The focus, surprise surprise, is on rich v poor, comparing Westminster with Blackpool. But this got my spidey senses tingling, so I went got the data from the ONS myself and plotted the two sets of data for males...
And guess what? The big story is the one buried in the piece. London boroughs - including poorer ones - have experienced pretty big increases in life expectancy. Wealth is probably part of the equation, but the London figures put a question mark on this whole thing. To what extent is this simply caused by population churn? Are the oldies that have stayed in London disproportionately healthier than the ones that sold up and left? Possibly. Alternatively, there is something going on and it may be that London (rather than rich places) is better served by the NHS.
Yes that is interesting. Well done on taking the time to do that.
Hard to read from the graph but has life expectancy actually gone down in Ceredigion?
No, everywhere has gone up, but Ceredigion had the smallest increase:
Area name, Increase Ceredigion: 0.47 Lincoln: 0.91 Oadby and Wigston: 1.17 Burnley: 1.31 Scarborough: 1.34 Brentwood: 1.41 Bridgend: 1.45 Nuneaton and Bedworth: 1.51 Castle Point: 1.54
The Dave Chappelle special is absolutely brilliant.
Never heard of him - read two scathing reviews of his routine in The Guardian and The Independent, then looked him up on wiki and found out he was a Muslim convert. Suppose the G and i thought it was immaterial to his material
The final paragraph of that first link is quite powerful IMO:
"In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide, that’s the part that hurt. Every transgender person I know has lost someone by suicide, and rarely has the reason ever been what other trans people have said to them on Twitter. Hell. You said it yourself, Dave: “Twitter isn’t real.” The marginalization, mockery, dehumanization, and violence many of us face everyday of most of our lives is what fuels our despair. For you to use Daphne’s tragedy as your closing tag is the only thing you’ve done that’s made me angry enough to write a letter."
Yes...the depression angle is a bit chicken and egg to me - to be convinced you are really a woman who happened to have been born in a mans body, or vice versa, sounds like mental illness if I am being perfectly honest, and depression is a mental illness from which suicide too often follows. But if you say you think transgender people, or people who want to transition, are mentally ill and should be treated with the same kind of sympathy as those suffering from schizophrenia or autism, rather than mocked in the way Dave Chappelle apparently does,( I haven't seen or heard any of his material) that would be considered offensive.
It's probably offensive even if it's not a 'mental illness' (IMV it most certainly is not a mental illness for many; and calling it such is part of the problem).
As humans, we like to fit people into neat little categories. Male/female. Good/bad. Straight/gay. Child/adult. In reality, the categories cover a multitude of variances, and it can be hard to fit some people into those categories. I'm currently a stay-at-home dad. Some relatives of mine have found this quite hard to understand because it doesn't fit into the neat categories in their minds.
Can you honestly, hand on heart, not say that some of your activities or lifestyle might not be said by some people to be a 'mental illness' ? I've certainly had someone describe my walking as such in the past, and that's before I took up my current running madness ...
Well I was a stay at home Dad from Oct 2020-June 2021...
But "In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide" makes me think there is a level of severe mental illness among transgenders/wannabe transitioners, that veers further off the spectrum than the kind of universal eccentricities that make the world go round. In short, I reckon there is a predisposition to mental illness amongst the kind of people who want to have a sex change, or more bluntly, I think you have to be quite badly mentally ill to want to do it. That's not a reason to be horrible to anyone, I don't think mentally ill people should be made fun of, they should be sympathised with.
Suicide rates amongst gay people are higher than they are amongst others (1). Would you say that being gay is therefore indicative of a 'mental illness'? Until the 1970s, homosexuality was taken by the US as being a 'mental illness'. Nowadays it is seen as just being part of life's rich tapestry. That's progress.
One of my trans friends committed suicide. I don't think his suicide had anything to do with his transition; IMV it was a result of trauma earlier in his life. (*) Did transitioning make his life harder? Perhaps. Was it a mental illness? No. Was his suicide brought on, in part, by society's reaction to his transition? It's very difficult to know, but as an outside observer, I'd argue yes. It certainly didn't help.
I knew another trans friend from when he was 13 in school. He always wanted to be a girl (despite not looking like one at all - he was taller than me and very manly). Was he mentally ill? No - aside from choosing to be friends with me.
These are two trans people I knew very well. One is dead; the other is happily transitioned. I don't particularly see either as being 'mentally ill'.
Suicide has many potential causes: depression and drug/alcohol use prominent amongst them. Having known trans people, depression caused by people's reaction to them is all too believable.
(*) There is a complicating factor here. How much did his wish to transition have to do with that earlier trauma? In our few conversations about it, he denied it: but I will never know.
I think there is good evidence that commencing hormonal transition improves symptoms of psychological distress, at least for some time.*
I think that other psychiatric disorders, and personality types including ASD are particularly common in people being assessed for gender dysphoria. How much of this is primary, and how much is secondary to the gender dysphoria is a tricky one requiring time, expertise and sensitivity to untangle.
*in the longer term a lifetime of synthetic hormones is not free of psychological consequences.
I spoke to somebody last night whose son is transitioning. He said the worst part was that their child was now of the view that they had never had any happy moments pre-transition and all they had were unhappy memories. It was apparently very hard on their brother who had in his own mind happy memories of times shared together.
That's truly sad. I have just spent a lovely day with my older daughter (15)
We went to Waltham Abbey just for the "laughs". Never been to Chingford before, my God it is as gorgeous as I expected. Hmm
But Waltham Abbey? Exquisite. A small golden flint and limestone box of history, with 7th century elements and the grave of Harold II of England, who lost it all at Hastings.
MARVELLOUS
The laughter of your kids = happiness. In the purest form
I feel for your friend's family
Glad you had a good day.
Waltham Abbey is the poorest part of Epping Forest district but yes the area around the Abbey itself is well worth a visit. There is though a pie ship David Beckham has frequented apparently, not that I have ever been
I love the idea of a pie ship. That really floats my boat!
Is it puff or shortcrust pastry? Or mash? We should be told.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Leaving with a deal was Brexit as promised by all the Leave campaigners . Vote Leave wouldn’t have won if the campaign was to leave with no trade deal .
There were no ironclad "promises" - by either side. Remain could not promise there would never be an EU army or EU debt pooling or EU whatever, because the EU evolves, and, also many of them disagreed on these details. Leave could not promise retained Single Market membership or a precise trade agreement or whatever, because situations evolve and, also, many of them disagreed on these details
(I was a Leaver that wanted EFTA/EEA for ten years as we worked out our future)
Neither side could guarantee anything, you were basically punting on a concept. In or Out. Tha's it. But the one things both sides did agree on was this: the vote would absolutely be respected. If we vote Leave we Leave. As David Cameron, prime minister, said himself, famously
Here you go. Warch
"It will be the final decision. The biggest of our lifetimes. In or out. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected, if we vote to Leave, then we will Leave"
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
The Dave Chappelle special is absolutely brilliant.
Never heard of him - read two scathing reviews of his routine in The Guardian and The Independent, then looked him up on wiki and found out he was a Muslim convert. Suppose the G and i thought it was immaterial to his material
The final paragraph of that first link is quite powerful IMO:
"In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide, that’s the part that hurt. Every transgender person I know has lost someone by suicide, and rarely has the reason ever been what other trans people have said to them on Twitter. Hell. You said it yourself, Dave: “Twitter isn’t real.” The marginalization, mockery, dehumanization, and violence many of us face everyday of most of our lives is what fuels our despair. For you to use Daphne’s tragedy as your closing tag is the only thing you’ve done that’s made me angry enough to write a letter."
