally adopting sterling comes with various downsides. But in the short term at least, it may be preferable to launching a new currency. A new currency would probably be particularly volatile in the period straight after independence, when there would be uncertainty about Scotland’s future path and Scotland’s new institutions would lack credibility with markets because of the absence of a track record of prudent fiscal and monetary policy. This volatility, as described in this report, could discourage investment and trade with Scotland and elicit high premiums on the sovereign borrowing rates.
You are obsessed with SNP and hatred of all things Scottish.
As ever you conflate the SNP with "all things Scottish"!
Why not read the reports and educate yourself?
Salmond said independence would be achieved within 18months at a cost of £200 million......of course rUK could say "here's your hat, where's your hurry?" and cut off the subsidy immediately - to help you get used to lower levels of spending.....
I will wait for the real thing rather than waste my time on pointless unionist propaganda. I repeat all countries have currencies why would Scotland be the only country in the world unable to have one. Educate me on that oh wise one.
It's the Institute for Government - a respected Think Tank - not "propaganda" like the SNP's "Growth Commission" or that perennial joke Richard Murphy.
It doesn't say "Scotland can't have a currency" it says "these are the options".
The report considers 5 main options that an independent Scotland could choose from:
1. formal currency union with rUK 2. joining the euro 3. using sterling informally 4. a new free-floating Scottish currency 5. pegging a new Scottish currency to another or currency basket 2/21
LOL, I looked at the Hooray Henry/Henrietta's on the board / donations of your respected Totally Right Wing Tory English Think Tank. You must think I button up the back.
Any currency choice for a newly independent Scotland would require its government to bring borrowing down to a sustainable level and commit to low and stable inflation....
This report.... explains how three currency options – a formal currency union with the rest of the UK, joining the euro, and ‘pegging’ a new Scottish currency to the value of another – are not initially viable.
Whatever currency arrangement it chose, Scotland’s ability to borrow would be restricted by what international investors were willing to lend. The implicit Scottish deficit was over 8% of GDP before coronavirus. No advanced economy – especially no small, advanced economy – has consistently borrowed anything like that much in normal times. A sustainable medium-term deficit would be closer to 3%. But this gap cannot be closed by spending less on defence or – at least initially – through higher growth, so some tax increases or spending cuts would be necessary.
It borrows ZERO at present so should not be difficult. Given they would not borrow for the rubbish the UK lumber them with as "Supposed deficit" which in reality is English deficit decision. So usual bollox, as the Scottish spending would bear no resemblance to the drunken spree that constitutes English UK "spending".
More analysis than you've ever had from the SNP!
Joining a formal currency union does not seem to be a feasible option for Scotland in the short term. Launching a pegged currency also appears unrealistic given the mismatch between Scotland’s prospects of accumulating foreign reserves and the amount needed to manage the exchange rate. Only two options, therefore, are truly open to Scotland straight after independence: informally adopting sterling and launching a new, free-floating currency.
Informally adopting sterling comes with various downsides. But in the short term at least, it may be preferable to launching a new currency. A new currency would probably be particularly volatile in the period straight after independence, when there would be uncertainty about Scotland’s future path and Scotland’s new institutions would lack credibility with markets because of the absence of a track record of prudent fiscal and monetary policy. This volatility, as described in this report, could discourage investment and trade with Scotland and elicit high premiums on the sovereign borrowing rates.
You are obsessed with SNP and hatred of all things Scottish.
As ever you conflate the SNP with "all things Scottish"!
Why not read the reports and educate yourself?
Salmond said independence would be achieved within 18months at a cost of £200 million......of course rUK could say "here's your hat, where's your hurry?" and cut off the subsidy immediately - to help you get used to lower levels of spending.....
I will wait for the real thing rather than waste my time on pointless unionist propaganda. I repeat all countries have currencies why would Scotland be the only country in the world unable to have one. Educate me on that oh wise one.
PS: Yet again I repeat you almost always talk about "Scotland" not the SNP. Read your post and tell me where you talk about SNP or Scottish Government, it is all SCOTLAND. I rest my case, your pathological hatred is well practiced.
All countries that have a currency have a central bank which we currently don’t. We also don’t have any employees with any experience of running same.
Assuming we get over that issue ( and presumably get a finance minister with rather more knowledge of gilt rates than dear Kate showed recently) the question is what that currency would be worth.
A significant depreciation against Sterling looks completely nailed on in such a scenario. We have a very serious fiscal deficit and a trade deficit. In the medium term such a depreciation may be exactly what Scotland needs to be competitive again but in the short term we would all be somewhere near 20% poorer and vulnerable to capital flight.
David , Once again all supposition and all based on what England spends our money on at present. We have a central bank at present , we own a share of the Bank of England. Who knows what our budget would be like without all the dross that England currently spends money on and attributes to Scotland. We have no clue, no-one can split out the respective revenues and budgets at present, it is all guess work biased to current position where majority is registered in London. No-one has a real clue about what the position will really be on Independence. Currently Scotland does not have any deficit , all money is borrowed and spent based on UK, anything else is a lie or just made up. PS: I agree on Kate ( far from the worst of them) and doubt any of the jokers currently squandering the pocket money will be in place when independent.
The EU cannot join CPTPP, but they would certainly hope to negotiate an EU-CPTPP trade agreement in time.
China’s application yesterday to CPTPP complicates the UK’s application, I think. Members may wish to avoid snubbing the Chinese by prioritising talks with the U.K.
The US hasn’t yet applied, just signalled again they (as even Trump did in 2018) that they are considering it.
Trade is one dimension; defence is another.
France is not leaving Asia-Pacific, indeed it has more material interests there than the U.K. does. However, it’s attempts to boost its strategic power and autonomy there via the 2016 deal with Australia just got trumped by the US.
Perhaps France will now make overtures to India, who presumably - as much as China is the shared enemy - will not want to be totally subservient to the Americans as the U.K. and Australia (and perhaps Japan) are happy to be.
Interesting to note that a day after Australia bought those Submarines China applied to join the CPTPP - I suspect just to see what will happen and take umbridge when they discover it's purpose
Singapore conducting "dangerous and unethical experiment" (sic) - look forward to usual denunciations:
SINGAPORE - Singapore is likely to see 1,000 Covid-19 cases a day soon with the number of daily cases doubling every week, said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung on Friday (Sept 17).
This is not unexpected, he added. Every country that has decided to live with the virus will sooner or later have to undergo a "major wave of transmission", just as Singapore is having now.
Any currency choice for a newly independent Scotland would require its government to bring borrowing down to a sustainable level and commit to low and stable inflation....
This report.... explains how three currency options – a formal currency union with the rest of the UK, joining the euro, and ‘pegging’ a new Scottish currency to the value of another – are not initially viable.
Whatever currency arrangement it chose, Scotland’s ability to borrow would be restricted by what international investors were willing to lend. The implicit Scottish deficit was over 8% of GDP before coronavirus. No advanced economy – especially no small, advanced economy – has consistently borrowed anything like that much in normal times. A sustainable medium-term deficit would be closer to 3%. But this gap cannot be closed by spending less on defence or – at least initially – through higher growth, so some tax increases or spending cuts would be necessary.
It borrows ZERO at present so should not be difficult. Given they would not borrow for the rubbish the UK lumber them with as "Supposed deficit" which in reality is English deficit decision. So usual bollox, as the Scottish spending would bear no resemblance to the drunken spree that constitutes English UK "spending".
More analysis than you've ever had from the SNP!
Joining a formal currency union does not seem to be a feasible option for Scotland in the short term. Launching a pegged currency also appears unrealistic given the mismatch between Scotland’s prospects of accumulating foreign reserves and the amount needed to manage the exchange rate. Only two options, therefore, are truly open to Scotland straight after independence: informally adopting sterling and launching a new, free-floating currency.
Informally adopting sterling comes with various downsides. But in the short term at least, it may be preferable to launching a new currency. A new currency would probably be particularly volatile in the period straight after independence, when there would be uncertainty about Scotland’s future path and Scotland’s new institutions would lack credibility with markets because of the absence of a track record of prudent fiscal and monetary policy. This volatility, as described in this report, could discourage investment and trade with Scotland and elicit high premiums on the sovereign borrowing rates.
You are obsessed with SNP and hatred of all things Scottish.
As ever you conflate the SNP with "all things Scottish"!
Why not read the reports and educate yourself?
Salmond said independence would be achieved within 18months at a cost of £200 million......of course rUK could say "here's your hat, where's your hurry?" and cut off the subsidy immediately - to help you get used to lower levels of spending.....
I will wait for the real thing rather than waste my time on pointless unionist propaganda. I repeat all countries have currencies why would Scotland be the only country in the world unable to have one. Educate me on that oh wise one.
It's the Institute for Government - a respected Think Tank - not "propaganda" like the SNP's "Growth Commission" or that perennial joke Richard Murphy.
It doesn't say "Scotland can't have a currency" it says "these are the options".
The report considers 5 main options that an independent Scotland could choose from:
1. formal currency union with rUK 2. joining the euro 3. using sterling informally 4. a new free-floating Scottish currency 5. pegging a new Scottish currency to another or currency basket 2/21
LOL, I looked at the Hooray Henry/Henrietta's on the board / donations of your respected Totally Right Wing Tory English Think Tank. You must think I button up the back.
Peter Riddell? I seem to remember that at The Times he was a leading Blair toady.
Any currency choice for a newly independent Scotland would require its government to bring borrowing down to a sustainable level and commit to low and stable inflation....
This report.... explains how three currency options – a formal currency union with the rest of the UK, joining the euro, and ‘pegging’ a new Scottish currency to the value of another – are not initially viable.
Whatever currency arrangement it chose, Scotland’s ability to borrow would be restricted by what international investors were willing to lend. The implicit Scottish deficit was over 8% of GDP before coronavirus. No advanced economy – especially no small, advanced economy – has consistently borrowed anything like that much in normal times. A sustainable medium-term deficit would be closer to 3%. But this gap cannot be closed by spending less on defence or – at least initially – through higher growth, so some tax increases or spending cuts would be necessary.
It borrows ZERO at present so should not be difficult. Given they would not borrow for the rubbish the UK lumber them with as "Supposed deficit" which in reality is English deficit decision. So usual bollox, as the Scottish spending would bear no resemblance to the drunken spree that constitutes English UK "spending".
More analysis than you've ever had from the SNP!
Joining a formal currency union does not seem to be a feasible option for Scotland in the short term. Launching a pegged currency also appears unrealistic given the mismatch between Scotland’s prospects of accumulating foreign reserves and the amount needed to manage the exchange rate. Only two options, therefore, are truly open to Scotland straight after independence: informally adopting sterling and launching a new, free-floating currency.
