I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
This adds nothing to the conversation. What a pointless comment.
Even the Irish themselves recognise NI isn't part of their country.
Only since the Good Friday Agreement. Before then the Irish constitution claimed the whole island as their territory.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
This adds nothing to the conversation. What a pointless comment.
Even the Irish themselves recognise NI isn't part of their country.
Only since the Good Friday Agreement. Before then the Irish constitution claimed the whole island as their territory.
Yes, but it doesn't anymore, so Stuart's claims of it not being the Irish border are ridiculous.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
That argument (thankfully) was settled back in the 90's
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
This adds nothing to the conversation. What a pointless comment.
Even the Irish themselves recognise NI isn't part of their country.
Only since the Good Friday Agreement. Before then the Irish constitution claimed the whole island as their territory.
Yes, but it doesn't anymore, so Stuart's claims of it not being the Irish border are ridiculous.
Although if he's right, it would solve a whole lot of problems. We've spent ages worrying about how not to disrupt the border between Britain and Ireland but apparently there isn't one so there's no problem.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
That argument (thankfully) was settled back in the 90's
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
This adds nothing to the conversation. What a pointless comment.
Even the Irish themselves recognise NI isn't part of their country.
Only since the Good Friday Agreement. Before then the Irish constitution claimed the whole island as their territory.
Yes, but it doesn't anymore, so Stuart's claims of it not being the Irish border are ridiculous.
Although if he's right, it would solve a whole lot of problems. We've spent ages worrying about how not to disrupt the border between Britain and Ireland but apparently there isn't one so there's no problem.
Having just caught up with (some of) the earlier threat, and in particular how to ensure affordable housing. A few thoughts:
I'd say that RCS has it here.
Politicians have not got a clue what is favourable to renters. The pillock Brokenshire cannot even get it right that the PRS is shrinking quite rapidly.
Policies that politicians think are favourable to renters are often nothing of the kind, and are in practice just populist or dancing to lobbyist tunes.
The Tenant Fees Act that came into force last week is a Dog's Breakfast, which will have multiple negative impacts.
In practice rents will rise, just as they did in Scotland (*), and the implementation is such a mess that they have seriously damaged Deposit Protection, undermined pet tenancies (which has been increasing significantly), tilted the expenses against long-term tenants, and all kind of costs are now going to be averaged across all tenants rather than attributed to those who caused them.
But this is about politics, not helping people.
The German regulation regime would have allowed rents to increase far faster here than has happened over the last 2 decades.
* Just in case, here are the Scottish Govt statistics for PRS rent increases. Since the fee ban in 2012 in Scotland, all numbers have significantly beat CPI inflation, which is just about 10%.
IPHRP is released as an experimental statistic. This is a new official statistic undergoing evaluation and therefore it is recommended that caution is exercised when drawing conclusions from the published data as the index is likely to be further developed.
Even now those caveats apply.
The data also stops in Sept 2015, which is nearly 5 years out of date. Given that normal tenancy lengths in Scotland are 0->5 years with an "average" (undefined average) of around 2 years you would not expect to see a full impact by 2015 from 2012.
Clearly the impact from a ban on premiums involved in setting up a tenancy will not be seen until the next time a tenancy is set up, since stuff like referencing etc is not done mid-tenancy.
It’s interesting to know that possession of Cocaine no longer carries a fine or custodial sentence under certain circumstances. All you have to do is run for Tory leader.
Isn't it more the case that a prosecution based on someone claiming they did something but with no other evidence would be bound to fail?
That seems a bit unlikely given a 'guilty' plea is usually sufficient to lock someone up.
Rather more difficult if the defendant says they did it and then in court pleads not guilty....
Jonathan's deeper point (I think) is valid, though - there's a real difference in how the middle classes treat experiments with drugs (amused tolerance, not a hindrance to being PM) and the devastating effect that a drugs charge can have on someone at the bottom of the pile (criminal record, serious employment difficulty).
It's something that is massively affected by your circle of friends. I know people who have never been even offered drugs, let alone refused, and people who find that incredible, like never having drunk coffee. As a society we are seriously mixed up about the whole area.
Out of interest what is the social background of the people who have never been offered drugs? I find it hard to believe many of them can have been at university or grown up in a city.
You may be surprised to learn that there are plenty of people who neither went to university nor grew up in a city; I'm one.
I did both and live in a London suburb, but have no idea where to buy cocaine or even cannabis.
Nick Palmer is probably right: it depends on your circle of friends, and class. Probably like most people, I am not much exercised by people using drugs but am appalled by the social costs in crime and violence.
I have no idea either, but when I was at university or in my twenties in London it would have been easy to source, especially cannabis. And there must have been at least 50 occasions in my life, obviously mostly in my 20s but a few more recently when walking along the street minding my own business I have been offered drugs, mostly in holiday places in Spain or France but happens around Brixton tube or the West End too. Did this never happen to you or would you not count that as being offered drugs?
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
That argument (thankfully) was settled back in the 90's
Out of interest what is the social background of the people who have never been offered drugs? I find it hard to believe many of them can have been at university or grown up in a city.
I have spent more time in an university than most and I think I've never been offered them . In my limited experience, older people and people with STEM degrees just don't use them.
Having just caught up with (some of) the earlier threat, and in particular how to ensure affordable housing. A few thoughts:
If renting is seen as the norm, politicians will seek policies that are favourable to renters, as already happens in Germany, where there are average market price rent controls and security of tenancies.
The Tenant Fees Act that came into force last week is a Dog's Breakfast, which will have multiple negative impacts.
In practice rents will rise, just as they did in Scotland (*), and the implementation is such a mess that they have seriously damaged Deposit Protection, undermined pet tenancies (which has been increasing significantly), tilted the expenses against long-term tenants, and all kind of costs are now going to be averaged across all tenants rather than attributed to those who caused them.
But this is about politics, not helping people.
The German regulation regime would have allowed rents to increase far faster here than has happened over the last 2 decades.
* Just in case, here are the Scottish Govt statistics for PRS rent increases. Since the fee ban in 2012 in Scotland, all numbers have significantly beat CPI inflation, which is just about 10%.
IPHRP is released as an experimental statistic. This is a new official statistic undergoing evaluation and therefore it is recommended that caution is exercised when drawing conclusions from the published data as the index is likely to be further developed.
Even now those caveats apply.
The data is also from early 2015, which is nearly 5 years out of date. Given that normal tenancy lengths are 0->4 years you would not expect to see a full impact by then.
Including 2015 onwards favours England increasing faster!
"The data shows that although UK rents have climbed by 7 per cent since records started in March 2015, rents in Scotland are up just 1.5 per cent over the same period."
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
That argument (thankfully) was settled back in the 90's
How long before these whackos in Con membership are demanding that Calais be returned to English hands is part of a proper No Deal Brexit?
Calais? Sod it, I want the Thirteen Colonies back...
... and we want Berwick back.
I demand the right for the Welsh to take the whole of England back!
If the UK is dissolved, you could choose to go back to being part of England.
What, and be run by a load of drug-addled muppets like the current Cabinet?
No! Let the English come into Wales, that they can be ruled by people of who are Marks of quality such as Mark James, Mark Reckless and Mark Drakeford...ah.
Out of interest what is the social background of the people who have never been offered drugs? I find it hard to believe many of them can have been at university or grown up in a city.
I have spent more time in an university than most and I think I've never been offered them . In my limited experience, older people and people with STEM degrees just don't use them.
Eight and a half years and the most exciting thing I was offered was a single malt.
It’s interesting to know that possession of Cocaine no longer carries a fine or custodial sentence under certain circumstances. All you have to do is run for Tory leader.
Isn't it more the case that a prosecution based on someone claiming they did something but with no other evidence would be bound to fail?
That seems a bit unlikely given a 'guilty' plea is usually sufficient to lock someone up.
Rather more difficult if the defendant says they did it and then in court pleads not guilty....
What is the statute of limitations for cocaine possession ?
Not too sure .... but they have to draw the line somewhere ......
Out of interest what is the social background of the people who have never been offered drugs? I find it hard to believe many of them can have been at university or grown up in a city.
I have spent more time in an university than most and I think I've never been offered them . In my limited experience, older people and people with STEM degrees just don't use them.
I suspect many of the people claiming to have taken drugs actually haven't.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
This adds nothing to the conversation. What a pointless comment.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
This adds nothing to the conversation. What a pointless comment.
In a funny kind of way, one has to sympathise with Roger Godsiff.
