My view remains that Europe as a world power or even a place of significance has had its (pretty long) day in the sun. In 1945 Europe was still such a significant part of world manufacturing that it had strategic importance to the US who could not allow the Soviet Union to dominate it. Hence NATO.
Now, the threat from Russia is massively diminished. I wouldn't be saying that if I lived in the Baltic states or Ukraine or other parts of the former Soviet Union of course. There, their aspirations and mischief making would be a major concern but from the US point of view there is no longer any strategic issue in protecting western Europe which isn't facing any real threat anyway. So NATO is redundant, even if it is politically useful to keep it going in form if not in substance.
Instead the US has strategic interests and concerns in the Pacific. This tilt in this direction has been going on for some time but accelerated considerably under Obama and continued under Trump. AUKUS is a small part of this strategic engagement but there are a host of other treaties and agreements which also play a part.
The UK could have accepted the same backwater status as the rest of Europe but has decided that it wants to play. Some of this is undoubtedly delusional, we want to still matter in world affairs, some of it is a response to Brexit, some of it is looking where economic growth is taking place and wanting a cut of the action, some of it is a bit needy in that we still want to be the US's best pal. I think it is far too early to say whether this will prove a distraction or an economic opportunity and most responses to it say more about the writer's view of UK internal politics than the actual merits. France also wanted to play too and feels left out at the moment but, frankly, who cares?
Good post - lots I agree with - but I plead not guilty to a charge of letting anti-Tory or anti-Brexit sentiment cloud my view of Aukus. I see Australia hooking up with the US on defence (at the expense of a big money deal with France) and the UK involvement as dressing. In which case, ok from our perspective. Nice post-Brexit optics for those who like that sort of thing and think it's important.
But on the off chance I'm reading it wrong, so this IS the platform for a sabre-rattling Pacific NATO, and our involvement IS serious, that would be grim news indeed. America is no special friend of ours. WW2 is an age away. The cold war with the USSR is over. It's a different world now. A world where America is well into its (inevitable) recline decline. Where acting as muttley to their dick dastardly is likely to end up (eg Iraq) in disaster. Where most here look across aghast at the stuff going on with them, their society and their politics. Where (some say) one of their parties has gone crazy with woke and (all say) the other one has gone just plain full blown crazy. Where a corrupt and truly malign human being with a personality disorder and the attention span and intellectual heft of a wasp has been elected President once and could well be again in just three years from now.
So I do not see how us getting embroiled in the battles and proxy battles of this country with China over in the Pacific serves any purpose whatsoever. It won't make the UK a better place. In fact the opposite since it drains resource and focus away from domestic issues. It won't make the world a better place. In fact the opposite since conflict with China is fraught with danger and requires very deft handling - the sort of handling that only a dreamer could think will be forthcoming from Washington DC.
Deft handling in Washington and deft handling in London as well.
I do have concerns that the 'save the world' yearning that has been a dominant feature of UK foreign policy since Blair might be finding a new theatre to play in.
London too, yes, although we've seen on several occasions that we are peripheral. As we are to this, I suspect. It looks to me more like a US/AU marine defence contract at the expense of France than the start of a big new Anglo alliance against China. But we'll see. There's more supposition than fact around at the moment.
My view remains that Europe as a world power or even a place of significance has had its (pretty long) day in the sun. In 1945 Europe was still such a significant part of world manufacturing that it had strategic importance to the US who could not allow the Soviet Union to dominate it. Hence NATO.
Now, the threat from Russia is massively diminished. I wouldn't be saying that if I lived in the Baltic states or Ukraine or other parts of the former Soviet Union of course. There, their aspirations and mischief making would be a major concern but from the US point of view there is no longer any strategic issue in protecting western Europe which isn't facing any real threat anyway. So NATO is redundant, even if it is politically useful to keep it going in form if not in substance.
Instead the US has strategic interests and concerns in the Pacific. This tilt in this direction has been going on for some time but accelerated considerably under Obama and continued under Trump. AUKUS is a small part of this strategic engagement but there are a host of other treaties and agreements which also play a part.
The UK could have accepted the same backwater status as the rest of Europe but has decided that it wants to play. Some of this is undoubtedly delusional, we want to still matter in world affairs, some of it is a response to Brexit, some of it is looking where economic growth is taking place and wanting a cut of the action, some of it is a bit needy in that we still want to be the US's best pal. I think it is far too early to say whether this will prove a distraction or an economic opportunity and most responses to it say more about the writer's view of UK internal politics than the actual merits. France also wanted to play too and feels left out at the moment but, frankly, who cares?
Good post - lots I agree with - but I plead not guilty to a charge of letting anti-Tory or anti-Brexit sentiment cloud my view of Aukus. I see Australia hooking up with the US on defence (at the expense of a big money deal with France) and the UK involvement as dressing. In which case, ok from our perspective. Nice post-Brexit optics for those who like that sort of thing and think it's important.
But on the off chance I'm reading it wrong, so this IS the platform for a sabre-rattling Pacific NATO, and our involvement IS serious, that would be grim news indeed. America is no special friend of ours. WW2 is an age away. The cold war with the USSR is over. It's a different world now. A world where America is well into its (inevitable) recline decline. Where acting as muttley to their dick dastardly is likely to end up (eg Iraq) in disaster. Where most here look across aghast at the stuff going on with them, their society and their politics. Where (some say) one of their parties has gone crazy with woke and (all say) the other one has gone just plain full blown crazy. Where a corrupt and truly malign human being with a personality disorder and the attention span and intellectual heft of a wasp has been elected President once and could well be again in just three years from now.
So I do not see how us getting embroiled in the battles and proxy battles of this country with China over in the Pacific serves any purpose whatsoever. It won't make the UK a better place. In fact the opposite since it drains resource and focus away from domestic issues. It won't make the world a better place. In fact the opposite since conflict with China is fraught with danger and requires very deft handling - the sort of handling that only a dreamer could think will be forthcoming from Washington DC.
Deft handling in Washington and deft handling in London as well.
I do have concerns that the 'save the world' yearning that has been a dominant feature of UK foreign policy since Blair might be finding a new theatre to play in.
London too, yes, although we've seen on several occasions that we are peripheral. As we are to this, I suspect. It looks to me more like a US/AU marine defence contract at the expense of France than the start of a big new Anglo alliance against China. But we'll see. There's more supposition than fact around at the moment.
The lack of self awareness in this post is high, even for you.
Quite interesting on Marr this morning (yes, I'm surprised). I note:
1 - Ed Davey was the only politician wearing a tie.
2 - I had not heard of the Natalie Bird case, where a Lib Dem members and former Council Candidate has been banned from any representative role for the party whatsoever for 10 years, for afaics wearing a teeshirt with a slogan "Woman: Adult Human Female" to a meeting.
I would expect to know this, as I read Lib Dem blogs. Having previously published articles on LDV, she seems to have been banished to the Lib Dem Gulag. Neither liberal, not tolerant.
Marr skewered Davey a little on that one. Otherwise, a strong interview.
3 - Decent conversation about press stories.
4 - Decent interview with Alok Sharma.
The first Marr for a bit I would recommend watching if you missed it.
The bit I found strange was an attempt to shift the blame for the row onto the Tories - haven't they, basically, kept their heads down in the whole TERF thing?
It was silly to try to blame Boris for their trans rights difficulties
Boris can be blamed for many things but not this
I have been receptive to the lib dems recently but the trans controversy has ended that and my wife is really angry about the issue and the fear women are experiencing
Good to see him being strong on vax passports. A stupid and unworkable idea that is really a front for a national digital id.
The problem is the good points are overwhelmed with this trans rights issue that is frightening so many women
Canada increasingly looking like a Clinton/Trump election. 338canada.com has it 68-31 and CBC 71-28 for Liberals most seats. (I assume the other one is a tie). So. A definite favourite. But far, far from a certainty. I, personally, would be going nearer 60-40. Neither result would surprise, let alone shock me.
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
The issue is creating waves in all the non-Tory parties - it's the reason the current Green leadership has stood down. Starmer has very little patience for the full "self-identified trans=women, get over it" stance and if pushed will explicitly reject it, but he correctly thinks it's not an issue that most people want him to focus on. I think the Tories will struggle to make it a salient anti-LD issue in an election, though, unless Davey chooses to major on it.
Is this one the Tories will get around as they may to be circumventing the 'diversity identity politics' that bedevils other parties? No idea how the proportions compare with age-matching identity-politics quotas on LGB and T, were such to exist, but the quota-buttons such as they are on the BBC Cabinet Diversity Monitor give 27% women and BAME 23% (well over national average in the pop).
I would punt that Tories will be pushing female canidates at the next election, and be looking to promote LGB MPs - who were heavily overrepresented in the Commons the last time I checked.
Why on earth should there be seat losses to the SNP? The Tories have been winning council seats from the SNP in Scotland. In addition there will be 7 fewer Scottish seats after the boundary changes. It really is time the remoaners on this site realise they lost in 2016 and we have left the EU for good. If Boris won the next election with a majority of 100, most of you would be trying to find a way to dismiss it as a disaster for him. The LobDems might win the odd council by-election and may even win some of the new Westminster seats after the boundary changes but they stabbed their most successful leader, Charles Kennedy in the back and they have kept going backwards ever since. I said 2 years ago Starmer would bore the working class and so it is proving to be.
Sadly, it's entirely possible that the Scottish Conservatives are completely wiped out in 2024. All the polls point to the SNP being up quite a bit from 2019. And the Conservative seats - even after boundary changes - aren't likely to be particularly safe.
My guess, FWIW, is that the Conservatives drop to just a single borders seat.
(Also: are you accounting for the fact that Scottish local elections are STV?)
I doubt that myself and expect the Tories to hold on to a few seats. Some labour gains there are likely too if polls are showing a neck and neck GB race similar to what we see now. I cannot see the SNP beating its 2021 Holyrood vote share - indeed more likely to underperform .
I expect the Conservatives will hold Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweedale and Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk regardless. However if the SNP do gain the other 4 remaining Tory Scottish seats on current polls that could make the difference between a Conservative minority government propped up by the DUP and a Labour minority government propped up by the SNP and LDs.
Remember in 2017 it was the 13 seats the Tories won in Scotland that ensured May had enough seats to form a minority government with DUP confidence and supply
I find your apparent expectation that the DUP will shore up the Tories amusing. Particularly if the latter are still led by Johnson who I suspect is regarded as both dishonest and a Catholic.
I advocated last week offering the DUP a cut in the abortion limit from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as a carrot alongside the extra dosh for NI that would be required for DUP or TUV confidence and supply while Lord Frost continues to work on trying to remove the Irish Sea border.
It is also possible on current polls the UUP could pick up 1 or 2 seats like Fermanagh and South Tyrone and South Antrim and the UUP are the Tories sister party in NI
It is also possible that a split Unionist vote will help the Alliance or SDLP in certain seats.
Canada increasingly looking like a Clinton/Trump election. 338canada.com has it 68-31 and CBC 71-28 for Liberals most seats. (I assume the other one is a tie). So. A definite favourite. But far, far from a certainty. I, personally, would be going nearer 60-40. Neither result would surprise, let alone shock me.
It is not a Clinton Trump election, for as 2019 showed Trudeau can win even if he loses the popular vote unlike Clinton because of his strength in Ontario and especially Quebec
Quite interesting on Marr this morning (yes, I'm surprised). I note:
1 - Ed Davey was the only politician wearing a tie.
2 - I had not heard of the Natalie Bird case, where a Lib Dem members and former Council Candidate has been banned from any representative role for the party whatsoever for 10 years, for afaics wearing a teeshirt with a slogan "Woman: Adult Human Female" to a meeting.
I would expect to know this, as I read Lib Dem blogs. Having previously published articles on LDV, she seems to have been banished to the Lib Dem Gulag. Neither liberal, not tolerant.
Marr skewered Davey a little on that one. Otherwise, a strong interview.
3 - Decent conversation about press stories.
4 - Decent interview with Alok Sharma.
The first Marr for a bit I would recommend watching if you missed it.
The bit I found strange was an attempt to shift the blame for the row onto the Tories - haven't they, basically, kept their heads down in the whole TERF thing?
It was silly to try to blame Boris for their trans rights difficulties
Boris can be blamed for many things but not this
I have been receptive to the lib dems recently but the trans controversy has ended that and my wife is really angry about the issue and the fear women are experiencing
Good to see him being strong on vax passports. A stupid and unworkable idea that is really a front for a national digital id.
No it isn't. There's a world of difference between being liable randomly to prove who you are, and being liable to produce a specific pass to do a specific thing. Showing a pass or ticket to board a plane or train or enter a concert or sports venue works fine for me, and always has done.
And national digital id is sooo last century anyway. The state knows who you are and where you are at all times anyway via your mobile, non-cash-spending, auto face and gait and numberplate recognition. So bin your phone and cards and walk around in a blacked-out Faraday cage, with a limp. Or stfu and we can move on to a more contemporary debate, like will rockets ever work if there's nothing to push against?
Why on earth should there be seat losses to the SNP? The Tories have been winning council seats from the SNP in Scotland. In addition there will be 7 fewer Scottish seats after the boundary changes. It really is time the remoaners on this site realise they lost in 2016 and we have left the EU for good. If Boris won the next election with a majority of 100, most of you would be trying to find a way to dismiss it as a disaster for him. The LobDems might win the odd council by-election and may even win some of the new Westminster seats after the boundary changes but they stabbed their most successful leader, Charles Kennedy in the back and they have kept going backwards ever since. I said 2 years ago Starmer would bore the working class and so it is proving to be.
Sadly, it's entirely possible that the Scottish Conservatives are completely wiped out in 2024. All the polls point to the SNP being up quite a bit from 2019. And the Conservative seats - even after boundary changes - aren't likely to be particularly safe.
My guess, FWIW, is that the Conservatives drop to just a single borders seat.
(Also: are you accounting for the fact that Scottish local elections are STV?)
I doubt that myself and expect the Tories to hold on to a few seats. Some labour gains there are likely too if polls are showing a neck and neck GB race similar to what we see now. I cannot see the SNP beating its 2021 Holyrood vote share - indeed more likely to underperform .
I expect the Conservatives will hold Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweedale and Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk regardless. However if the SNP do gain the other 4 remaining Tory Scottish seats on current polls that could make the difference between a Conservative minority government propped up by the DUP and a Labour minority government propped up by the SNP and LDs.
Remember in 2017 it was the 13 seats the Tories won in Scotland that ensured May had enough seats to form a minority government with DUP confidence and supply
I find your apparent expectation that the DUP will shore up the Tories amusing. Particularly if the latter are still led by Johnson who I suspect is regarded as both dishonest and a Catholic.
I advocated last week offering the DUP a cut in the abortion limit from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as a carrot alongside the extra dosh for NI that would be required for DUP or TUV confidence and supply while Lord Frost continues to work on trying to remove the Irish Sea border.
It is also possible on current polls the UUP could pick up 1 or 2 seats like Fermanagh and South Tyrone and South Antrim and the UUP are the Tories sister party in NI
It is also possible that a split Unionist vote will help the Alliance or SDLP in certain seats.
Not many, maybe losing Belfast East and Lagan Valley to the Alliance are the only real DUP seats at risk, plus I expect the DUP vote to hold up better at FPTP Westminster than PR Stormont.