Informally adopting sterling comes with various downsides. But in the short term at least, it may be preferable to launching a new currency. A new currency would probably be particularly volatile in the period straight after independence, when there would be uncertainty about Scotland’s future path and Scotland’s new institutions would lack credibility with markets because of the absence of a track record of prudent fiscal and monetary policy. This volatility, as described in this report, could discourage investment and trade with Scotland and elicit high premiums on the sovereign borrowing rates.
You are obsessed with SNP and hatred of all things Scottish.
As ever you conflate the SNP with "all things Scottish"!
Why not read the reports and educate yourself?
Salmond said independence would be achieved within 18months at a cost of £200 million......of course rUK could say "here's your hat, where's your hurry?" and cut off the subsidy immediately - to help you get used to lower levels of spending.....
I will wait for the real thing rather than waste my time on pointless unionist propaganda. I repeat all countries have currencies why would Scotland be the only country in the world unable to have one. Educate me on that oh wise one.
PS: Yet again I repeat you almost always talk about "Scotland" not the SNP. Read your post and tell me where you talk about SNP or Scottish Government, it is all SCOTLAND. I rest my case, your pathological hatred is well practiced.
All countries that have a currency have a central bank which we currently don’t. We also don’t have any employees with any experience of running same.
Assuming we get over that issue ( and presumably get a finance minister with rather more knowledge of gilt rates than dear Kate showed recently) the question is what that currency would be worth.
A significant depreciation against Sterling looks completely nailed on in such a scenario. We have a very serious fiscal deficit and a trade deficit. In the medium term such a depreciation may be exactly what Scotland needs to be competitive again but in the short term we would all be somewhere near 20% poorer and vulnerable to capital flight.
David , Once again all supposition and all based on what England spends our money on at present. We have a central bank at present , we own a share of the Bank of England. Who knows what our budget would be like without all the dross that England currently spends money on and attributes to Scotland. We have no clue, no-one can split out the respective revenues and budgets at present, it is all guess work biased to current position where majority is registered in London. No-one has a real clue about what the position will really be on Independence. Currently Scotland does not have any deficit , all money is borrowed and spent based on UK, anything else is a lie or just made up.
BiB - the BoE and the £ aren’t like North Sea oil!
As I remember (from accounts, I may be an old git but not that old) he murdered Catiline extra-judicially because he perceived, as did many around him, that he posed a clear and present threat to the Republic and it was only when his, Catiline's*, allies regained power in the second Triumvirate that they literally caught up with him, Cicero*.
*No prizes for guessing which book I'm now reading.
Cataline died on the battlefield.
It was his associates who got the chop. Even Cicero wasn't clear in explaining why they had to die immediately. The conspiracy was exposed and was a flop... unless he (Cicero) was worried about who they might implicate?
Shows how much I remember.
It had been my impression that he, Cicero, had acted "for" the Republic because he perceived the threat to be such that the action justified it. As did his contemporaries, or at least nothing happened at the time and not just because he was Consul. It was only afterwards that there could be payback time.
Of Roman history, I particularly enjoyed reading about events which lead to the end of the Republic but/and will evidently have to revisit! Via Loeb.
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
As I remember (from accounts, I may be an old git but not that old) he murdered Catiline extra-judicially because he perceived, as did many around him, that he posed a clear and present threat to the Republic and it was only when his, Catiline's*, allies regained power in the second Triumvirate that they literally caught up with him, Cicero*.
*No prizes for guessing which book I'm now reading.
Law and politics were heavily bound up with each other in the late Roman Republic.
Catliline was in open rebellion so it was certainly lawful to kill him in battle. The men who were condemned to death in Rome were condemned by a resolution of the Senate, which ought to have been treated as lawful, once the body had declared a state of emergency. Condemning them to death was no worse, from a legal point of view, than Caesar's counter-proposal that they be imprisoned for life without chance of release.
But, once Cicero's arch enemy Clodius was in power, he could pass a resolution retroactively deeming Cicero's actions to be illegal.
As I remember (from accounts, I may be an old git but not that old) he murdered Catiline extra-judicially because he perceived, as did many around him, that he posed a clear and present threat to the Republic and it was only when his, Catiline's*, allies regained power in the second Triumvirate that they literally caught up with him, Cicero*.
*No prizes for guessing which book I'm now reading.
Law and politics were heavily bound up with each other in the late Roman Republic.
Catliline was in open rebellion so it was certainly lawful to kill him in battle. The men who were condemned to death in Rome were condemned by a resolution of the Senate, which ought to have been treated as lawful, once the body had declared a state of emergency. Condemning them to death was no worse, from a legal point of view, than Caesar's counter-proposal that they be imprisoned for life without chance of release.
But, once Cicero's arch enemy Clodius was in power, he could pass a resolution retroactively deeming Cicero's actions to be illegal.
Yep that is more the way I (vaguely!) remember it.
Interesting to note that a day after Australia bought those Submarines China applied to join the CPTPP - I suspect just to see what will happen and take umbridge when they discover it's purpose
Any currency choice for a newly independent Scotland would require its government to bring borrowing down to a sustainable level and commit to low and stable inflation....
This report.... explains how three currency options – a formal currency union with the rest of the UK, joining the euro, and ‘pegging’ a new Scottish currency to the value of another – are not initially viable.
Whatever currency arrangement it chose, Scotland’s ability to borrow would be restricted by what international investors were willing to lend. The implicit Scottish deficit was over 8% of GDP before coronavirus. No advanced economy – especially no small, advanced economy – has consistently borrowed anything like that much in normal times. A sustainable medium-term deficit would be closer to 3%. But this gap cannot be closed by spending less on defence or – at least initially – through higher growth, so some tax increases or spending cuts would be necessary.
It borrows ZERO at present so should not be difficult. Given they would not borrow for the rubbish the UK lumber them with as "Supposed deficit" which in reality is English deficit decision. So usual bollox, as the Scottish spending would bear no resemblance to the drunken spree that constitutes English UK "spending".
More analysis than you've ever had from the SNP!
Joining a formal currency union does not seem to be a feasible option for Scotland in the short term. Launching a pegged currency also appears unrealistic given the mismatch between Scotland’s prospects of accumulating foreign reserves and the amount needed to manage the exchange rate. Only two options, therefore, are truly open to Scotland straight after independence: informally adopting sterling and launching a new, free-floating currency.
Informally adopting sterling comes with various downsides. But in the short term at least, it may be preferable to launching a new currency. A new currency would probably be particularly volatile in the period straight after independence, when there would be uncertainty about Scotland’s future path and Scotland’s new institutions would lack credibility with markets because of the absence of a track record of prudent fiscal and monetary policy. This volatility, as described in this report, could discourage investment and trade with Scotland and elicit high premiums on the sovereign borrowing rates.
You are obsessed with SNP and hatred of all things Scottish.
As ever you conflate the SNP with "all things Scottish"!
Why not read the reports and educate yourself?
Salmond said independence would be achieved within 18months at a cost of £200 million......of course rUK could say "here's your hat, where's your hurry?" and cut off the subsidy immediately - to help you get used to lower levels of spending.....
I will wait for the real thing rather than waste my time on pointless unionist propaganda. I repeat all countries have currencies why would Scotland be the only country in the world unable to have one. Educate me on that oh wise one.
PS: Yet again I repeat you almost always talk about "Scotland" not the SNP. Read your post and tell me where you talk about SNP or Scottish Government, it is all SCOTLAND. I rest my case, your pathological hatred is well practiced.
All countries that have a currency have a central bank which we currently don’t. We also don’t have any employees with any experience of running same.
Assuming we get over that issue ( and presumably get a finance minister with rather more knowledge of gilt rates than dear Kate showed recently) the question is what that currency would be worth.
A significant depreciation against Sterling looks completely nailed on in such a scenario. We have a very serious fiscal deficit and a trade deficit. In the medium term such a depreciation may be exactly what Scotland needs to be competitive again but in the short term we would all be somewhere near 20% poorer and vulnerable to capital flight.
David , Once again all supposition and all based on what England spends our money on at present. We have a central bank at present , we own a share of the Bank of England. Who knows what our budget would be like without all the dross that England currently spends money on and attributes to Scotland. We have no clue, no-one can split out the respective revenues and budgets at present, it is all guess work biased to current position where majority is registered in London. No-one has a real clue about what the position will really be on Independence. Currently Scotland does not have any deficit , all money is borrowed and spent based on UK, anything else is a lie or just made up. PS: I agree on Kate ( far from the worst of them) and doubt any of the jokers currently squandering the pocket money will be in place when independent.
The best numbers we have are the GERS numbers produced by the Scottish government. They are horrible. The onus is on those claiming it would not be as bad as that.
St Andrews pips Cowley Tech and Fenn Poly to the top spot in UK University rankings:
Alastair McCall, editor of The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide, said: “Never before has any university other than Cambridge and Oxford finished top of our – or any other – domestic ranking of universities.
“It is no fluke. The university has been closing in on the Oxbridge duopoly for several years, buoyed by outstanding levels of student satisfaction which have peaked during the past year of pandemic disruption on campus. The lead St Andrews now has over other universities in this key area of university performance is remarkable.
Nunavut Riding covers a mere 1.88 MILLION square kilometres. The largest electoral unit in the world which elects just one MP. Folk who spot Labour's failure to win in rural areas may be surprised it is an NDP seat.
Nunavut Riding covers a mere 1.88 MILLION square kilometres. The largest electoral unit in the world which elects just one MP. Folk who spot Labour's failure to win in rural areas may be surprised it is an NDP seat.
NYT: Mr. Macron wants France to lead the European Union toward a middle course between the two great powers, demonstrating the “European strategic autonomy” at the core of his vision. He has spoken about an autonomous Europe operating “beside America and China.”
Such comments have been an irritant — if no more than that, given how far Europe stands militarily from such autonomy — to the Biden administration. Mr. Biden is particularly sensitive on the question of American 20th-century sacrifice for France in two world wars and France’s prickliness over its independence within the NATO alliance. Mr. Macron has not visited the White House since Mr. Biden took office, nor is there any sign that he will soon.....
..London’s relations with Washington were ruffled by the Biden administration’s lack of consultation on Afghanistan. But the partnership on the nuclear submarine deal suggests that in sensitive areas of security, intelligence sharing and military technology, Britain remains a preferred partner over France.
Day 1 is when a period begins Ovulation is generally between day 8 and day 25, but it is not vanishingly rare for ovulation to be as late as days 35-40 or even beyond. The longer duration cycles are more common in younger women and girls whose cycles have not yet settled into regularity. The procreative act will have taken place on the day of ovulation or in the few days before, but fertilised the egg within 24 hours of ovulation. Implantation takes a further 5-10 days to occur.
Abortion will be banned in Texas on day 42.
It would therefore be a very regular edge case occurrence in Texas, and particularly in the youngest women, that a particular abortion becomes illegal not only prior to implantation, but prior to the procreative act that leads to conception.