Yes...the depression angle is a bit chicken and egg to me - to be convinced you are really a woman who happened to have been born in a mans body, or vice versa, sounds like mental illness if I am being perfectly honest, and depression is a mental illness from which suicide too often follows. But if you say you think transgender people, or people who want to transition, are mentally ill and should be treated with the same kind of sympathy as those suffering from schizophrenia or autism, rather than mocked in the way Dave Chappelle apparently does,( I haven't seen or heard any of his material) that would be considered offensive.
It's probably offensive even if it's not a 'mental illness' (IMV it most certainly is not a mental illness for many; and calling it such is part of the problem).
As humans, we like to fit people into neat little categories. Male/female. Good/bad. Straight/gay. Child/adult. In reality, the categories cover a multitude of variances, and it can be hard to fit some people into those categories. I'm currently a stay-at-home dad. Some relatives of mine have found this quite hard to understand because it doesn't fit into the neat categories in their minds.
Can you honestly, hand on heart, not say that some of your activities or lifestyle might not be said by some people to be a 'mental illness' ? I've certainly had someone describe my walking as such in the past, and that's before I took up my current running madness ...
Well I was a stay at home Dad from Oct 2020-June 2021...
But "In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide" makes me think there is a level of severe mental illness among transgenders/wannabe transitioners, that veers further off the spectrum than the kind of universal eccentricities that make the world go round. In short, I reckon there is a predisposition to mental illness amongst the kind of people who want to have a sex change, or more bluntly, I think you have to be quite badly mentally ill to want to do it. That's not a reason to be horrible to anyone, I don't think mentally ill people should be made fun of, they should be sympathised with.
Suicide rates amongst gay people are higher than they are amongst others (1). Would you say that being gay is therefore indicative of a 'mental illness'? Until the 1970s, homosexuality was taken by the US as being a 'mental illness'. Nowadays it is seen as just being part of life's rich tapestry. That's progress.
One of my trans friends committed suicide. I don't think his suicide had anything to do with his transition; IMV it was a result of trauma earlier in his life. (*) Did transitioning make his life harder? Perhaps. Was it a mental illness? No. Was his suicide brought on, in part, by society's reaction to his transition? It's very difficult to know, but as an outside observer, I'd argue yes. It certainly didn't help.
I knew another trans friend from when he was 13 in school. He always wanted to be a girl (despite not looking like one at all - he was taller than me and very manly). Was he mentally ill? No - aside from choosing to be friends with me.
These are two trans people I knew very well. One is dead; the other is happily transitioned. I don't particularly see either as being 'mentally ill'.
Suicide has many potential causes: depression and drug/alcohol use prominent amongst them. Having known trans people, depression caused by people's reaction to them is all too believable.
(*) There is a complicating factor here. How much did his wish to transition have to do with that earlier trauma? In our few conversations about it, he denied it: but I will never know.
I think there is good evidence that commencing hormonal transition improves symptoms of psychological distress, at least for some time.*
I think that other psychiatric disorders, and personality types including ASD are particularly common in people being assessed for gender dysphoria. How much of this is primary, and how much is secondary to the gender dysphoria is a tricky one requiring time, expertise and sensitivity to untangle.
*in the longer term a lifetime of synthetic hormones is not free of psychological consequences.
I spoke to somebody last night whose son is transitioning. He said the worst part was that their child was now of the view that they had never had any happy moments pre-transition and all they had were unhappy memories. It was apparently very hard on their brother who had in his own mind happy memories of times shared together.
That's truly sad. I have just spent a lovely day with my older daughter (15)
We went to Waltham Abbey just for the "laughs". Never been to Chingford before, my God it is as gorgeous as I expected. Hmm
But Waltham Abbey? Exquisite. A small golden flint and limestone box of history, with 7th century elements and the grave of Harold II of England, who lost it all at Hastings.
MARVELLOUS
The laughter of your kids = happiness. In the purest form
I feel for your friend's family
Glad you had a good day.
Waltham Abbey is the poorest part of Epping Forest district but yes the area around the Abbey itself is well worth a visit. There is though a pie ship David Beckham has frequented apparently, not that I have ever been
I love the idea of a pie ship. That really floats my boat!
Is it puff or shortcrust pastry? Or mash? We should be told.
Due to a collision in my hash tables I have a vision of Naglfar, personed by dead Klingons, making best pie n' mash in the universe.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
Actually I won't @rpjs because you are right, the American system is very harsh to third parties and I don't see why the factions in the Democrats would want to split. The Squad and the progressives are gaining ground all the time, most of the moderate faction are happy to go along with their agenda and, in any event, are quite old. It is likely the Democrats will become like the Labour party here as time goes on, with Socialism becoming a core part of the messaging and the old guard shuffling off. If Schumer gets deposed by AOC in 2022 for the NY Senate race, it may accelerate the old guard fading away but the direction of travel is clear.
As for the Republicans, it's a bit like the Conservatives post-2019. The disaffected have mainly gone and those who are left are in for the ride. Plus for many of the non-Trump candidates, there is much to be said for waiting until 2028 and hoping to be Trump's VP pick. They are generally young, can afford to wait and it gives them several more years of solidifying their support.
Fair enough! Although I don’t think most of the progressives would really pass muster as socialists under any reasonable definition of the term.
I think Schumer is pretty safe. He’s the incumbent and works hard to maintain a prominent profile: every Sunday he mounts a new initiative which is always covered by the local media, and I think AOC is too left-wing to win the primary across the whole state, although she would probably win the general, so long as the Republicans don’t run a crazy.
Yes, it's a bit hard to do a neat cut across because the American system is different but, definitely on cultural issues, they would be considered on the left of the Labour party here. When it comes to taxation, I suspect they would be happy with corporates paying a bit more as long as they supported the agenda.
Re Schumer, AOC did break with the rest of the Squad when she abstained, rather than vote against, the funding of Iron Dome to Israel, which suggests she is thinking about how things are perceived in the state primaries.
Yeah, that alone is likely to preclude AOC from winning any state-wide vote. The New York Jewish vote, which skews Democratic, may not necessarily agree with everything that Israel does but they do not countenance anything that might affect Israel’s security.
Yes, I don't think it will be enough, especially given her crying antics when the vote was announced but it was interesting she split from the Squad. Not sure what the Democrat rules around primaries in NY State but, if she stands, I wonder if we see an influx of new primary voters coming in that could help her.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
The Dave Chappelle special is absolutely brilliant.
Never heard of him - read two scathing reviews of his routine in The Guardian and The Independent, then looked him up on wiki and found out he was a Muslim convert. Suppose the G and i thought it was immaterial to his material
The final paragraph of that first link is quite powerful IMO:
"In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide, that’s the part that hurt. Every transgender person I know has lost someone by suicide, and rarely has the reason ever been what other trans people have said to them on Twitter. Hell. You said it yourself, Dave: “Twitter isn’t real.” The marginalization, mockery, dehumanization, and violence many of us face everyday of most of our lives is what fuels our despair. For you to use Daphne’s tragedy as your closing tag is the only thing you’ve done that’s made me angry enough to write a letter."
Yes...the depression angle is a bit chicken and egg to me - to be convinced you are really a woman who happened to have been born in a mans body, or vice versa, sounds like mental illness if I am being perfectly honest, and depression is a mental illness from which suicide too often follows. But if you say you think transgender people, or people who want to transition, are mentally ill and should be treated with the same kind of sympathy as those suffering from schizophrenia or autism, rather than mocked in the way Dave Chappelle apparently does,( I haven't seen or heard any of his material) that would be considered offensive.
It's probably offensive even if it's not a 'mental illness' (IMV it most certainly is not a mental illness for many; and calling it such is part of the problem).
As humans, we like to fit people into neat little categories. Male/female. Good/bad. Straight/gay. Child/adult. In reality, the categories cover a multitude of variances, and it can be hard to fit some people into those categories. I'm currently a stay-at-home dad. Some relatives of mine have found this quite hard to understand because it doesn't fit into the neat categories in their minds.