What's a xenophobic, homophobic MP meant to do, faced with a homophobic campaign conducted by an ethnic minority group? How should he choose which prejudice to pander to? If things were arranged delicately enough, he could be like the donkey starving to death between two equidistant piles of hay: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-48569173
Been having some interesting conversations with lots of Labour voting but generally anti Corbyn friends after the Peterborough result .
All ardent Remainers . When push comes to shove we’ll all be voting Labour unless we need to tactically vote to stop the Tories .
The best news for Corbyn is the likely lurch to the right of the next Tory PM. This will galvanize Labour supporters and help keep the party together .
I have no time for Corbyn but will walk over hot coals to see the Tories beaten.
Will it? YouGov gives a Boris led Tories a 7% lead over Labour who can only tie the LDs for second place
A 7% lead which may assume he can deliver on his promises. If he cannot why would the lead persist? May led by 7% this year too. Then reality hit.
Boris' promise is for a FTA and the only way he can achieve that for GB is with the backstop for NI, the DUP will never allow that hence he has to call a general election to get a mandate for it.
Boris is not promising to deliver May's current deal either including the temporary customs union for GB which he wants to remove and to do that and agree the Deal with the EU still he has to keep the backstop solely for NI.
Boris also has charisma, May did not and Corbyn got a hung parliament last year by getting Remainers behind him, Remainers are currently moving en masse from Labour to the LDs as that YouGov poll shows while Boris as leader would cut back the Brexit Party and take a clear Tory lead again.
Note too the Brexit Party would still get 13% even with a Boris led Tories, particularly in Labour areas in the North and Midlands and Wales, an effect which helped the Tories win seats in 2015 but was cut back in 2017 so Labour will be hit from both sides
Sounds good to me. Johnson calls an election based on a mythical renegotiation of May's deal. With the result that Farage campaigns for No Deal, splitting the Tory vote in two (if the Tories are lucky). Result - a Labour government, and a very soft Brexit or no Brexit at all ...
Not a mythical renegotiation, a FTA for GB which the vast majority of Leave voters would prefer over No Deal, they are not bothered about a border in the Irish Sea and most Northern Irish voters want no hard border and quite like the backstop.
Result - a Tory majority government for Boris with Labour perhaps even falling behind the LDs in voteshare as Corbyn still refuses to commit to EUref2
How long before these whackos in Con membership are demanding that Calais be returned to English hands is part of a proper No Deal Brexit?
Calais? Sod it, I want the Thirteen Colonies back...
... and we want Berwick back.
I demand the right for the Welsh to take the whole of England back!
If the UK is dissolved, you could choose to go back to being part of England.
What, and be run by a load of drug-addled muppets like the current Cabinet?
No! Let the English come into Wales, that they can be ruled by people of who are Marks of quality such as Mark James, Mark Reckless and Mark Drakeford...ah.
That argument doesn't really work, does it?
“Drug-addled muppets.” That’s a keeper! (I do hope SeanT is lurking this evening.)
IPHRP is released as an experimental statistic. This is a new official statistic undergoing evaluation and therefore it is recommended that caution is exercised when drawing conclusions from the published data as the index is likely to be further developed.
Even now those caveats apply.
The data also stops in Sept 2015, which is nearly 5 years out of date. Given that normal tenancy lengths in Scotland are 0->5 years with an "average" (undefined average) of around 2 years you would not expect to see a full impact by 2015 from 2012.
Clearly the impact from a ban on premiums involved in setting up a tenancy will not be seen until the next time a tenancy is set up, since stuff like referencing etc is not done mid-tenancy.
The other question is why Scottish Govt numbers show such a rapid increase - despite a market collapse in one major region (Aberdeenshire).
If the Conservative and Unionist Party wishes to destroy itself it would be rude to stop it from doing so.
You say that. But if the replacement is a wild set of bat-shit crazy loons who don't believe in parliamentary democracy but whacko voice of the public ideas, then the country is even more f-ed than I thought.
Things just seem to be getting worse and worse.
I wonder what the Queen thinks of what is being done to her realm.
Unfortunately, the only way to kill of the hard right English nationalism the Tories are now embracing is for them to confront the reality of what it delivers. We need to hit rock bottom before we can start rebuilding the country the Tories have smashed to pieces. There's a way to go yet. That it will result in the total humiliation and disgrace of Johnson and co is the one silver lining in the whole sorry episode.
Boris actually is more of a 'global vision' Brexiteer rather than the English nationalism of say Farage or Bill Cash
He would happily destroy the Union and dump all over the people of Northern Ireland to secure power. Just like all the other Tory leadership candidates with a chance of winning. He is a hard core English nationalist.
Far from it, indeed Boris will go for a FTA most people in GB want by removing the temporary customs union for the political declaration and he may yet accept the backstop for NI (with some vague promise about finding a technical solution) in order to get that GB FTA. If Boris wins a majority he then can dispense with the DUP and reluctantly accept the backstop for the time being, avoiding a hard border in the process as most NI voters want
How does that ever pass Parliament? If they can’t amend the backstop to get the DUP on board then the only way out is going to be a new Parliament - so we get an election in the autumn.
And somehow Boris wins that. Right. (A GE because he failed is not the same as a hypothetical poll saying he has a chance)
Boris wins it comfortably, he gets a mandate for a GB FTA which is what most voters want
Boris only wins if Nigel doesn't stand and there is zero chance of him not standing candidates...
Nope, Boris has a 7% lead over Labour and the LDs even with Nigel, with the Brexit Party falling back to just 13% from 20%+ now
Out of interest what is the social background of the people who have never been offered drugs? I find it hard to believe many of them can have been at university or grown up in a city.
I have spent more time in an university than most and I think I've never been offered them . In my limited experience, older people and people with STEM degrees just don't use them.
Eight and a half years and the most exciting thing I was offered was a single malt.
I had this discussion in work the other day. If we consider human maturation as a process of testing alternatives and discarding the ones that don't work, then the popularity of whisky dependent on age is probably indicative. If/when I retire, I can see myself getting into whisky no probs. Drugs on the other hand: zero attraction.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
This adds nothing to the conversation. What a pointless comment.
Facts are never pointless.
Except it wasn't a fact.
You dispute that “the line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago”? Please don’t tell me that the English education system really is as bad as reported.
Boris actually is more of a 'global vision' Brexiteer rather than the English nationalism of say Farage or Bill Cash
He would happily destroy the Union and dump all over the people of Northern Ireland to secure power. Just like all the other Tory leadership candidates with a chance of winning. He is a hard core English nationalist.
Far from it, indeed Boris will go for a FTA most people in GB want by removing the temporary customs union for the political declaration and he may yet accept the backstop for NI (with some vague promise about finding a technical solution) in order to get that GB FTA. If Boris wins a majority he then can dispense with the DUP and reluctantly accept the backstop for the time being, avoiding a hard border in the process as most NI voters want
How does that ever pass Parliament? If they can’t amend the backstop to get the DUP on board then the only way out is going to be a new Parliament - so we get an election in the autumn.
Exactly, to dispense with the DUP who will never accept the backstop and to get a mandate for a GB FTA Boris will have to call a general election in the autumn and try and get a majority
When you talk about a “GB FTA”, do you mean to throw NI under the bus with an Irish Sea border?
I mean throw the DUP under the bus not NI, most Northern Irish voters back the backstop and do not want an Irish border, as seen in the European elections recently when the non sectarian Alliance took the third seat in Northern Ireland and Sinn Fein beat the DUP for first
I’ll take that as a yes then, in which case any PM is going to find an awful lot of the Conservative and Unionist party unwilling to back it.
I don't think they will actually, provided that GB leaves the single market and customs union almost all Tories could not care less what the DUP thinks.
Their concern was more May's plan for a temporary customs union for GB while the backstop lasted
Out of interest what is the social background of the people who have never been offered drugs? I find it hard to believe many of them can have been at university or grown up in a city.
I have spent more time in an university than most and I think I've never been offered them . In my limited experience, older people and people with STEM degrees just don't use them.
I suspect many of the people claiming to have taken drugs actually haven't.
4 years at Uni in West Yorkshire 84-88. Never offered drugs.
I just don't see any reason, any more than I see any reason for smoking.
On smoking it was parental indoctrination. On drugs .. just ... why need it?
Far more drugs were around working in the City in IT 10-12 years later.
If the Conservative and Unionist Party wishes to destroy itself it would be rude to stop it from doing so.
You say that. But if the replacement is a wild set of bat-shit crazy loons who don't believe in parliamentary democracy but whacko voice of the public ideas, then the country is even more f-ed than I thought.
Things just seem to be getting worse and worse.