Isn't the law actually based on detection of a foetal heartbeat? (I also wondered how you date a foetus as just before or just after 6 weeks, so looked into it - hard to precisely date from a scan at that point; woman can lie about date of last period etc). That can happen as early as six weeks*, hence it's reported as applying to pregnancies after 6 weeks.
So your edge cases don't apply (unless I am wrong).
Note, I still oppose the law, just pointing out what I found as I had similar thoughts.
*I've personally seen this in an ultrasound on an approx 6 week foetus (now my son). Couldn't see much else, just a blob on the ultrasound, but could see the pulsing very clearly
Any currency choice for a newly independent Scotland would require its government to bring borrowing down to a sustainable level and commit to low and stable inflation....
This report.... explains how three currency options – a formal currency union with the rest of the UK, joining the euro, and ‘pegging’ a new Scottish currency to the value of another – are not initially viable.
Whatever currency arrangement it chose, Scotland’s ability to borrow would be restricted by what international investors were willing to lend. The implicit Scottish deficit was over 8% of GDP before coronavirus. No advanced economy – especially no small, advanced economy – has consistently borrowed anything like that much in normal times. A sustainable medium-term deficit would be closer to 3%. But this gap cannot be closed by spending less on defence or – at least initially – through higher growth, so some tax increases or spending cuts would be necessary.
It borrows ZERO at present so should not be difficult. Given they would not borrow for the rubbish the UK lumber them with as "Supposed deficit" which in reality is English deficit decision. So usual bollox, as the Scottish spending would bear no resemblance to the drunken spree that constitutes English UK "spending".
More analysis than you've ever had from the SNP!
Joining a formal currency union does not seem to be a feasible option for Scotland in the short term. Launching a pegged currency also appears unrealistic given the mismatch between Scotland’s prospects of accumulating foreign reserves and the amount needed to manage the exchange rate. Only two options, therefore, are truly open to Scotland straight after independence: informally adopting sterling and launching a new, free-floating currency.
Informally adopting sterling comes with various downsides. But in the short term at least, it may be preferable to launching a new currency. A new currency would probably be particularly volatile in the period straight after independence, when there would be uncertainty about Scotland’s future path and Scotland’s new institutions would lack credibility with markets because of the absence of a track record of prudent fiscal and monetary policy. This volatility, as described in this report, could discourage investment and trade with Scotland and elicit high premiums on the sovereign borrowing rates.
You are obsessed with SNP and hatred of all things Scottish.
As ever you conflate the SNP with "all things Scottish"!
Why not read the reports and educate yourself?
Salmond said independence would be achieved within 18months at a cost of £200 million......of course rUK could say "here's your hat, where's your hurry?" and cut off the subsidy immediately - to help you get used to lower levels of spending.....
I will wait for the real thing rather than waste my time on pointless unionist propaganda. I repeat all countries have currencies why would Scotland be the only country in the world unable to have one. Educate me on that oh wise one.
It's the Institute for Government - a respected Think Tank - not "propaganda" like the SNP's "Growth Commission" or that perennial joke Richard Murphy.
It doesn't say "Scotland can't have a currency" it says "these are the options".
The report considers 5 main options that an independent Scotland could choose from:
1. formal currency union with rUK 2. joining the euro 3. using sterling informally 4. a new free-floating Scottish currency 5. pegging a new Scottish currency to another or currency basket 2/21
LOL, I looked at the Hooray Henry/Henrietta's on the board / donations of your respected Totally Right Wing Tory English Think Tank. You must think I button up the back.
Peter Riddell? I seem to remember that at The Times he was a leading Blair toady.
They are all Lords and Ladies , CBE etc and right wing unionist gits, Blair was very far from left of centre himself. Below would be more realistic
A newly independent Scotland would face years of deep public spending cuts as it was forced to drive down its deficit with only limited borrowing options, a leading UNIONIST thinktank WITH AN AGENDA AND MONEY TO MAKE FROM SCOTLAND has said.
I know a woman who desperately wanted to be a mother and who had an abortion that was absolutely heartbreaking for her, but she felt she needed it. She carries an extremely rare gene that is fatal to all males if they're born with it. Her brother died a horrible and painful death at 12 year old and medicine hasn't progressed for that disorder, she said she couldn't bring a child into the world only to suffer like that.
First pregnancy had tests and showed the foetus was male. So had further tests and showed it had the gene so she an abortion and was absolutely heartbroken for months even though she knew in her mind she had done the right thing.
Next child was female (so safe, gene doesn't affect women) and second and final pregnancy male but without the gene.
The Texan law not only prohibits people from getting an abortion from before the point they could realise they're pregnant, it also prohibits all testing and screening.
Out of interest (as these types of conditions are my research field) do you happen to know the condition?
On screening, an effect has been a reduction in babies born with many of the more severe genetic congenital conditions and also some that are more borderline. A range of interesting ethical questions there (easier for the conditions that imply death in days or weeks or even pre-birth; much more grey area for some others, particularly as therapies improve). Horrible decision for anyone to have to make.
As others have noted, there is a male/female divide here - many more men/boys with these conditions where the defective gene is on the X chromosome and there's no equivalent on Y (so only the mother needs to be a carrier).
Edit to add: My work also brings me into contact with a number of these children and their families. There are some who will die most likely in their late teens or twenties who nonetheless are having meaningfull and fulfilling lives, others where it is much harder to make a judgement on their quality of life. If I ever found myself in that position - finding out about a serious condition pre-birth - I really don't know what I would do.
I'm afraid I don't remember that sorry. She said her brother's death was young and painful and from the sound of it his life was too so for her it was a decision she felt she had to make. It's not one I would wish upon anyone.
Your explanation of how the genetics works makes sense thank you.
Nunavut Riding covers a mere 1.88 MILLION square kilometres. The largest electoral unit in the world which elects just one MP. Folk who spot Labour's failure to win in rural areas may be surprised it is an NDP seat.
Does being MP there, come with a government helicopter? 1.88m sq km is seven times the size of the UK!
Probably they get an outsize travel allowance. There’s an interesting case up in Alaska, with similar distances involved, where a state senator is unable to get to Juneau for senate meetings as there is no road access to the city from the rest of the state (or anywhere else) and the only airline serving her route has just banned her for abusing flight crew trying to enforce the mask mandate.
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Any currency choice for a newly independent Scotland would require its government to bring borrowing down to a sustainable level and commit to low and stable inflation....
This report.... explains how three currency options – a formal currency union with the rest of the UK, joining the euro, and ‘pegging’ a new Scottish currency to the value of another – are not initially viable.
Whatever currency arrangement it chose, Scotland’s ability to borrow would be restricted by what international investors were willing to lend. The implicit Scottish deficit was over 8% of GDP before coronavirus. No advanced economy – especially no small, advanced economy – has consistently borrowed anything like that much in normal times. A sustainable medium-term deficit would be closer to 3%. But this gap cannot be closed by spending less on defence or – at least initially – through higher growth, so some tax increases or spending cuts would be necessary.
It borrows ZERO at present so should not be difficult. Given they would not borrow for the rubbish the UK lumber them with as "Supposed deficit" which in reality is English deficit decision. So usual bollox, as the Scottish spending would bear no resemblance to the drunken spree that constitutes English UK "spending".
More analysis than you've ever had from the SNP!
Joining a formal currency union does not seem to be a feasible option for Scotland in the short term. Launching a pegged currency also appears unrealistic given the mismatch between Scotland’s prospects of accumulating foreign reserves and the amount needed to manage the exchange rate. Only two options, therefore, are truly open to Scotland straight after independence: informally adopting sterling and launching a new, free-floating currency.
Informally adopting sterling comes with various downsides. But in the short term at least, it may be preferable to launching a new currency. A new currency would probably be particularly volatile in the period straight after independence, when there would be uncertainty about Scotland’s future path and Scotland’s new institutions would lack credibility with markets because of the absence of a track record of prudent fiscal and monetary policy. This volatility, as described in this report, could discourage investment and trade with Scotland and elicit high premiums on the sovereign borrowing rates.
You are obsessed with SNP and hatred of all things Scottish.
As ever you conflate the SNP with "all things Scottish"!
Why not read the reports and educate yourself?
Salmond said independence would be achieved within 18months at a cost of £200 million......of course rUK could say "here's your hat, where's your hurry?" and cut off the subsidy immediately - to help you get used to lower levels of spending.....
I will wait for the real thing rather than waste my time on pointless unionist propaganda. I repeat all countries have currencies why would Scotland be the only country in the world unable to have one. Educate me on that oh wise one.
PS: Yet again I repeat you almost always talk about "Scotland" not the SNP. Read your post and tell me where you talk about SNP or Scottish Government, it is all SCOTLAND. I rest my case, your pathological hatred is well practiced.
All countries that have a currency have a central bank which we currently don’t. We also don’t have any employees with any experience of running same.
Assuming we get over that issue ( and presumably get a finance minister with rather more knowledge of gilt rates than dear Kate showed recently) the question is what that currency would be worth.
A significant depreciation against Sterling looks completely nailed on in such a scenario. We have a very serious fiscal deficit and a trade deficit. In the medium term such a depreciation may be exactly what Scotland needs to be competitive again but in the short term we would all be somewhere near 20% poorer and vulnerable to capital flight.
David , Once again all supposition and all based on what England spends our money on at present. We have a central bank at present , we own a share of the Bank of England. Who knows what our budget would be like without all the dross that England currently spends money on and attributes to Scotland. We have no clue, no-one can split out the respective revenues and budgets at present, it is all guess work biased to current position where majority is registered in London. No-one has a real clue about what the position will really be on Independence. Currently Scotland does not have any deficit , all money is borrowed and spent based on UK, anything else is a lie or just made up.
BiB - the BoE and the £ aren’t like North Sea oil!
Your point is? I cannot imagine you think me stupid enough not to know that so must be some point behind it.
St Andrews pips Cowley Tech and Fenn Poly to the top spot in UK University rankings:
Alastair McCall, editor of The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide, said: “Never before has any university other than Cambridge and Oxford finished top of our – or any other – domestic ranking of universities.
“It is no fluke. The university has been closing in on the Oxbridge duopoly for several years, buoyed by outstanding levels of student satisfaction which have peaked during the past year of pandemic disruption on campus. The lead St Andrews now has over other universities in this key area of university performance is remarkable.
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roberts is not the issue. In a normal SCOTUS he would be the swing vote. In this one, he is not. That is the issue. The real test for SCOTUS will be the cases it hears (or declines to hear) following a contested presidential election.
The Dems should be trying to get Breyer (the oldest justice at 83) to retire, while they still control the WH and the Senate. They can't afford for another Ginsburg situation to happen
Very much so. Ginsberg should have retired in her late seventies, when Obama was president and the Dems had the Senate. She must have known there was a chance that, if she clung on until well into her eighties, she might pass away at a time when Republicans were in charge.