Can you honestly, hand on heart, not say that some of your activities or lifestyle might not be said by some people to be a 'mental illness' ? I've certainly had someone describe my walking as such in the past, and that's before I took up my current running madness ...
Well I was a stay at home Dad from Oct 2020-June 2021...
But "In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide" makes me think there is a level of severe mental illness among transgenders/wannabe transitioners, that veers further off the spectrum than the kind of universal eccentricities that make the world go round. In short, I reckon there is a predisposition to mental illness amongst the kind of people who want to have a sex change, or more bluntly, I think you have to be quite badly mentally ill to want to do it. That's not a reason to be horrible to anyone, I don't think mentally ill people should be made fun of, they should be sympathised with.
Suicide rates amongst gay people are higher than they are amongst others (1). Would you say that being gay is therefore indicative of a 'mental illness'? Until the 1970s, homosexuality was taken by the US as being a 'mental illness'. Nowadays it is seen as just being part of life's rich tapestry. That's progress.
One of my trans friends committed suicide. I don't think his suicide had anything to do with his transition; IMV it was a result of trauma earlier in his life. (*) Did transitioning make his life harder? Perhaps. Was it a mental illness? No. Was his suicide brought on, in part, by society's reaction to his transition? It's very difficult to know, but as an outside observer, I'd argue yes. It certainly didn't help.
I knew another trans friend from when he was 13 in school. He always wanted to be a girl (despite not looking like one at all - he was taller than me and very manly). Was he mentally ill? No - aside from choosing to be friends with me.
These are two trans people I knew very well. One is dead; the other is happily transitioned. I don't particularly see either as being 'mentally ill'.
Suicide has many potential causes: depression and drug/alcohol use prominent amongst them. Having known trans people, depression caused by people's reaction to them is all too believable.
(*) There is a complicating factor here. How much did his wish to transition have to do with that earlier trauma? In our few conversations about it, he denied it: but I will never know.
I think there is good evidence that commencing hormonal transition improves symptoms of psychological distress, at least for some time.*
I think that other psychiatric disorders, and personality types including ASD are particularly common in people being assessed for gender dysphoria. How much of this is primary, and how much is secondary to the gender dysphoria is a tricky one requiring time, expertise and sensitivity to untangle.
*in the longer term a lifetime of synthetic hormones is not free of psychological consequences.
I spoke to somebody last night whose son is transitioning. He said the worst part was that their child was now of the view that they had never had any happy moments pre-transition and all they had were unhappy memories. It was apparently very hard on their brother who had in his own mind happy memories of times shared together.
That's truly sad. I have just spent a lovely day with my older daughter (15)
We went to Waltham Abbey just for the "laughs". Never been to Chingford before, my God it is as gorgeous as I expected. Hmm
But Waltham Abbey? Exquisite. A small golden flint and limestone box of history, with 7th century elements and the grave of Harold II of England, who lost it all at Hastings.
MARVELLOUS
The laughter of your kids = happiness. In the purest form
I feel for your friend's family
I think they hope it's temporary. My own view is that I think there is an element of Year Zero thinking that may come into the minds of some who transition i.e. their life could never be good before they came out and now will be wonderful. I fear that is setting themselves up for a fall.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
That's like saying "Solid Republicans" can't be considered extremists if they backed Trump trying to overturn the election result.
Grieve et al devolved into democracy denying extremists. Absolutely beyond the pale.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
Actually I won't @rpjs because you are right, the American system is very harsh to third parties and I don't see why the factions in the Democrats would want to split. The Squad and the progressives are gaining ground all the time, most of the moderate faction are happy to go along with their agenda and, in any event, are quite old. It is likely the Democrats will become like the Labour party here as time goes on, with Socialism becoming a core part of the messaging and the old guard shuffling off. If Schumer gets deposed by AOC in 2022 for the NY Senate race, it may accelerate the old guard fading away but the direction of travel is clear.
As for the Republicans, it's a bit like the Conservatives post-2019. The disaffected have mainly gone and those who are left are in for the ride. Plus for many of the non-Trump candidates, there is much to be said for waiting until 2028 and hoping to be Trump's VP pick. They are generally young, can afford to wait and it gives them several more years of solidifying their support.
Fair enough! Although I don’t think most of the progressives would really pass muster as socialists under any reasonable definition of the term.
I think Schumer is pretty safe. He’s the incumbent and works hard to maintain a prominent profile: every Sunday he mounts a new initiative which is always covered by the local media, and I think AOC is too left-wing to win the primary across the whole state, although she would probably win the general, so long as the Republicans don’t run a crazy.
Yes, it's a bit hard to do a neat cut across because the American system is different but, definitely on cultural issues, they would be considered on the left of the Labour party here. When it comes to taxation, I suspect they would be happy with corporates paying a bit more as long as they supported the agenda.
Re Schumer, AOC did break with the rest of the Squad when she abstained, rather than vote against, the funding of Iron Dome to Israel, which suggests she is thinking about how things are perceived in the state primaries.
Yeah, that alone is likely to preclude AOC from winning any state-wide vote. The New York Jewish vote, which skews Democratic, may not necessarily agree with everything that Israel does but they do not countenance anything that might affect Israel’s security.
Yes, I don't think it will be enough, especially given her crying antics when the vote was announced but it was interesting she split from the Squad. Not sure what the Democrat rules around primaries in NY State but, if she stands, I wonder if we see an influx of new primary voters coming in that could help her.
We have closed primaries in New York and it was certainly the case a couple of years back that the deadline for party registration was several months before the actual primary. I think that may have been loosened, and we have a referendum in November on further reforms such as election day registration.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
Actually I won't @rpjs because you are right, the American system is very harsh to third parties and I don't see why the factions in the Democrats would want to split. The Squad and the progressives are gaining ground all the time, most of the moderate faction are happy to go along with their agenda and, in any event, are quite old. It is likely the Democrats will become like the Labour party here as time goes on, with Socialism becoming a core part of the messaging and the old guard shuffling off. If Schumer gets deposed by AOC in 2022 for the NY Senate race, it may accelerate the old guard fading away but the direction of travel is clear.
As for the Republicans, it's a bit like the Conservatives post-2019. The disaffected have mainly gone and those who are left are in for the ride. Plus for many of the non-Trump candidates, there is much to be said for waiting until 2028 and hoping to be Trump's VP pick. They are generally young, can afford to wait and it gives them several more years of solidifying their support.
Fair enough! Although I don’t think most of the progressives would really pass muster as socialists under any reasonable definition of the term.
I think Schumer is pretty safe. He’s the incumbent and works hard to maintain a prominent profile: every Sunday he mounts a new initiative which is always covered by the local media, and I think AOC is too left-wing to win the primary across the whole state, although she would probably win the general, so long as the Republicans don’t run a crazy.
Yes, it's a bit hard to do a neat cut across because the American system is different but, definitely on cultural issues, they would be considered on the left of the Labour party here. When it comes to taxation, I suspect they would be happy with corporates paying a bit more as long as they supported the agenda.
Re Schumer, AOC did break with the rest of the Squad when she abstained, rather than vote against, the funding of Iron Dome to Israel, which suggests she is thinking about how things are perceived in the state primaries.
Yeah, that alone is likely to preclude AOC from winning any state-wide vote. The New York Jewish vote, which skews Democratic, may not necessarily agree with everything that Israel does but they do not countenance anything that might affect Israel’s security.
You'd be correct IF on the US House vote on Israel Iron Dome funding AOC had voted no. Fact that she abstained (albeit against her own ideology) was an act of realpolitik that keeps her in the game, methinks. She disappoints some true believers with her pragmatism, but that will reassure other (and I think more) voters, mostly moderates but also some progressives.