Donaldson is also now hardening his line saying the DUP will not go back into government in NI until the NI Protocol is changed to remove the Irish Sea border to reduce leakage to the TUV while also opposing the UC cut to try and boost his working class support too
Canada increasingly looking like a Clinton/Trump election. 338canada.com has it 68-31 and CBC 71-28 for Liberals most seats. (I assume the other one is a tie). So. A definite favourite. But far, far from a certainty. I, personally, would be going nearer 60-40. Neither result would surprise, let alone shock me.
It is not a Clinton Trump election, for as 2019 showed Trudeau can win even if he loses the popular vote unlike Clinton because of his strength in Ontario and especially Quebec
I meant in terms of the probabilities. And it isn't impossible, though unlikely, that the Tories could win fewer votes and more seats. Undershoot polling in Alberta, Prairies and Quebec by a few. Over in Atlantic, and Ontario by a bit, and bingo, you've done it.
Why on earth should there be seat losses to the SNP? The Tories have been winning council seats from the SNP in Scotland. In addition there will be 7 fewer Scottish seats after the boundary changes. It really is time the remoaners on this site realise they lost in 2016 and we have left the EU for good. If Boris won the next election with a majority of 100, most of you would be trying to find a way to dismiss it as a disaster for him. The LobDems might win the odd council by-election and may even win some of the new Westminster seats after the boundary changes but they stabbed their most successful leader, Charles Kennedy in the back and they have kept going backwards ever since. I said 2 years ago Starmer would bore the working class and so it is proving to be.
Sadly, it's entirely possible that the Scottish Conservatives are completely wiped out in 2024. All the polls point to the SNP being up quite a bit from 2019. And the Conservative seats - even after boundary changes - aren't likely to be particularly safe.
My guess, FWIW, is that the Conservatives drop to just a single borders seat.
(Also: are you accounting for the fact that Scottish local elections are STV?)
I doubt that myself and expect the Tories to hold on to a few seats. Some labour gains there are likely too if polls are showing a neck and neck GB race similar to what we see now. I cannot see the SNP beating its 2021 Holyrood vote share - indeed more likely to underperform .
I expect the Conservatives will hold Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweedale and Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk regardless. However if the SNP do gain the other 4 remaining Tory Scottish seats on current polls that could make the difference between a Conservative minority government propped up by the DUP and a Labour minority government propped up by the SNP and LDs.
Remember in 2017 it was the 13 seats the Tories won in Scotland that ensured May had enough seats to form a minority government with DUP confidence and supply
I find your apparent expectation that the DUP will shore up the Tories amusing. Particularly if the latter are still led by Johnson who I suspect is regarded as both dishonest and a Catholic.
I advocated last week offering the DUP a cut in the abortion limit from 24 weeks to 22 weeks as a carrot alongside the extra dosh for NI that would be required for DUP or TUV confidence and supply while Lord Frost continues to work on trying to remove the Irish Sea border.
It is also possible on current polls the UUP could pick up 1 or 2 seats like Fermanagh and South Tyrone and South Antrim and the UUP are the Tories sister party in NI
Agree with your second paragraph; rather depends on how hostile the various sorts of Unionists have become to each other. Lord Frost would of course be trying to remove something for which he was at least partly responsible, and it might be helpful if he considered apologising or realising he was , instead of, it appears, blaming others. We have to remember that the whole N Ireland situation is a direct consequence of Conservative party policies over the last 150 or so years, and it might be helpful if that was recognised sometimes..
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
The issue is creating waves in all the non-Tory parties - it's the reason the current Green leadership has stood down. Starmer has very little patience for the full "self-identified trans=women, get over it" stance and if pushed will explicitly reject it, but he correctly thinks it's not an issue that most people want him to focus on. I think the Tories will struggle to make it a salient anti-LD issue in an election, though, unless Davey chooses to major on it.
I agree with all that. But if the rumours about Rosie Duffield not attending the LP Conference out of fear are true, I do think Starmer should deal with this explicitly and publicly. He can do this without giving a view on the substantive issue. He simply needs to say that the LP is a broad church, people are entitled to have civil disagreements, but he simply will not tolerate intimidation of party members or MPs over this, or any other, issue.
This is where I came in earlier. He has form on not facing up to extremists in the party. He sat in Corbyn's shadow cabinet mute on anti-semitism while both male and female Jewish MPs were subjected to appalling treatment. To quote from a party leader where women do rise to the top - 'he's frit'!
Where's your evidence that Starmer was "mute" on anti-semitism - were you at Shadow Cabinet meetings?
Maybe you could acknowledge that, regardless, Starmer has tackled anti-semitism well since becoming Leader. It's disappeared from Labour Party 'news', but you can bet there's still lots of LP enemies trying to hunt out anti-semitic stuff from LP members. Doesn't look like they're finding it any more, does it?
Canada increasingly looking like a Clinton/Trump election. 338canada.com has it 68-31 and CBC 71-28 for Liberals most seats. (I assume the other one is a tie). So. A definite favourite. But far, far from a certainty. I, personally, would be going nearer 60-40. Neither result would surprise, let alone shock me.
It is not a Clinton Trump election, for as 2019 showed Trudeau can win even if he loses the popular vote unlike Clinton because of his strength in Ontario and especially Quebec
I meant in terms of the probabilities. And it isn't impossible, though unlikely, that the Tories could win fewer votes and more seats. Undershoot polling in Alberta, Prairies and Quebec by a few. Over in Atlantic, and Ontario by a bit, and bingo, you've done it.
Even Angus Reid, one of the few national pollsters with the Tories still ahead, has the Liberals ahead by 6% in Ontario over the Conservatives and the Liberals leading the Conservatives by 12% in Quebec so very unlikely, every poll would have to be hugely wrong at provincial level.
The Conservatives likely need to be ahead by at least 5%+ in the national popular vote to win most seats
The problem for the U.K. in China’s CPTPP application is that some members may not be willing to appear to favour the U.K. application over China’s.
Since China’s application looks unlikely to proceed very quickly, that could leave the UK’s application in limbo.
The Japanese leadership candidates are mostly saying things like "we will have to see if China can satisfy the high standards required". I don't know what everybody thinks of the UK joining but I think it's very easy to find a justification to let the UK in but not China. If any particular country wants to avoid pissing off China they can just let another country be the bad guy, they won't be short of volunteers.
It's also worth remembering that the UK is no threat to the balance of power in the organisation. We would be the second largest economy in the bloc, but well behind Japan, and will be expected to obey the rules that have already been devised by the other members. If China gets a seat around the table it will want to dictate everything. This is also why I think that the US won't accede either: Congress will expect to rewrite the rules to its own advantage; the club will tell Congress to take a hike.
After all, we all know from the experience of our own country the endless, miserable arguments that arise when one member of the collective is vastly larger and stronger than the others.
At present China does not meet a lot of the basic requirements around eg transparency to join the CPTPP (how easily to remember that acronyminitialism?) Plenty of analysis out there about it:
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
The issue is creating waves in all the non-Tory parties - it's the reason the current Green leadership has stood down. Starmer has very little patience for the full "self-identified trans=women, get over it" stance and if pushed will explicitly reject it, but he correctly thinks it's not an issue that most people want him to focus on. I think the Tories will struggle to make it a salient anti-LD issue in an election, though, unless Davey chooses to major on it.
I agree with all that. But if the rumours about Rosie Duffield not attending the LP Conference out of fear are true, I do think Starmer should deal with this explicitly and publicly. He can do this without giving a view on the substantive issue. He simply needs to say that the LP is a broad church, people are entitled to have civil disagreements, but he simply will not tolerate intimidation of party members or MPs over this, or any other, issue.
This is where I came in earlier. He has form on not facing up to extremists in the party. He sat in Corbyn's shadow cabinet mute on anti-semitism while both male and female Jewish MPs were subjected to appalling treatment. To quote from a party leader where women do rise to the top - 'he's frit'!
Where's your evidence that Starmer was "mute" on anti-semitism - were you at Shadow Cabinet meetings?
Maybe you could acknowledge that, regardless, Starmer has tackled anti-semitism well since becoming Leader. It's disappeared from Labour Party 'news', but you can bet there's still lots of LP enemies trying to hunt out anti-semitic stuff from LP members. Doesn't look like they're finding it any more, does it?
Having just finished Left Out (which I am sure is only part of the story) there is no indication that he took a stand at all. He just kept his head down and calculated that he could benefit from being the guy in place when Corbyn fell. Unedifying.
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
It is indeed. I have been passionately pro gay rights ever since I was old enough to understand the issue, I am exactly as pro trans rights as I am pro gay rights, but I would not in a million years vote for a party which buys the present pro trans activist nonsense. And I am a floating ex tory voter who has voted LD in the past (and for a successful LD candidate, so not just a protest vote). Davey has scuppered himself just when I was beginning to like him.
The problem is the loudmouth idiots on either side. The so-called 'pro-trans' people who seem more interested in arguing more than helping the interests of trans people; the anti-pro-trans people who seem just to want a good barney with the other side and make out that trans people are a threat to women.
And in the middle the trans people suffer, and their interests get forgotten.
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
It is indeed. I have been passionately pro gay rights ever since I was old enough to understand the issue, I am exactly as pro trans rights as I am pro gay rights, but I would not in a million years vote for a party which buys the present pro trans activist nonsense. And I am a floating ex tory voter who has voted LD in the past (and for a successful LD candidate, so not just a protest vote). Davey has scuppered himself just when I was beginning to like him.
The issue is that as @NickPalmer points out below - it's an issue / policy area where as a political party you just can't win. All parties are desperately avoiding picking a side as that will upset potential voters.
The key imo is to focus on the practical issues and avoid the absolutist theology of the radicalized extremes.
I'd start with this question: What should the balance be between self-ID and medical certification in the process for changing gender?
Then based on the answer to this proceed to 2 more:
- What medical and other resource is required to make the process humane and efficient? - On what grounds should female only activities and spaces be able to exclude transwomen?
I think this structure can generate a good debate and a good policy for any political party.
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
The issue is creating waves in all the non-Tory parties - it's the reason the current Green leadership has stood down. Starmer has very little patience for the full "self-identified trans=women, get over it" stance and if pushed will explicitly reject it, but he correctly thinks it's not an issue that most people want him to focus on. I think the Tories will struggle to make it a salient anti-LD issue in an election, though, unless Davey chooses to major on it.
I agree with all that. But if the rumours about Rosie Duffield not attending the LP Conference out of fear are true, I do think Starmer should deal with this explicitly and publicly. He can do this without giving a view on the substantive issue. He simply needs to say that the LP is a broad church, people are entitled to have civil disagreements, but he simply will not tolerate intimidation of party members or MPs over this, or any other, issue.
This is where I came in earlier. He has form on not facing up to extremists in the party. He sat in Corbyn's shadow cabinet mute on anti-semitism while both male and female Jewish MPs were subjected to appalling treatment. To quote from a party leader where women do rise to the top - 'he's frit'!
Where's your evidence that Starmer was "mute" on anti-semitism - were you at Shadow Cabinet meetings?
Maybe you could acknowledge that, regardless, Starmer has tackled anti-semitism well since becoming Leader. It's disappeared from Labour Party 'news', but you can bet there's still lots of LP enemies trying to hunt out anti-semitic stuff from LP members. Doesn't look like they're finding it any more, does it?
He should have spoken up outside the cabinet on this kind of issue as should others at the time. Since becoming leader he has changed his tune somewhat as he has done on Brexit - which is commendable while giving the lie to the notion that he is a man of principles. WRT anti-semitism there is still much to do - especially at grassroots level but the idea that the problem has gone away is for the birds. At least 20+ of his MPs are now quiet but I doubt repentant.
Sian Griffiths @SianGriffiths6 BREAKING: Universities are facing a wave of strikes which could start before Xmas as @ucu ballots members over pensions cuts, with possible dates for industrial action to be drawn up tomorrow. University chiefs says action would be ‘devastating’
[Google Translate] French President Emmanuel Macron is not only angry with the US and the loss of a submarine deal with Australia that was believed to be safe . Macron is also mad at Switzerland because Federal Bern has decided to procure the American stealth jet F-35 for around six billion francs. For about half a year, Switzerland and France had planned a presidential visit by Federal President Guy Parmelin to Paris. But nothing will come of this working meeting, which should have taken place in November.
Macron doesn't want to see Parmelin. And not only that: Paris does not want to allow any high-level bilateral contacts with federal Bern until next summer. The unusual step not only strains relations between the two countries, but also those between Switzerland and the EU, whose Council presidency Macron will take over in the first half of 2022. The French head of state will play first fiddle in the EU's Council of Ministers, the decision-making body of the member states, for six months.
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
It is indeed. I have been passionately pro gay rights ever since I was old enough to understand the issue, I am exactly as pro trans rights as I am pro gay rights, but I would not in a million years vote for a party which buys the present pro trans activist nonsense. And I am a floating ex tory voter who has voted LD in the past (and for a successful LD candidate, so not just a protest vote). Davey has scuppered himself just when I was beginning to like him.
The issue is that as @NickPalmer points out below - it's an issue / policy area where as a political party you just can't win. All parties are desperately avoiding picking a side as that will upset potential voters.
The key imo is to focus on the practical issues and avoid the absolutist theology of the radicalized extremes.
I'd start with this question: What should the balance be between self-ID and medical certification in the process for changing gender?
Then based on the answer to this proceed to 2 more:
- What medical and other resource is required to make the process humane and efficient? - On what grounds should female only activities and spaces be able to exclude transwomen?
I think this structure can generate a good debate and a good policy for any political party.
I would only add that there should be consideration about the age at which such serious decisions should be made has to be considered as well.
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
It is indeed. I have been passionately pro gay rights ever since I was old enough to understand the issue, I am exactly as pro trans rights as I am pro gay rights, but I would not in a million years vote for a party which buys the present pro trans activist nonsense. And I am a floating ex tory voter who has voted LD in the past (and for a successful LD candidate, so not just a protest vote). Davey has scuppered himself just when I was beginning to like him.
The problem is the loudmouth idiots on either side. The so-called 'pro-trans' people who seem more interested in arguing more than helping the interests of trans people; the anti-pro-trans people who seem just to want a good barney with the other side and make out that trans people are a threat to women.
And in the middle the trans people suffer, and their interests get forgotten.
Some (few) trans people are a very serious threat to women, and they are the edge cases that the pro trans tend to focus on. This really isn't a symmetrical situation, because there is exactly one right answer, which coincides as usual with my own views, and that is: trans is fine, we just need some boring but necessary regs to cover the special cases of sport, loos, hospitals and prisons, and some law about children making irreversible decisions they later regret. There may be nutters who regard all trans people as the spawn of the devil, but I haven't heard of them.
My view remains that Europe as a world power or even a place of significance has had its (pretty long) day in the sun. In 1945 Europe was still such a significant part of world manufacturing that it had strategic importance to the US who could not allow the Soviet Union to dominate it. Hence NATO.
Now, the threat from Russia is massively diminished. I wouldn't be saying that if I lived in the Baltic states or Ukraine or other parts of the former Soviet Union of course. There, their aspirations and mischief making would be a major concern but from the US point of view there is no longer any strategic issue in protecting western Europe which isn't facing any real threat anyway. So NATO is redundant, even if it is politically useful to keep it going in form if not in substance.