Even if she didn’t really want to retire, someone on Obama’s team should have had a polite word in her ear.
It's absurd some of them may stay on long past the point they can do it effectively, mentally of physically, because of fear of who gets to replace them. Even if politically appointed judges was good that's an awful position, clinging on trying not to die.
Maximum age would be the least they could do, especially as they like to appoint young if they can. For a country which has lots of term limit rules I'm amazed the court having life appointees who are so powerful is acceptable.
The EU cannot join CPTPP, but they would certainly hope to negotiate an EU-CPTPP trade agreement in time.
China’s application yesterday to CPTPP complicates the UK’s application, I think. Members may wish to avoid snubbing the Chinese by prioritising talks with the U.K.
The US hasn’t yet applied, just signalled again they (as even Trump did in 2018) that they are considering it.
Trade is one dimension; defence is another.
France is not leaving Asia-Pacific, indeed it has more material interests there than the U.K. does. However, it’s attempts to boost its strategic power and autonomy there via the 2016 deal with Australia just got trumped by the US.
Perhaps France will now make overtures to India, who presumably - as much as China is the shared enemy - will not want to be totally subservient to the Americans as the U.K. and Australia (and perhaps Japan) are happy to be.
France in the form of the Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales just sorted out the savage spin characteristics of the Indian Air Force's new HTT-40 trainer so the charm offensive is underway.
Any currency choice for a newly independent Scotland would require its government to bring borrowing down to a sustainable level and commit to low and stable inflation....
This report.... explains how three currency options – a formal currency union with the rest of the UK, joining the euro, and ‘pegging’ a new Scottish currency to the value of another – are not initially viable.
Whatever currency arrangement it chose, Scotland’s ability to borrow would be restricted by what international investors were willing to lend. The implicit Scottish deficit was over 8% of GDP before coronavirus. No advanced economy – especially no small, advanced economy – has consistently borrowed anything like that much in normal times. A sustainable medium-term deficit would be closer to 3%. But this gap cannot be closed by spending less on defence or – at least initially – through higher growth, so some tax increases or spending cuts would be necessary.
It borrows ZERO at present so should not be difficult. Given they would not borrow for the rubbish the UK lumber them with as "Supposed deficit" which in reality is English deficit decision. So usual bollox, as the Scottish spending would bear no resemblance to the drunken spree that constitutes English UK "spending".
More analysis than you've ever had from the SNP!
Joining a formal currency union does not seem to be a feasible option for Scotland in the short term. Launching a pegged currency also appears unrealistic given the mismatch between Scotland’s prospects of accumulating foreign reserves and the amount needed to manage the exchange rate. Only two options, therefore, are truly open to Scotland straight after independence: informally adopting sterling and launching a new, free-floating currency.
Informally adopting sterling comes with various downsides. But in the short term at least, it may be preferable to launching a new currency. A new currency would probably be particularly volatile in the period straight after independence, when there would be uncertainty about Scotland’s future path and Scotland’s new institutions would lack credibility with markets because of the absence of a track record of prudent fiscal and monetary policy. This volatility, as described in this report, could discourage investment and trade with Scotland and elicit high premiums on the sovereign borrowing rates.
You are obsessed with SNP and hatred of all things Scottish.
As ever you conflate the SNP with "all things Scottish"!
Why not read the reports and educate yourself?
Salmond said independence would be achieved within 18months at a cost of £200 million......of course rUK could say "here's your hat, where's your hurry?" and cut off the subsidy immediately - to help you get used to lower levels of spending.....
I will wait for the real thing rather than waste my time on pointless unionist propaganda. I repeat all countries have currencies why would Scotland be the only country in the world unable to have one. Educate me on that oh wise one.
PS: Yet again I repeat you almost always talk about "Scotland" not the SNP. Read your post and tell me where you talk about SNP or Scottish Government, it is all SCOTLAND. I rest my case, your pathological hatred is well practiced.
All countries that have a currency have a central bank which we currently don’t. We also don’t have any employees with any experience of running same.
Assuming we get over that issue ( and presumably get a finance minister with rather more knowledge of gilt rates than dear Kate showed recently) the question is what that currency would be worth.
A significant depreciation against Sterling looks completely nailed on in such a scenario. We have a very serious fiscal deficit and a trade deficit. In the medium term such a depreciation may be exactly what Scotland needs to be competitive again but in the short term we would all be somewhere near 20% poorer and vulnerable to capital flight.
David , Once again all supposition and all based on what England spends our money on at present. We have a central bank at present , we own a share of the Bank of England. Who knows what our budget would be like without all the dross that England currently spends money on and attributes to Scotland. We have no clue, no-one can split out the respective revenues and budgets at present, it is all guess work biased to current position where majority is registered in London. No-one has a real clue about what the position will really be on Independence. Currently Scotland does not have any deficit , all money is borrowed and spent based on UK, anything else is a lie or just made up. PS: I agree on Kate ( far from the worst of them) and doubt any of the jokers currently squandering the pocket money will be in place when independent.
The best numbers we have are the GERS numbers produced by the Scottish government. They are horrible. The onus is on those claiming it would not be as bad as that.
I disagree, GERS are crap and include hundreds of "estimates" and are well known to be absolute bollox. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. We will see who has the last laugh in time.
Miss Vance, not sure a 'middle course' is what I'd be aiming at when the alternatives are democracy and a dictatorship with a sideline in concentration camps.
Nunavut Riding covers a mere 1.88 MILLION square kilometres. The largest electoral unit in the world which elects just one MP. Folk who spot Labour's failure to win in rural areas may be surprised it is an NDP seat.
Does being MP there, come with a government helicopter? 1.88m sq km is seven times the size of the UK!
Probably they get an outsize travel allowance. There’s an interesting case up in Alaska, with similar distances involved, where a state senator is unable to get to Juneau for senate meetings as there is no road access to the city from the rest of the state (or anywhere else) and the only airline serving her route has just banned her for abusing flight crew trying to enforce the mask mandate.
Ha, whoops. Maybe one shouldn’t abuse flight crew then, especially as a government official relying on the airline for regular transport!
Having a truly massive constituency must be a real pain. There’s going to be a lot of small villages, who usually keep themselves to themselves, but will all have something to say about government, and expect to see their MP from time to time. If you’re in rural Alaska, Canada, Siberia, Australia etc, you’ll be spending more time travelling than actually meeting people.
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
I want to reduce the abortion limit, reducing it to 22 weeks from the current 24 weeks has the support of most voters and would be the start of that process if we get a Conservative majority again at the next general election or the Conservatives have enough seats to form a government with the DUP.
Joint UK / Scottish govt approach to ‘freeports’ is off: @Ivan_McKee says UK not committing to real living wage or net zero conditions for Scottish ports
UK “disappointed” @scotgov rejecting what it considers “very generous” offer via @ScotSecofState
Nunavut Riding covers a mere 1.88 MILLION square kilometres. The largest electoral unit in the world which elects just one MP. Folk who spot Labour's failure to win in rural areas may be surprised it is an NDP seat.
Does being MP there, come with a government helicopter? 1.88m sq km is seven times the size of the UK!
Probably they get an outsize travel allowance. There’s an interesting case up in Alaska, with similar distances involved, where a state senator is unable to get to Juneau for senate meetings as there is no road access to the city from the rest of the state (or anywhere else) and the only airline serving her route has just banned her for abusing flight crew trying to enforce the mask mandate.
In the isles of scilly councillors argued they needed 2 for each of the smaller islands, even with v few people, in part as in winter theres no evening boats so someone could get stuck off the mainland (ie the biggest island) and unable to attend meetings. The lgbce didn't buy it.
Joint UK / Scottish govt approach to ‘freeports’ is off: @Ivan_McKee says UK not committing to real living wage or net zero conditions for Scottish ports
UK “disappointed” @scotgov rejecting what it considers “very generous” offer via @ScotSecofState
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
I want to reduce the abortion limit, reducing it to 22 weeks from the current 24 weeks has the support of most voters and would be the start of that process if we get a Conservative majority again at the next general election or the Conservatives have enough seats to form a government with the DUP.
If that's in the manifesto, that rules me voting Conservative out. One step on THAT road is one step to far.
The EU cannot join CPTPP, but they would certainly hope to negotiate an EU-CPTPP trade agreement in time.
China’s application yesterday to CPTPP complicates the UK’s application, I think. Members may wish to avoid snubbing the Chinese by prioritising talks with the U.K.
The US hasn’t yet applied, just signalled again they (as even Trump did in 2018) that they are considering it.
Trade is one dimension; defence is another.
France is not leaving Asia-Pacific, indeed it has more material interests there than the U.K. does. However, it’s attempts to boost its strategic power and autonomy there via the 2016 deal with Australia just got trumped by the US.
Perhaps France will now make overtures to India, who presumably - as much as China is the shared enemy - will not want to be totally subservient to the Americans as the U.K. and Australia (and perhaps Japan) are happy to be.
France in the form of the Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales just sorted out the savage spin characteristics of the Indian Air Force's new HTT-40 trainer so the charm offensive is underway.
Aren’t military basic trainers supposed to be savage spinners, it sorts the men from the boys before they fly the more expensive machinery!
Nunavut Riding covers a mere 1.88 MILLION square kilometres. The largest electoral unit in the world which elects just one MP. Folk who spot Labour's failure to win in rural areas may be surprised it is an NDP seat.
The EU cannot join CPTPP, but they would certainly hope to negotiate an EU-CPTPP trade agreement in time.
China’s application yesterday to CPTPP complicates the UK’s application, I think. Members may wish to avoid snubbing the Chinese by prioritising talks with the U.K.
The US hasn’t yet applied, just signalled again they (as even Trump did in 2018) that they are considering it.
Trade is one dimension; defence is another.
France is not leaving Asia-Pacific, indeed it has more material interests there than the U.K. does. However, it’s attempts to boost its strategic power and autonomy there via the 2016 deal with Australia just got trumped by the US.
Perhaps France will now make overtures to India, who presumably - as much as China is the shared enemy - will not want to be totally subservient to the Americans as the U.K. and Australia (and perhaps Japan) are happy to be.
France in the form of the Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales just sorted out the savage spin characteristics of the Indian Air Force's new HTT-40 trainer so the charm offensive is underway.
Aren’t military basic trainers supposed to be savage spinners, it sorts the men from the boys before they fly the more expensive machinery!
That's the kind of thinking that had Churchill asking why the RAF was losing pilots in peace time faster than the during the war.....
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
I want to reduce the abortion limit, reducing it to 22 weeks from the current 24 weeks has the support of most voters and would be the start of that process if we get a Conservative majority again at the next general election or the Conservatives have enough seats to form a government with the DUP.
If that's in the manifesto, that rules me voting Conservative out. One step on THAT road is one step to far.