The critical factor here being NY Jewish Democratic 2022 primary voters who are neither committed progressives nor hard-line enough re: Israel to scratch AOC from her dance cards for abstaining on a roll call that passed anyway. In a potential race versus Schumer, Ocasio-Cortez does NOT need to win a majority of the Jewish primary vote to beat him. But on the other hand, she can NOT afford to get skunked by this key bloc, in the primary OR the general.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Fair enough, I must have had you mistaken with another poster in that case. Apologies.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Fair enough, I must have had you mistaken with another poster in that case. Apologies.
Not a criticism - it's a major achievement to get that much information on a graph - but I can't work which age-group the top line is. Is it 10-14?
(Also isn't 12-15 overlapping other groups?)
Thanks for posting the graphs!
Yup - it's 10-14.
the 12-15 is an artefact of the changes they made to the data when the 12-17 vaccinations were shoved into the system. Looking at how best to deal with it.
So, the GOP are just like the 2nd vote "People's vote" Remoaners, then
Like Keir Starmer?
Trying to overturn an election just because they didn't like the result. There is not a whit of difference between these idiot GOP guys, and, say, Mr Alistair Meeks. On any Lib Dem. Or any of those fuckers that marched on Westminster
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
I also don't understand this idea that Trump will win in 2024. He still has all of the same negatives and Americans will, once again, reject him. Democracy will win out just as it did in 2020.
I also don't understand this idea that Trump will win in 2024. He still has all of the same negatives and Americans will, once again, reject him. Democracy will win out just as it did in 2020.
Leaving out any concerns about state legislatures certifying votes, some key states were pretty close in 2020. It's not impossible he could legitimately win if Biden or his replacement don't do as well.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
Grieve was quite a different character to most of those, they don't deserve to be lumped in with him.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
I couldn't give a flying fuck who the Tories kick out of their party - the more the merrier. I'm not interested in Grieve. And if you want to compare the 21 Tory MPs who Boris kicked out for voting against a no deal Brexit to the Trumpites, that's fine by me too. Ye gods.
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
I have some sympathy for objections to the EUCJ having a role in a sovereign state outside of its jurisdiction, even if its role is a technical one of interpreting the law relating to the Single Market that Northern Ireland is part of.
But we are where we are and have to make the best of the mess we have put ourselves into.
The logical thing to do is to have an arbitration process. One Party ruling on the other Parties jurisdiction isn't acceptable.
Just thinking outside the box for a second, perhaps the deal as signed off and pronounced highly satisfactory by both parties could be implemented?
Agreed. Starting and ending with Article 16 of that deal.
Article 16 gets invoked, deal implemented in full, job done let's move on OK?
We all agreed when it briefly looked as if the EU were going to abuse A16 that this was not the way to go. It's strictly for emergencies that were not and could not have been foreseen at the time the Protocol was drawn up. So, no, sorry.
It is quite literally for and I quote “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade”
That was not the case when the EU abused it. It is the case today.
Do you think there is any diversion of trade happening right now, yes or no? If yes, its legitimate to invoke the Article. Do you think there are any serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist right now? If ye, its legitimate to invoke the article.
The treaty doesn't say that they could not have been foreseen at the time the Protocol was drawn up. If that was a requirement then a global pandemic and vaccines being in short supply was pretty unforeseeable. But that's not a factor, the only factor is if there's the listed difficulties liable to persist, or diversion of trade. And quite factually - there is.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
It all depends on how he wins. If a bunch of states that the Democrats win have GOP legislatures that do make a spurious claim of election fraud and appoint their own electors next time, then things will get very bad, very quickly.
If Trump wins enough electoral votes, fair and square, even if he loses the national popular vote for the third time, which he probably would, then fine: that is the way the constitution is supposed to work.
Don’t forget that lots of Trumpists are claiming that the 2020 vote was rigged in states that Trump won, and won big, like Idaho. They will have no compunction about trying to negate the results in states that the Democrats win and that they have the ability to do so.
I also don't understand this idea that Trump will win in 2024. He still has all of the same negatives and Americans will, once again, reject him. Democracy will win out just as it did in 2020.
Agreed. I don't think Trump will win. But I feel for America, because the Woke Democrats are awful. And the two extremes feed off each other. It reminds me of Weimar Germany, where the commies and Nazis got ever closer to power, because the centre was weak and "lacking in all conviction"
I can see *why* a white Republican in Flyover Country would hold his or her nose and vote Trump, in despair at the Woke Liberal agenda now assaulting every American institution
But I would still advise those Americans to refrain from voting Trump, He is too dangerous, and genuinely evil. He is a proper demagogue. There is very little hope if he wins. There is still hope if the pathetic Woke Democrats win. They can be saved
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
I couldn't give a flying fuck who the Tories kick out of their party - the more the merrier. And if you want to compare the 21 Tory MPs who Boris kicked out for voting against a no deal Brexit to the Trumpites, that's fine by me too. Ye gods.
Of course I do, they were trying to overturn a democratic result.
You could maybe make an excuse for Clarke and co who voted for other options, it'd be a thin excuse but you could make one.
But Grieve? He's no better than Senator Tom Cotton.
Trumpets have gone deep in the Republican party. Unlike the MoaMentum types, who never thought to actually *work* at their takeover, the Trumpets have taken every office at every level, they could. Dislodging them now may well be impossible.
Which has implication for the Republican convention - very hard to see how they can manoeuvre against Trump now.
Semi-On-Topic -
The whole BREXIT = Trump thing is a comfort blanket for Remainers. "One day, everyone will wake up and suddenly we will be back in M. Barniers arms.... the sun will shine, the birds will sing again"
The questions that lost the referendum need to have answers before you can Rejoin. And saying that there were no questions or that all the questions are illegitimate is not the answer.
We are not rejoining, certainly not in my lifetime. I have come to terms with that Brexit affected my life and my plans. It is done. We are where we are.
Why do you Brexit enthusiasts continue to believe we are fighting a war we lost? We have moved on, why can't you?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
Grieve was quite a different character to most of those, they don't deserve to be lumped in with him.
Grieve was especially repulsive. He did not even try to hide his effete and lordly contempt for the scum voters of Leave,
"Parliament is incapable of settling Brexit. We need a second referendum Dominic Grieve"
It was unfortunate, for him, that his narrow, horsey face epitomised the face of a snob unfortunately confronting a smelly peasant, and thereby clutching a scented silk foulard to his nose, in horror
We seem to be equating someone voting against the government in the legislature, or campaigning for another public vote on an issue, with Trump trying to stage a violent coup. OK.
By that standard of course the SNP are fully deserving of that promised panzer assault if they dare to call a second referendum, and woe betide any Tory who seeks to reopen or renegotiate the oven-ready TCA agreed and voted on in the 2019 election.
I also don't understand this idea that Trump will win in 2024. He still has all of the same negatives and Americans will, once again, reject him. Democracy will win out just as it did in 2020.
He won in 2016 despite a majority of Americans voting against him. I think it's entirely possible the same thing could happen in 2024.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
If democracy dies a death in America then of course not. We should be nimble and flexible not locked into a single set of alliances for the rest of time.
But that's not the case today. Biden is President. We need to do what we can to help ensure that democracy thrives in the land of the free while they can still claim that title.
Not a criticism - it's a major achievement to get that much information on a graph - but I can't work which age-group the top line is. Is it 10-14?
(Also isn't 12-15 overlapping other groups?)
Thanks for posting the graphs!
Yup - it's 10-14.
the 12-15 is an artefact of the changes they made to the data when the 12-17 vaccinations were shoved into the system. Looking at how best to deal with it.
Ok thanks.
What a shame we didn't vaccinate all the teanagers during the summer hols, eh?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
Grieve was quite a different character to most of those, they don't deserve to be lumped in with him.