I wonder what the Queen thinks of what is being done to her realm.
Unfortunately, the only way to kill of the hard right English nationalism the Tories are now embracing is for them to confront the reality of what it delivers. We need to hit rock bottom before we can start rebuilding the country the Tories have smashed to pieces. There's a way to go yet. That it will result in the total humiliation and disgrace of Johnson and co is the one silver lining in the whole sorry episode.
Boris actually is more of a 'global vision' Brexiteer rather than the English nationalism of say Farage or Bill Cash
He would happily destroy the Union and dump all over the people of Northern Ireland to secure power. Just like all the other Tory leadership candidates with a chance of winning. He is a hard core English nationalist.
Far from it, indeed Boris will go for a FTA most people in GB want by removing the temporary customs union for the political declaration and he may yet accept the backstop for NI (with some vague promise about finding a technical solution) in order to get that GB FTA. If Boris wins a majority he then can dispense with the DUP and reluctantly accept the backstop for the time being, avoiding a hard border in the process as most NI voters want
So, his strategy is to make the backstop less acceptable to the DUP?
His strategy is to win a majority then ignore the DUP
IPHRP is released as an experimental statistic. This is a new official statistic undergoing evaluation and therefore it is recommended that caution is exercised when drawing conclusions from the published data as the index is likely to be further developed.
Even now those caveats apply.
The data also stops in Sept 2015, which is nearly 5 years out of date. Given that normal tenancy lengths in Scotland are 0->5 years with an "average" (undefined average) of around 2 years you would not expect to see a full impact by 2015 from 2012.
Clearly the impact from a ban on premiums involved in setting up a tenancy will not be seen until the next time a tenancy is set up, since stuff like referencing etc is not done mid-tenancy.
The other question is why Scottish Govt numbers show such a rapid increase - despite a market collapse in one major region (Aberdeenshire).
Yes rents in Scotland have gone up, but they have gone up at least as fast in England (that does not prove it either way as there will be other factors involved, but rents rising in Scotland is miles away from proof that that is due to the ban on tenants fees).
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
Technically, yes. But the Irish border isn't mainly a technical border. It's a state of mind. It means completely different things to the communities it affects. For Protestant unionists the border is the necessary bulwark that creates a piece of Britain in Ireland and a safe space for them; for nationalist Catholics it's an abomination that splits families. The border is an irreconcilable and existential issue for both communities. The genius of the Good Friday Agreement wasn't to remove the border. It was to make it ambiguous. It was there if you wanted it to be and not if you didn't. Brexit removes that ambiguity. Northern Ireland either becomes an integrated part of Ireland or definitively Britain.
Treating the border as a technical issue is doomed. The Irish government know that, as most Tory Brexiteers don't. That's why the Irish will never compromise on the backstop, I believe. They badly want the deal, but they can't compromise on the backstop to get it.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
This adds nothing to the conversation. What a pointless comment.
Facts are never pointless.
Except it wasn't a fact.
You dispute that “the line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago”? Please don’t tell me that the English education system really is as bad as reported.
We are all disputing your original claim that Ireland has no border.
Out of interest what is the social background of the people who have never been offered drugs? I find it hard to believe many of them can have been at university or grown up in a city.
I have spent more time in an university than most and I think I've never been offered them . In my limited experience, older people and people with STEM degrees just don't use them.
I suspect many of the people claiming to have taken drugs actually haven't.
4 years at Uni in West Yorkshire 84-88. Never offered drugs.
I just don't see any reason, any more than I see any reason for smoking.
On smoking it was parental indoctrination. On drugs .. just ... why need it?
Far more drugs were around working in the City in IT 10-12 years later.
If the Conservative and Unionist Party wishes to destroy itself it would be rude to stop it from doing so.
Boris actually is more of a 'global vision' Brexiteer rather than the English nationalism of say Farage or Bill Cash
He would happily destroy the Union and dump all over the people of Northern Ireland to secure power. Just like all the other Tory leadership candidates with a chance of winning. He is a hard core English nationalist.
Far from it, indeed Boris will go for a FTA most people in GB want by removing the temporary customs union for the political declaration and he may yet accept the backstop for NI (with some vague promise about finding a technical solution) in order to get that GB FTA. If Boris wins a majority he then can dispense with the DUP and reluctantly accept the backstop for the time being, avoiding a hard border in the process as most NI voters want
How does that ever pass Parliament? If they can’t amend the backstop to get the DUP on board then the only way out is going to be a new Parliament - so we get an election in the autumn.
And somehow Boris wins that. Right. (A GE because he failed is not the same as a hypothetical poll saying he has a chance)
Boris wins it comfortably, he gets a mandate for a GB FTA which is what most voters want
Boris only wins if Nigel doesn't stand and there is zero chance of him not standing candidates...
Nope, Boris has a 7% lead over Labour and the LDs even with Nigel, with the Brexit Party falling back to just 13% from 20%+ now
Is there a poll showing how Boris does when he has failed to take us out in October and looks either weak or confirmed as a liar?
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
This adds nothing to the conversation. What a pointless comment.
Facts are never pointless.
Except it wasn't a fact.
You dispute that “the line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago”? Please don’t tell me that the English education system really is as bad as reported.
IPHRP is released as an experimental statistic. This is a new official statistic undergoing evaluation and therefore it is recommended that caution is exercised when drawing conclusions from the published data as the index is likely to be further developed.
Even now those caveats apply.
The data also stops in Sept 2015, which is nearly 5 years out of date. Given that normal tenancy lengths in Scotland are 0->5 years with an "average" (undefined average) of around 2 years you would not expect to see a full impact by 2015 from 2012.
Clearly the impact from a ban on premiums involved in setting up a tenancy will not be seen until the next time a tenancy is set up, since stuff like referencing etc is not done mid-tenancy.
The other question is why Scottish Govt numbers show such a rapid increase - despite a market collapse in one major region (Aberdeenshire).
Yes rents in Scotland have gone up, but they have gone up at least as fast in England (that does not prove it either way as there will be other factors involved, but rents rising in Scotland is miles away from proof that that is due to the ban on tenants fees).
But that is just another quote from the same experimental index which is hedged with caveats.
I'll add btw that the English version really has created havoc, and affected all types of things that the Parliamentary Pillocks appear not to have even thought about.
They don't even understand that when a key is lost you replace the lock not the key, 'cos it could have been pick pocketed and may even have been labelled. That's leaving aside the statutory guidance that contradics itself.
It will take a decade of Court Actions to sort out and, as ever, the fees will come out of someone's rent.
Been having some interesting conversations with lots of Labour voting but generally anti Corbyn friends after the Peterborough result .
All ardent Remainers . When push comes to shove we’ll all be voting Labour unless we need to tactically vote to stop the Tories .
The best news for Corbyn is the likely lurch to the right of the next Tory PM. This will galvanize Labour supporters and help keep the party together .
I have no time for Corbyn but will walk over hot coals to see the Tories beaten.
Will it? YouGov gives a Boris led Tories a 7% lead over Labour who can only tie the LDs for second place
A 7% lead which may assume he can deliver on his promises. If he cannot why would the lead persist? May led by 7% this year too. Then reality hit.
Boris' promise is for a FTA and the only way he can achieve that for GB is with the backstop for NI, the DUP will never allow that hence he has to call a general election to get a mandate for it.
Boris is not promising to deliver May's current deal either including the temporary customs union for GB which he wants to remove and to do that and agree the Deal with the EU still he has to keep the backstop solely for NI.
Boris also has charisma, May did not and Corbyn got a hung parliament last year by getting Remainers behind him, Remainers are currently moving en masse from Labour to the LDs as that YouGov poll shows while Boris as leader would cut back the Brexit Party and take a clear Tory lead again.
Note too the Brexit Party would still get 13% even with a Boris led Tories, particularly in Labour areas in the North and Midlands and Wales, an effect which helped the Tories win seats in 2015 but was cut back in 2017 so Labour will be hit from both sides
Sounds good to me. Johnson calls an election based on a mythical renegotiation of May's deal. With the result that Farage campaigns for No Deal, splitting the Tory vote in two (if the Tories are lucky). Result - a Labour government, and a very soft Brexit or no Brexit at all ...
Not a mythical renegotiation, a FTA for GB which the vast majority of Leave voters would prefer over No Deal, they are not bothered about a border in the Irish Sea and most Northern Irish voters want no hard border and quite like the backstop.
Result - a Tory majority government for Boris with Labour perhaps even falling behind the LDs in voteshare as Corbyn still refuses to commit to EUref2
If the EU won't renegotiate - as they've said about a hundred times now - then it's mythical, regardless of whatever hypotheses you may have on the opinions of different groups of voters about it.