These slippery slope arguments are always mad to me. I am strongly pro-choice but feel very uncomfortable with abortion after 20 weeks when higher brain function kicks in. (Obviously exceptions can be made if the pregnancy is non-viable or the mother is at risk).
I am actually far more likely to vote for a politician who has a nuanced position on issues rather than someone who retreats to absolutist talking points.
As I remember (from accounts, I may be an old git but not that old) he murdered Catiline extra-judicially because he perceived, as did many around him, that he posed a clear and present threat to the Republic and it was only when his, Catiline's*, allies regained power in the second Triumvirate that they literally caught up with him, Cicero*.
*No prizes for guessing which book I'm now reading.
Law and politics were heavily bound up with each other in the late Roman Republic.
Catliline was in open rebellion so it was certainly lawful to kill him in battle. The men who were condemned to death in Rome were condemned by a resolution of the Senate, which ought to have been treated as lawful, once the body had declared a state of emergency. Condemning them to death was no worse, from a legal point of view, than Caesar's counter-proposal that they be imprisoned for life without chance of release.
But, once Cicero's arch enemy Clodius was in power, he could pass a resolution retroactively deeming Cicero's actions to be illegal.
Yep that is more the way I (vaguely!) remember it.
The counter argument was that a sentence of death without trial wasn't in the purview of the Senate, state of emergency or not. A major breach of "Mos maiorum"....
The opposition to Senatorial rule saw this as a massive extension of the "State of Emergency" concept - a completely unaccountable version of the Dictatorship, which meant the Senate could do anything it liked, whenever.
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roberts is not the issue. In a normal SCOTUS he would be the swing vote. In this one, he is not. That is the issue. The real test for SCOTUS will be the cases it hears (or declines to hear) following a contested presidential election.
The Dems should be trying to get Breyer (the oldest justice at 83) to retire, while they still control the WH and the Senate. They can't afford for another Ginsburg situation to happen
Very much so. Ginsberg should have retired in her late seventies, when Obama was president and the Dems had the Senate. She must have known there was a chance that, if she clung on until well into her eighties, she might pass away at a time when Republicans were in charge.
Even if she didn’t really want to retire, someone on Obama’s team should have had a polite word in her ear.
It's absurd some of them may stay on long past the point they can do it effectively, mentally of physically, because of fear of who gets to replace them. Even if politically appointed judges was good that's an awful position, clinging on trying not to die.
Maximum age would be the least they could do, especially as they like to appoint young if they can. For a country which has lots of term limit rules I'm amazed the court having life appointees who are so powerful is acceptable.
If each of the nine justices served for 36 years then you could space the appointments so that each Presidential term would appoint one justice, and you'd avoid the issues of the shenanigans at the end of Obama's term.
You could adjust the frequency of appointments, term length and size of the court to suit your own preferences. One appointee following each Senate election (every two years) to serve 22 years in an 11-member court would be an alternative.
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
I want to reduce the abortion limit, reducing it to 22 weeks from the current 24 weeks has the support of most voters and would be the start of that process if we get a Conservative majority again at the next general election or the Conservatives have enough seats to form a government with the DUP.
Thankfully, discussions on this subject in the UK are somewhat more nuanced than in the USA.
Given that 2008 was the last time the limit was voted on in Parliament, and given medical advances that see babies surviving from birth at 21 and 22 weeks, it’s possibly time to revisit.
12 weeks seems to be common around Europe, which seems much more reasonable.
200,000 abortions a year is clearly wrong, no matter whether you’re in favour or against abortion in principle.
As I remember (from accounts, I may be an old git but not that old) he murdered Catiline extra-judicially because he perceived, as did many around him, that he posed a clear and present threat to the Republic and it was only when his, Catiline's*, allies regained power in the second Triumvirate that they literally caught up with him, Cicero*.
*No prizes for guessing which book I'm now reading.
Law and politics were heavily bound up with each other in the late Roman Republic.
Catliline was in open rebellion so it was certainly lawful to kill him in battle. The men who were condemned to death in Rome were condemned by a resolution of the Senate, which ought to have been treated as lawful, once the body had declared a state of emergency. Condemning them to death was no worse, from a legal point of view, than Caesar's counter-proposal that they be imprisoned for life without chance of release.
But, once Cicero's arch enemy Clodius was in power, he could pass a resolution retroactively deeming Cicero's actions to be illegal.
Yep that is more the way I (vaguely!) remember it.
The counter argument was that a sentence of death without trial wasn't in the purview of the Senate, state of emergency or not. A major breach of "Mos maiorum"....
The opposition to Senatorial rule saw this as a massive extension of the "State of Emergency" concept - a completely unaccountable version of the Dictatorship, which meant the Senate could do anything it liked, whenever.
I think that highlights much of Cicero's weakness. He was after all a huge egoist and l'etat c'est moi character who finally had made Consul and got carried away with the accompanying power. There was after all no greater fan of Cicero whether his oratory or his governing than Cicero.
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
I want to reduce the abortion limit, reducing it to 22 weeks from the current 24 weeks has the support of most voters and would be the start of that process if we get a Conservative majority again at the next general election or the Conservatives have enough seats to form a government with the DUP.
Thankfully, discussions on this subject in the UK are somewhat more nuanced than in the USA.
Given that 2008 was the last time the limit was voted on in Parliament, and given medical advances that see babies surviving from birth at 21 and 22 weeks, it’s possibly time to revisit.
12 weeks seems to be common around Europe, which seems much more reasonable.
200,000 abortions a year is clearly wrong, no matter whether you’re in favour or against abortion in principle.
Why is it clearly wrong? I have no moral objection to abortion in the early months when there is no real brain function there.
Any currency choice for a newly independent Scotland would require its government to bring borrowing down to a sustainable level and commit to low and stable inflation....
This report.... explains how three currency options – a formal currency union with the rest of the UK, joining the euro, and ‘pegging’ a new Scottish currency to the value of another – are not initially viable.
Whatever currency arrangement it chose, Scotland’s ability to borrow would be restricted by what international investors were willing to lend. The implicit Scottish deficit was over 8% of GDP before coronavirus. No advanced economy – especially no small, advanced economy – has consistently borrowed anything like that much in normal times. A sustainable medium-term deficit would be closer to 3%. But this gap cannot be closed by spending less on defence or – at least initially – through higher growth, so some tax increases or spending cuts would be necessary.
It borrows ZERO at present so should not be difficult. Given they would not borrow for the rubbish the UK lumber them with as "Supposed deficit" which in reality is English deficit decision. So usual bollox, as the Scottish spending would bear no resemblance to the drunken spree that constitutes English UK "spending".
More analysis than you've ever had from the SNP!
Joining a formal currency union does not seem to be a feasible option for Scotland in the short term. Launching a pegged currency also appears unrealistic given the mismatch between Scotland’s prospects of accumulating foreign reserves and the amount needed to manage the exchange rate. Only two options, therefore, are truly open to Scotland straight after independence: informally adopting sterling and launching a new, free-floating currency.
Informally adopting sterling comes with various downsides. But in the short term at least, it may be preferable to launching a new currency. A new currency would probably be particularly volatile in the period straight after independence, when there would be uncertainty about Scotland’s future path and Scotland’s new institutions would lack credibility with markets because of the absence of a track record of prudent fiscal and monetary policy. This volatility, as described in this report, could discourage investment and trade with Scotland and elicit high premiums on the sovereign borrowing rates.
You are obsessed with SNP and hatred of all things Scottish.
As ever you conflate the SNP with "all things Scottish"!
Why not read the reports and educate yourself?
Salmond said independence would be achieved within 18months at a cost of £200 million......of course rUK could say "here's your hat, where's your hurry?" and cut off the subsidy immediately - to help you get used to lower levels of spending.....
I will wait for the real thing rather than waste my time on pointless unionist propaganda. I repeat all countries have currencies why would Scotland be the only country in the world unable to have one. Educate me on that oh wise one.
PS: Yet again I repeat you almost always talk about "Scotland" not the SNP. Read your post and tell me where you talk about SNP or Scottish Government, it is all SCOTLAND. I rest my case, your pathological hatred is well practiced.
All countries that have a currency have a central bank which we currently don’t. We also don’t have any employees with any experience of running same.
Assuming we get over that issue ( and presumably get a finance minister with rather more knowledge of gilt rates than dear Kate showed recently) the question is what that currency would be worth.
A significant depreciation against Sterling looks completely nailed on in such a scenario. We have a very serious fiscal deficit and a trade deficit. In the medium term such a depreciation may be exactly what Scotland needs to be competitive again but in the short term we would all be somewhere near 20% poorer and vulnerable to capital flight.
David , Once again all supposition and all based on what England spends our money on at present. We have a central bank at present , we own a share of the Bank of England. Who knows what our budget would be like without all the dross that England currently spends money on and attributes to Scotland. We have no clue, no-one can split out the respective revenues and budgets at present, it is all guess work biased to current position where majority is registered in London. No-one has a real clue about what the position will really be on Independence. Currently Scotland does not have any deficit , all money is borrowed and spent based on UK, anything else is a lie or just made up.
BiB - the BoE and the £ aren’t like North Sea oil!
Your point is? I cannot imagine you think me stupid enough not to know that so must be some point behind it.
You cannot force the UK to join a Euro-style currency union with an independent Scotland. So the fact you think Scotland owns part of the BoE is utterly meaningless.
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
I want to reduce the abortion limit, reducing it to 22 weeks from the current 24 weeks has the support of most voters and would be the start of that process if we get a Conservative majority again at the next general election or the Conservatives have enough seats to form a government with the DUP.
If that's in the manifesto, that rules me voting Conservative out. One step on THAT road is one step to far.
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
I want to reduce the abortion limit, reducing it to 22 weeks from the current 24 weeks has the support of most voters and would be the start of that process if we get a Conservative majority again at the next general election or the Conservatives have enough seats to form a government with the DUP.
Which is probably exactly why more recent polling shows big majorities in favour of NOT reducing the limit at all
Only 26% support reducing the limit below 24 weeks or banning abortions altogether in the most recent poll
I guess those who are open to the idea of reducing the limit to something like 22 weeks really don't want this to be "the start of that process", and so when given the options:
Yougov figures now out, Tories retention rate up and 85% of 2019 Tory voters still voting Tory. Only 78% of 2019 Labour voters still back Labour though.
More 2019 Tory voters, 5%, now back ReformUK than the 4% who back Starmer Labour and 5% of 2019 Labour voters now back the Tories.
Almost all Labour gains have come from the LDs, 35% of 2019 LD voters now back Starmer Labour but 10% of 2019 Labour voters now back the Greens
Potentially bad news for Labour because I think most LD voters from 2019 will eventually go back to supporting the party. Labour needs direct switchers from the Tories.