Grieve was especially repulsive. He did not even try to hide his effete and lordly contempt for the scum voters of Leave,
"Parliament is incapable of settling Brexit. We need a second referendum Dominic Grieve"
It was unfortunate, for him, that his narrow, horsey face epitomised the face of a snob unfortunately confronting a smelly peasant, and thereby clutching a scented silk foulard to his nose, in horror
I think he had his eye on receiving a legion d'honneur. Grieve was absolutely a fifth columnist, he was very clearly taking instructions from Brussels and Paris on how to frustrate the Brexit process and probably advising them on how best to ensure the UK was unable to leave the EU.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
Not a criticism - it's a major achievement to get that much information on a graph - but I can't work which age-group the top line is. Is it 10-14?
(Also isn't 12-15 overlapping other groups?)
Thanks for posting the graphs!
Yup - it's 10-14.
the 12-15 is an artefact of the changes they made to the data when the 12-17 vaccinations were shoved into the system. Looking at how best to deal with it.
Ok thanks.
What a shame we didn't vaccinate all the teanagers during the summer hols, eh?
We seem to be equating someone voting against the government in the legislature, or campaigning for another public vote on an issue, with Trump trying to stage a violent coup. OK.
By that standard of course the SNP are fully deserving of that promised panzer assault if they dare to call a second referendum, and woe betide any Tory who seeks to reopen or renegotiate the oven-ready TCA agreed and voted on in the 2019 election.
The commitment was that we hold a vote and the result will be implemented. Overturning it after its been implemented, is perfectly reasonable but trying to abort it before it has been is not.
The equivalent of Grieve in the USA is not the facepaint wearing hoodlums who broke into the chamber on 6 January. Its people like Senator Tom Cotton who voted against inaugurating Biden in the legislature. If there had been more Senator Tom Cottons, like if there had been more Dominic Grieves, then the democratic outcome (voting for Biden/Brexit) could have been snuffed out before it happened. Entirely constitutionally, but also undemocratically.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Yes, five and a bit years on and we are still subjected on a daily basis to the triumphalist gloating of the so called "winners".
Yes, they won but rubbing it in the face of those who didn't agree with them (and I say this as a LEAVE voter) is obviously easier than trying to explain Britain's role, identity and economic policy post-EU membership.
We have some vacuous nonsense about "levelling up" which is as coherent as the "big society" and aspirational but economically illiterate piffle about high wages, high skills, high productivity and low taxes.
That of course is the essence of Johnson and his politics - it all sounds fine if you don't think about it too much and that's what he relies on. As soon as you give it a scintilla of thought, the whole house of cards disintegrates.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
It all depends on how he wins. If a bunch of states that the Democrats win have GOP legislatures that do make a spurious claim of election fraud and appoint their own electors next time, then things will get very bad, very quickly.
If Trump wins enough electoral votes, fair and square, even if he loses the national popular vote for the third time, which he probably would, then fine: that is the way the constitution is supposed to work.
Don’t forget that lots of Trumpists are claiming that the 2020 vote was rigged in states that Trump won, and won big, like Idaho. They will have no compunction about trying to negate the results in states that the Democrats win and that they have the ability to do so.
When it comes to 2020 and claims around the election, you have two groups. The minority, and extremist view, is that there was widespread stuffing of ballot boxes, particularly in major cities and that Trump not only won the EC but the popular vote. That's definitely an uncommon view amongst the GOP above the rank and file.
There is then a second, much larger cohort that believes that, while there was not ballot stuffing, there was a concerted move by Democrats to influence and control the electoral process in many states to maximise their advantages under the pretext of using Covid to aggressively push mail-in ballots, and in some cases was done against the Constitution. Pennsylvania is one example here - a Democrat SoS / Governor changed the voting rules and, when the Republican legislature challenged it saying it was against the Constitution because state legislatures have the ultimate right to decide voting arrangements, the Democrat controlled Supreme Court of Pennsylvania refused to overturn what was clearly an unconstitutional step.
It is the latter where the main battleground is taking place, at least in states like PA and GA.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
Grieve was quite a different character to most of those, they don't deserve to be lumped in with him.
Grieve was especially repulsive. He did not even try to hide his effete and lordly contempt for the scum voters of Leave,
"Parliament is incapable of settling Brexit. We need a second referendum Dominic Grieve"
It was unfortunate, for him, that his narrow, horsey face epitomised the face of a snob unfortunately confronting a smelly peasant, and thereby clutching a scented silk foulard to his nose, in horror
I think he had his eye on receiving a legion d'honneur. Grieve was absolutely a fifth columnist, he was very clearly taking instructions from Brussels and Paris on how to frustrate the Brexit process and probably advising them on how best to ensure the UK was unable to leave the EU.
He didn't even attempt - as far as I could see - to hide it, such was his arrogance
Parliament is well rid of him. British democracy is well rid of him
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Yes, five and a bit years on and we are still subjected on a daily basis to the triumphalist gloating of the so called "winners".
Yes, they won but rubbing it in the face of those who didn't agree with them (and I say this as a LEAVE voter) is obviously easier than trying to explain Britain's role, identity and economic policy post-EU membership.
We have some vacuous nonsense about "levelling up" which is as coherent as the "big society" and aspirational but economically illiterate piffle about high wages, high skills, high productivity and low taxes.
That of course is the essence of Johnson and his politics - it all sounds fine if you don't think about it too much and that's what he relies on. As soon as you give it a scintilla of thought, the whole house of cards disintegrates.
Do me a favour. Everything that’s been thrown into chaos around the world by the pandemic is blamed on Brexit on here on an hourly basis. Just because we won, we don’t have to let to the sour grape sulks go by without correction
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
Not a criticism - it's a major achievement to get that much information on a graph - but I can't work which age-group the top line is. Is it 10-14?
(Also isn't 12-15 overlapping other groups?)
Thanks for posting the graphs!
Yup - it's 10-14.
the 12-15 is an artefact of the changes they made to the data when the 12-17 vaccinations were shoved into the system. Looking at how best to deal with it.
Ok thanks.
What a shame we didn't vaccinate all the teanagers during the summer hols, eh?
(I bet no one else has made that point before.)
My older, 15 year old daughter gets her jab next Wednesday. It is finally being done
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Driving around central and north London today, about 3/4 of petrol stations had limited or no petrol
It is still happening. Is this just now a central-ish London thing?
We filled up today for the first time since the crisis broke - no issues at all: first station we tried, all pumps working, no queues.
That's in Dorset mind - someone comes out from the shed, tips their hat, asks how many gallons you want, and hand pumps the petrol from the underground tank.
The thing that most amuses me of the whole Northern Ireland debate is that the same people who've spent the last nine months screaming about what a disruption the NI Protocol (and GB being out of the Market) is and how its causing a diversion of trade . . . are now acting horrified at the UK invoking a safeguard Article that can be triggered if there's a diversion of trade.
If there's a diversion of trade then Article 16 can be invoked. If there's not, what have you been screaming about for the past nine months?
For anyone who "wants the agreed deal implemented" which is it? Is there any diversion of trade happening now? Yes or no?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
On bad days I feel the same, I confess. We have allowed our enemies to use our strength against us, in this case free-speaking western social media, where bad faith actors (Russia, China) are clearly using every possible means to rile every western democratic debate and make it as poisonous and polarised as possible.
Brexit probably gained from this, but so did extreme 2nd vore Remain. Trump gained from this, but so did Black Lives Matter. The Scottish indy campaign is clearly fuelled by bots from Moscow. No doubt they are right now roiling the French to vote communist, or Zemmour, or anything divisive.
In all sincerity, I believe we may reach a point where we have to prohibit free social media. Facebook, Twitter, et al. At least for a while. They are too powerful, and too easily gamed by our foes. They might end up being strictly regulated in the way we regulate firearms.
Not a criticism - it's a major achievement to get that much information on a graph - but I can't work which age-group the top line is. Is it 10-14?
(Also isn't 12-15 overlapping other groups?)