Instead the US has strategic interests and concerns in the Pacific. This tilt in this direction has been going on for some time but accelerated considerably under Obama and continued under Trump. AUKUS is a small part of this strategic engagement but there are a host of other treaties and agreements which also play a part.
The UK could have accepted the same backwater status as the rest of Europe but has decided that it wants to play. Some of this is undoubtedly delusional, we want to still matter in world affairs, some of it is a response to Brexit, some of it is looking where economic growth is taking place and wanting a cut of the action, some of it is a bit needy in that we still want to be the US's best pal. I think it is far too early to say whether this will prove a distraction or an economic opportunity and most responses to it say more about the writer's view of UK internal politics than the actual merits. France also wanted to play too and feels left out at the moment but, frankly, who cares?
The EU as a whole is still the 3rd largest economy in the world after the USA and China and our largest export destination, we cannot ignore it and we cannot forget that geographically we are part of Europe still even if out of the EU.
Russia is also the 3rd most powerful military in the world still after the USA and China and geographically far closer to us than China is, it is extremely complacent to dismiss Putin, we still need NATO
Russia is in no way the third most powerful military.
They may have numbers on paper, but their kit is crap and outdated.
But they’re willing to use it And they’re extremely active in cyber-warfare and, you know, poisoning people on U.K. soil.
But one of the ways Brexiters attempt to untangle their cognitive dissonance is to maintain that Russia is no longer a threat.
Yep, if a willingness to kill people and have your own people killed is a military superpower..er..superpower, Russia is still PL while the UK is barely Championship. On the whole I think that's preferable for a middle rank country, but some folk are just itching to get in at the sharp end (as long as it's other folk feeling that sharp end naturlich).
You must be agonizing over your Sindy support now, TUD, I'm thinking. Looks like a "No" vote in the upcoming referendum (whenever it comes) will be the only way to secure Scotland's membership of Aukus.
My view remains that Europe as a world power or even a place of significance has had its (pretty long) day in the sun. In 1945 Europe was still such a significant part of world manufacturing that it had strategic importance to the US who could not allow the Soviet Union to dominate it. Hence NATO.
Now, the threat from Russia is massively diminished. I wouldn't be saying that if I lived in the Baltic states or Ukraine or other parts of the former Soviet Union of course. There, their aspirations and mischief making would be a major concern but from the US point of view there is no longer any strategic issue in protecting western Europe which isn't facing any real threat anyway. So NATO is redundant, even if it is politically useful to keep it going in form if not in substance.
Instead the US has strategic interests and concerns in the Pacific. This tilt in this direction has been going on for some time but accelerated considerably under Obama and continued under Trump. AUKUS is a small part of this strategic engagement but there are a host of other treaties and agreements which also play a part.
The UK could have accepted the same backwater status as the rest of Europe but has decided that it wants to play. Some of this is undoubtedly delusional, we want to still matter in world affairs, some of it is a response to Brexit, some of it is looking where economic growth is taking place and wanting a cut of the action, some of it is a bit needy in that we still want to be the US's best pal. I think it is far too early to say whether this will prove a distraction or an economic opportunity and most responses to it say more about the writer's view of UK internal politics than the actual merits. France also wanted to play too and feels left out at the moment but, frankly, who cares?
Good post - lots I agree with - but I plead not guilty to a charge of letting anti-Tory or anti-Brexit sentiment cloud my view of Aukus. I see Australia hooking up with the US on defence (at the expense of a big money deal with France) and the UK involvement as dressing. In which case, ok from our perspective. Nice post-Brexit optics for those who like that sort of thing and think it's important.
But on the off chance I'm reading it wrong, so this IS the platform for a sabre-rattling Pacific NATO, and our involvement IS serious, that would be grim news indeed. America is no special friend of ours. WW2 is an age away. The cold war with the USSR is over. It's a different world now. A world where America is well into its (inevitable) recline decline. Where acting as muttley to their dick dastardly is likely to end up (eg Iraq) in disaster. Where most here look across aghast at the stuff going on with them, their society and their politics. Where (some say) one of their parties has gone crazy with woke and (all say) the other one has gone just plain full blown crazy. Where a corrupt and truly malign human being with a personality disorder and the attention span and intellectual heft of a wasp has been elected President once and could well be again in just three years from now.
So I do not see how us getting embroiled in the battles and proxy battles of this country with China over in the Pacific serves any purpose whatsoever. It won't make the UK a better place. In fact the opposite since it drains resource and focus away from domestic issues. It won't make the world a better place. In fact the opposite since conflict with China is fraught with danger and requires very deft handling - the sort of handling that only a dreamer could think will be forthcoming from Washington DC.
Deft handling in Washington and deft handling in London as well.
I do have concerns that the 'save the world' yearning that has been a dominant feature of UK foreign policy since Blair might be finding a new theatre to play in.
London too, yes, although we've seen on several occasions that we are peripheral. As we are to this, I suspect. It looks to me more like a US/AU marine defence contract at the expense of France than the start of a big new Anglo alliance against China. But we'll see. There's more supposition than fact around at the moment.
If it’s just a US/AU deal, then you must think the US went out of its way to include the UK simply to make a gratuitous statement about its attitude towards its European partners.
[Google Translate] French President Emmanuel Macron is not only angry with the US and the loss of a submarine deal with Australia that was believed to be safe . Macron is also mad at Switzerland because Federal Bern has decided to procure the American stealth jet F-35 for around six billion francs. For about half a year, Switzerland and France had planned a presidential visit by Federal President Guy Parmelin to Paris. But nothing will come of this working meeting, which should have taken place in November.
Macron doesn't want to see Parmelin. And not only that: Paris does not want to allow any high-level bilateral contacts with federal Bern until next summer. The unusual step not only strains relations between the two countries, but also those between Switzerland and the EU, whose Council presidency Macron will take over in the first half of 2022. The French head of state will play first fiddle in the EU's Council of Ministers, the decision-making body of the member states, for six months.
University pension scheme wants to limit any uplift from inflation:
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
My view remains that Europe as a world power or even a place of significance has had its (pretty long) day in the sun. In 1945 Europe was still such a significant part of world manufacturing that it had strategic importance to the US who could not allow the Soviet Union to dominate it. Hence NATO.
Now, the threat from Russia is massively diminished. I wouldn't be saying that if I lived in the Baltic states or Ukraine or other parts of the former Soviet Union of course. There, their aspirations and mischief making would be a major concern but from the US point of view there is no longer any strategic issue in protecting western Europe which isn't facing any real threat anyway. So NATO is redundant, even if it is politically useful to keep it going in form if not in substance.
Instead the US has strategic interests and concerns in the Pacific. This tilt in this direction has been going on for some time but accelerated considerably under Obama and continued under Trump. AUKUS is a small part of this strategic engagement but there are a host of other treaties and agreements which also play a part.
The UK could have accepted the same backwater status as the rest of Europe but has decided that it wants to play. Some of this is undoubtedly delusional, we want to still matter in world affairs, some of it is a response to Brexit, some of it is looking where economic growth is taking place and wanting a cut of the action, some of it is a bit needy in that we still want to be the US's best pal. I think it is far too early to say whether this will prove a distraction or an economic opportunity and most responses to it say more about the writer's view of UK internal politics than the actual merits. France also wanted to play too and feels left out at the moment but, frankly, who cares?
Good post - lots I agree with - but I plead not guilty to a charge of letting anti-Tory or anti-Brexit sentiment cloud my view of Aukus. I see Australia hooking up with the US on defence (at the expense of a big money deal with France) and the UK involvement as dressing. In which case, ok from our perspective. Nice post-Brexit optics for those who like that sort of thing and think it's important.
But on the off chance I'm reading it wrong, so this IS the platform for a sabre-rattling Pacific NATO, and our involvement IS serious, that would be grim news indeed. America is no special friend of ours. WW2 is an age away. The cold war with the USSR is over. It's a different world now. A world where America is well into its (inevitable) recline decline. Where acting as muttley to their dick dastardly is likely to end up (eg Iraq) in disaster. Where most here look across aghast at the stuff going on with them, their society and their politics. Where (some say) one of their parties has gone crazy with woke and (all say) the other one has gone just plain full blown crazy. Where a corrupt and truly malign human being with a personality disorder and the attention span and intellectual heft of a wasp has been elected President once and could well be again in just three years from now.
So I do not see how us getting embroiled in the battles and proxy battles of this country with China over in the Pacific serves any purpose whatsoever. It won't make the UK a better place. In fact the opposite since it drains resource and focus away from domestic issues. It won't make the world a better place. In fact the opposite since conflict with China is fraught with danger and requires very deft handling - the sort of handling that only a dreamer could think will be forthcoming from Washington DC.
Deft handling in Washington and deft handling in London as well.
I do have concerns that the 'save the world' yearning that has been a dominant feature of UK foreign policy since Blair might be finding a new theatre to play in.
London too, yes, although we've seen on several occasions that we are peripheral. As we are to this, I suspect. It looks to me more like a US/AU marine defence contract at the expense of France than the start of a big new Anglo alliance against China. But we'll see. There's more supposition than fact around at the moment.
If it’s just a US/AU deal, then you must think the US went out of its way to include the UK simply to make a gratuitous statement about its attitude towards its European partners.
The whole episode has created such dissonance amongst so many commentators it has become a joy to watch the contortions. Reminds one so much of vaccinegate earlier in the year - there's a kinda quasi-sim ilarity I think.
[Google Translate] French President Emmanuel Macron is not only angry with the US and the loss of a submarine deal with Australia that was believed to be safe . Macron is also mad at Switzerland because Federal Bern has decided to procure the American stealth jet F-35 for around six billion francs. For about half a year, Switzerland and France had planned a presidential visit by Federal President Guy Parmelin to Paris. But nothing will come of this working meeting, which should have taken place in November.
Macron doesn't want to see Parmelin. And not only that: Paris does not want to allow any high-level bilateral contacts with federal Bern until next summer. The unusual step not only strains relations between the two countries, but also those between Switzerland and the EU, whose Council presidency Macron will take over in the first half of 2022. The French head of state will play first fiddle in the EU's Council of Ministers, the decision-making body of the member states, for six months.
University pension scheme wants to limit any uplift from inflation:
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
Campus trouble coming this winter.
Triple lock for wealthy retired. Triple cap for their offspring workers.
University pension scheme wants to limit any uplift from inflation:
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
Campus trouble coming this winter.
Surely the danger here is would any of the student notice/care if their teachers were MIA?
My view remains that Europe as a world power or even a place of significance has had its (pretty long) day in the sun. In 1945 Europe was still such a significant part of world manufacturing that it had strategic importance to the US who could not allow the Soviet Union to dominate it. Hence NATO.
Now, the threat from Russia is massively diminished. I wouldn't be saying that if I lived in the Baltic states or Ukraine or other parts of the former Soviet Union of course. There, their aspirations and mischief making would be a major concern but from the US point of view there is no longer any strategic issue in protecting western Europe which isn't facing any real threat anyway. So NATO is redundant, even if it is politically useful to keep it going in form if not in substance.
Instead the US has strategic interests and concerns in the Pacific. This tilt in this direction has been going on for some time but accelerated considerably under Obama and continued under Trump. AUKUS is a small part of this strategic engagement but there are a host of other treaties and agreements which also play a part.
The UK could have accepted the same backwater status as the rest of Europe but has decided that it wants to play. Some of this is undoubtedly delusional, we want to still matter in world affairs, some of it is a response to Brexit, some of it is looking where economic growth is taking place and wanting a cut of the action, some of it is a bit needy in that we still want to be the US's best pal. I think it is far too early to say whether this will prove a distraction or an economic opportunity and most responses to it say more about the writer's view of UK internal politics than the actual merits. France also wanted to play too and feels left out at the moment but, frankly, who cares?
The EU as a whole is still the 3rd largest economy in the world after the USA and China and our largest export destination, we cannot ignore it and we cannot forget that geographically we are part of Europe still even if out of the EU.
Russia is also the 3rd most powerful military in the world still after the USA and China and geographically far closer to us than China is, it is extremely complacent to dismiss Putin, we still need NATO
Russia is in no way the third most powerful military.
They may have numbers on paper, but their kit is crap and outdated.
But they’re willing to use it And they’re extremely active in cyber-warfare and, you know, poisoning people on U.K. soil.
But one of the ways Brexiters attempt to untangle their cognitive dissonance is to maintain that Russia is no longer a threat.
Yep, if a willingness to kill people and have your own people killed is a military superpower..er..superpower, Russia is still PL while the UK is barely Championship. On the whole I think that's preferable for a middle rank country, but some folk are just itching to get in at the sharp end (as long as it's other folk feeling that sharp end naturlich).
You must be agonizing over your Sindy support now, TUD, I'm thinking. Looks like a "No" vote in the upcoming referendum (whenever it comes) will be the only way to secure Scotland's membership of Aukus.
After the revelation last week that Unionists support the BJ party because they value cooperation, this is a double body blow. I'm wavering..
Canada increasingly looking like a Clinton/Trump election. 338canada.com has it 68-31 and CBC 71-28 for Liberals most seats. (I assume the other one is a tie). So. A definite favourite. But far, far from a certainty. I, personally, would be going nearer 60-40. Neither result would surprise, let alone shock me.
It is not a Clinton Trump election, for as 2019 showed Trudeau can win even if he loses the popular vote unlike Clinton because of his strength in Ontario and especially Quebec
I meant in terms of the probabilities. And it isn't impossible, though unlikely, that the Tories could win fewer votes and more seats. Undershoot polling in Alberta, Prairies and Quebec by a few. Over in Atlantic, and Ontario by a bit, and bingo, you've done it.
Even Angus Reid, one of the few national pollsters with the Tories still ahead, has the Liberals ahead by 6% in Ontario over the Conservatives and the Liberals leading the Conservatives by 12% in Quebec so very unlikely, every poll would have to be hugely wrong at provincial level.
The Conservatives likely need to be ahead by at least 5%+ in the national popular vote to win most seats
I'm less certain. The Tories have run a clever campaign addressing their inefficiencies by targetting their message at the very places and people they need to win. But for the rise of the PPC they'd be home now, at least as far as most seats goes. But we don't know if the PPC vote exists to the polling extent, will vote, and if it does, will vote PPC. We also don't know if they are habitual non-voters, or what percentage are usual Tories. (Similar to the early days of the rise of UKIP here). There is also marginal turnout. Trudeau is hugely disliked by those who oppose him. Not hugely loved by those who don't. In particular, the NDP appears to be marginally strengthening in the last week, rather than falling away and folding into a Liberal vote. So, there is much uncertainty.
My view remains that Europe as a world power or even a place of significance has had its (pretty long) day in the sun. In 1945 Europe was still such a significant part of world manufacturing that it had strategic importance to the US who could not allow the Soviet Union to dominate it. Hence NATO.
Now, the threat from Russia is massively diminished. I wouldn't be saying that if I lived in the Baltic states or Ukraine or other parts of the former Soviet Union of course. There, their aspirations and mischief making would be a major concern but from the US point of view there is no longer any strategic issue in protecting western Europe which isn't facing any real threat anyway. So NATO is redundant, even if it is politically useful to keep it going in form if not in substance.