I rather doubt that. Most had probably voted Labour in 2017 and have now returned home. Very little of a core LD vote.
I, a long time Tory, voted LD last time but will either abstain or vote Tory dependant upon the situation. I cannit see myself everr voting Labour unless the Tories are out of control.
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
I want to reduce the abortion limit, reducing it to 22 weeks from the current 24 weeks has the support of most voters and would be the start of that process if we get a Conservative majority again at the next general election or the Conservatives have enough seats to form a government with the DUP.
Which is probably exactly why more recent polling shows big majorities in favour of NOT reducing the limit at all
Only 26% support reducing the limit below 24 weeks or banning abortions altogether in the most recent poll
I guess those who are open to the idea of reducing the limit to something like 22 weeks really don't want this to be "the start of that process", and so when given the options:
Big majorities (excluding don't knows) of all groups of voters are against reducing it.
That poll does not count as it does not include all options eg 22 weeks, 20 weeks, below 20 weeks etc as the poll I posted did. Therefore some who backed 22 weeks may not have gone with reducing below 24 weeks given it could have theoretically meant 6 weeks as per Texas.
So therefore no change from the position of most voters in the earlier poll to at least reduce the time limit to 22 weeks which another majority Tory government or one with DUP support must then implement.
As a Tory member and branch chair if we get that majority I will be pushing for exactly that
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
I want to reduce the abortion limit, reducing it to 22 weeks from the current 24 weeks has the support of most voters and would be the start of that process if we get a Conservative majority again at the next general election or the Conservatives have enough seats to form a government with the DUP.
If that's in the manifesto, that rules me voting Conservative out. One step on THAT road is one step to far.
Bye then, off to the LDs where you belong
It's not even in the manifesto yet, bit hasty to clap him out!
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
I want to reduce the abortion limit, reducing it to 22 weeks from the current 24 weeks has the support of most voters and would be the start of that process if we get a Conservative majority again at the next general election or the Conservatives have enough seats to form a government with the DUP.
Thankfully, discussions on this subject in the UK are somewhat more nuanced than in the USA.
Given that 2008 was the last time the limit was voted on in Parliament, and given medical advances that see babies surviving from birth at 21 and 22 weeks, it’s possibly time to revisit.
12 weeks seems to be common around Europe, which seems much more reasonable.
200,000 abortions a year is clearly wrong, no matter whether you’re in favour or against abortion in principle.
Why is it clearly wrong? I have no moral objection to abortion in the early months when there is no real brain function there.
Even if someone does I'm not sure at what number it becomes too many or remains ok.
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
I want to reduce the abortion limit, reducing it to 22 weeks from the current 24 weeks has the support of most voters and would be the start of that process if we get a Conservative majority again at the next general election or the Conservatives have enough seats to form a government with the DUP.
If that's in the manifesto, that rules me voting Conservative out. One step on THAT road is one step to far.
Bye then, off to the LDs where you belong
You Remain a disgrace to your party.
Where the hell in the Tory manifesto or party laws does it say that anyone who doesn't want the abortion limit reducing belongs in a different party?
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
I want to reduce the abortion limit, reducing it to 22 weeks from the current 24 weeks has the support of most voters and would be the start of that process if we get a Conservative majority again at the next general election or the Conservatives have enough seats to form a government with the DUP.
If that's in the manifesto, that rules me voting Conservative out. One step on THAT road is one step to far.
Bye then, off to the LDs where you belong
It's not even in the manifesto yet, bit hasty to clap him out!
He is an abortion on demand social liberal, not a conservative
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
I want to reduce the abortion limit, reducing it to 22 weeks from the current 24 weeks has the support of most voters and would be the start of that process if we get a Conservative majority again at the next general election or the Conservatives have enough seats to form a government with the DUP.
If that's in the manifesto, that rules me voting Conservative out. One step on THAT road is one step to far.
Bye then, off to the LDs where you belong
You Remain a disgrace to your party.
Where the hell in the Tory manifesto or party laws does it say that anyone who doesn't want the abortion limit reducing belongs in a different party?
You no longer even support the party so why on earth should I care what you think on this? You have no role influencing party policy anymore given you no longer support it
The EU cannot join CPTPP, but they would certainly hope to negotiate an EU-CPTPP trade agreement in time.
China’s application yesterday to CPTPP complicates the UK’s application, I think. Members may wish to avoid snubbing the Chinese by prioritising talks with the U.K.
The US hasn’t yet applied, just signalled again they (as even Trump did in 2018) that they are considering it.
Trade is one dimension; defence is another.
France is not leaving Asia-Pacific, indeed it has more material interests there than the U.K. does. However, it’s attempts to boost its strategic power and autonomy there via the 2016 deal with Australia just got trumped by the US.
Perhaps France will now make overtures to India, who presumably - as much as China is the shared enemy - will not want to be totally subservient to the Americans as the U.K. and Australia (and perhaps Japan) are happy to be.
France in the form of the Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales just sorted out the savage spin characteristics of the Indian Air Force's new HTT-40 trainer so the charm offensive is underway.
Aren’t military basic trainers supposed to be savage spinners, it sorts the men from the boys before they fly the more expensive machinery!
That's the kind of thinking that had Churchill asking why the RAF was losing pilots in peace time faster than the during the war.....
They're supposed to be difficult to fly well but not so hard that they kill the pupils, and more importantly the expensive instructors! An old friend of mine who knew about such things said, for instance, that the Tiger Moth was tricky to fly accurately.
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
I want to reduce the abortion limit, reducing it to 22 weeks from the current 24 weeks has the support of most voters and would be the start of that process if we get a Conservative majority again at the next general election or the Conservatives have enough seats to form a government with the DUP.
If that's in the manifesto, that rules me voting Conservative out. One step on THAT road is one step to far.
Bye then, off to the LDs where you belong
Just to be clear, I don't "belong" anywhere. I vote on my conscience, and I'm not afraid of switching, as I have several times.
The EU cannot join CPTPP, but they would certainly hope to negotiate an EU-CPTPP trade agreement in time.
China’s application yesterday to CPTPP complicates the UK’s application, I think. Members may wish to avoid snubbing the Chinese by prioritising talks with the U.K.
The US hasn’t yet applied, just signalled again they (as even Trump did in 2018) that they are considering it.
Trade is one dimension; defence is another.
France is not leaving Asia-Pacific, indeed it has more material interests there than the U.K. does. However, it’s attempts to boost its strategic power and autonomy there via the 2016 deal with Australia just got trumped by the US.
Perhaps France will now make overtures to India, who presumably - as much as China is the shared enemy - will not want to be totally subservient to the Americans as the U.K. and Australia (and perhaps Japan) are happy to be.
France in the form of the Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales just sorted out the savage spin characteristics of the Indian Air Force's new HTT-40 trainer so the charm offensive is underway.
Aren’t military basic trainers supposed to be savage spinners, it sorts the men from the boys before they fly the more expensive machinery!
The Tucano was a good inverted spinner but it was strictly forbidden so we used to do a bit of judicious fuse pulling to disable the data recorder before such larks. Eventually we bent them all and they wouldn't fly straight without a lot of trim.
The Hawk was very departure resistant and almost impossible to spin so we never taught spin recovery in my time on 4 FTS. That's why ETPS and Qinetiq use the Alpha Jet not the Hawk. The Alpha is easy to spin and 'easy to recover.
Any currency choice for a newly independent Scotland would require its government to bring borrowing down to a sustainable level and commit to low and stable inflation....
This report.... explains how three currency options – a formal currency union with the rest of the UK, joining the euro, and ‘pegging’ a new Scottish currency to the value of another – are not initially viable.
Whatever currency arrangement it chose, Scotland’s ability to borrow would be restricted by what international investors were willing to lend. The implicit Scottish deficit was over 8% of GDP before coronavirus. No advanced economy – especially no small, advanced economy – has consistently borrowed anything like that much in normal times. A sustainable medium-term deficit would be closer to 3%. But this gap cannot be closed by spending less on defence or – at least initially – through higher growth, so some tax increases or spending cuts would be necessary.
It borrows ZERO at present so should not be difficult. Given they would not borrow for the rubbish the UK lumber them with as "Supposed deficit" which in reality is English deficit decision. So usual bollox, as the Scottish spending would bear no resemblance to the drunken spree that constitutes English UK "spending".
More analysis than you've ever had from the SNP!
Joining a formal currency union does not seem to be a feasible option for Scotland in the short term. Launching a pegged currency also appears unrealistic given the mismatch between Scotland’s prospects of accumulating foreign reserves and the amount needed to manage the exchange rate. Only two options, therefore, are truly open to Scotland straight after independence: informally adopting sterling and launching a new, free-floating currency.
Informally adopting sterling comes with various downsides. But in the short term at least, it may be preferable to launching a new currency. A new currency would probably be particularly volatile in the period straight after independence, when there would be uncertainty about Scotland’s future path and Scotland’s new institutions would lack credibility with markets because of the absence of a track record of prudent fiscal and monetary policy. This volatility, as described in this report, could discourage investment and trade with Scotland and elicit high premiums on the sovereign borrowing rates.
You are obsessed with SNP and hatred of all things Scottish.
As ever you conflate the SNP with "all things Scottish"!
Why not read the reports and educate yourself?
Salmond said independence would be achieved within 18months at a cost of £200 million......of course rUK could say "here's your hat, where's your hurry?" and cut off the subsidy immediately - to help you get used to lower levels of spending.....
I will wait for the real thing rather than waste my time on pointless unionist propaganda. I repeat all countries have currencies why would Scotland be the only country in the world unable to have one. Educate me on that oh wise one.
PS: Yet again I repeat you almost always talk about "Scotland" not the SNP. Read your post and tell me where you talk about SNP or Scottish Government, it is all SCOTLAND. I rest my case, your pathological hatred is well practiced.
All countries that have a currency have a central bank which we currently don’t. We also don’t have any employees with any experience of running same.
Assuming we get over that issue ( and presumably get a finance minister with rather more knowledge of gilt rates than dear Kate showed recently) the question is what that currency would be worth.
A significant depreciation against Sterling looks completely nailed on in such a scenario. We have a very serious fiscal deficit and a trade deficit. In the medium term such a depreciation may be exactly what Scotland needs to be competitive again but in the short term we would all be somewhere near 20% poorer and vulnerable to capital flight.
David , Once again all supposition and all based on what England spends our money on at present. We have a central bank at present , we own a share of the Bank of England. Who knows what our budget would be like without all the dross that England currently spends money on and attributes to Scotland. We have no clue, no-one can split out the respective revenues and budgets at present, it is all guess work biased to current position where majority is registered in London. No-one has a real clue about what the position will really be on Independence. Currently Scotland does not have any deficit , all money is borrowed and spent based on UK, anything else is a lie or just made up.
BiB - the BoE and the £ aren’t like North Sea oil!