Thanks for posting the graphs!
Yup - it's 10-14.
the 12-15 is an artefact of the changes they made to the data when the 12-17 vaccinations were shoved into the system. Looking at how best to deal with it.
Ok thanks.
What a shame we didn't vaccinate all the teanagers during the summer hols, eh?
(I bet no one else has made that point before.)
Unaccountable jcvi to thank for that.
Except... Advisers advise; Governments govern. There's no excuse for HMG's failure on this one.
Not a criticism - it's a major achievement to get that much information on a graph - but I can't work which age-group the top line is. Is it 10-14?
(Also isn't 12-15 overlapping other groups?)
Thanks for posting the graphs!
Yup - it's 10-14.
the 12-15 is an artefact of the changes they made to the data when the 12-17 vaccinations were shoved into the system. Looking at how best to deal with it.
Ok thanks.
What a shame we didn't vaccinate all the teanagers during the summer hols, eh?
(I bet no one else has made that point before.)
Unaccountable jcvi to thank for that.
Except... Advisers advise; Governments govern. There's no excuse for HMG's failure on this one.
How many teenagers have died?
I've heard of 1 in the news, which was a tragedy. I've not heard of a lot for it to be called a "failure".
If thousands of teenagers have died then yes the Government should have overriden the JCVI.
Not a criticism - it's a major achievement to get that much information on a graph - but I can't work which age-group the top line is. Is it 10-14?
(Also isn't 12-15 overlapping other groups?)
Thanks for posting the graphs!
Yup - it's 10-14.
the 12-15 is an artefact of the changes they made to the data when the 12-17 vaccinations were shoved into the system. Looking at how best to deal with it.
Ok thanks.
What a shame we didn't vaccinate all the teanagers during the summer hols, eh?
(I bet no one else has made that point before.)
Unaccountable jcvi to thank for that.
Except... Advisers advise; Governments govern. There's no excuse for HMG's failure on this one.
JCVI threatened en-masse resignations if they were overruled. It took a new health secretary to put them in their box.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
On bad days I feel the same, I confess. We have allowed our enemies to use our strength against us, in this case free-speaking western social media, where bad faith actors (Russia, China) are clearly using every possible means to rile every western democratic debate and make it as poisonous and polarised as possible.
Brexit probably gained from this, but so did extreme 2nd vore Remain. Trump gained from this, but so did Black Lives Matter. The Scottish indy campaign is clearly fuelled by bots from Moscow. No doubt they are right now roiling the French to vote communist, or Zemmour, or anything divisive.
In all sincerity, I believe we may reach a point where we have to prohibit free social media. Facebook, Twitter, et al. At least for a while. They are too powerful, and too easily gamed by our foes. They might end up being strictly regulated in the way we regulate firearms.
Not a criticism - it's a major achievement to get that much information on a graph - but I can't work which age-group the top line is. Is it 10-14?
(Also isn't 12-15 overlapping other groups?)
Thanks for posting the graphs!
Yup - it's 10-14.
the 12-15 is an artefact of the changes they made to the data when the 12-17 vaccinations were shoved into the system. Looking at how best to deal with it.
Ok thanks.
What a shame we didn't vaccinate all the teanagers during the summer hols, eh?
(I bet no one else has made that point before.)
Unaccountable jcvi to thank for that.
Except... Advisers advise; Governments govern. There's no excuse for HMG's failure on this one.
JCVI threatened en-masse resignations if they were overruled. It took a new health secretary to put them in their box.
It does make you wonder who leaked the Hancock tape, doesn't it?
I don't think it was Boris, since he seemed taken aback and tried to keep him on. But it worked out well whoever it was.
Not a criticism - it's a major achievement to get that much information on a graph - but I can't work which age-group the top line is. Is it 10-14?
(Also isn't 12-15 overlapping other groups?)
Thanks for posting the graphs!
Yup - it's 10-14.
the 12-15 is an artefact of the changes they made to the data when the 12-17 vaccinations were shoved into the system. Looking at how best to deal with it.
Ok thanks.
What a shame we didn't vaccinate all the teanagers during the summer hols, eh?
(I bet no one else has made that point before.)
Unaccountable jcvi to thank for that.
Except... Advisers advise; Governments govern. There's no excuse for HMG's failure on this one.
The problem, in this case, was that the JCVI kept purposefully delaying the advice making it impossible for the government to decide. When they finally provided the advice they were overruled within days.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
On bad days I feel the same, I confess. We have allowed our enemies to use our strength against us, in this case free-speaking western social media, where bad faith actors (Russia, China) are clearly using every possible means to rile every western democratic debate and make it as poisonous and polarised as possible.
Brexit probably gained from this, but so did extreme 2nd vore Remain. Trump gained from this, but so did Black Lives Matter. The Scottish indy campaign is clearly fuelled by bots from Moscow. No doubt they are right now roiling the French to vote communist, or Zemmour, or anything divisive.
In all sincerity, I believe we may reach a point where we have to prohibit free social media. Facebook, Twitter, et al. At least for a while. They are too powerful, and too easily gamed by our foes. They might end up being strictly regulated in the way we regulate firearms.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
Trumpets have gone deep in the Republican party. Unlike the MoaMentum types, who never thought to actually *work* at their takeover, the Trumpets have taken every office at every level, they could. Dislodging them now may well be impossible.
Which has implication for the Republican convention - very hard to see how they can manoeuvre against Trump now.
Semi-On-Topic -
The whole BREXIT = Trump thing is a comfort blanket for Remainers. "One day, everyone will wake up and suddenly we will be back in M. Barniers arms.... the sun will shine, the birds will sing again"
The questions that lost the referendum need to have answers before you can Rejoin. And saying that there were no questions or that all the questions are illegitimate is not the answer.
We are not rejoining, certainly not in my lifetime. I have come to terms with that Brexit affected my life and my plans. It is done. We are where we are.
Why do you Brexit enthusiasts continue to believe we are fighting a war we lost? We have moved on, why can't you?
it’s necessary to their political worldview, I think. You might say it’s a comfort blanket.
Not a criticism - it's a major achievement to get that much information on a graph - but I can't work which age-group the top line is. Is it 10-14?
(Also isn't 12-15 overlapping other groups?)
Thanks for posting the graphs!
Yup - it's 10-14.
the 12-15 is an artefact of the changes they made to the data when the 12-17 vaccinations were shoved into the system. Looking at how best to deal with it.
Ok thanks.
What a shame we didn't vaccinate all the teanagers during the summer hols, eh?
(I bet no one else has made that point before.)
Unaccountable jcvi to thank for that.
Except... Advisers advise; Governments govern. There's no excuse for HMG's failure on this one.
I’m sorry but I disagree here. The jcvi dragged its feet for months so it would not have been easy for the government to overrule them, when they had not yet made a decision. They have, mostly, followed the scientific advice throughout. No question the jcvi took too long, and several members have been very outspoken about preferring to vaccinate overseas ahead of U.K. teenagers.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Erm... you mean like those erstwhile founders of modern democracy Spain, Italy and Greece?
Anyway, democracy's Rivendell should surely encompass deep valleys and waterfalls amid misty mountains. Switzerland might qualify I guess?
Alex Selby @alexselby1770 There's been a significant rise in Covid cases amongst those aged 65+ over the last 10 days or so. This is unfortunately likely to result in more hospitalisations and deaths. This way of processing the data is an attempt to give the most advanced warning. http://sonorouschocolate.com/covid19/index.php?title=CasesByAge
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Erm... you mean like those erstwhile founders of modern democracy Spain, Italy and Greece?
Anyway, democracy's Rivendell should surely encompass deep valleys and waterfalls amid misty mountains. Switzerland might qualify I guess?