Instead the US has strategic interests and concerns in the Pacific. This tilt in this direction has been going on for some time but accelerated considerably under Obama and continued under Trump. AUKUS is a small part of this strategic engagement but there are a host of other treaties and agreements which also play a part.
The UK could have accepted the same backwater status as the rest of Europe but has decided that it wants to play. Some of this is undoubtedly delusional, we want to still matter in world affairs, some of it is a response to Brexit, some of it is looking where economic growth is taking place and wanting a cut of the action, some of it is a bit needy in that we still want to be the US's best pal. I think it is far too early to say whether this will prove a distraction or an economic opportunity and most responses to it say more about the writer's view of UK internal politics than the actual merits. France also wanted to play too and feels left out at the moment but, frankly, who cares?
Good post - lots I agree with - but I plead not guilty to a charge of letting anti-Tory or anti-Brexit sentiment cloud my view of Aukus. I see Australia hooking up with the US on defence (at the expense of a big money deal with France) and the UK involvement as dressing. In which case, ok from our perspective. Nice post-Brexit optics for those who like that sort of thing and think it's important.
But on the off chance I'm reading it wrong, so this IS the platform for a sabre-rattling Pacific NATO, and our involvement IS serious, that would be grim news indeed. America is no special friend of ours. WW2 is an age away. The cold war with the USSR is over. It's a different world now. A world where America is well into its (inevitable) recline decline. Where acting as muttley to their dick dastardly is likely to end up (eg Iraq) in disaster. Where most here look across aghast at the stuff going on with them, their society and their politics. Where (some say) one of their parties has gone crazy with woke and (all say) the other one has gone just plain full blown crazy. Where a corrupt and truly malign human being with a personality disorder and the attention span and intellectual heft of a wasp has been elected President once and could well be again in just three years from now.
So I do not see how us getting embroiled in the battles and proxy battles of this country with China over in the Pacific serves any purpose whatsoever. It won't make the UK a better place. In fact the opposite since it drains resource and focus away from domestic issues. It won't make the world a better place. In fact the opposite since conflict with China is fraught with danger and requires very deft handling - the sort of handling that only a dreamer could think will be forthcoming from Washington DC.
Deft handling in Washington and deft handling in London as well.
I do have concerns that the 'save the world' yearning that has been a dominant feature of UK foreign policy since Blair might be finding a new theatre to play in.
London too, yes, although we've seen on several occasions that we are peripheral. As we are to this, I suspect. It looks to me more like a US/AU marine defence contract at the expense of France than the start of a big new Anglo alliance against China. But we'll see. There's more supposition than fact around at the moment.
If it’s just a US/AU deal, then you must think the US went out of its way to include the UK simply to make a gratuitous statement about its attitude towards its European partners.
I think our involvement is good for the US because it adds some "Anglosphere" sheen to what is essentially a big arms deal poached from France. And it works for us (or the Johnson government rather) because it makes us look a player post Brexit.
[Google Translate] French President Emmanuel Macron is not only angry with the US and the loss of a submarine deal with Australia that was believed to be safe . Macron is also mad at Switzerland because Federal Bern has decided to procure the American stealth jet F-35 for around six billion francs. For about half a year, Switzerland and France had planned a presidential visit by Federal President Guy Parmelin to Paris. But nothing will come of this working meeting, which should have taken place in November.
Macron doesn't want to see Parmelin. And not only that: Paris does not want to allow any high-level bilateral contacts with federal Bern until next summer. The unusual step not only strains relations between the two countries, but also those between Switzerland and the EU, whose Council presidency Macron will take over in the first half of 2022. The French head of state will play first fiddle in the EU's Council of Ministers, the decision-making body of the member states, for six months.
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
It is indeed. I have been passionately pro gay rights ever since I was old enough to understand the issue, I am exactly as pro trans rights as I am pro gay rights, but I would not in a million years vote for a party which buys the present pro trans activist nonsense. And I am a floating ex tory voter who has voted LD in the past (and for a successful LD candidate, so not just a protest vote). Davey has scuppered himself just when I was beginning to like him.
The problem is the loudmouth idiots on either side. The so-called 'pro-trans' people who seem more interested in arguing more than helping the interests of trans people; the anti-pro-trans people who seem just to want a good barney with the other side and make out that trans people are a threat to women.
And in the middle the trans people suffer, and their interests get forgotten.
Some (few) trans people are a very serious threat to women, and they are the edge cases that the pro trans tend to focus on. This really isn't a symmetrical situation, because there is exactly one right answer, which coincides as usual with my own views, and that is: trans is fine, we just need some boring but necessary regs to cover the special cases of sport, loos, hospitals and prisons, and some law about children making irreversible decisions they later regret. There may be nutters who regard all trans people as the spawn of the devil, but I haven't heard of them.
As ever the problem is the tiny minority of criminals and loons. The further problem is that the existence of the criminals and loons ends up with having to restrict the rights of the non-criminals and non-loons.
[Google Translate] French President Emmanuel Macron is not only angry with the US and the loss of a submarine deal with Australia that was believed to be safe . Macron is also mad at Switzerland because Federal Bern has decided to procure the American stealth jet F-35 for around six billion francs. For about half a year, Switzerland and France had planned a presidential visit by Federal President Guy Parmelin to Paris. But nothing will come of this working meeting, which should have taken place in November.
Macron doesn't want to see Parmelin. And not only that: Paris does not want to allow any high-level bilateral contacts with federal Bern until next summer. The unusual step not only strains relations between the two countries, but also those between Switzerland and the EU, whose Council presidency Macron will take over in the first half of 2022. The French head of state will play first fiddle in the EU's Council of Ministers, the decision-making body of the member states, for six months.
Even Angus Reid, one of the few national pollsters with the Tories still ahead, has the Liberals ahead by 6% in Ontario over the Conservatives and the Liberals leading the Conservatives by 12% in Quebec so very unlikely, every poll would have to be hugely wrong at provincial level.
The Conservatives likely need to be ahead by at least 5%+ in the national popular vote to win most seats
Indeed and let's not forget three quarters of the ridings are in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.
Both Abacus and Mainstreet, in their daily rolling polls, have the Liberals ahead.
Abacus has the Conservatives and NDP tied in British Columbia but the Liberals seven points ahead in Ontario and ahead in Quebec.
Compared to 2019, there's a small swing from Conservatives to Liberals but both have lost ground to the NDP and the PPC are polling well enough to draw votes from the Conservatives.
In terms of seats, the Liberals will likely finish above 150 and the Conservatives around 120 so possibly not much different to now but with NDP moving up to just above 30.
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
It is indeed. I have been passionately pro gay rights ever since I was old enough to understand the issue, I am exactly as pro trans rights as I am pro gay rights, but I would not in a million years vote for a party which buys the present pro trans activist nonsense. And I am a floating ex tory voter who has voted LD in the past (and for a successful LD candidate, so not just a protest vote). Davey has scuppered himself just when I was beginning to like him.
The problem is the loudmouth idiots on either side. The so-called 'pro-trans' people who seem more interested in arguing more than helping the interests of trans people; the anti-pro-trans people who seem just to want a good barney with the other side and make out that trans people are a threat to women.
And in the middle the trans people suffer, and their interests get forgotten.
Some (few) trans people are a very serious threat to women, and they are the edge cases that the pro trans tend to focus on. This really isn't a symmetrical situation, because there is exactly one right answer, which coincides as usual with my own views, and that is: trans is fine, we just need some boring but necessary regs to cover the special cases of sport, loos, hospitals and prisons, and some law about children making irreversible decisions they later regret. There may be nutters who regard all trans people as the spawn of the devil, but I haven't heard of them.
As ever the problem is the tiny minority of criminals and loons. The further problem is that the existence of the criminals and loons ends up with having to restrict the rights of the non-criminals and non-loons.
Of course a lot of morality is architecture. 50 years ago almost all sub 5* hotels were shared bathroom, now it's en suite all the way. Make public loos wholly unitary, like they are on trains n planes, and that part of the problem goes away.
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
It is indeed. I have been passionately pro gay rights ever since I was old enough to understand the issue, I am exactly as pro trans rights as I am pro gay rights, but I would not in a million years vote for a party which buys the present pro trans activist nonsense. And I am a floating ex tory voter who has voted LD in the past (and for a successful LD candidate, so not just a protest vote). Davey has scuppered himself just when I was beginning to like him.
The issue is that as @NickPalmer points out below - it's an issue / policy area where as a political party you just can't win. All parties are desperately avoiding picking a side as that will upset potential voters.
The key imo is to focus on the practical issues and avoid the absolutist theology of the radicalized extremes.
I'd start with this question: What should the balance be between self-ID and medical certification in the process for changing gender?
Then based on the answer to this proceed to 2 more:
- What medical and other resource is required to make the process humane and efficient? - On what grounds should female only activities and spaces be able to exclude transwomen?
I think this structure can generate a good debate and a good policy for any political party.
I would only add that there should be consideration about the age at which such serious decisions should be made has to be considered as well.
Yes, that's an important part of this. OTOH you don't want mixed-up minors making decisions they may come to regret, esp where it involves drugs and surgery. BOTOH, if you are going to make the change it's better to do it young.
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
It is indeed. I have been passionately pro gay rights ever since I was old enough to understand the issue, I am exactly as pro trans rights as I am pro gay rights, but I would not in a million years vote for a party which buys the present pro trans activist nonsense. And I am a floating ex tory voter who has voted LD in the past (and for a successful LD candidate, so not just a protest vote). Davey has scuppered himself just when I was beginning to like him.
The problem is the loudmouth idiots on either side. The so-called 'pro-trans' people who seem more interested in arguing more than helping the interests of trans people; the anti-pro-trans people who seem just to want a good barney with the other side and make out that trans people are a threat to women.
And in the middle the trans people suffer, and their interests get forgotten.
Some (few) trans people are a very serious threat to women, and they are the edge cases that the pro trans tend to focus on. This really isn't a symmetrical situation, because there is exactly one right answer, which coincides as usual with my own views, and that is: trans is fine, we just need some boring but necessary regs to cover the special cases of sport, loos, hospitals and prisons, and some law about children making irreversible decisions they later regret. There may be nutters who regard all trans people as the spawn of the devil, but I haven't heard of them.
I'm unsure if you meant 'pro trans' in your first sentence, or 'anti trans'? But the issue there is that some people are a very serious threat to women, and I haven't seen much evidence that trans people contain a higher proportion. And even if they did, that's not enough reason to castigate all trans people. I certainly don't think any of the ones I've known have been a threat to women.
Indeed, there is a tendency to talk of the threat some trans people are to women, e.g. in jail, and then ignore the much greater threats trans people suffer. I posted figures the other day for the number of assaults on trans people in prison, and it's far greater than the other way.
Take a statement like: "trans people should not use women's spaces." That probably gets nods of agreement from many. Yet to fully transition and have the op, you need to live as a woman for a period - a year or two. This means a pre-op trans person has to use the facilities of their new gender. There are obvious very real issues in them not doing this.
"There may be nutters who regard all trans people as the spawn of the devil, but I haven't heard of them." You don't read the right (wrong) places, obviously. And the sad thing is some of the pro-trans people can seem just as nasty.
[Google Translate] French President Emmanuel Macron is not only angry with the US and the loss of a submarine deal with Australia that was believed to be safe . Macron is also mad at Switzerland because Federal Bern has decided to procure the American stealth jet F-35 for around six billion francs. For about half a year, Switzerland and France had planned a presidential visit by Federal President Guy Parmelin to Paris. But nothing will come of this working meeting, which should have taken place in November.
Macron doesn't want to see Parmelin. And not only that: Paris does not want to allow any high-level bilateral contacts with federal Bern until next summer. The unusual step not only strains relations between the two countries, but also those between Switzerland and the EU, whose Council presidency Macron will take over in the first half of 2022. The French head of state will play first fiddle in the EU's Council of Ministers, the decision-making body of the member states, for six months.
It's obviously and trivially true that some men will go to strange lengths to do nasty things to women, and it's obviously true that one of the things available to them is to self-identify as a woman to get access to women's spaces.
Even Angus Reid, one of the few national pollsters with the Tories still ahead, has the Liberals ahead by 6% in Ontario over the Conservatives and the Liberals leading the Conservatives by 12% in Quebec so very unlikely, every poll would have to be hugely wrong at provincial level.
The Conservatives likely need to be ahead by at least 5%+ in the national popular vote to win most seats
Indeed and let's not forget three quarters of the ridings are in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.
Both Abacus and Mainstreet, in their daily rolling polls, have the Liberals ahead.
Abacus has the Conservatives and NDP tied in British Columbia but the Liberals seven points ahead in Ontario and ahead in Quebec.
Compared to 2019, there's a small swing from Conservatives to Liberals but both have lost ground to the NDP and the PPC are polling well enough to draw votes from the Conservatives.
In terms of seats, the Liberals will likely finish above 150 and the Conservatives around 120 so possibly not much different to now but with NDP moving up to just above 30.
Agreed. But that is very much if polling is correct. Con to Lib swing reverses entirely once you remove Alberta from the figures. I can’t be confident of any result when the polling is within 1%.
University pension scheme wants to limit any uplift from inflation:
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
Campus trouble coming this winter.
Triple lock for wealthy retired. Triple cap for their offspring workers.
My view remains that Europe as a world power or even a place of significance has had its (pretty long) day in the sun. In 1945 Europe was still such a significant part of world manufacturing that it had strategic importance to the US who could not allow the Soviet Union to dominate it. Hence NATO.
Now, the threat from Russia is massively diminished. I wouldn't be saying that if I lived in the Baltic states or Ukraine or other parts of the former Soviet Union of course. There, their aspirations and mischief making would be a major concern but from the US point of view there is no longer any strategic issue in protecting western Europe which isn't facing any real threat anyway. So NATO is redundant, even if it is politically useful to keep it going in form if not in substance.
Instead the US has strategic interests and concerns in the Pacific. This tilt in this direction has been going on for some time but accelerated considerably under Obama and continued under Trump. AUKUS is a small part of this strategic engagement but there are a host of other treaties and agreements which also play a part.
The UK could have accepted the same backwater status as the rest of Europe but has decided that it wants to play. Some of this is undoubtedly delusional, we want to still matter in world affairs, some of it is a response to Brexit, some of it is looking where economic growth is taking place and wanting a cut of the action, some of it is a bit needy in that we still want to be the US's best pal. I think it is far too early to say whether this will prove a distraction or an economic opportunity and most responses to it say more about the writer's view of UK internal politics than the actual merits. France also wanted to play too and feels left out at the moment but, frankly, who cares?
Good post - lots I agree with - but I plead not guilty to a charge of letting anti-Tory or anti-Brexit sentiment cloud my view of Aukus. I see Australia hooking up with the US on defence (at the expense of a big money deal with France) and the UK involvement as dressing. In which case, ok from our perspective. Nice post-Brexit optics for those who like that sort of thing and think it's important.