Your point is? I cannot imagine you think me stupid enough not to know that so must be some point behind it.
You cannot force the UK to join a Euro-style currency union with an independent Scotland. So the fact you think Scotland owns part of the BoE is utterly meaningless.
I know that of course and once the loot is all split it would be stupid , we will want our own currency and our share of all the loot the reserves from BoE will let us form our own little Central Bank
Any currency choice for a newly independent Scotland would require its government to bring borrowing down to a sustainable level and commit to low and stable inflation....
This report.... explains how three currency options – a formal currency union with the rest of the UK, joining the euro, and ‘pegging’ a new Scottish currency to the value of another – are not initially viable.
Whatever currency arrangement it chose, Scotland’s ability to borrow would be restricted by what international investors were willing to lend. The implicit Scottish deficit was over 8% of GDP before coronavirus. No advanced economy – especially no small, advanced economy – has consistently borrowed anything like that much in normal times. A sustainable medium-term deficit would be closer to 3%. But this gap cannot be closed by spending less on defence or – at least initially – through higher growth, so some tax increases or spending cuts would be necessary.
It borrows ZERO at present so should not be difficult. Given they would not borrow for the rubbish the UK lumber them with as "Supposed deficit" which in reality is English deficit decision. So usual bollox, as the Scottish spending would bear no resemblance to the drunken spree that constitutes English UK "spending".
More analysis than you've ever had from the SNP!
Joining a formal currency union does not seem to be a feasible option for Scotland in the short term. Launching a pegged currency also appears unrealistic given the mismatch between Scotland’s prospects of accumulating foreign reserves and the amount needed to manage the exchange rate. Only two options, therefore, are truly open to Scotland straight after independence: informally adopting sterling and launching a new, free-floating currency.
Informally adopting sterling comes with various downsides. But in the short term at least, it may be preferable to launching a new currency. A new currency would probably be particularly volatile in the period straight after independence, when there would be uncertainty about Scotland’s future path and Scotland’s new institutions would lack credibility with markets because of the absence of a track record of prudent fiscal and monetary policy. This volatility, as described in this report, could discourage investment and trade with Scotland and elicit high premiums on the sovereign borrowing rates.
You are obsessed with SNP and hatred of all things Scottish.
As ever you conflate the SNP with "all things Scottish"!
Why not read the reports and educate yourself?
Salmond said independence would be achieved within 18months at a cost of £200 million......of course rUK could say "here's your hat, where's your hurry?" and cut off the subsidy immediately - to help you get used to lower levels of spending.....
I will wait for the real thing rather than waste my time on pointless unionist propaganda. I repeat all countries have currencies why would Scotland be the only country in the world unable to have one. Educate me on that oh wise one.
PS: Yet again I repeat you almost always talk about "Scotland" not the SNP. Read your post and tell me where you talk about SNP or Scottish Government, it is all SCOTLAND. I rest my case, your pathological hatred is well practiced.
All countries that have a currency have a central bank which we currently don’t. We also don’t have any employees with any experience of running same.
Assuming we get over that issue ( and presumably get a finance minister with rather more knowledge of gilt rates than dear Kate showed recently) the question is what that currency would be worth.
A significant depreciation against Sterling looks completely nailed on in such a scenario. We have a very serious fiscal deficit and a trade deficit. In the medium term such a depreciation may be exactly what Scotland needs to be competitive again but in the short term we would all be somewhere near 20% poorer and vulnerable to capital flight.
David , Once again all supposition and all based on what England spends our money on at present. We have a central bank at present , we own a share of the Bank of England. Who knows what our budget would be like without all the dross that England currently spends money on and attributes to Scotland. We have no clue, no-one can split out the respective revenues and budgets at present, it is all guess work biased to current position where majority is registered in London. No-one has a real clue about what the position will really be on Independence. Currently Scotland does not have any deficit , all money is borrowed and spent based on UK, anything else is a lie or just made up.
BiB - the BoE and the £ aren’t like North Sea oil!
Your point is? I cannot imagine you think me stupid enough not to know that so must be some point behind it.
You cannot force the UK to join a Euro-style currency union with an independent Scotland. So the fact you think Scotland owns part of the BoE is utterly meaningless.
I know that of course and once the loot is all split it would be stupid , we will want our own currency and our share of all the loot the reserves from BoE will let us form our own little Central Bank
Gordon sold the gold in case you missed it. If you think that’s what underpins a currency, you have another thing coming.
2020 Biden could run on not being Trump and that was enough. 2024 Biden will have to run on his record in office. Also his brain is clearly a piece of shit now so by 2024 you might as well have a cantaloupe with a hair transplant and Ray-Bans.
As Trump will be in jail, that will ensure the field is clear.
And, TBH, a very good thing, too.
No chance Trump will be in jail.
Even if he's guilty, no Jury will be 12 Democrats (and if it were that'd be grounds for appeal surely). And no MAGA is going to convict.
As Trump said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Even as a non American I find the inability to hold him to account for his attempted coup in January deeply troubling.
The American democratic system is broken and becoming more so. The Republicans claiming fraud in the recall election in California before the votes had even been counted was another sign. One of the major parties in the US is no longer signed up to democratic norms. If they lose they have been cheated even in a deep blue state such as California. There is no acceptance of democratic outcomes. This is not a stable situation and Trump is largely, if not exclusively, responsible.
Yep - the US is in a very, very bad place. It is hard to see how things don't get worse there.
Yep.
There is going to eye popping levels of trouble at next POTUS election.
The fabled constitution just about managed to keep Trump in check and eventually out of office without too much violence.
I can't see it being able to cope a second time.
Really sad to see a major democracy die like this through its own internal cancer.
The Republican decision to upset the balance of the Supreme Court and to make it overtly partisan is the big problem.
Would John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett rather have Donald Trump than a democracy though? They've already got the court, he didn't pass anything interesting to conservatives except tax cuts and everybody knows he's a menace, so what's in it for them?
Roe vs Wade. Once you legalise abortion you can then follow the Texas lead and make a woman's body legal sport for men. Once you do that it isn't that far until women's rights really get rolled back. And if we're doing women that way think what will happen to gays, latinos, blacks?
There are plenty of pro life blacks and latinos and plenty of pro life women too and even some pro life gays.
Texas is also one of the few states, mainly southern, where a majority of voters think abortion should be illegal, so if it becomes more restricted there that is partly a reflection of states rights
"States Rights" exist within a constitutional framework - or should do. A state should not have the right to bring back racial segregation, slavery or in this case the middle ages. Their "shop a slag" law makes women sport for predatory "men".
I would have thought abortion on demand is far more likely to do make women sport for predatory men who can have sex without consequence or risk of her getting pregnant.
Restricting abortion to the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is also hardly the middle ages nor is it slavery. Personally I would leave it a little longer and restrict it after 15-20 weeks rather than the 24 we now have in the UK but Texas can make its own mind up
You're batshit crazy.
Pregnancy tests won't reveal a pregnancy until 4 or 5 weeks in. Many women won't realise they're pregnant until past the six week mark!
Heck the moment of conception is about two weeks in. In week one "of a pregnancy" the woman isn't even pregnant yet since the clock starts at last period, not at moment of conception.
So you're really talking maybe one week of eligibility. If you're lucky. Zero for many women.
And if 50% of Texans wanted blacks to be 2/3rds of a person and enslaved?
Women aren't lucky to control their own bodies, it's their human rights.
The unborn child also has rights, precisely the opposite of slavery
No, they don't. The woman has rights, the foetus has rights when it draws it is born and draws its first breath.
Yes they do and certainly the foetus becomes a living, sentient being well before birth. The only question is what time it does
That is a question much discussed in Special Care Baby Units when I had to do which things. I know I 'helped', in a small way, to 'save' a very premature baby, who never developed fully, and is now a somewhat 'challenged' adult.
So still a living, sentient being then
Where do you put quality of life? I know the grandparents and I know the lad's condition has been a source of considerable worry and concern to his parents and to at least one set of grandparents.
I believe in life, full stop.
Define life, please. And not just the biological one of being able to reproduce.
Human life from the moment a foetus becomes a living, sentient being until death must be protected
Sorry, but what is a 'living, sentient being'?
The age at which a foetus became capable of independent life some years ago was less than now.
And rightly so, the current time limit in the UK is well beyond the European average of 12 weeks let alone the 6 weeks Texas now has.
If we get another Tory majority or there is a Tory government supported by the DUP, I would hope the abortion time limit could be reduced to 12-14 weeks from pregnancy at least
You are, seriously, trying to create a situation where a woman doesn't realise she is pregnant before the cut-off time after which she cannot get an abortion.
I certainly think reducing the abortion time lime to 12 weeks at least as is the average across most of Europe, including in Ireland, should be a priority if we get another Tory majority after the next general election or enough seats to form a Tory government supported by the DUP
Wait a minute you (mis)quoted a Texan poll to support their 6-week limit. What about this British poll:
45% of 2010 Tory voters on that poll wanted to reduce the time limit or ban abortion, only 40% to keep the time limit as now or increase it
So you've found a poll from 2012?
And you have deliberately misinterpreted it to try and make it seem to give the opposite result that it actually gives?
Like I said you are so predictable.
Even the cherry-picked poll you link to from 2012 has:
39% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing to above 24 weeks versus 17% in favour of reducing the limit to below 20 weeks (plus 6% banning abortion altogether)
Amongst *2010 Conservative voters* the figures are almost identical: 40% in favour of keeping 24 weeks or increasing 17% in favour of reducing below 20 weeks (plus 7% banning abortion altogether)
So even your cherrypicked poll shows that even amongst Conservative voters a big majority disagree with you, just like I said earlier.
Yes because it actually asked about the issue ie reducing the 24 weeks timeframe, not a generic poll like yours so is therefore more accurate. I doubt views have changed much since.
38% of 2010 Conservative voters wanted to reduce the time limit below 24 weeks and 7% wanted to ban abortion altogether, making 45% altogether to reduce the limit. Only 40% wanted to keep the limit as is or increase it.
You also deliberately ignored the fact 43% wanted to reduce the limit below 24 weeks or ban abortion altogether.
So most voters and most Tory voters wanted to reduce the abortion time limit below 24 weeks, the only question being how far. The key thing is to get the process under way of cutting the time limit, even cutting from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as most voters want would be a start then the process can start on persuading voters to go further
You said you wanted a Conservative government to reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less. Even your 9 year old cherrypicked poll shows that even among 2010 Conservative voters, you are in a small minority.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit keep at 24 weeks reduce to 22 weeks reduce to 20 weeks reduce to less than 20 weeks ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit Increase limit to more than 28 weeks Increase limit to 28 weeks Increase limit to 26 weeks Keep limit at 24 weeks Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
I want to reduce the abortion limit, reducing it to 22 weeks from the current 24 weeks has the support of most voters and would be the start of that process if we get a Conservative majority again at the next general election or the Conservatives have enough seats to form a government with the DUP.