Renting is often fine when starting out but renting without security of tenure is generally bad for families, indeed it will result in fewer people choosing to have families.
Show me the correlation between protections for tenants and higher birthrates, and I will believe you.
I think people care far more about housing costs and affordablity, than they do about abstract protections.
I think you also forget just how f*cked up housing markets become when the government interferes too much.
Landlords seeking to get rid of tenants stop doing repairs. Or they make sure that some guys making music 24/7 move into the empty apartment next door. Or start sending the boys round to encourage you to move.
And you discourage people from renting out their properties.
I think it's rather sad if kids grow up in insecure accommodation. And as they say it's not just a house, it's a home. The economist in you might not like that but well, that's just how it is.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
Technically, yes. But the Irish border isn't mainly a technical border. It's a state of mind. It means completely different things to the communities it affects. For Protestant unionists the border is the necessary bulwark that creates a piece of Britain in Ireland and a safe space for them; for nationalist Catholics it's an abomination that splits families. The border is an irreconcilable and existential issue for both communities. The genius of the Good Friday Agreement wasn't to remove the border. It was to make it ambiguous. It was there if you wanted it to be and not if you didn't. Brexit removes that ambiguity. Northern Ireland either becomes an integrated part of Ireland or definitively Britain.
Treating the border as a technical issue is doomed. The Irish government know that, as most Tory Brexiteers don't. That's why the Irish will never compromise on the backstop, I believe. They badly want the deal, but they can't compromise on the backstop to get it.
Believe me the Irish border isn't ambiguous to anyone who does business on both sides of it.
And the Irish government certainly made it less ambiguous when they changed their roads speeds from mph to kmph.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
This adds nothing to the conversation. What a pointless comment.
Facts are never pointless.
Except it wasn't a fact.
You dispute that “the line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago”? Please don’t tell me that the English education system really is as bad as reported.
We are all disputing your original claim that Ireland has no border.
I never said that. Of course there is a border between two jurisdictions in Ireland. I said that it was incorrect to refer to it as the “Irish Border”. It isn’t. The Irish border is the beach. The correct label for the artificial line is the British border in Ireland. It is entirely a unilateral creation of Westminster and Whitehall.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
Technically, yes. But the Irish border isn't mainly a technical border. It's a state of mind. It means completely different things to the communities it affects. For Protestant unionists the border is the necessary bulwark that creates a piece of Britain in Ireland and a safe space for them; for nationalist Catholics it's an abomination that splits families. The border is an irreconcilable and existential issue for both communities. The genius of the Good Friday Agreement wasn't to remove the border. It was to make it ambiguous. It was there if you wanted it to be and not if you didn't. Brexit removes that ambiguity. Northern Ireland either becomes an integrated part of Ireland or definitively Britain.
Treating the border as a technical issue is doomed. The Irish government know that, as most Tory Brexiteers don't. That's why the Irish will never compromise on the backstop, I believe. They badly want the deal, but they can't compromise on the backstop to get it.
IPHRP is released as an experimental statistic. This is a new official statistic undergoing evaluation and therefore it is recommended that caution is exercised when drawing conclusions from the published data as the index is likely to be further developed.
Even now those caveats apply.
The data also stops in Sept 2015, which is nearly 5 years out of date. Given that normal tenancy lengths in Scotland are 0->5 years with an "average" (undefined average) of around 2 years you would not expect to see a full impact by 2015 from 2012.
Clearly the impact from a ban on premiums involved in setting up a tenancy will not be seen until the next time a tenancy is set up, since stuff like referencing etc is not done mid-tenancy.
The other question is why Scottish Govt numbers show such a rapid increase - despite a market collapse in one major region (Aberdeenshire).
Yes rents in Scotland have gone up, but they have gone up at least as fast in England (that does not prove it either way as there will be other factors involved, but rents rising in Scotland is miles away from proof that that is due to the ban on tenants fees).
But that is just another quote from the same experimental index which is hedged with caveats.
It is the main ONS report on rental housing. Which report would you prefer to look at?
Out of interest what is the social background of the people who have never been offered drugs? I find it hard to believe many of them can have been at university or grown up in a city.
I have spent more time in an university than most and I think I've never been offered them . In my limited experience, older people and people with STEM degrees just don't use them.
I suspect many of the people claiming to have taken drugs actually haven't.
4 years at Uni in West Yorkshire 84-88. Never offered drugs.
I just don't see any reason, any more than I see any reason for smoking.
On smoking it was parental indoctrination. On drugs .. just ... why need it?
Far more drugs were around working in the City in IT 10-12 years later.
It weeded out some of the students.
"My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it." - Boris.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
This adds nothing to the conversation. What a pointless comment.
Facts are never pointless.
Except it wasn't a fact.
You dispute that “the line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago”? Please don’t tell me that the English education system really is as bad as reported.
We are all disputing your original claim that Ireland has no border.
I never said that. Of course there is a border between two jurisdictions in Ireland. I said that it was incorrect to refer to it as the “Irish Border”. It isn’t. The Irish border is the beach. The correct label for the artificial line is the British border in Ireland. It is entirely a unilateral creation of Westminster and Whitehall.
For there to be a border, as you yourself note two jurisdictions have to be involved.
Are you saying that Ireland has no separate jurisdiction?
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
This adds nothing to the conversation. What a pointless comment.
Facts are never pointless.
Except it wasn't a fact.
You dispute that “the line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago”? Please don’t tell me that the English education system really is as bad as reported.
No, the claim was there isn't an Irish border.
There is a border in Ireland, but it is most certainly not the “Irish border”.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
Technically, yes. But the Irish border isn't mainly a technical border. It's a state of mind. It means completely different things to the communities it affects. For Protestant unionists the border is the necessary bulwark that creates a piece of Britain in Ireland and a safe space for them; for nationalist Catholics it's an abomination that splits families. The border is an irreconcilable and existential issue for both communities. The genius of the Good Friday Agreement wasn't to remove the border. It was to make it ambiguous. It was there if you wanted it to be and not if you didn't. Brexit removes that ambiguity. Northern Ireland either becomes an integrated part of Ireland or definitively Britain.
Treating the border as a technical issue is doomed. The Irish government know that, as most Tory Brexiteers don't. That's why the Irish will never compromise on the backstop, I believe. They badly want the deal, but they can't compromise on the backstop to get it.
Believe me the Irish border isn't ambiguous to anyone who does business on both sides of it.
And the Irish government certainly made it less ambiguous when they changed their roads speeds from mph to kmph.
Out of interest what is the social background of the people who have never been offered drugs? I find it hard to believe many of them can have been at university or grown up in a city.
I have spent more time in an university than most and I think I've never been offered them . In my limited experience, older people and people with STEM degrees just don't use them.
I suspect many of the people claiming to have taken drugs actually haven't.
4 years at Uni in West Yorkshire 84-88. Never offered drugs.
I just don't see any reason, any more than I see any reason for smoking.
On smoking it was parental indoctrination. On drugs .. just ... why need it?
Far more drugs were around working in the City in IT 10-12 years later.
It weeded out some of the students.
"My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it." - Boris.
Think there is a generational difference in use of drugs. As well as the class/social circle effect alluded to. It is Gen X, my cohort, who were the big users. From mid 80s to turn of the millennium, I find it hard to believe that one could have been oblivious to the ubiquity of drugs. You may not have known where to find them, but in cities at least, you didn't have to ask around much. Coincidentally, this is the very age of the people aspiring to run the country, and the ones now high up in the media, which is why it is being treated as "no big deal". Most of my old uni mates still smoke weed, quite a few of them do a lot more than that. And they all have decent jobs. Not sure that was at all as common in the generations before or since.
Out of interest what is the social background of the people who have never been offered drugs? I find it hard to believe many of them can have been at university or grown up in a city.
I have spent more time in an university than most and I think I've never been offered them . In my limited experience, older people and people with STEM degrees just don't use them.
I suspect many of the people claiming to have taken drugs actually haven't.
4 years at Uni in West Yorkshire 84-88. Never offered drugs.
I just don't see any reason, any more than I see any reason for smoking.
On smoking it was parental indoctrination. On drugs .. just ... why need it?
Far more drugs were around working in the City in IT 10-12 years later.