But on the off chance I'm reading it wrong, so this IS the platform for a sabre-rattling Pacific NATO, and our involvement IS serious, that would be grim news indeed. America is no special friend of ours. WW2 is an age away. The cold war with the USSR is over. It's a different world now. A world where America is well into its (inevitable) recline decline. Where acting as muttley to their dick dastardly is likely to end up (eg Iraq) in disaster. Where most here look across aghast at the stuff going on with them, their society and their politics. Where (some say) one of their parties has gone crazy with woke and (all say) the other one has gone just plain full blown crazy. Where a corrupt and truly malign human being with a personality disorder and the attention span and intellectual heft of a wasp has been elected President once and could well be again in just three years from now.
So I do not see how us getting embroiled in the battles and proxy battles of this country with China over in the Pacific serves any purpose whatsoever. It won't make the UK a better place. In fact the opposite since it drains resource and focus away from domestic issues. It won't make the world a better place. In fact the opposite since conflict with China is fraught with danger and requires very deft handling - the sort of handling that only a dreamer could think will be forthcoming from Washington DC.
Deft handling in Washington and deft handling in London as well.
I do have concerns that the 'save the world' yearning that has been a dominant feature of UK foreign policy since Blair might be finding a new theatre to play in.
London too, yes, although we've seen on several occasions that we are peripheral. As we are to this, I suspect. It looks to me more like a US/AU marine defence contract at the expense of France than the start of a big new Anglo alliance against China. But we'll see. There's more supposition than fact around at the moment.
If it’s just a US/AU deal, then you must think the US went out of its way to include the UK simply to make a gratuitous statement about its attitude towards its European partners.
I think our involvement is good for the US because it adds some "Anglosphere" sheen to what is essentially a big arms deal poached from France. And it works for us (or the Johnson government rather) because it makes us look a player post Brexit.
A common narrative earlier in the year was that a Biden presidency would completely undermine Johnson and Brexit Britain because he would sideline the UK and put us on the naughty step while he conducted an EU-centric transatlantic foreign policy. The last week has shown this to be completely mistaken.
University pension scheme wants to limit any uplift from inflation:
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
Campus trouble coming this winter.
Triple lock for wealthy retired. Triple cap for their offspring workers.
Canada increasingly looking like a Clinton/Trump election. 338canada.com has it 68-31 and CBC 71-28 for Liberals most seats. (I assume the other one is a tie). So. A definite favourite. But far, far from a certainty. I, personally, would be going nearer 60-40. Neither result would surprise, let alone shock me.
It is not a Clinton Trump election, for as 2019 showed Trudeau can win even if he loses the popular vote unlike Clinton because of his strength in Ontario and especially Quebec
I meant in terms of the probabilities. And it isn't impossible, though unlikely, that the Tories could win fewer votes and more seats. Undershoot polling in Alberta, Prairies and Quebec by a few. Over in Atlantic, and Ontario by a bit, and bingo, you've done it.
Even Angus Reid, one of the few national pollsters with the Tories still ahead, has the Liberals ahead by 6% in Ontario over the Conservatives and the Liberals leading the Conservatives by 12% in Quebec so very unlikely, every poll would have to be hugely wrong at provincial level.
The Conservatives likely need to be ahead by at least 5%+ in the national popular vote to win most seats
I'm less certain. The Tories have run a clever campaign addressing their inefficiencies by targetting their message at the very places and people they need to win. But for the rise of the PPC they'd be home now, at least as far as most seats goes. But we don't know if the PPC vote exists to the polling extent, will vote, and if it does, will vote PPC. We also don't know if they are habitual non-voters, or what percentage are usual Tories. (Similar to the early days of the rise of UKIP here). There is also marginal turnout. Trudeau is hugely disliked by those who oppose him. Not hugely loved by those who don't. In particular, the NDP appears to be marginally strengthening in the last week, rather than falling away and folding into a Liberal vote. So, there is much uncertainty.
The PPC are on 5% in Ontario with AR and the Liberals lead by 6% in the province, so even if all the PPC voters went Tory there, which they won't, the Liberals would still be ahead there.
The biggest PPC vote is in Alberta and SK and MB so it may be the Conservatives win the popular vote again if the PPC vote falls in their best provinces but still fail to win most seats
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
It is indeed. I have been passionately pro gay rights ever since I was old enough to understand the issue, I am exactly as pro trans rights as I am pro gay rights, but I would not in a million years vote for a party which buys the present pro trans activist nonsense. And I am a floating ex tory voter who has voted LD in the past (and for a successful LD candidate, so not just a protest vote). Davey has scuppered himself just when I was beginning to like him.
The problem is the loudmouth idiots on either side. The so-called 'pro-trans' people who seem more interested in arguing more than helping the interests of trans people; the anti-pro-trans people who seem just to want a good barney with the other side and make out that trans people are a threat to women.
And in the middle the trans people suffer, and their interests get forgotten.
Some (few) trans people are a very serious threat to women, and they are the edge cases that the pro trans tend to focus on. This really isn't a symmetrical situation, because there is exactly one right answer, which coincides as usual with my own views, and that is: trans is fine, we just need some boring but necessary regs to cover the special cases of sport, loos, hospitals and prisons, and some law about children making irreversible decisions they later regret. There may be nutters who regard all trans people as the spawn of the devil, but I haven't heard of them.
I'm unsure if you meant 'pro trans' in your first sentence, or 'anti trans'? But the issue there is that some people are a very serious threat to women, and I haven't seen much evidence that trans people contain a higher proportion. And even if they did, that's not enough reason to castigate all trans people. I certainly don't think any of the ones I've known have been a threat to women.
Indeed, there is a tendency to talk of the threat some trans people are to women, e.g. in jail, and then ignore the much greater threats trans people suffer. I posted figures the other day for the number of assaults on trans people in prison, and it's far greater than the other way.
Take a statement like: "trans people should not use women's spaces." That probably gets nods of agreement from many. Yet to fully transition and have the op, you need to live as a woman for a period - a year or two. This means a pre-op trans person has to use the facilities of their new gender. There are obvious very real issues in them not doing this.
"There may be nutters who regard all trans people as the spawn of the devil, but I haven't heard of them." You don't read the right (wrong) places, obviously. And the sad thing is some of the pro-trans people can seem just as nasty.
Neither, I meant men who identify as women - i.e. people who do it rather than have a pro or anti view on it. Your "only a tiny minority" argument is like the NRA on guns: sometimes the edge cases are so bad you have to legislate for them no matter how numerically insignificant they are. If it makes the argument more palatable I am probably talking in the main about 100% cis men who pretend to be trans for nefarious ends. Like dear old Karen
My view remains that Europe as a world power or even a place of significance has had its (pretty long) day in the sun. In 1945 Europe was still such a significant part of world manufacturing that it had strategic importance to the US who could not allow the Soviet Union to dominate it. Hence NATO.
Now, the threat from Russia is massively diminished. I wouldn't be saying that if I lived in the Baltic states or Ukraine or other parts of the former Soviet Union of course. There, their aspirations and mischief making would be a major concern but from the US point of view there is no longer any strategic issue in protecting western Europe which isn't facing any real threat anyway. So NATO is redundant, even if it is politically useful to keep it going in form if not in substance.
Instead the US has strategic interests and concerns in the Pacific. This tilt in this direction has been going on for some time but accelerated considerably under Obama and continued under Trump. AUKUS is a small part of this strategic engagement but there are a host of other treaties and agreements which also play a part.
The UK could have accepted the same backwater status as the rest of Europe but has decided that it wants to play. Some of this is undoubtedly delusional, we want to still matter in world affairs, some of it is a response to Brexit, some of it is looking where economic growth is taking place and wanting a cut of the action, some of it is a bit needy in that we still want to be the US's best pal. I think it is far too early to say whether this will prove a distraction or an economic opportunity and most responses to it say more about the writer's view of UK internal politics than the actual merits. France also wanted to play too and feels left out at the moment but, frankly, who cares?
Good post - lots I agree with - but I plead not guilty to a charge of letting anti-Tory or anti-Brexit sentiment cloud my view of Aukus. I see Australia hooking up with the US on defence (at the expense of a big money deal with France) and the UK involvement as dressing. In which case, ok from our perspective. Nice post-Brexit optics for those who like that sort of thing and think it's important.
But on the off chance I'm reading it wrong, so this IS the platform for a sabre-rattling Pacific NATO, and our involvement IS serious, that would be grim news indeed. America is no special friend of ours. WW2 is an age away. The cold war with the USSR is over. It's a different world now. A world where America is well into its (inevitable) recline decline. Where acting as muttley to their dick dastardly is likely to end up (eg Iraq) in disaster. Where most here look across aghast at the stuff going on with them, their society and their politics. Where (some say) one of their parties has gone crazy with woke and (all say) the other one has gone just plain full blown crazy. Where a corrupt and truly malign human being with a personality disorder and the attention span and intellectual heft of a wasp has been elected President once and could well be again in just three years from now.
So I do not see how us getting embroiled in the battles and proxy battles of this country with China over in the Pacific serves any purpose whatsoever. It won't make the UK a better place. In fact the opposite since it drains resource and focus away from domestic issues. It won't make the world a better place. In fact the opposite since conflict with China is fraught with danger and requires very deft handling - the sort of handling that only a dreamer could think will be forthcoming from Washington DC.
Deft handling in Washington and deft handling in London as well.
I do have concerns that the 'save the world' yearning that has been a dominant feature of UK foreign policy since Blair might be finding a new theatre to play in.
London too, yes, although we've seen on several occasions that we are peripheral. As we are to this, I suspect. It looks to me more like a US/AU marine defence contract at the expense of France than the start of a big new Anglo alliance against China. But we'll see. There's more supposition than fact around at the moment.
The lack of self awareness in this post is high, even for you.
Says a poster who - with all things pertaining to UK cf EU - starts with the picture he wishes to see and busts a gut to make every piece fit.
University pension scheme wants to limit any uplift from inflation:
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
Campus trouble coming this winter.
Given the money the ever increasing number of students have been paying for the last decade there does seem to be something fundamentally flawed in the university sector.
My sympathy would be with the students if it wasn't for the fact they seem to think that £30k+ debt is worth the experience.
University pension scheme wants to limit any uplift from inflation:
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
Campus trouble coming this winter.
Triple lock for wealthy retired. Triple cap for their offspring workers.
Yep.
Another headache for Johnson this winter.
The triple lock has gone
Oh no it hasn't. A technical glitch corrected this year. The government stands proudly by the triple lock ongoing.
Ed Davey accusing Boris of toxifying trans right debate.
Are lib dems going to get themselves so wrapped up in this issue again that they lose focus on anything else?
I'm curious as to *how* Boris has been toxifying the trans rights debates.
Politically the government seems to have taken the softly, softly approach, handling various issues through extension of existing law and medical practise - e.g. Gilick Rule on teenagers and transition.
Or is it a case that the Prime Minister, when seeing his opponents being attacked by piranhas, is duty bound to go swimming? Or something?
It's obviously and trivially true that some men will go to strange lengths to do nasty things to women, and it's obviously true that one of the things available to them is to self-identify as a woman to get access to women's spaces.
Yes. But it's far from the top 20 scenarios in which nasty things are done to women. Focus on violence against women in far more common situations is meanwhile crowded out.
University pension scheme wants to limit any uplift from inflation:
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
Campus trouble coming this winter.
Triple lock for wealthy retired. Triple cap for their offspring workers.
Yep.
Another headache for Johnson this winter.
The triple lock has gone
Oh no it hasn't. A technical glitch corrected this year. The government stands proudly by the triple lock ongoing.
It has this year and as for next I look forward to the detail
I support losing an 8% rise in my pension in April
My view remains that Europe as a world power or even a place of significance has had its (pretty long) day in the sun. In 1945 Europe was still such a significant part of world manufacturing that it had strategic importance to the US who could not allow the Soviet Union to dominate it. Hence NATO.
Now, the threat from Russia is massively diminished. I wouldn't be saying that if I lived in the Baltic states or Ukraine or other parts of the former Soviet Union of course. There, their aspirations and mischief making would be a major concern but from the US point of view there is no longer any strategic issue in protecting western Europe which isn't facing any real threat anyway. So NATO is redundant, even if it is politically useful to keep it going in form if not in substance.
Instead the US has strategic interests and concerns in the Pacific. This tilt in this direction has been going on for some time but accelerated considerably under Obama and continued under Trump. AUKUS is a small part of this strategic engagement but there are a host of other treaties and agreements which also play a part.
The UK could have accepted the same backwater status as the rest of Europe but has decided that it wants to play. Some of this is undoubtedly delusional, we want to still matter in world affairs, some of it is a response to Brexit, some of it is looking where economic growth is taking place and wanting a cut of the action, some of it is a bit needy in that we still want to be the US's best pal. I think it is far too early to say whether this will prove a distraction or an economic opportunity and most responses to it say more about the writer's view of UK internal politics than the actual merits. France also wanted to play too and feels left out at the moment but, frankly, who cares?
Good post - lots I agree with - but I plead not guilty to a charge of letting anti-Tory or anti-Brexit sentiment cloud my view of Aukus. I see Australia hooking up with the US on defence (at the expense of a big money deal with France) and the UK involvement as dressing. In which case, ok from our perspective. Nice post-Brexit optics for those who like that sort of thing and think it's important.
But on the off chance I'm reading it wrong, so this IS the platform for a sabre-rattling Pacific NATO, and our involvement IS serious, that would be grim news indeed. America is no special friend of ours. WW2 is an age away. The cold war with the USSR is over. It's a different world now. A world where America is well into its (inevitable) recline decline. Where acting as muttley to their dick dastardly is likely to end up (eg Iraq) in disaster. Where most here look across aghast at the stuff going on with them, their society and their politics. Where (some say) one of their parties has gone crazy with woke and (all say) the other one has gone just plain full blown crazy. Where a corrupt and truly malign human being with a personality disorder and the attention span and intellectual heft of a wasp has been elected President once and could well be again in just three years from now.
So I do not see how us getting embroiled in the battles and proxy battles of this country with China over in the Pacific serves any purpose whatsoever. It won't make the UK a better place. In fact the opposite since it drains resource and focus away from domestic issues. It won't make the world a better place. In fact the opposite since conflict with China is fraught with danger and requires very deft handling - the sort of handling that only a dreamer could think will be forthcoming from Washington DC.
Deft handling in Washington and deft handling in London as well.
I do have concerns that the 'save the world' yearning that has been a dominant feature of UK foreign policy since Blair might be finding a new theatre to play in.
London too, yes, although we've seen on several occasions that we are peripheral. As we are to this, I suspect. It looks to me more like a US/AU marine defence contract at the expense of France than the start of a big new Anglo alliance against China. But we'll see. There's more supposition than fact around at the moment.
If it’s just a US/AU deal, then you must think the US went out of its way to include the UK simply to make a gratuitous statement about its attitude towards its European partners.
I think our involvement is good for the US because it adds some "Anglosphere" sheen to what is essentially a big arms deal poached from France. And it works for us (or the Johnson government rather) because it makes us look a player post Brexit.
A common narrative earlier in the year was that a Biden presidency would completely undermine Johnson and Brexit Britain because he would sideline the UK and put us on the naughty step while he conducted an EU-centric transatlantic foreign policy. The last week has shown this to be completely mistaken.
Given that Biden is supposed to be quite interested in Irish issues, maybe accidentally firing up Article 16 was a bad idea?