Iceland? Although it’s physically a better fit for Mordor I suppose.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
Also, a monarchy. For all their flaws (looking at you, Prince Andrew, and Juan Carlos of Spain) they do provide an extra source of stability and loyalty, above and beyond the "constitution", "president", "flag" - which can all be co-opted or perverted, too easily
Thailand has been through terrible ructions, and is still in trouble, and right now has a king so bad he makes Prince Andrew look like, well, the Queen, but if you had to bet on a southeast asian nation remaining quite stable for the next 30 years, it would be Thailand
We are lucky we have the boring Charles handing on to the boring William; they will do fine. The Queen is also boring, but in her boringness she is brilliant, God bless her
The last bastion could well be Japan. Pretty immune to influence from what the rest of us are up to.
But which Western democracies are most at risk of being subverted and going the way of Russia and Turkey?
USA: yes, as hard as if seems to envisage this for someone like me brought up to see them as a lynchpin of the West Poland & Hungary: already halfway there Italy: seemingly only ever one crisis away from democratic collapse, but usually saved by the inbuilt cynicism of the electorate France: the far right could well, one day, get their way. Whether that would threaten democracy in not sure. It could be a somewhat unsavoury but fully democratic far right rule UK: the big risk I’m afraid is our slavish copying of all things American. We’ve already attempted to import culture war. If the US goes full on Gilead I can’t imagine this not having some modified collateral effect here.
The thing that most amuses me of the whole Northern Ireland debate is that the same people who've spent the last nine months screaming about what a disruption the NI Protocol (and GB being out of the Market) is and how its causing a diversion of trade . . . are now acting horrified at the UK invoking a safeguard Article that can be triggered if there's a diversion of trade.
If there's a diversion of trade then Article 16 can be invoked. If there's not, what have you been screaming about for the past nine months?
For anyone who "wants the agreed deal implemented" which is it? Is there any diversion of trade happening now? Yes or no?
Your head's going to fall off if you keep this up.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Erm... you mean like those erstwhile founders of modern democracy Spain, Italy and Greece?
Anyway, democracy's Rivendell should surely encompass deep valleys and waterfalls amid misty mountains. Switzerland might qualify I guess?
Iceland? Although it’s physically a better fit for Mordor I suppose.
Very good suggestion - it's got oldest surviving parliament in the world, and Þingvellir of course.
It's not going to satisfy @Tims's request for a mediteranean climate though (unless global warming get's well out of hand!)
Alex Selby @alexselby1770 There's been a significant rise in Covid cases amongst those aged 65+ over the last 10 days or so. This is unfortunately likely to result in more hospitalisations and deaths. This way of processing the data is an attempt to give the most advanced warning. http://sonorouschocolate.com/covid19/index.php?title=CasesByAge
The Dave Chappelle special is absolutely brilliant.
Never heard of him - read two scathing reviews of his routine in The Guardian and The Independent, then looked him up on wiki and found out he was a Muslim convert. Suppose the G and i thought it was immaterial to his material
The final paragraph of that first link is quite powerful IMO:
"In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide, that’s the part that hurt. Every transgender person I know has lost someone by suicide, and rarely has the reason ever been what other trans people have said to them on Twitter. Hell. You said it yourself, Dave: “Twitter isn’t real.” The marginalization, mockery, dehumanization, and violence many of us face everyday of most of our lives is what fuels our despair. For you to use Daphne’s tragedy as your closing tag is the only thing you’ve done that’s made me angry enough to write a letter."
Yes...the depression angle is a bit chicken and egg to me - to be convinced you are really a woman who happened to have been born in a mans body, or vice versa, sounds like mental illness if I am being perfectly honest, and depression is a mental illness from which suicide too often follows. But if you say you think transgender people, or people who want to transition, are mentally ill and should be treated with the same kind of sympathy as those suffering from schizophrenia or autism, rather than mocked in the way Dave Chappelle apparently does,( I haven't seen or heard any of his material) that would be considered offensive.
It's probably offensive even if it's not a 'mental illness' (IMV it most certainly is not a mental illness for many; and calling it such is part of the problem).
As humans, we like to fit people into neat little categories. Male/female. Good/bad. Straight/gay. Child/adult. In reality, the categories cover a multitude of variances, and it can be hard to fit some people into those categories. I'm currently a stay-at-home dad. Some relatives of mine have found this quite hard to understand because it doesn't fit into the neat categories in their minds.
Can you honestly, hand on heart, not say that some of your activities or lifestyle might not be said by some people to be a 'mental illness' ? I've certainly had someone describe my walking as such in the past, and that's before I took up my current running madness ...
Well I was a stay at home Dad from Oct 2020-June 2021...
But "In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide" makes me think there is a level of severe mental illness among transgenders/wannabe transitioners, that veers further off the spectrum than the kind of universal eccentricities that make the world go round. In short, I reckon there is a predisposition to mental illness amongst the kind of people who want to have a sex change, or more bluntly, I think you have to be quite badly mentally ill to want to do it. That's not a reason to be horrible to anyone, I don't think mentally ill people should be made fun of, they should be sympathised with.
Suicide rates amongst gay people are higher than they are amongst others (1). Would you say that being gay is therefore indicative of a 'mental illness'? Until the 1970s, homosexuality was taken by the US as being a 'mental illness'. Nowadays it is seen as just being part of life's rich tapestry. That's progress.
One of my trans friends committed suicide. I don't think his suicide had anything to do with his transition; IMV it was a result of trauma earlier in his life. (*) Did transitioning make his life harder? Perhaps. Was it a mental illness? No. Was his suicide brought on, in part, by society's reaction to his transition? It's very difficult to know, but as an outside observer, I'd argue yes. It certainly didn't help.
I knew another trans friend from when he was 13 in school. He always wanted to be a girl (despite not looking like one at all - he was taller than me and very manly). Was he mentally ill? No - aside from choosing to be friends with me.
These are two trans people I knew very well. One is dead; the other is happily transitioned. I don't particularly see either as being 'mentally ill'.
Suicide has many potential causes: depression and drug/alcohol use prominent amongst them. Having known trans people, depression caused by people's reaction to them is all too believable.
(*) There is a complicating factor here. How much did his wish to transition have to do with that earlier trauma? In our few conversations about it, he denied it: but I will never know.
I think there is good evidence that commencing hormonal transition improves symptoms of psychological distress, at least for some time.*
I think that other psychiatric disorders, and personality types including ASD are particularly common in people being assessed for gender dysphoria. How much of this is primary, and how much is secondary to the gender dysphoria is a tricky one requiring time, expertise and sensitivity to untangle.
*in the longer term a lifetime of synthetic hormones is not free of psychological consequences.
I suspect that the high rates of suicide among transgender individuals (and also the very high rates of homelessness), have rather more to do with familial rejection than psychiatric disorders.
Comments
Area name, Increase
Ceredigion: 0.47
Lincoln: 0.91
Oadby and Wigston: 1.17
Burnley: 1.31
Scarborough: 1.34
Brentwood: 1.41
Bridgend: 1.45
Nuneaton and Bedworth: 1.51
Castle Point: 1.54
(I was a Leaver that wanted EFTA/EEA for ten years as we worked out our future)
Neither side could guarantee anything, you were basically punting on a concept. In or Out. Tha's it. But the one things both sides did agree on was this: the vote would absolutely be respected. If we vote Leave we Leave. As David Cameron, prime minister, said himself, famously
Here you go. Warch
"It will be the final decision. The biggest of our lifetimes. In or out. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected, if we vote to Leave, then we will Leave"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUsKWsPcRXE
Yet the Remainers suddenly wanted to cancel the 17.4m Leave votes, because they didn't like the result, they hated losing.
They are no better than GOP Trumpites who want to cancel democracy in the USA
(Also isn't 12-15 overlapping other groups?)
Thanks for posting the graphs!
Grieve et al devolved into democracy denying extremists. Absolutely beyond the pale.