Manchester Uni 73 - 76. I have never been offered drugs. Drugs I was aware of around at the time were cannabis and LSD and usually from outsiders. You could always spot them at a Uni do, trying too hard to look like students. I was only aware of one student who used cannabis who was on our floor in the hall of residence in my 1st year. He started dealing on a minor scale until his floor mates had a quiet word with him.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
Technically, yes. But the Irish border isn't mainly a technical border. It's a state of mind. It means completely different things to the communities it affects. For Protestant unionists the border is the necessary bulwark that creates a piece of Britain in Ireland and a safe space for them; for nationalist Catholics it's an abomination that splits families. The border is an irreconcilable and existential issue for both communities. The genius of the Good Friday Agreement wasn't to remove the border. It was to make it ambiguous. It was there if you wanted it to be and not if you didn't. Brexit removes that ambiguity. Northern Ireland either becomes an integrated part of Ireland or definitively Britain.
Treating the border as a technical issue is doomed. The Irish government know that, as most Tory Brexiteers don't. That's why the Irish will never compromise on the backstop, I believe. They badly want the deal, but they can't compromise on the backstop to get it.
A transcendental border.
Mocking the Irish isn’t going to get the English anywhere. Nowadays they have lots of pals (27 to be exact) and England is Johnny No Mates.
Out of interest what is the social background of the people who have never been offered drugs? I find it hard to believe many of them can have been at university or grown up in a city.
I have spent more time in an university than most and I think I've never been offered them . In my limited experience, older people and people with STEM degrees just don't use them.
I suspect many of the people claiming to have taken drugs actually haven't.
4 years at Uni in West Yorkshire 84-88. Never offered drugs.
I just don't see any reason, any more than I see any reason for smoking.
On smoking it was parental indoctrination. On drugs .. just ... why need it?
Far more drugs were around working in the City in IT 10-12 years later.
It weeded out some of the students.
"My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it." - Boris.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
The Irish Border is the beach. The line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago.
This adds nothing to the conversation. What a pointless comment.
Facts are never pointless.
Except it wasn't a fact.
You dispute that “the line you see on modern maps was unilaterally drawn by Westminster and Whitehall a century ago”? Please don’t tell me that the English education system really is as bad as reported.
We are all disputing your original claim that Ireland has no border.
I never said that. Of course there is a border between two jurisdictions in Ireland. I said that it was incorrect to refer to it as the “Irish Border”. It isn’t. The Irish border is the beach. The correct label for the artificial line is the British border in Ireland. It is entirely a unilateral creation of Westminster and Whitehall.
Which is my point too. You are taking the nationalist view of the border. But there is a different, unionist view, no less strongly held. So how do we reconcile the unreconcileable?
IPHRP is released as an experimental statistic. This is a new official statistic undergoing evaluation and therefore it is recommended that caution is exercised when drawing conclusions from the published data as the index is likely to be further developed.
Even now those caveats apply.
The data also stops in Sept 2015, which is nearly 5 years out of date. Given that normal tenancy lengths in Scotland are 0->5 years with an "average" (undefined average) of around 2 years you would not expect to see a full impact by 2015 from 2012.
Clearly the impact from a ban on premiums involved in setting up a tenancy will not be seen until the next time a tenancy is set up, since stuff like referencing etc is not done mid-tenancy.
The other question is why Scottish Govt numbers show such a rapid increase - despite a market collapse in one major region (Aberdeenshire).
Yes rents in Scotland have gone up, but they have gone up at least as fast in England (that does not prove it either way as there will be other factors involved, but rents rising in Scotland is miles away from proof that that is due to the ban on tenants fees).
But that is just another quote from the same experimental index which is hedged with caveats.
It is the main ONS report on rental housing. Which report would you prefer to look at?
In this case the one that doesn't say:
"it is recommended that caution is exercised when drawing conclusions from the published data"
:-)
Especially as it also is more heavily based on existing rents which will clearly not have been impacted yet by the changes we seek to evaluate.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
Technically, yes. But the Irish border isn't mainly a technical border. It's a state of mind. It means completely different things to the communities it affects. For Protestant unionists the border is the necessary bulwark that creates a piece of Britain in Ireland and a safe space for them; for nationalist Catholics it's an abomination that splits families. The border is an irreconcilable and existential issue for both communities. The genius of the Good Friday Agreement wasn't to remove the border. It was to make it ambiguous. It was there if you wanted it to be and not if you didn't. Brexit removes that ambiguity. Northern Ireland either becomes an integrated part of Ireland or definitively Britain.
Treating the border as a technical issue is doomed. The Irish government know that, as most Tory Brexiteers don't. That's why the Irish will never compromise on the backstop, I believe. They badly want the deal, but they can't compromise on the backstop to get it.
A transcendental border.
Mocking the Irish isn’t going to get the English anywhere. Nowadays they have lots of pals (27 to be exact) and England is Johnny No Mates.
Doesn't suggest that all those tens of billions we've paid into the EU has done us much good then.
Perhaps we're better off out of a club where we have no mates ?
Unfortunately, the only way to kill of the hard right English nationalism the Tories are now embracing is for them to confront the reality of what it delivers. We need to hit rock bottom before we can start rebuilding the country the Tories have smashed to pieces. There's a way to go yet. That it will result in the total humiliation and disgrace of Johnson and co is the one silver lining in the whole sorry episode.
Boris actually is more of a 'global vision' Brexiteer rather than the English nationalism of say Farage or Bill Cash
He would happily destroy the Union and dump all over the people of Northern Ireland to secure power. Just like all the other Tory leadership candidates with a chance of winning. He is a hard core English nationalist.
Far from it, indeed Boris will go for a FTA most people in GB want by removing the temporary customs union for the political declaration and he may yet accept the backstop for NI (with some vague promise about finding a technical solution) in order to get that GB FTA. If Boris wins a majority he then can dispense with the DUP and reluctantly accept the backstop for the time being, avoiding a hard border in the process as most NI voters want
How does that ever pass Parliament? If they can’t amend the backstop to get the DUP on board then the only way out is going to be a new Parliament - so we get an election in the autumn.
And somehow Boris wins that. Right. (A GE because he failed is not the same as a hypothetical poll saying he has a chance)
Boris wins it comfortably, he gets a mandate for a GB FTA which is what most voters want
Boris only wins if Nigel doesn't stand and there is zero chance of him not standing candidates...
Nope, Boris has a 7% lead over Labour and the LDs even with Nigel, with the Brexit Party falling back to just 13% from 20%+ now
Been having some interesting conversations with lots of Labour voting but generally anti Corbyn friends after the Peterborough result .
All ardent Remainers . When push comes to shove we’ll all be voting Labour unless we need to tactically vote to stop the Tories .
The best news for Corbyn is the likely lurch to the right of the next Tory PM. This will galvanize Labour supporters and help keep the party together .
I have no time for Corbyn but will walk over hot coals to see the Tories beaten.
Will it? YouGov gives a Boris led Tories a 7% lead over Labour who can only tie the LDs for second place
A 7% lead which may assume he can deliver on his promises. If he cannot why would the lead persist? May led by 7% this year too. Then reality hit.
Boris' promise is for a FTA and the only way he can achieve that for GB is with the backstop for NI, the DUP will never allow that hence he has to call a general election to get a mandate for it.
Boris is not promising to deliver May's current deal either including the temporary customs union for GB which he wants to remove and to do that and agree the Deal with the EU still he has to keep the backstop solely for NI.
Boris also has charisma, May did not and Corbyn got a hung parliament last year by getting Remainers behind him, Remainers are currently moving en masse from Labour to the LDs as that YouGov poll shows while Boris as leader would cut back the Brexit Party and take a clear Tory lead again.
Note too the Brexit Party would still get 13% even with a Boris led Tories, particularly in Labour areas in the North and Midlands and Wales, an effect which helped the Tories win seats in 2015 but was cut back in 2017 so Labour will be hit from both sides
Sounds good to me. Johnson calls an election based on a mythical renegotiation of May's deal. With the result that Farage campaigns for No Deal, splitting the Tory vote in two (if the Tories are lucky). Result - a Labour government, and a very soft Brexit or no Brexit at all ...
Not a my
Result - a Tory majority government for Boris with Labour perhaps even falling behind the LDs in voteshare as Corbyn still refuses to commit to EUref2
If the EU won't renegotiate - as they've said about a hundred times now - then it's mythical, regardless of whatever hypotheses you may have on the opinions of different groups of voters about it.
Nothing to renegotiate, Barnier has always said he would be happy with a FTA for GB as long as there was a backstop for NI. It was May who insisted on the temporary Customs Union for GB, not Barnier
Out of interest, what prospect is there of some serious dirt being dished on one or more of the leading Tory candidates?