University pension scheme wants to limit any uplift from inflation:
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
Campus trouble coming this winter.
Given the money the ever increasing number of students have been paying for the last decade there does seem to be something fundamentally flawed in the university sector.
My sympathy would be with the students if it wasn't for the fact they seem to think that £30k+ debt is worth the experience.
The problem for the students is that without a degree, you can't get a vast range of jobs now. In the old days there were a fair number of non-degree people, even in senior management. Now you can't get an interview without a degree, in many places. For quite a few jobs it needs to be a Russell Group degree, 2.1 or 1st.
It's obviously and trivially true that some men will go to strange lengths to do nasty things to women, and it's obviously true that one of the things available to them is to self-identify as a woman to get access to women's spaces.
Yes. But it's far from the top 20 scenarios in which nasty things are done to women. Focus on violence against women in far more common situations is meanwhile crowded out.
Where is it "crowded out"?
Beautiful example of the drunk driver's fallacy ("Why aren't you out catching rapists, officer?")
It's obviously and trivially true that some men will go to strange lengths to do nasty things to women, and it's obviously true that one of the things available to them is to self-identify as a woman to get access to women's spaces.
Seems a lot of trouble to go to when those types can just pop down to the nearest meatmarket, go online or indeed start a conventional relationship. Statistically speaking I imagine those are the areas where the vast majority of these nasty things take place.
It's obviously and trivially true that some men will go to strange lengths to do nasty things to women, and it's obviously true that one of the things available to them is to self-identify as a woman to get access to women's spaces.
Seems a lot of trouble to go to when those types can just pop down to the nearest meatmarket, go online or indeed start a conventional relationship. Statistically speaking I imagine those are the areas where the vast majority of these nasty things take place.
You are applying logic and reason to an area of human behaviour where nasty people do nasty things for reasons they (mostly) don't understand themselves.
Ed Davey accusing Boris of toxifying trans right debate.
Are lib dems going to get themselves so wrapped up in this issue again that they lose focus on anything else?
I'm curious as to *how* Boris has been toxifying the trans rights debates.
Politically the government seems to have taken the softly, softly approach, handling various issues through extension of existing law and medical practise - e.g. Gilick Rule on teenagers and transition.
Or is it a case that the Prime Minister, when seeing his opponents being attacked by piranhas, is duty bound to go swimming? Or something?
I can't think of Boris getting involved in the trans debate at all, on either side of it.
Which seems about the right thing to do to be honest. Not sure how that's toxifying?
Ed Davey accusing Boris of toxifying trans right debate.
Are lib dems going to get themselves so wrapped up in this issue again that they lose focus on anything else?
I'm curious as to *how* Boris has been toxifying the trans rights debates.
Politically the government seems to have taken the softly, softly approach, handling various issues through extension of existing law and medical practise - e.g. Gilick Rule on teenagers and transition.
Or is it a case that the Prime Minister, when seeing his opponents being attacked by piranhas, is duty bound to go swimming? Or something?
I can't think of Boris getting involved in the trans debate at all, on either side of it.
Which seems about the right thing to do to be honest. Not sure how that's toxifying?
Probably because (a) his opponents see it as unfair that they are being attacked by piranhas when Boris is an Evul Fascist, (b) If he got in the debate everyone could unite in attacking him, the way things should be.
My view remains that Europe as a world power or even a place of significance has had its (pretty long) day in the sun. In 1945 Europe was still such a significant part of world manufacturing that it had strategic importance to the US who could not allow the Soviet Union to dominate it. Hence NATO.
Now, the threat from Russia is massively diminished. I wouldn't be saying that if I lived in the Baltic states or Ukraine or other parts of the former Soviet Union of course. There, their aspirations and mischief making would be a major concern but from the US point of view there is no longer any strategic issue in protecting western Europe which isn't facing any real threat anyway. So NATO is redundant, even if it is politically useful to keep it going in form if not in substance.
Instead the US has strategic interests and concerns in the Pacific. This tilt in this direction has been going on for some time but accelerated considerably under Obama and continued under Trump. AUKUS is a small part of this strategic engagement but there are a host of other treaties and agreements which also play a part.
The UK could have accepted the same backwater status as the rest of Europe but has decided that it wants to play. Some of this is undoubtedly delusional, we want to still matter in world affairs, some of it is a response to Brexit, some of it is looking where economic growth is taking place and wanting a cut of the action, some of it is a bit needy in that we still want to be the US's best pal. I think it is far too early to say whether this will prove a distraction or an economic opportunity and most responses to it say more about the writer's view of UK internal politics than the actual merits. France also wanted to play too and feels left out at the moment but, frankly, who cares?
Good post - lots I agree with - but I plead not guilty to a charge of letting anti-Tory or anti-Brexit sentiment cloud my view of Aukus. I see Australia hooking up with the US on defence (at the expense of a big money deal with France) and the UK involvement as dressing. In which case, ok from our perspective. Nice post-Brexit optics for those who like that sort of thing and think it's important.
But on the off chance I'm reading it wrong, so this IS the platform for a sabre-rattling Pacific NATO, and our involvement IS serious, that would be grim news indeed. America is no special friend of ours. WW2 is an age away. The cold war with the USSR is over. It's a different world now. A world where America is well into its (inevitable) recline decline. Where acting as muttley to their dick dastardly is likely to end up (eg Iraq) in disaster. Where most here look across aghast at the stuff going on with them, their society and their politics. Where (some say) one of their parties has gone crazy with woke and (all say) the other one has gone just plain full blown crazy. Where a corrupt and truly malign human being with a personality disorder and the attention span and intellectual heft of a wasp has been elected President once and could well be again in just three years from now.
So I do not see how us getting embroiled in the battles and proxy battles of this country with China over in the Pacific serves any purpose whatsoever. It won't make the UK a better place. In fact the opposite since it drains resource and focus away from domestic issues. It won't make the world a better place. In fact the opposite since conflict with China is fraught with danger and requires very deft handling - the sort of handling that only a dreamer could think will be forthcoming from Washington DC.
Deft handling in Washington and deft handling in London as well.
I do have concerns that the 'save the world' yearning that has been a dominant feature of UK foreign policy since Blair might be finding a new theatre to play in.
London too, yes, although we've seen on several occasions that we are peripheral. As we are to this, I suspect. It looks to me more like a US/AU marine defence contract at the expense of France than the start of a big new Anglo alliance against China. But we'll see. There's more supposition than fact around at the moment.
If it’s just a US/AU deal, then you must think the US went out of its way to include the UK simply to make a gratuitous statement about its attitude towards its European partners.
I think our involvement is good for the US because it adds some "Anglosphere" sheen to what is essentially a big arms deal poached from France. And it works for us (or the Johnson government rather) because it makes us look a player post Brexit.
Agree entirely. All the “quantum” and “cyber” and other stuff mentioned is simply window-dressing or is happening anyway.
It’s interesting in if you do some googling just how many different military-security cooperation efforts exist (not just “Five Eyes” but that’s probably the most significant), among the the +/-Anglosphere core. I write it that way as some included only a few members, others include what might be described as “Anglosphere-influenced” countries like Singapore, and there’s a real mix and match.
It's obviously and trivially true that some men will go to strange lengths to do nasty things to women, and it's obviously true that one of the things available to them is to self-identify as a woman to get access to women's spaces.
Yes. But it's far from the top 20 scenarios in which nasty things are done to women. Focus on violence against women in far more common situations is meanwhile crowded out.
Where is it "crowded out"?
Beautiful example of the drunk driver's fallacy ("Why aren't you out catching rapists, officer?")
In the media. In society. On this very board. There is a trans discussion on here virtually daily. How often do we discuss, in depth, the women assaulted or murdered by their partners, the children abused by relatives? And what is to be done about it? Very rarely.
University pension scheme wants to limit any uplift from inflation:
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
Campus trouble coming this winter.
Given the money the ever increasing number of students have been paying for the last decade there does seem to be something fundamentally flawed in the university sector.
My sympathy would be with the students if it wasn't for the fact they seem to think that £30k+ debt is worth the experience.
The problem for the students is that without a degree, you can't get a vast range of jobs now. In the old days there were a fair number of non-degree people, even in senior management. Now you can't get an interview without a degree, in many places. For quite a few jobs it needs to be a Russell Group degree, 2.1 or 1st.
So they *have* to pay the £30K+
Only because someone in HR is lazy and wants another filtering criteria. In reality the criteria is binned as soon as recruitment becomes difficult
It's obviously and trivially true that some men will go to strange lengths to do nasty things to women, and it's obviously true that one of the things available to them is to self-identify as a woman to get access to women's spaces.
Seems a lot of trouble to go to when those types can just pop down to the nearest meatmarket, go online or indeed start a conventional relationship. Statistically speaking I imagine those are the areas where the vast majority of these nasty things take place.
You are applying logic and reason to an area of human behaviour where nasty people do nasty things for reasons they (mostly) don't understand themselves.
Especially when some very nasty individuals will go to very extreme lengths to track down and attack their prey.
Hence why things like female-only shelters tragically need to exist in the first place.
My view remains that Europe as a world power or even a place of significance has had its (pretty long) day in the sun. In 1945 Europe was still such a significant part of world manufacturing that it had strategic importance to the US who could not allow the Soviet Union to dominate it. Hence NATO.
Now, the threat from Russia is massively diminished. I wouldn't be saying that if I lived in the Baltic states or Ukraine or other parts of the former Soviet Union of course. There, their aspirations and mischief making would be a major concern but from the US point of view there is no longer any strategic issue in protecting western Europe which isn't facing any real threat anyway. So NATO is redundant, even if it is politically useful to keep it going in form if not in substance.
Instead the US has strategic interests and concerns in the Pacific. This tilt in this direction has been going on for some time but accelerated considerably under Obama and continued under Trump. AUKUS is a small part of this strategic engagement but there are a host of other treaties and agreements which also play a part.
The UK could have accepted the same backwater status as the rest of Europe but has decided that it wants to play. Some of this is undoubtedly delusional, we want to still matter in world affairs, some of it is a response to Brexit, some of it is looking where economic growth is taking place and wanting a cut of the action, some of it is a bit needy in that we still want to be the US's best pal. I think it is far too early to say whether this will prove a distraction or an economic opportunity and most responses to it say more about the writer's view of UK internal politics than the actual merits. France also wanted to play too and feels left out at the moment but, frankly, who cares?
Good post - lots I agree with - but I plead not guilty to a charge of letting anti-Tory or anti-Brexit sentiment cloud my view of Aukus. I see Australia hooking up with the US on defence (at the expense of a big money deal with France) and the UK involvement as dressing. In which case, ok from our perspective. Nice post-Brexit optics for those who like that sort of thing and think it's important.
But on the off chance I'm reading it wrong, so this IS the platform for a sabre-rattling Pacific NATO, and our involvement IS serious, that would be grim news indeed. America is no special friend of ours. WW2 is an age away. The cold war with the USSR is over. It's a different world now. A world where America is well into its (inevitable) recline decline. Where acting as muttley to their dick dastardly is likely to end up (eg Iraq) in disaster. Where most here look across aghast at the stuff going on with them, their society and their politics. Where (some say) one of their parties has gone crazy with woke and (all say) the other one has gone just plain full blown crazy. Where a corrupt and truly malign human being with a personality disorder and the attention span and intellectual heft of a wasp has been elected President once and could well be again in just three years from now.
So I do not see how us getting embroiled in the battles and proxy battles of this country with China over in the Pacific serves any purpose whatsoever. It won't make the UK a better place. In fact the opposite since it drains resource and focus away from domestic issues. It won't make the world a better place. In fact the opposite since conflict with China is fraught with danger and requires very deft handling - the sort of handling that only a dreamer could think will be forthcoming from Washington DC.
Deft handling in Washington and deft handling in London as well.
I do have concerns that the 'save the world' yearning that has been a dominant feature of UK foreign policy since Blair might be finding a new theatre to play in.
London too, yes, although we've seen on several occasions that we are peripheral. As we are to this, I suspect. It looks to me more like a US/AU marine defence contract at the expense of France than the start of a big new Anglo alliance against China. But we'll see. There's more supposition than fact around at the moment.
If it’s just a US/AU deal, then you must think the US went out of its way to include the UK simply to make a gratuitous statement about its attitude towards its European partners.
I think our involvement is good for the US because it adds some "Anglosphere" sheen to what is essentially a big arms deal poached from France. And it works for us (or the Johnson government rather) because it makes us look a player post Brexit.
A common narrative earlier in the year was that a Biden presidency would completely undermine Johnson and Brexit Britain because he would sideline the UK and put us on the naughty step while he conducted an EU-centric transatlantic foreign policy. The last week has shown this to be completely mistaken.
Yes, I do remember such talk. But I never particularly thought that. I don't think all of this stuff - how the US sees us cf others, us being a "bridge" between them and whoever, the minutae of the "Special Relationship" - merits the attention it gets tbh. I'd like to see us be a bit more grown up and imaginative.
University pension scheme wants to limit any uplift from inflation:
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
Campus trouble coming this winter.
Given the money the ever increasing number of students have been paying for the last decade there does seem to be something fundamentally flawed in the university sector.
My sympathy would be with the students if it wasn't for the fact they seem to think that £30k+ debt is worth the experience.
The problem for the students is that without a degree, you can't get a vast range of jobs now. In the old days there were a fair number of non-degree people, even in senior management. Now you can't get an interview without a degree, in many places. For quite a few jobs it needs to be a Russell Group degree, 2.1 or 1st.
So they *have* to pay the £30K+
Its effectively financial abuse of vulnerable teenagers to the benefit of middle aged professionals.
University pension scheme wants to limit any uplift from inflation:
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
Campus trouble coming this winter.
Given the money the ever increasing number of students have been paying for the last decade there does seem to be something fundamentally flawed in the university sector.
My sympathy would be with the students if it wasn't for the fact they seem to think that £30k+ debt is worth the experience.
The problem for the students is that without a degree, you can't get a vast range of jobs now. In the old days there were a fair number of non-degree people, even in senior management. Now you can't get an interview without a degree, in many places. For quite a few jobs it needs to be a Russell Group degree, 2.1 or 1st.
So they *have* to pay the £30K+
Only because someone in HR is lazy and wants another filtering criteria. In reality the criteria is binned as soon as recruitment becomes difficult
The "must have a degree culture" is strong and deep.
Hell, when I worked for a consultancy, one of the guys didn't have a degree. When he went to do some work in a bank, we got a horrified message back from them, saying that they couldn't allow him do the work since he didn't have a degree (from their background check on him). It took a serious amount of push back from the boss to get him on site.
University pension scheme wants to limit any uplift from inflation:
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
Campus trouble coming this winter.
Given the money the ever increasing number of students have been paying for the last decade there does seem to be something fundamentally flawed in the university sector.
My sympathy would be with the students if it wasn't for the fact they seem to think that £30k+ debt is worth the experience.
The problem for the students is that without a degree, you can't get a vast range of jobs now. In the old days there were a fair number of non-degree people, even in senior management. Now you can't get an interview without a degree, in many places. For quite a few jobs it needs to be a Russell Group degree, 2.1 or 1st.