Which is probably exactly why more recent polling shows big majorities in favour of NOT reducing the limit at all
Only 26% support reducing the limit below 24 weeks or banning abortions altogether in the most recent poll
I guess those who are open to the idea of reducing the limit to something like 22 weeks really don't want this to be "the start of that process", and so when given the options:
Big majorities (excluding don't knows) of all groups of voters are against reducing it.
That poll does not count as it does not include all options eg 22 weeks, 20 weeks, below 20 weeks etc as the poll I posted did. Therefore some who backed 22 weeks may not have gone with reducing below 24 weeks given it could have theoretically meant 6 weeks as per Texas.
So therefore no change from the position of most voters in the earlier poll to at least reduce the time limit to 22 weeks which another majority Tory government or one with DUP support must then implement.
As a Tory member and branch chair if we get that majority I will be pushing for exactly that
Umm a few minutes ago you wanted the next government reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less, why is it so hard for you to agree to the obvious truth that this is very much a minority position in your party and in Britain.
Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with the limit being 22 weeks, but after this discussion with such an extremist who claims to represent Conservative party membership, you've convinced me that we should leave the law as it is.
Comments
Assuming we get over that issue ( and presumably get a finance minister with rather more knowledge of gilt rates than dear Kate showed recently) the question is what that currency would be worth.
A significant depreciation against Sterling looks completely nailed on in such a scenario. We have a very serious fiscal deficit and a trade deficit. In the medium term such a depreciation may be exactly what Scotland needs to be competitive again but in the short term we would all be somewhere near 20% poorer and vulnerable to capital flight.
The diminution of the famously giant populace is partly explained by the immigration of smaller people from other countries and their children being born in the Netherlands.
But mystery surrounds the reason why people with exclusively Dutch roots, which is defined as all parents and grandparents having been born in the country, are also not as tall as they used to be."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-cup/2021/09/17/dutch-worlds-tallest-people-shrinking/
As I remember (from accounts, I may be an old git but not that old) he murdered Catiline extra-judicially because he perceived, as did many around him, that he posed a clear and present threat to the Republic and it was only when his, Catiline's*, allies regained power in the second Triumvirate that they literally caught up with him, Cicero*.
*No prizes for guessing which book I'm now reading.
The dangers of quoting a fact I learned at school. The old NWT seat has been cut in two since.
It was his associates who got the chop. Even Cicero wasn't clear in explaining why they had to die immediately. The conspiracy was exposed and was a flop... unless he (Cicero) was worried about who they might implicate?
No-one has a real clue about what the position will really be on Independence. Currently Scotland does not have any deficit , all money is borrowed and spent based on UK, anything else is a lie or just made up.
PS: I agree on Kate ( far from the worst of them) and doubt any of the jokers currently squandering the pocket money will be in place when independent.
China’s application yesterday to CPTPP complicates the UK’s application, I think. Members may wish to avoid snubbing the Chinese by prioritising talks with the U.K.
The US hasn’t yet applied, just signalled again they (as even Trump did in 2018) that they are considering it.
Trade is one dimension; defence is another.
France is not leaving Asia-Pacific, indeed it has more material interests there than the U.K. does.
However, it’s attempts to boost its strategic power and autonomy there via the 2016 deal with Australia just got trumped by the US.
Perhaps France will now make overtures to India, who presumably - as much as China is the shared enemy - will not want to be totally subservient to the Americans as the U.K. and Australia (and perhaps Japan) are happy to be.
SINGAPORE - Singapore is likely to see 1,000 Covid-19 cases a day soon with the number of daily cases doubling every week, said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung on Friday (Sept 17).
This is not unexpected, he added. Every country that has decided to live with the virus will sooner or later have to undergo a "major wave of transmission", just as Singapore is having now.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/spores-daily-covid-19-cases-to-hit-1000-soon-in-rite-of-passage-before-situation
It had been my impression that he, Cicero, had acted "for" the Republic because he perceived the threat to be such that the action justified it. As did his contemporaries, or at least nothing happened at the time and not just because he was Consul. It was only afterwards that there could be payback time.
Of Roman history, I particularly enjoyed reading about events which lead to the end of the Republic but/and will evidently have to revisit! Via Loeb.
You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but it is very much a minority opinion among Conservative voters and the country, and in the context of you massively misinterpreting (as I have shown) Texan polling on abortion to say that women who need an abortion in Texas should "feel lucky that they are allowed to up to 6 weeks", I think it's worth pointing this out.
BTW your poll is not "more accurate". It is framed in a biased way. These are the options:
Increase limit
keep at 24 weeks
reduce to 22 weeks
reduce to 20 weeks
reduce to less than 20 weeks
ban abortion altogether
If you have trouble seeing the bias here consider the opposite framing:
Have no upper limit
Increase limit to more than 28 weeks
Increase limit to 28 weeks
Increase limit to 26 weeks
Keep limit at 24 weeks
Reduce limit to below 24 weeks
Despite this biased framing, there is still a majority (excluding don't knows) in favour of having the limit at 22 weeks or above. And a big majority for having the limit at 20 weeks or above. So for you to pretend that this poll in any way whatsoever shows that a majority of 2010 Conservative voters agree with your position is a barefaced lie.
But keep changing the goalposts!
Reminder: I pointed out that a majority of UK adults and Conservative voters disagreed with your position ("reduce the limit to 12 weeks or less"), you then selectively quoted a poll to try and mislead people. You are shameless.
Catliline was in open rebellion so it was certainly lawful to kill him in battle. The men who were condemned to death in Rome were condemned by a resolution of the Senate, which ought to have been treated as lawful, once the body had declared a state of emergency. Condemning them to death was no worse, from a legal point of view, than Caesar's counter-proposal that they be imprisoned for life without chance of release.
But, once Cicero's arch enemy Clodius was in power, he could pass a resolution retroactively deeming Cicero's actions to be illegal.
Alastair McCall, editor of The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide, said: “Never before has any university other than Cambridge and Oxford finished top of our – or any other – domestic ranking of universities.
“It is no fluke. The university has been closing in on the Oxbridge duopoly for several years, buoyed by outstanding levels of student satisfaction which have peaked during the past year of pandemic disruption on campus. The lead St Andrews now has over other universities in this key area of university performance is remarkable.
https://www.scotsman.com/education/university-of-st-andrews-principal-thrilled-as-it-is-named-top-in-uk-3386951
Mr. Macron wants France to lead the European Union toward a middle course between the two great powers, demonstrating the “European strategic autonomy” at the core of his vision. He has spoken about an autonomous Europe operating “beside America and China.”
Such comments have been an irritant — if no more than that, given how far Europe stands militarily from such autonomy — to the Biden administration. Mr. Biden is particularly sensitive on the question of American 20th-century sacrifice for France in two world wars and France’s prickliness over its independence within the NATO alliance. Mr. Macron has not visited the White House since Mr. Biden took office, nor is there any sign that he will soon.....
..London’s relations with Washington were ruffled by the Biden administration’s lack of consultation on Afghanistan. But the partnership on the nuclear submarine deal suggests that in sensitive areas of security, intelligence sharing and military technology, Britain remains a preferred partner over France.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/16/world/europe/france-australia-uk-us-submarines.html
“Gas shortage threatens European food industry” (ft)
https://www.google.com/search?q=https://www.ft.com/content/22497cb0-aaf3-4afa-87e1-e66b67814e48
Below would be more realistic
A newly independent Scotland would face years of deep public spending cuts as it was forced to drive down its deficit with only limited borrowing options, a leading UNIONIST thinktank WITH AN AGENDA AND MONEY TO MAKE FROM SCOTLAND has said.
Your explanation of how the genetics works makes sense thank you.
Market failure
Maximum age would be the least they could do, especially as they like to appoint young if they can. For a country which has lots of term limit rules I'm amazed the court having life appointees who are so powerful is acceptable.
The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. We will see who has the last laugh in time.
About 10 years ago ^^;;;;
MSN algorithm needs looking at..
Having a truly massive constituency must be a real pain. There’s going to be a lot of small villages, who usually keep themselves to themselves, but will all have something to say about government, and expect to see their MP from time to time. If you’re in rural Alaska, Canada, Siberia, Australia etc, you’ll be spending more time travelling than actually meeting people.
says UK not committing to real living wage or net zero conditions for Scottish ports
UK “disappointed” @scotgov rejecting what it considers “very generous” offer via @ScotSecofState
https://twitter.com/GlennBBC/status/1438849498353127431?s=20
I am actually far more likely to vote for a politician who has a nuanced position on issues rather than someone who retreats to absolutist talking points.
The opposition to Senatorial rule saw this as a massive extension of the "State of Emergency" concept - a completely unaccountable version of the Dictatorship, which meant the Senate could do anything it liked, whenever.
You could adjust the frequency of appointments, term length and size of the court to suit your own preferences. One appointee following each Senate election (every two years) to serve 22 years in an 11-member court would be an alternative.
Given that 2008 was the last time the limit was voted on in Parliament, and given medical advances that see babies surviving from birth at 21 and 22 weeks, it’s possibly time to revisit.
12 weeks seems to be common around Europe, which seems much more reasonable.
200,000 abortions a year is clearly wrong, no matter whether you’re in favour or against abortion in principle.
The earlier bloodletting of the Gracchi was, perhaps, more important than that of Cicero as it set the precedent.
Edited extra bit: never let it be said that PB doesn't have the hottest takes on up to the minute news.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/should-the-legal-time-limit-to-have-an-abortion-change
(I don't know why on earth you claim this poll doesn't ask specifically about changing the limit on abortions from 24 weeks, as that is exactly what the poll asks)
Only 26% support reducing the limit below 24 weeks or banning abortions altogether in the most recent poll
I guess those who are open to the idea of reducing the limit to something like 22 weeks really don't want this to be "the start of that process", and so when given the options:
Increasing above 24 weeks
Keeping 24 weeks
Reducing below 24 weeks
Banning abortion
Big majorities (excluding don't knows) of all groups of voters are against reducing it.
So therefore no change from the position of most voters in the earlier poll to at least reduce the time limit to 22 weeks which another majority Tory government or one with DUP support must then implement.
As a Tory member and branch chair if we get that majority I will be pushing for exactly that
Where the hell in the Tory manifesto or party laws does it say that anyone who doesn't want the abortion limit reducing belongs in a different party?
The Hawk was very departure resistant and almost impossible to spin so we never taught spin recovery in my time on 4 FTS. That's why ETPS and Qinetiq use the Alpha Jet not the Hawk. The Alpha is easy to spin and 'easy to recover.
Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with the limit being 22 weeks, but after this discussion with such an extremist who claims to represent Conservative party membership, you've convinced me that we should leave the law as it is.