Presumably Gove has tried to preempt news he expected to be released but it's hard to believe there is not more to come on some of the other candidates (ok, one of them).
If the Conservative and Unionist Party wishes to destroy itself it would be rude to stop it from doing so.
You say that. But if the replacement is a wild set of bat-shit crazy loons who don't believe in parliamentary democracy but whacko voice of the public ideas, then the country is even more f-ed than I thought.
Things just seem to be getting worse and worse.
I wonder what the Queen thinks of what is being done to her realm.
Boris actually is more of a 'global vision' Brexiteer rather than the English nationalism of say Farage or Bill Cash
He would happily destroy the Union and dump all over the people of Northern Ireland to secure power. Just like all the other Tory leadership candidates with a chance of winning. He is a hard core English nationalist.
Far from it, indeed Boris will go for a FTA most people in GB want by removing the temporary customs union for the political declaration and he may yet accept the backstop for NI (with some vague promise about finding a technical solution) in order to get that GB FTA. If Boris wins a majority he then can dispense with the DUP and reluctantly accept the backstop for the time being, avoiding a hard border in the process as most NI voters want
How does that ever pass Parliament? If they can’t amend the backstop to get the DUP on board then the only way out is going to be a new Parliament - so we get an election in the autumn.
And somehow Boris wins that. Right. (A GE because he failed is not the same as a hypothetical poll saying he has a chance)
Boris wins it comfortably, he gets a mandate for a GB FTA which is what most voters want
Boris only wins if Nigel doesn't stand and there is zero chance of him not standing candidates...
Nope, Boris has a 7% lead over Labour and the LDs even with Nigel, with the Brexit Party falling back to just 13% from 20%+ now
If the Conservative and Unionist Party wishes to destroy itself it would be rude to stop it from doing so.
Boris actually is more of a 'global vision' Brexiteer rather than the English nationalism of say Farage or Bill Cash
He would happily destroy the Union and dump all over the people of Northern Ireland to secure power. Just like all the other Tory leadership candidates with a chance of winning. He is a hard core English nationalist.
Far from it, indeed Boris will go for a FTA most people in GB want by removing the temporary customs union for the political declaration and he may yet accept the backstop for NI (with some vague promise about finding a technical solution) in order to get that GB FTA. If Boris wins a majority he then can dispense with the DUP and reluctantly accept the backstop for the time being, avoiding a hard border in the process as most NI voters want
How does that ever pass Parliament? If they can’t amend the backstop to get the DUP on board then the only way out is going to be a new Parliament - so we get an election in the autumn.
And somehow Boris wins that. Right. (A GE because he failed is not the same as a hypothetical poll saying he has a chance)
Boris wins it comfortably, he gets a mandate for a GB FTA which is what most voters want
Boris only wins if Nigel doesn't stand and there is zero chance of him not standing candidates...
Nope, Boris has a 7% lead over Labour and the LDs even with Nigel, with the Brexit Party falling back to just 13% from 20%+ now
Is there a poll showing how Boris does when he has failed to take us out in October and looks either weak or confirmed as a liar?
No, as by then he will be PM of a majority government having won a general election and shortly after taking us out of the EU on the path to a FTA for GB
Unfortunately, the only way to kill of the hard right English nationalism the Tories are now embracing is for them to confront the reality of what it delivers. We need to hit rock bottom before we can start rebuilding the country the Tories have smashed to pieces. There's a way to go yet. That it will result in the total humiliation and disgrace of Johnson and co is the one silver lining in the whole sorry episode.
Boris actually is more of a 'global vision' Brexiteer rather than the English nationalism of say Farage or Bill Cash
He would happily destroy the Union and dump all over the people of Northern Ireland to secure power. Just like all the other Tory leadership candidates with a chance of winning. He is a hard core English nationalist.
Far from it, indeed Boris will go for a FTA most people in GB want by removing the temporary customs union for the political declaration and he may yet accept the backstop for NI (with some vague promise about finding a technical solution) in order to get that GB FTA. If Boris wins a majority he then can dispense with the DUP and reluctantly accept the backstop for the time being, avoiding a hard border in the process as most NI voters want
How does that ever pass Parliament? If they can’t amend the backstop to get the DUP on board then the only way out is going to be a new Parliament - so we get an election in the autumn.
And somehow Boris wins that. Right. (A GE because he failed is not the same as a hypothetical poll saying he has a chance)
Boris wins it comfortably, he gets a mandate for a GB FTA which is what most voters want
Boris only wins if Nigel doesn't stand and there is zero chance of him not standing candidates...
Nope, Boris has a 7% lead over Labour and the LDs even with Nigel, with the Brexit Party falling back to just 13% from 20%+ now
Doesn't suggest that all those tens of billions we've paid into the EU has done us much good then.
Perhaps we're better off out of a club where we have no mates ?
The EU are bullies and are abusing their existing (temporary) arrangements to try and take advantage of us. And still the remainers think they are the good guys.
I am beginning to understand why some leavers think proroguing parliament and hard brexit are the only options.
Doesn't suggest that all those tens of billions we've paid into the EU has done us much good then.
Perhaps we're better off out of a club where we have no mates ?
The EU are bullies and are abusing their existing (temporary) arrangements to try and take advantage of us. And still the remainers think they are the good guys.
I am beginning to understand why some leavers think proroguing parliament and hard brexit are the only options.
The Remainers are wondering what happened to “we hold all the cards”. Leavers are now snivelling about being bullied.
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Let's face it NI is a foreign place to many Brits. It absorbs a considerable public subsidy - as big as net EU contributions. As soon as there is a hung parliament their leaders act like extortionists. I can't believe there is the sort of sympathy on the mainland that there was in the days of Trimble and Hume and the IRA. We now have the DUP and Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of thnsion at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
Technically, yes. But the Irish border isn't mainly a technical border. It's a state of mind. It means completely different things to the communities it affects. For Protestant unionists the border is the necessary bulwark that creates a piece of Britain in Ireland and a safe space for them; for nationalist Catholics it's an abomination that splits families. The border is an irreconcilable and existential issue for both communities. The genius of the Good Friday Agreement wasn't to remove the border. It was to make it ambiguous. It was there if you wanted it to be and not if you didn't. Brexit removes that ambiguity. Northern Ireland either becomes an integrated part of Ireland or definitively Britain.
Treating the border as a technical issue is doomed. The Irish government know that, as most Tory Brexiteers don't. That's why the Irish will never compromise on the backstop, I believe. They badly want the deal, but they can't compromise on the backstop to get it.
A transcendental border.
Mocking the Irish isn’t going to get the English anywhere. Nowadays they have lots of pals (27 to be exact) and England is Johnny No Mates.
Though not the US President it seems nor the Scots last week
Unfortunately, the only way to kill of the hard right English nationalism the Tories are now embracing is for them to confront the reality of what it delivers. We need to hit rock bottom before we can start rebuilding the country the Tories have smashed to pieces. There's a way to go yet. That it will result in the total humiliation and disgrace of Johnson and co is the one silver lining in the whole sorry episode.
Boris actually is more of a 'global vision' Brexiteer rather than the English nationalism of say Farage or Bill Cash
He would happily destroy the Union and dump all over the people of Northern Ireland to secure power. Just like all the other Tory leadership candidates with a chance of winning. He is a hard core English nationalist.
Far from it, indeed Boris will go for a FTA most people in GB want by removing the temporary customs union for the political declaration and he may yet accept the backstop for NI (with some vague promise about finding a technical solution) in order to get that GB FTA. If Boris wins a majority he then can dispense with the DUP and reluctantly accept the backstop for the time being, avoiding a hard border in the process as most NI voters want
How does that ever pass Parliament? If they can’t amend the backstop to get the DUP on board then the only way out is going to be a new Parliament - so we get an election in the autumn.
And somehow Boris wins that. Right. (A GE because he failed is not the same as a hypothetical poll saying he has a chance)
Boris wins it comfortably, he gets a mandate for a GB FTA which is what most voters want
Boris only wins if Nigel doesn't stand and there is zero chance of him not standing candidates...
Nope, Boris has a 7% lead over Labour and the LDs even with Nigel, with the Brexit Party falling back to just 13% from 20%+ now
Unfortunately, the only way to kill of the hard right English nationalism the Tories are now embracing is for them to confront the reality of what it delivers. We need to hit rock bottom before we can start rebuilding the country the Tories have smashed to pieces. There's a way to go yet. That it will result in the total humiliation and disgrace of Johnson and co is the one silver lining in the whole sorry episode.