So they *have* to pay the £30K+
Only because someone in HR is lazy and wants another filtering criteria. In reality the criteria is binned as soon as recruitment becomes difficult
It's obviously and trivially true that some men will go to strange lengths to do nasty things to women, and it's obviously true that one of the things available to them is to self-identify as a woman to get access to women's spaces.
Seems a lot of trouble to go to when those types can just pop down to the nearest meatmarket, go online or indeed start a conventional relationship. Statistically speaking I imagine those are the areas where the vast majority of these nasty things take place.
It's obviously and trivially true that some men will go to strange lengths to do nasty things to women, and it's obviously true that one of the things available to them is to self-identify as a woman to get access to women's spaces.
Seems a lot of trouble to go to when those types can just pop down to the nearest meatmarket, go online or indeed start a conventional relationship. Statistically speaking I imagine those are the areas where the vast majority of these nasty things take place.
Karen's victims must have been vastly consoled by the statistical unlikelihood of what happened to them.
This whole subject is a debatoid - it looks like a debate, but it turns out to be a phantasm. All anyone sane is saying is, let's have some minor legislation to cover the edge cases and the fakers.
My concern is that we do not have the weight to really influence the US. We delude ourselves with the special relationship from which we do get some intelligence benefits but those benefits are increasingly dearly bought. It is possible that the European countries as a group have that counterweight so when we are supported by or supporting France and Germany we definitely have a louder voice but the US can still go its own way if it wants and in the Pacific it is much more interested in what SK, Japan and Taiwan thinks.
The major challenges we are going to face over the next 30-50 years are in my view likely to come from Africa where an exploding, very young population is going to generate huge instability, wars and millions upon millions of refugees. How do we handle that? France in particular are a much more obvious partner for that than the US who show very little interest. How does this affect our military spend? What capabilities are we actually going to need? A blue water, nuclear powered aircraft carrier based navy seems a relatively unimportant part of the mix.
Disagree. When distributing the finite resources that the UK, as a middle power, has available for defence, the navy seems a reasonable priority.
Of course, this also extends to a substantial flotilla of small patrol boats (whether operated by the armed forces or coastguard,) to make a concerted effort to intercept and detain all the boat people before they can get ashore. They can then all be deported, in the same fashion as the Australians have done, to one of our conveniently remote rocks in the South Atlantic, or perhaps to a friendly African country willing to play host to detention facilities (and which would appreciate a very large annual stipend in exchange for rendering assistance.)
The only way to deal with mass scale irregular migration successfully is to demonstrate that it cannot possibly succeed, and that throwing money at the smuggling gangs is therefore wasteful and futile. Do that for long enough, then people will learn not to bother to try anymore, and the problem resolves itself. Our neighbours will eventually do this for us by strengthening their own borders when the flow of migrants becomes unbearably large for them (as we've already seen happening on the far side of the continent in Greece and Turkey,) but until then it's up to Britain to look to its own defences.
And yes, that's all nasty and horrible and pity the poor tragic refugees etc, etc, etc, but this is a classic case of the irresistible force of people wanting to go wherever the Hell they like meeting the immovable object of the resident population that simply doesn't want them - not to mention the fact that England (which is where at least nine-tenths of the arrivals will inevitably end up) is already more crowded than any of the EU27 states except Malta. As you say, the numbers of migrants (most of whom will be economic rather than refugee in any event) is only going to keep increasing, and there's neither the desire nor the space to accommodate tens of thousands, let alone a future stream of hundreds of thousands, of random settlers in this country every year.
Ultimately, dealing with a flow of desperate people that's larger than your population is willing to put up with requires an approach of complete ruthlessness, which is something that voters typically don't want to think about because it makes them so uncomfortable - but the issue has to be confronted or it will simply fester and get worse and worse and worse.
I am really struggling to see where you disagree to be honest. I am not opposed to spending money on the navy. I have concerns about us spending most of the available budget on Carriers so we can play being a big boy in the South China sea and nuclear subs which we are almost certainly never going to use. In contrast, a reasonable sized flotilla capable of effective interception of refugees seems a perfectly sensible.
Just another normal day in the UK... balaclavaed youths attacking one another. And of course I posted the report from the doctor in London hospital, where now it ends up with fighting there too.
This happened yesterday on Ilford high street two guys running down the high street with machetes in hand
This is be coming more common now in London & across the UK
It's obviously and trivially true that some men will go to strange lengths to do nasty things to women, and it's obviously true that one of the things available to them is to self-identify as a woman to get access to women's spaces.
Yes. But it's far from the top 20 scenarios in which nasty things are done to women. Focus on violence against women in far more common situations is meanwhile crowded out.
Where is it "crowded out"?
Beautiful example of the drunk driver's fallacy ("Why aren't you out catching rapists, officer?")
In the media. In society. On this very board. There is a trans discussion on here virtually daily. How often do we discuss, in depth, the women assaulted or murdered by their partners, the children abused by relatives? And what is to be done about it? Very rarely.
There have been very occasional discussions. The last one I recall ended on a 'but women assault and murder men too' note, the all lives matter viewpoint if you like.
Ed Davey accusing Boris of toxifying trans right debate.
Are lib dems going to get themselves so wrapped up in this issue again that they lose focus on anything else?
I'm curious as to *how* Boris has been toxifying the trans rights debates.
Politically the government seems to have taken the softly, softly approach, handling various issues through extension of existing law and medical practise - e.g. Gilick Rule on teenagers and transition.
Or is it a case that the Prime Minister, when seeing his opponents being attacked by piranhas, is duty bound to go swimming? Or something?
I can't think of Boris getting involved in the trans debate at all, on either side of it.
Which seems about the right thing to do to be honest. Not sure how that's toxifying?
He's appointed Badenoch, who said something anti-trans a few years ago (called trans-women men, I think) as Equalities Minister
University pension scheme wants to limit any uplift from inflation:
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
Campus trouble coming this winter.
Given the money the ever increasing number of students have been paying for the last decade there does seem to be something fundamentally flawed in the university sector.
My sympathy would be with the students if it wasn't for the fact they seem to think that £30k+ debt is worth the experience.
The problem for the students is that without a degree, you can't get a vast range of jobs now. In the old days there were a fair number of non-degree people, even in senior management. Now you can't get an interview without a degree, in many places. For quite a few jobs it needs to be a Russell Group degree, 2.1 or 1st.
So they *have* to pay the £30K+
Its effectively financial abuse of vulnerable teenagers to the benefit of middle aged professionals.
It's obviously and trivially true that some men will go to strange lengths to do nasty things to women, and it's obviously true that one of the things available to them is to self-identify as a woman to get access to women's spaces.
Seems a lot of trouble to go to when those types can just pop down to the nearest meatmarket, go online or indeed start a conventional relationship. Statistically speaking I imagine those are the areas where the vast majority of these nasty things take place.
Karen's victims must have been vastly consoled by the statistical unlikelihood of what happened to them.
This whole subject is a debatoid - it looks like a debate, but it turns out to be a phantasm. All anyone sane is saying is, let's have some minor legislation to cover the edge cases and the fakers.
Which is kinda my point about it crowding other far more common occurrences out.
It's obviously and trivially true that some men will go to strange lengths to do nasty things to women, and it's obviously true that one of the things available to them is to self-identify as a woman to get access to women's spaces.
Yes. But it's far from the top 20 scenarios in which nasty things are done to women. Focus on violence against women in far more common situations is meanwhile crowded out.
Where is it "crowded out"?
Beautiful example of the drunk driver's fallacy ("Why aren't you out catching rapists, officer?")
In the media. In society. On this very board. There is a trans discussion on here virtually daily. How often do we discuss, in depth, the women assaulted or murdered by their partners, the children abused by relatives? And what is to be done about it? Very rarely.
That's a point about saliency, though, rather than importance, isn't it?
It's obviously and trivially true that some men will go to strange lengths to do nasty things to women, and it's obviously true that one of the things available to them is to self-identify as a woman to get access to women's spaces.
Seems a lot of trouble to go to when those types can just pop down to the nearest meatmarket, go online or indeed start a conventional relationship. Statistically speaking I imagine those are the areas where the vast majority of these nasty things take place.
Karen's victims must have been vastly consoled by the statistical unlikelihood of what happened to them.
This whole subject is a debatoid - it looks like a debate, but it turns out to be a phantasm. All anyone sane is saying is, let's have some minor legislation to cover the edge cases and the fakers.
Which is kinda my point about it crowding other far more common occurrences out.
And there in all its glory is the drunk driver fallacy: the erroneous belief that a person, organisation or society can only think about one thing at a time. Whataboutery depends on this premise.
The strategic error of France would be to think that the other European Union [members] will align with us at the expense of United States . It is to overestimate our influence and our attractiveness ...
France should have long understood the doubts and uncertainties of others [in the] European Union
Yes, this is a major miscalculation and going in so hard on the betrayal rhetoric isn't helping them. Lots of Eastern European nations are looking shiftily at their own border worrying about France pushing the US (and UK) away from its long standing commitment to NATO and the defence of Europe.
The UK and France together have got just about enough teeth to keep Putin at bay without US involvement. If the UK decides it isn't interested in protecting the eastern border of Europe that would be a pretty worrying development for the continent.
I hope that the French calm down over the next few days because pushing the US and UK away is a poor idea.
In another 10 years Eastern European countries will have quite a few teeth of their own, too.
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
It is indeed. I have been passionately pro gay rights ever since I was old enough to understand the issue, I am exactly as pro trans rights as I am pro gay rights, but I would not in a million years vote for a party which buys the present pro trans activist nonsense. And I am a floating ex tory voter who has voted LD in the past (and for a successful LD candidate, so not just a protest vote). Davey has scuppered himself just when I was beginning to like him.
The problem is the loudmouth idiots on either side. The so-called 'pro-trans' people who seem more interested in arguing more than helping the interests of trans people; the anti-pro-trans people who seem just to want a good barney with the other side and make out that trans people are a threat to women.
And in the middle the trans people suffer, and their interests get forgotten.
Some (few) trans people are a very serious threat to women, and they are the edge cases that the pro trans tend to focus on. This really isn't a symmetrical situation, because there is exactly one right answer, which coincides as usual with my own views, and that is: trans is fine, we just need some boring but necessary regs to cover the special cases of sport, loos, hospitals and prisons, and some law about children making irreversible decisions they later regret. There may be nutters who regard all trans people as the spawn of the devil, but I haven't heard of them.
I'm unsure if you meant 'pro trans' in your first sentence, or 'anti trans'? But the issue there is that some people are a very serious threat to women, and I haven't seen much evidence that trans people contain a higher proportion. And even if they did, that's not enough reason to castigate all trans people. I certainly don't think any of the ones I've known have been a threat to women.
Indeed, there is a tendency to talk of the threat some trans people are to women, e.g. in jail, and then ignore the much greater threats trans people suffer. I posted figures the other day for the number of assaults on trans people in prison, and it's far greater than the other way.
Take a statement like: "trans people should not use women's spaces." That probably gets nods of agreement from many. Yet to fully transition and have the op, you need to live as a woman for a period - a year or two. This means a pre-op trans person has to use the facilities of their new gender. There are obvious very real issues in them not doing this.
"There may be nutters who regard all trans people as the spawn of the devil, but I haven't heard of them." You don't read the right (wrong) places, obviously. And the sad thing is some of the pro-trans people can seem just as nasty.
Neither, I meant men who identify as women - i.e. people who do it rather than have a pro or anti view on it. Your "only a tiny minority" argument is like the NRA on guns: sometimes the edge cases are so bad you have to legislate for them no matter how numerically insignificant they are. If it makes the argument more palatable I am probably talking in the main about 100% cis men who pretend to be trans for nefarious ends. Like dear old Karen
As it happens, I think you're wrong about that low piece of scum White: since she has apparently since had surgery, she was probably not 'pretending' to be trans.
As I've said passim, all segments of society have scum. And suffering does not engender nobility: marginalised groups are just as likely to contain saints and sinners.
Ed Davey accusing Boris of toxifying trans right debate.
Are lib dems going to get themselves so wrapped up in this issue again that they lose focus on anything else?
I'm curious as to *how* Boris has been toxifying the trans rights debates.
Politically the government seems to have taken the softly, softly approach, handling various issues through extension of existing law and medical practise - e.g. Gilick Rule on teenagers and transition.
Or is it a case that the Prime Minister, when seeing his opponents being attacked by piranhas, is duty bound to go swimming? Or something?
I can't think of Boris getting involved in the trans debate at all, on either side of it.
Which seems about the right thing to do to be honest. Not sure how that's toxifying?
He's appointed Badenoch, who said something anti-trans a few years ago (called trans-women men, I think) as Equalities Minister
University pension scheme wants to limit any uplift from inflation:
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
Campus trouble coming this winter.
In fairness most pension schemes in my experience will have a cap on the annual uplift. If they don't then trying to ascertain the level of funding required to meet the long term liabilities goes from being a nightmare (or educated guess as actuaries like to call it) to completely impossible. It has not been a significant issue since 2008 because inflation has consistently been low but it was a common problem in the 80s and early 90s.
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
It is indeed. I have been passionately pro gay rights ever since I was old enough to understand the issue, I am exactly as pro trans rights as I am pro gay rights, but I would not in a million years vote for a party which buys the present pro trans activist nonsense. And I am a floating ex tory voter who has voted LD in the past (and for a successful LD candidate, so not just a protest vote). Davey has scuppered himself just when I was beginning to like him.
The problem is the loudmouth idiots on either side. The so-called 'pro-trans' people who seem more interested in arguing more than helping the interests of trans people; the anti-pro-trans people who seem just to want a good barney with the other side and make out that trans people are a threat to women.
And in the middle the trans people suffer, and their interests get forgotten.
Some (few) trans people are a very serious threat to women, and they are the edge cases that the pro trans tend to focus on. This really isn't a symmetrical situation, because there is exactly one right answer, which coincides as usual with my own views, and that is: trans is fine, we just need some boring but necessary regs to cover the special cases of sport, loos, hospitals and prisons, and some law about children making irreversible decisions they later regret. There may be nutters who regard all trans people as the spawn of the devil, but I haven't heard of them.
I'm unsure if you meant 'pro trans' in your first sentence, or 'anti trans'? But the issue there is that some people are a very serious threat to women, and I haven't seen much evidence that trans people contain a higher proportion. And even if they did, that's not enough reason to castigate all trans people. I certainly don't think any of the ones I've known have been a threat to women.
Indeed, there is a tendency to talk of the threat some trans people are to women, e.g. in jail, and then ignore the much greater threats trans people suffer. I posted figures the other day for the number of assaults on trans people in prison, and it's far greater than the other way.
Take a statement like: "trans people should not use women's spaces." That probably gets nods of agreement from many. Yet to fully transition and have the op, you need to live as a woman for a period - a year or two. This means a pre-op trans person has to use the facilities of their new gender. There are obvious very real issues in them not doing this.
"There may be nutters who regard all trans people as the spawn of the devil, but I haven't heard of them." You don't read the right (wrong) places, obviously. And the sad thing is some of the pro-trans people can seem just as nasty.