The critical factor here being NY Jewish Democratic 2022 primary voters who are neither committed progressives nor hard-line enough re: Israel to scratch AOC from her dance cards for abstaining on a roll call that passed anyway. In a potential race versus Schumer, Ocasio-Cortez does NOT need to win a majority of the Jewish primary vote to beat him. But on the other hand, she can NOT afford to get skunked by this key bloc, in the primary OR the general.
the 12-15 is an artefact of the changes they made to the data when the 12-17 vaccinations were shoved into the system. Looking at how best to deal with it.
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF9_BxLlW0M
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49563357
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
That was not the case when the EU abused it. It is the case today.
Do you think there is any diversion of trade happening right now, yes or no? If yes, its legitimate to invoke the Article.
Do you think there are any serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist right now? If ye, its legitimate to invoke the article.
The treaty doesn't say that they could not have been foreseen at the time the Protocol was drawn up. If that was a requirement then a global pandemic and vaccines being in short supply was pretty unforeseeable. But that's not a factor, the only factor is if there's the listed difficulties liable to persist, or diversion of trade. And quite factually - there is.
If Trump wins enough electoral votes, fair and square, even if he loses the national popular vote for the third time, which he probably would, then fine: that is the way the constitution is supposed to work.
Don’t forget that lots of Trumpists are claiming that the 2020 vote was rigged in states that Trump won, and won big, like Idaho. They will have no compunction about trying to negate the results in states that the Democrats win and that they have the ability to do so.
Agreed. I don't think Trump will win. But I feel for America, because the Woke Democrats are awful. And the two extremes feed off each other. It reminds me of Weimar Germany, where the commies and Nazis got ever closer to power, because the centre was weak and "lacking in all conviction"
I can see *why* a white Republican in Flyover Country would hold his or her nose and vote Trump, in despair at the Woke Liberal agenda now assaulting every American institution
But I would still advise those Americans to refrain from voting Trump, He is too dangerous, and genuinely evil. He is a proper demagogue. There is very little hope if he wins. There is still hope if the pathetic Woke Democrats win. They can be saved
You could maybe make an excuse for Clarke and co who voted for other options, it'd be a thin excuse but you could make one.
But Grieve? He's no better than Senator Tom Cotton.
Why do you Brexit enthusiasts continue to believe we are fighting a war we lost? We have moved on, why can't you?
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
"Parliament is incapable of settling Brexit. We need a second referendum
Dominic Grieve"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/29/parliament-brexit-second-referendum-eu-deal
It was unfortunate, for him, that his narrow, horsey face epitomised the face of a snob unfortunately confronting a smelly peasant, and thereby clutching a scented silk foulard to his nose, in horror
By that standard of course the SNP are fully deserving of that promised panzer assault if they dare to call a second referendum, and woe betide any Tory who seeks to reopen or renegotiate the oven-ready TCA agreed and voted on in the 2019 election.
But that's not the case today. Biden is President. We need to do what we can to help ensure that democracy thrives in the land of the free while they can still claim that title.
What a shame we didn't vaccinate all the teanagers during the summer hols, eh?
(I bet no one else has made that point before.)
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
BBC News - Liberty Steel cash injection to save 660 jobs
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58863751
The equivalent of Grieve in the USA is not the facepaint wearing hoodlums who broke into the chamber on 6 January. Its people like Senator Tom Cotton who voted against inaugurating Biden in the legislature. If there had been more Senator Tom Cottons, like if there had been more Dominic Grieves, then the democratic outcome (voting for Biden/Brexit) could have been snuffed out before it happened. Entirely constitutionally, but also undemocratically.
Yes, they won but rubbing it in the face of those who didn't agree with them (and I say this as a LEAVE voter) is obviously easier than trying to explain Britain's role, identity and economic policy post-EU membership.
We have some vacuous nonsense about "levelling up" which is as coherent as the "big society" and aspirational but economically illiterate piffle about high wages, high skills, high productivity and low taxes.
That of course is the essence of Johnson and his politics - it all sounds fine if you don't think about it too much and that's what he relies on. As soon as you give it a scintilla of thought, the whole house of cards disintegrates.
There is then a second, much larger cohort that believes that, while there was not ballot stuffing, there was a concerted move by Democrats to influence and control the electoral process in many states to maximise their advantages under the pretext of using Covid to aggressively push mail-in ballots, and in some cases was done against the Constitution. Pennsylvania is one example here - a Democrat SoS / Governor changed the voting rules and, when the Republican legislature challenged it saying it was against the Constitution because state legislatures have the ultimate right to decide voting arrangements, the Democrat controlled Supreme Court of Pennsylvania refused to overturn what was clearly an unconstitutional step.
It is the latter where the main battleground is taking place, at least in states like PA and GA.
Parliament is well rid of him. British democracy is well rid of him
Driving around central and north London today, about 3/4 of petrol stations had limited or no petrol
It is still happening. Is this just now a central-ish London thing?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/10/hypocritical-europe-playing-withfire-northern-ireland-protocol/
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
That's in Dorset mind - someone comes out from the shed, tips their hat, asks how many gallons you want, and hand pumps the petrol from the underground tank.
(I may have made that last bit up.)
If there's a diversion of trade then Article 16 can be invoked. If there's not, what have you been screaming about for the past nine months?
For anyone who "wants the agreed deal implemented" which is it? Is there any diversion of trade happening now? Yes or no?
Brexit probably gained from this, but so did extreme 2nd vore Remain. Trump gained from this, but so did Black Lives Matter. The Scottish indy campaign is clearly fuelled by bots from Moscow. No doubt they are right now roiling the French to vote communist, or Zemmour, or anything divisive.
In all sincerity, I believe we may reach a point where we have to prohibit free social media. Facebook, Twitter, et al. At least for a while. They are too powerful, and too easily gamed by our foes. They might end up being strictly regulated in the way we regulate firearms.
I've heard of 1 in the news, which was a tragedy. I've not heard of a lot for it to be called a "failure".
If thousands of teenagers have died then yes the Government should have overriden the JCVI.
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I don't think it was Boris, since he seemed taken aback and tried to keep him on. But it worked out well whoever it was.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/10/08/texas-congressional-map-redistricting/
Anyway, democracy's Rivendell should surely encompass deep valleys and waterfalls amid misty mountains. Switzerland might qualify I guess?
@alexselby1770
There's been a significant rise in Covid cases amongst those aged 65+ over the last 10 days or so. This is unfortunately likely to result in more hospitalisations and deaths. This way of processing the data is an attempt to give the most advanced warning.
http://sonorouschocolate.com/covid19/index.php?title=CasesByAge
https://twitter.com/alexselby1770/status/1447236422814085128
Thailand has been through terrible ructions, and is still in trouble, and right now has a king so bad he makes Prince Andrew look like, well, the Queen, but if you had to bet on a southeast asian nation remaining quite stable for the next 30 years, it would be Thailand
We are lucky we have the boring Charles handing on to the boring William; they will do fine. The Queen is also boring, but in her boringness she is brilliant, God bless her
But which Western democracies are most at risk of being subverted and going the way of Russia and Turkey?
USA: yes, as hard as if seems to envisage this for someone like me brought up to see them as a lynchpin of the West
Poland & Hungary: already halfway there
Italy: seemingly only ever one crisis away from democratic collapse, but usually saved by the inbuilt cynicism of the electorate
France: the far right could well, one day, get their way. Whether that would threaten democracy in not sure. It could be a somewhat unsavoury but fully democratic far right rule
UK: the big risk I’m afraid is our slavish copying of all things American. We’ve already attempted to import culture war. If the US goes full on Gilead I can’t imagine this not having some modified collateral effect here.
It's not going to satisfy @Tims's request for a mediteranean climate though (unless global warming get's well out of hand!)
Edit: better link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_island_countries#Sovereign_states_and_states_with_limited_recognition