Boris actually is more of a 'global vision' Brexiteer rather than the English nationalism of say Farage or Bill Cash
He would happily destroy the Union and dump all over the people of Northern Ireland to secure power. Just like all the other Tory leadership candidates with a chance of winning. He is a hard core English nationalist.
Far from it, indeed Boris will go for a FTA most people in GB want by removing the temporary customs union for the political declaration and he may yet accept the backstop for NI (with some vague promise about finding a technical solution) in order to get that GB FTA. If Boris wins a majority he then can dispense with the DUP and reluctantly accept the backstop for the time being, avoiding a hard border in the process as most NI voters want
How does that ever pass Parliament? If they can’t amend the backstop to get the DUP on board then the only way out is going to be a new Parliament - so we get an election in the autumn.
And somehow Boris wins that. Right. (A GE because he failed is not the same as a hypothetical poll saying he has a chance)
Boris wins it comfortably, he gets a mandate for a GB FTA which is what most voters want
Boris only wins if Nigel doesn't stand and there is zero chance of him not standing candidates...
Nope, Boris has a 7% lead over Labour and the LDs even with Nigel, with the Brexit Party falling back to just 13% from 20%+ now
Which is my point too. You are taking the nationalist view of the border. But there is a different, unionist view, no less strongly held. So how do we reconcile the unreconcileable?
To adapt the saw about the auld Irish lad giving directions to Brexit, I wouldn't start from here.
Doesn't suggest that all those tens of billions we've paid into the EU has done us much good then.
Perhaps we're better off out of a club where we have no mates ?
The EU are bullies and are abusing their existing (temporary) arrangements to try and take advantage of us. And still the remainers think they are the good guys.
I am beginning to understand why some leavers think proroguing parliament and hard brexit are the only options.
The Remainers are wondering what happened to “we hold all the cards”. Leavers are now snivelling about being bullied.
Leavers weren't expecting May to flush them down the toilet.
Unfortunately, the only way to kill of the hard right English nationalism the Tories are now embracing is for them to confront the reality of what it delivers. We need to hit rock bottom before we can start rebuilding the country the Tories have smashed to pieces. There's a way to go yet. That it will result in the total humiliation and disgrace of Johnson and co is the one silver lining in the whole sorry episode.
Boris actually is more of a 'global vision' Brexiteer rather than the English nationalism of say Farage or Bill Cash
He would happily destroy the Union and dump all over the people of Northern Ireland to secure power. Just like all the other Tory leadership candidates with a chance of winning. He is a hard core English nationalist.
Far from it, indeed Boris will go for a FTA most people in GB want by removing the temporary customs union for the political declaration and he may yet accept the backstop for NI (with some vague promise about finding a technical solution) in order to get that GB FTA. If Boris wins a majority he then can dispense with the DUP and reluctantly accept the backstop for the time being, avoiding a hard border in the process as most NI voters want
How does that ever pass Parliament? If they can’t amend the backstop to get the DUP on board then the only way out is going to be a new Parliament - so we get an election in the autumn.
And somehow Boris wins that. Right. (A GE because he failed is not the same as a hypothetical poll saying he has a chance)
Boris wins it comfortably, he gets a mandate for a GB FTA which is what most voters want
Boris only wins if Nigel doesn't stand and there is zero chance of him not standing candidates...
Nope, Boris has a 7% lead over Labour and the LDs even with Nigel, with the Brexit Party falling back to just 13% from 20%+ now
I'm surprised the NI Unionist support has held so long. The Irish Sea border has been unthinkable. Why? What about an NI referendum on the matter?
Sinn Fein.
It’s actually another example of the way May successfully shaped the narrative, even before she became reliant on the DUP. Her early ‘precious union’ rhetoric and insistence that there could be no bespoke Brexit solution for each part of the UK contradicted Brexiteers like Mervyn King who advocated an Irish Sea border right at the beginning, and said it would be one of the positives of Brexit.
It’s quite likely that May was only thinking of thwarting the SNP and hadn’t fully considered the Northern Irish dimension at the time.
Yes, it is now clear that despite droning on endlessly about the “Irish Border” (it isn’t: it is the British Border in Ireland)
I'm fairly sure it's also the Irish border.
Technically, yes. But the Irish border isn't mainly a technical border. It's a state of mind. It means completely different things to the communities it affects. For Protestant unionists the border is the necessary bulwark that creates a piece of Britain in Ireland and a safe space for them; for nationalist Catholics it's an abomination that splits families. The border is an irreconcilable and existential issue for both communities. The genius of the Good Friday Agreement wasn't to remove the border. It was to make it ambiguous. It was there if you wanted it to be and not if you didn't. Brexit removes that ambiguity. Northern Ireland either becomes an integrated part of Ireland or definitively Britain.
Treating the border as a technical issue is doomed. The Irish government know that, as most Tory Brexiteers don't. That's why the Irish will never compromise on the backstop, I believe. They badly want the deal, but they can't compromise on the backstop to get it.
A transcendental border.
Mocking the Irish isn’t going to get the English anywhere. Nowadays they have lots of pals (27 to be exact) and England is Johnny No Mates.
Ireland can deal with the lack of a backstop by asking to partially derogate from the Single Market, conform to UK regulation, and put their customs border into the English Channel. In times past they probably would do just that. Now they don't see why they should. The EU is more powerful than the UK.
Unfortunately, the only way to kill of the hard right English nationalism the Tories are now embracing is for them to confront the reality of what it delivers. We need to hit rock bottom before we can start rebuilding the country the Tories have smashed to pieces. There's a way to go yet. That it will result in the total humiliation and disgrace of Johnson and co is the one silver lining in the whole sorry episode.
Boris actually is more of a 'global vision' Brexiteer rather than the English nationalism of say Farage or Bill Cash
He would happily destroy the Union and dump all over the people of Northern Ireland to secure power. Just like all the other Tory leadership candidates with a chance of winning. He is a hard core English nationalist.
Far from it, indeed Boris will go for a FTA most people in GB want by removing the temporary customs union for the political declaration and he may yet accept the backstop for NI (with some vague promise about finding a technical solution) in order to get that GB FTA. If Boris wins a majority he then can dispense with the DUP and reluctantly accept the backstop for the time being, avoiding a hard border in the process as most NI voters want
How does that ever pass Parliament? If they can’t amend the backstop to get the DUP on board then the only way out is going to be a new Parliament - so we get an election in the autumn.
And somehow Boris wins that. Right. (A GE because he failed is not the same as a hypothetical poll saying he has a chance)
Boris wins it comfortably, he gets a mandate for a GB FTA which is what most voters want
Boris only wins if Nigel doesn't stand and there is zero chance of him not standing candidates...
Nope, Boris has a 7% lead over Labour and the LDs even with Nigel, with the Brexit Party falling back to just 13% from 20%+ now
Which is my point too. You are taking the nationalist view of the border. But there is a different, unionist view, no less strongly held. So how do we reconcile the unreconcileable?
To adapt the saw about the auld Irish lad giving directions to Brexit, I wouldn't start from here.
Indeed no.
I blame James VI and I.
It was his stupid idea to settle all those Scots into Ulster...
If the Conservative and Unionist Party wishes to destroy itself it would be rude to stop it from doing so.
You say that. But if the replacement is a wild set of bat-shit crazy loons who don't believe in parliamentary democracy but whacko voice of the public ideas, then the country is even more f-ed than I thought.
Things just seem to be getting worse and worse.
I wonder what the Queen thinks of what is being done to her realm.
Boris actually is more of a 'global vision' Brexiteer rather than the English nationalism of say Farage or Bill Cash
He would happily destroy the Union and dump all over the people of Northern Ireland to secure power. Just like all the other Tory leadership candidates with a chance of winning. He is a hard core English nationalist.
Far from it, indeed Boris will go f voters want
How does that ever pass Parliament? If they can’t amend the backstop to get the DUP on board then the only way out is going to be a new Parliament - so we get an election in the autumn.
And somehow Boris wins that. Right. (A GE because he failed is not the same as a hypothetical poll saying he has a chance)
Boris wins it comfortably, he gets a mandate for a GB FTA which is what most voters want
Boris only wins if Nigel doesn't stand and there is zero chance of him not standing candidates...
Nope, Boris has a 7% lead over Labour and the LDs even with Nigel, with the Brexit Party falling back to just 13% from 20%+ now
Yougov was the only pollster to underestimate Labour for the EU elections - and the data is 10 days old now.
The final YouGov for the Euro elections had Labour on 13% and the Tories on 7%.