Neither, I meant men who identify as women - i.e. people who do it rather than have a pro or anti view on it. Your "only a tiny minority" argument is like the NRA on guns: sometimes the edge cases are so bad you have to legislate for them no matter how numerically insignificant they are. If it makes the argument more palatable I am probably talking in the main about 100% cis men who pretend to be trans for nefarious ends. Like dear old Karen
As it happens, I think you're wrong about that low piece of scum White: since she has apparently since had surgery, she was probably not 'pretending' to be trans.
As I've said passim, all segments of society have scum. And suffering does not engender nobility: marginalised groups are just as likely to contain saints and sinners.
Going to have to invite you to fuck off there, for accusing me of "obsessing about" anything.
You aren't very good at this. You are like a gammon child who has found a woke costume in the dressing-up box and desperately wants to put it on, but hasn't a clue how the tapes and buttons work.
I did start this conversation by saying "It is indeed. I have been passionately pro gay rights ever since I was old enough to understand the issue, I am exactly as pro trans rights as I am pro gay rights..."
And what in the name of Christ crucified is this batshit stuff about suffering does not engender nobility? wtf has that to do with anything?
It's obviously and trivially true that some men will go to strange lengths to do nasty things to women, and it's obviously true that one of the things available to them is to self-identify as a woman to get access to women's spaces.
Yes. But it's far from the top 20 scenarios in which nasty things are done to women. Focus on violence against women in far more common situations is meanwhile crowded out.
Where is it "crowded out"?
Beautiful example of the drunk driver's fallacy ("Why aren't you out catching rapists, officer?")
In the media. In society. On this very board. There is a trans discussion on here virtually daily. How often do we discuss, in depth, the women assaulted or murdered by their partners, the children abused by relatives? And what is to be done about it? Very rarely.
There have been very occasional discussions. The last one I recall ended on a 'but women assault and murder men too' note, the all lives matter viewpoint if you like.
Trans men assault women: but so do cis men - doubleplusvalid argument.
Men assault women: but women assault men too - doubleplusfallacious argument.
It's obviously and trivially true that some men will go to strange lengths to do nasty things to women, and it's obviously true that one of the things available to them is to self-identify as a woman to get access to women's spaces.
Yes. But it's far from the top 20 scenarios in which nasty things are done to women. Focus on violence against women in far more common situations is meanwhile crowded out.
Where is it "crowded out"?
Beautiful example of the drunk driver's fallacy ("Why aren't you out catching rapists, officer?")
In the media. In society. On this very board. There is a trans discussion on here virtually daily. How often do we discuss, in depth, the women assaulted or murdered by their partners, the children abused by relatives? And what is to be done about it? Very rarely.
There have been very occasional discussions. The last one I recall ended on a 'but women assault and murder men too' note, the all lives matter viewpoint if you like.
On many occasions, I've mentioned the hideous levels of violence in the UK: often to people claiming it's not as bad as the figures suggest.
Just taking last years figures (1), nearly 2% of adults have faced attempted or actual sexual assault. That means most of us will no-one someone who has faced that type of abuse in the last year.
When it comes to domestic abuse (2), 2.3 million adults faced domestic abuse last year. You will certainly know one or two of them. Of these, about a third of the victims are male, two-thirds female.
I happen to think it's pretty much irrelevant whether the victim is male or female: they need help and support.
On a serious note listening to Marr interview with Ed Davey on trans issues, which I admit I do not normally comment on, it does seem this issue is going to cause considerable controversy for them and also Labour with Rosie Duffield scared of attending their conference.
It's also very dangerous for the Lib Dems. They might be able to cause an upset in the shires in a protest vote by-election, but if they end up looking like Yellow Labour come the next GE then how far are they actually going to get in flipping Tory seats into their column? Not very, one would imagine.
It is indeed. I have been passionately pro gay rights ever since I was old enough to understand the issue, I am exactly as pro trans rights as I am pro gay rights, but I would not in a million years vote for a party which buys the present pro trans activist nonsense. And I am a floating ex tory voter who has voted LD in the past (and for a successful LD candidate, so not just a protest vote). Davey has scuppered himself just when I was beginning to like him.
The problem is the loudmouth idiots on either side. The so-called 'pro-trans' people who seem more interested in arguing more than helping the interests of trans people; the anti-pro-trans people who seem just to want a good barney with the other side and make out that trans people are a threat to women.
And in the middle the trans people suffer, and their interests get forgotten.
Some (few) trans people are a very serious threat to women, and they are the edge cases that the pro trans tend to focus on. This really isn't a symmetrical situation, because there is exactly one right answer, which coincides as usual with my own views, and that is: trans is fine, we just need some boring but necessary regs to cover the special cases of sport, loos, hospitals and prisons, and some law about children making irreversible decisions they later regret. There may be nutters who regard all trans people as the spawn of the devil, but I haven't heard of them.
I'm unsure if you meant 'pro trans' in your first sentence, or 'anti trans'? But the issue there is that some people are a very serious threat to women, and I haven't seen much evidence that trans people contain a higher proportion. And even if they did, that's not enough reason to castigate all trans people. I certainly don't think any of the ones I've known have been a threat to women.
Indeed, there is a tendency to talk of the threat some trans people are to women, e.g. in jail, and then ignore the much greater threats trans people suffer. I posted figures the other day for the number of assaults on trans people in prison, and it's far greater than the other way.
Take a statement like: "trans people should not use women's spaces." That probably gets nods of agreement from many. Yet to fully transition and have the op, you need to live as a woman for a period - a year or two. This means a pre-op trans person has to use the facilities of their new gender. There are obvious very real issues in them not doing this.
"There may be nutters who regard all trans people as the spawn of the devil, but I haven't heard of them." You don't read the right (wrong) places, obviously. And the sad thing is some of the pro-trans people can seem just as nasty.
Neither, I meant men who identify as women - i.e. people who do it rather than have a pro or anti view on it. Your "only a tiny minority" argument is like the NRA on guns: sometimes the edge cases are so bad you have to legislate for them no matter how numerically insignificant they are. If it makes the argument more palatable I am probably talking in the main about 100% cis men who pretend to be trans for nefarious ends. Like dear old Karen
Comments
So. A definite favourite. But far, far from a certainty.
I, personally, would be going nearer 60-40.
Neither result would surprise, let alone shock me.
I would punt that Tories will be pushing female canidates at the next election, and be looking to promote LGB MPs - who were heavily overrepresented in the Commons the last time I checked.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58574180
https://twitter.com/SpeakerPelosi/status/1439548779963768834?s=20
And national digital id is sooo last century anyway. The state knows who you are and where you are at all times anyway via your mobile, non-cash-spending, auto face and gait and numberplate recognition. So bin your phone and cards and walk around in a blacked-out Faraday cage, with a limp. Or stfu and we can move on to a more contemporary debate, like will rockets ever work if there's nothing to push against?
Donaldson is also now hardening his line saying the DUP will not go back into government in NI until the NI Protocol is changed to remove the Irish Sea border to reduce leakage to the TUV while also opposing the UC cut to try and boost his working class support too
And it isn't impossible, though unlikely, that the Tories could win fewer votes and more seats. Undershoot polling in Alberta, Prairies and Quebec by a few. Over in Atlantic, and Ontario by a bit, and bingo, you've done it.
Lord Frost would of course be trying to remove something for which he was at least partly responsible, and it might be helpful if he considered apologising or realising he was , instead of, it appears, blaming others.
We have to remember that the whole N Ireland situation is a direct consequence of Conservative party policies over the last 150 or so years, and it might be helpful if that was recognised sometimes..
Maybe you could acknowledge that, regardless, Starmer has tackled anti-semitism well since becoming Leader. It's disappeared from Labour Party 'news', but you can bet there's still lots of LP enemies trying to hunt out anti-semitic stuff from LP members. Doesn't look like they're finding it any more, does it?
The Conservatives likely need to be ahead by at least 5%+ in the national popular vote to win most seats
acronyminitialism?) Plenty of analysis out there about it:https://thediplomat.com/2021/09/will-china-actually-join-the-cptpp/
https://news.yahoo.com/taiwan-wanting-join-pacific-trade-094414974.html
And in the middle the trans people suffer, and their interests get forgotten.
I'd start with this question: What should the balance be between self-ID and medical certification in the process for changing gender?
Then based on the answer to this proceed to 2 more:
- What medical and other resource is required to make the process humane and efficient?
- On what grounds should female only activities and spaces be able to exclude transwomen?
I think this structure can generate a good debate and a good policy for any political party.
Sian Griffiths
@SianGriffiths6
BREAKING: Universities are facing a wave of strikes which could start before Xmas as
@ucu
ballots members over pensions cuts, with possible dates for industrial action to be drawn up tomorrow. University chiefs says action would be ‘devastating’
Do they need any submarines?
Aha - I see you edited the post. Apologies.
"The JNC has also decided to limit the extent to which members’ benefits are protected from inflation, based on CPI, by capping the annual uplift applied to future benefits at 2.5%." (USS pension scheme website)
With inflation possibly (even likely?) to be roaring ahead in next few years, then this seems an explosive proposal.
Campus trouble coming this winter.
https://twitter.com/utb_smith/status/1439547196769177600?s=20
But we don't know if the PPC vote exists to the polling extent, will vote, and if it does, will vote PPC. We also don't know if they are habitual non-voters, or what percentage are usual Tories. (Similar to the early days of the rise of UKIP here).
There is also marginal turnout. Trudeau is hugely disliked by those who oppose him. Not hugely loved by those who don't.
In particular, the NDP appears to be marginally strengthening in the last week, rather than falling away and folding into a Liberal vote.
So, there is much uncertainty.
Are lib dems going to get themselves so wrapped up in this issue again that they lose focus on anything else?
Both Abacus and Mainstreet, in their daily rolling polls, have the Liberals ahead.
https://abacusdata.ca/daily-tracking-poll-election-44-sept-18/
Abacus has the Conservatives and NDP tied in British Columbia but the Liberals seven points ahead in Ontario and ahead in Quebec.
Compared to 2019, there's a small swing from Conservatives to Liberals but both have lost ground to the NDP and the PPC are polling well enough to draw votes from the Conservatives.
In terms of seats, the Liberals will likely finish above 150 and the Conservatives around 120 so possibly not much different to now but with NDP moving up to just above 30.
Indeed, there is a tendency to talk of the threat some trans people are to women, e.g. in jail, and then ignore the much greater threats trans people suffer. I posted figures the other day for the number of assaults on trans people in prison, and it's far greater than the other way.
Take a statement like: "trans people should not use women's spaces." That probably gets nods of agreement from many. Yet to fully transition and have the op, you need to live as a woman for a period - a year or two. This means a pre-op trans person has to use the facilities of their new gender. There are obvious very real issues in them not doing this.
"There may be nutters who regard all trans people as the spawn of the devil, but I haven't heard of them."
You don't read the right (wrong) places, obviously. And the sad thing is some of the pro-trans people can seem just as nasty.
The pride of the Irish navy
When the Captain he blows on his whistle
All the sailors go home for their tea.
Dubliners
Clнona spookily rhymes with Gleaner.
How would Boris Johnson answer the same question?
I can’t be confident of any result when the polling is within 1%.
Another headache for Johnson this winter.
They lost me at that revelation
The biggest PPC vote is in Alberta and SK and MB so it may be the Conservatives win the popular vote again if the PPC vote falls in their best provinces but still fail to win most seats
https://angusreid.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021.09.18_federal_final.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/11/transgender-prisoner-who-sexually-assaulted-inmates-jailed-for-life
My sympathy would be with the students if it wasn't for the fact they seem to think that £30k+ debt is worth the experience.
Politically the government seems to have taken the softly, softly approach, handling various issues through extension of existing law and medical practise - e.g. Gilick Rule on teenagers and transition.
Or is it a case that the Prime Minister, when seeing his opponents being attacked by piranhas, is duty bound to go swimming? Or something?
I support losing an 8% rise in my pension in April
So they *have* to pay the £30K+
Electricity :-) ?
Beautiful example of the drunk driver's fallacy ("Why aren't you out catching rapists, officer?")
Which seems about the right thing to do to be honest. Not sure how that's toxifying?
It’s interesting in if you do some googling just how many different military-security cooperation efforts exist (not just “Five Eyes” but that’s probably the most significant), among the the +/-Anglosphere core. I write it that way as some included only a few members, others include what might be described as “Anglosphere-influenced” countries like Singapore, and there’s a real mix and match.
There is a trans discussion on here virtually daily.
How often do we discuss, in depth, the women assaulted or murdered by their partners, the children abused by relatives?
And what is to be done about it? Very rarely.
Hence why things like female-only shelters tragically need to exist in the first place.
Hell, when I worked for a consultancy, one of the guys didn't have a degree. When he went to do some work in a bank, we got a horrified message back from them, saying that they couldn't allow him do the work since he didn't have a degree (from their background check on him). It took a serious amount of push back from the boss to get him on site.
https://thecritic.co.uk/keep-men-out-of-womens-prisons/
For me, moving people with a M->F GRC who still have male equipment to a female prison is not acceptable.
Unless conclusive evidence is provided both biologically and sociologically that there is not higher risk of assault etc.
This whole subject is a debatoid - it looks like a debate, but it turns out to be a phantasm. All anyone sane is saying is, let's have some minor legislation to cover the edge cases and the fakers.
This happened yesterday on Ilford high street two guys running down the high street with machetes in hand
This is be coming more common now in London & across the UK
Cc @ig1_ig2 https://t.co/dfan9nPBzj
https://twitter.com/CrimeLdn/status/1439565073161277444?s=19
Lighter touch than NATO, but annual exercises, and immediate consultation on being threatened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Power_Defence_Arrangements
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52748117
As it happens, I think you're wrong about that low piece of scum White: since she has apparently since had surgery, she was probably not 'pretending' to be trans.
As I've said passim, all segments of society have scum. And suffering does not engender nobility: marginalised groups are just as likely to contain saints and sinners.
I'm quite confused by the score though
https://twitter.com/ThatsSoVillage/status/1439548982053715969
You aren't very good at this. You are like a gammon child who has found a woke costume in the dressing-up box and desperately wants to put it on, but hasn't a clue how the tapes and buttons work.
I did start this conversation by saying "It is indeed. I have been passionately pro gay rights ever since I was old enough to understand the issue, I am exactly as pro trans rights as I am pro gay rights..."
And what in the name of Christ crucified is this batshit stuff about suffering does not engender nobility? wtf has that to do with anything?
Men assault women: but women assault men too - doubleplusfallacious argument.
Clear distinction.
Just taking last years figures (1), nearly 2% of adults have faced attempted or actual sexual assault. That means most of us will no-one someone who has faced that type of abuse in the last year.
When it comes to domestic abuse (2), 2.3 million adults faced domestic abuse last year. You will certainly know one or two of them. Of these, about a third of the victims are male, two-thirds female.
I happen to think it's pretty much irrelevant whether the victim is male or female: they need help and support.
(1): https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/sexualoffencesinenglandandwalesoverview/march2020
(2): https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/domesticabuseinenglandandwalesoverview/november2020
That's male prisoners assaulting Transgender Identified Men in a male prison.
Which is not "the other way" to Transgender Identified Men assaulting Women in a woman's prison.
Perhaps we need to be looking at some units for "self-identified but not surgically altered" prisoners within larger prisons.
@IshmaelZ
'Women commit assault too' *is* a valid argument (see child abuse numbers, for example), but I agree not in this context.