So while close to the final result YouGov actually underestimated the Tories more than it underestimated Labour given Labour got 14% and the Tories got 9%
Doesn't suggest that all those tens of billions we've paid into the EU has done us much good then.
Perhaps we're better off out of a club where we have no mates ?
The EU are bullies and are abusing their existing (temporary) arrangements to try and take advantage of us. And still the remainers think they are the good guys.
I am beginning to understand why some leavers think proroguing parliament and hard brexit are the only options.
The Remainers are wondering what happened to “we hold all the cards”. Leavers are now snivelling about being bullied.
Leavers weren't expecting May to flush them down the toilet.
IPHRP is released as an experimental statistic. This is a new official statistic undergoing evaluation and therefore it is recommended that caution is exercised when drawing conclusions from the published data as the index is likely to be further developed.
Even now those caveats apply.
The data also stops in Sept 2015, which is nearly 5 years out of date. Given that normal tenancy lengths in Scotland are 0->5 years with an "average" (undefined average) of around 2 years you would not expect to see a full impact by 2015 from 2012.
Clearly the impact from a ban on premiums involved in setting up a tenancy will not be seen until the next time a tenancy is set up, since stuff like referencing etc is not done mid-tenancy.
The other question is why Scottish Govt numbers show such a rapid increase - despite a market collapse in one major region (Aberdeenshire).
Yes rents in Scotland have gone up, but they have gone up at least as fast in England (that does not prove it either way as there will be other factors involved, but rents rising in Scotland is miles away from proof that that is due to the ban on tenants fees).
But that is just another quote from the same experimental index which is hedged with caveats.
It is the main ONS report on rental housing. Which report would you prefer to look at?
In this case the one that doesn't say:
"it is recommended that caution is exercised when drawing conclusions from the published data"
:-)
Especially as it also is more heavily based on existing rents which will clearly not have been impacted yet by the changes we seek to evaluate.
So there is no alternative that you prefer ergo you are presenting no evidence that Scottish rents have risen faster than English ones. I have provided the opposite evidence and will leave it there as I do not have the resources to instantly create more reliable stats than the ONS are capable of.
Doesn't suggest that all those tens of billions we've paid into the EU has done us much good then.
Perhaps we're better off out of a club where we have no mates ?
The EU are bullies and are abusing their existing (temporary) arrangements to try and take advantage of us. And still the remainers think they are the good guys.
I am beginning to understand why some leavers think proroguing parliament and hard brexit are the only options.
The Remainers are wondering what happened to “we hold all the cards”. Leavers are now snivelling about being bullied.
Leavers weren't expecting May to flush them down the toilet.
Doesn't suggest that all those tens of billions we've paid into the EU has done us much good then.
Perhaps we're better off out of a club where we have no mates ?
The EU are bullies and are abusing their existing (temporary) arrangements to try and take advantage of us. And still the remainers think they are the good guys.
I am beginning to understand why some leavers think proroguing parliament and hard brexit are the only options.
The Remainers are wondering what happened to “we hold all the cards”. Leavers are now snivelling about being bullied.
Leavers weren't expecting May to flush them down the toilet.
FFS - our hand was so strong that a nonentity like May could disrupt it? If only a true Leaver like Davis, Gove, Johnson or Leadsom had been in the cabinet!
Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteenth_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland
IPHRP is released as an experimental statistic. This is a new official statistic undergoing evaluation and therefore it is recommended that caution is exercised when drawing conclusions from the published data as the index is likely to be further developed.
Even now those caveats apply.
The data also stops in Sept 2015, which is nearly 5 years out of date. Given that normal tenancy lengths in Scotland are 0->5 years with an "average" (undefined average) of around 2 years you would not expect to see a full impact by 2015 from 2012.
Clearly the impact from a ban on premiums involved in setting up a tenancy will not be seen until the next time a tenancy is set up, since stuff like referencing etc is not done mid-tenancy.
https://www.mydepositsscotland.co.uk/blog/scotland-rent-rises-lag-behind-rest-uk
"The data shows that although UK rents have climbed by 7 per cent since records started in March 2015, rents in Scotland are up just 1.5 per cent over the same period."
No! Let the English come into Wales, that they can be ruled by people of who are Marks of quality such as Mark James, Mark Reckless and Mark Drakeford...ah.
That argument doesn't really work, does it?
What's a xenophobic, homophobic MP meant to do, faced with a homophobic campaign conducted by an ethnic minority group? How should he choose which prejudice to pander to? If things were arranged delicately enough, he could be like the donkey starving to death between two equidistant piles of hay:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-48569173
Result - a Tory majority government for Boris with Labour perhaps even falling behind the LDs in voteshare as Corbyn still refuses to commit to EUref2
Disagree. From that page:
IPHRP is released as an experimental statistic. This is a new official statistic undergoing evaluation and therefore it is recommended that caution is exercised when drawing conclusions from the published data as the index is likely to be further developed.
Even now those caveats apply.
The data also stops in Sept 2015, which is nearly 5 years out of date. Given that normal tenancy lengths in Scotland are 0->5 years with an "average" (undefined average) of around 2 years you would not expect to see a full impact by 2015 from 2012.
Clearly the impact from a ban on premiums involved in setting up a tenancy will not be seen until the next time a tenancy is set up, since stuff like referencing etc is not done mid-tenancy.
The other question is why Scottish Govt numbers show such a rapid increase - despite a market collapse in one major region (Aberdeenshire).
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1136006739864825858?s=20
Their concern was more May's plan for a temporary customs union for GB while the backstop lasted
I just don't see any reason, any more than I see any reason for smoking.
On smoking it was parental indoctrination. On drugs .. just ... why need it?
Far more drugs were around working in the City in IT 10-12 years later.
https://www.mydepositsscotland.co.uk/blog/scotland-rent-rises-lag-behind-rest-uk
Yes rents in Scotland have gone up, but they have gone up at least as fast in England (that does not prove it either way as there will be other factors involved, but rents rising in Scotland is miles away from proof that that is due to the ban on tenants fees).
Treating the border as a technical issue is doomed. The Irish government know that, as most Tory Brexiteers don't. That's why the Irish will never compromise on the backstop, I believe. They badly want the deal, but they can't compromise on the backstop to get it.
I'll add btw that the English version really has created havoc, and affected all types of things that the Parliamentary Pillocks appear not to have even thought about.
They don't even understand that when a key is lost you replace the lock not the key, 'cos it could have been pick pocketed and may even have been labelled. That's leaving aside the statutory guidance that contradics itself.
It will take a decade of Court Actions to sort out and, as ever, the fees will come out of someone's rent.
And the Irish government certainly made it less ambiguous when they changed their roads speeds from mph to kmph.
- Boris.
Are you saying that Ireland has no separate jurisdiction?
Don't you have your own lavatory?
Coincidentally, this is the very age of the people aspiring to run the country, and the ones now high up in the media, which is why it is being treated as "no big deal".
Most of my old uni mates still smoke weed, quite a few of them do a lot more than that. And they all have decent jobs. Not sure that was at all as common in the generations before or since.
https://www.internetslang.com/CAKE-meaning-definition.asp
"it is recommended that caution is exercised when drawing conclusions from the published data"
:-)
Especially as it also is more heavily based on existing rents which will clearly not have been impacted yet by the changes we seek to evaluate.
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1137439254806781952?s=20
Perhaps we're better off out of a club where we have no mates ?
If nothing else Jeremy vs Jeremy will be funny.
Presumably Gove has tried to preempt news he expected to be released but it's hard to believe there is not more to come on some of the other candidates (ok, one of them).
The EU are bullies and are abusing their existing (temporary) arrangements to try and take advantage of us. And still the remainers think they are the good guys.
I am beginning to understand why some leavers think proroguing parliament and hard brexit are the only options.
https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/donald-trump-ireland-visit-irish-border-wall-brexit-leo-varadkar-meeting/
https://www.dw.com/en/rockall-dispute-scotland-warns-ireland-over-fishing/a-49112964
Edit: Actually Hunt as PM will probably bring the c-word into acceptable use.
Leavers weren't expecting May to flush them down the toilet.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jun/8/milo-yiannopoulos-named-grand-marshal-of-proposed-/
I blame James VI and I.
It was his stupid idea to settle all those Scots into Ulster...
So while close to the final result YouGov actually underestimated the Tories more than it underestimated Labour given Labour got 14% and the Tories got 9%
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/05/22/european-parliament-voting-intention-brex-37-lab-1
Thank you for acknowledging that.
I’m sure they’ll let you stay in the club if you get grovelling a bit, but don’t expect them to stop sniggering behind your backs for a few decades.
It would explain a great many things.