Kamala Harris declining sharply in the WH2024 betting – politicalbetting.com

DecrepiterJohnL said:

In the last couple of minutes, a Betfair punter has taken all the 55s (which was only about a tenner) against Pete Buttigieg.

As others said on the last couple of threads, Buttigieg will have a succession of infrastructure successes (touch wood) to report to the American people.

But is his name a problem? It is hard to spell and not obvious how to pronounce Buttigieg. Will this mean people fall back to using "Mayor Pete" and does that undersell or even undermine his claim to be President Pete?

TimT said:

Now here's a headline you really don't ever want to read:

"Chipmunks near Lake Tahoe test positive for the plague"

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Sky Brown is up soon. Just a reminder that SPotY has a separate category for Young SPotY so I'd not back Sky for the main award. Fingers crossed.

ETA skateboarding is like women's gymnastics used to be – half the contestants are too young to vote.

rcs1000 said:

On topic: like many, I’m not a massive Harris fan, and think Buttigieg far superior.

But… don’t ignore the massive advantages of the incumbent VP. Should Biden find himself indisposed, she is President. And even if he doesn’t, she is massive favorite to succeed.

Add in the Republicans potentially picking Trump as nominee, and you have the perfect storm for a very poor candidate to end up in the Oval Office.

Quincel said:

rcs1000 said:

On topic: like many, I’m not a massive Harris fan, and think Buttigieg far superior.

But… don’t ignore the massive advantages of the incumbent VP. Should Biden find himself indisposed, she is President. And even if he doesn’t, she is massive favorite to succeed.

Add in the Republicans potentially picking Trump as nominee, and you have the perfect storm for a very poor candidate to end up in the Oval Office.

I mostly agree with this, though there's a chance Biden would not endorse in a primary if he stood down or wasn't President which would make her position much more surmountable.

I'd be shocked if he ran again and replaced her though. These rumours float around constantly but never pan out, in part because of the danger that a disgrunted ex-VP could pose.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FT front page.
UK’s education policies during Covid under fire in damning report

Paywalled but here is the IFG report it is based on:
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/schools-and-coronavirus.pdf

On Wednesday 18 March 2020, with just two days’ notice, Boris Johnson, in the second of his televised broadcasts from Downing Street, announced that England’s 24,000 schools were to close “until further notice” from that Friday evening. Exams, due to take place three months later, were cancelled.

What followed was easily the most disruptive period in children’s education since at least the start of the Second World War. Schools closed only to be opened, closed, and then re-opened again. Exams were cancelled, not once but twice, with knock- on effects to university admissions that will be felt for years to come. Parents, heads and teachers struggled – with access to laptops for home schooling, with the home schooling itself, and with coronavirus testing regimes for pupils and staff. Free school meals became a burning political issue. When it came to education, U-turn was to follow U-turn. Well into March 2021, and indeed beyond, pupils taking GCSEs, A-levels and BTecs remained unclear about precisely how they were to be assessed. At times it felt as though the school system was in chaos.

What follows is an analysis of what went wrong – and a few things that went right – in the hope that some lessons might be learnt should the education system ever have to go through anything similar again.

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FT front page.
UK’s education policies during Covid under fire in damning report

Paywalled but here is the IFG report it is based on:
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/schools-and-coronavirus.pdf

On Wednesday 18 March 2020, with just two days’ notice, Boris Johnson, in the second of his televised broadcasts from Downing Street, announced that England’s 24,000 schools were to close “until further notice” from that Friday evening. Exams, due to take place three months later, were cancelled.

What followed was easily the most disruptive period in children’s education since at least the start of the Second World War. Schools closed only to be opened, closed, and then re-opened again. Exams were cancelled, not once but twice, with knock- on effects to university admissions that will be felt for years to come. Parents, heads and teachers struggled – with access to laptops for home schooling, with the home schooling itself, and with coronavirus testing regimes for pupils and staff. Free school meals became a burning political issue. When it came to education, U-turn was to follow U-turn. Well into March 2021, and indeed beyond, pupils taking GCSEs, A-levels and BTecs remained unclear about precisely how they were to be assessed. At times it felt as though the school system was in chaos.

What follows is an analysis of what went wrong – and a few things that went right – in the hope that some lessons might be learnt should the education system ever have to go through anything similar again.

The IFG is a pretty useless organisation that Laurence Fox look objective and intelligent, and is just as ignorant of educational matters as the DfE itself. Since it makes a very basic error of fact in the first paragraph* I am not optimistic about the quality of the report.

Probably best to ignore it. We will start getting reports from the actual experts - teachers - in the next few months and those will be the ones to pay attention to.

Incidentally the FT is another paper where quality is dropping off a cliff. Five years ago it was the one paper that still had top quality journalism. Now it can’t even get basic statistics right (it’s constantly shrieking that Oakervee said HS2 will cost ‘not less than £106 billion,’ which is a lie so transparent even Archer would blush at it).

*Gavin Williamson announced the closure of schools in the House of Commons. The press conference was where Johnson announced the cancellation of exams.

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Quincel said:

Looks like we have our youngest medalist!

Not even the youngest on the podium. Silver medallist Kokona Hiraki is only 12.

Very young competitors used to feature in women's gymnastics – Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci et al – but aiui the rules were changed and a minimum age imposed. Should this happen here? Watching young girls fall and cry becomes wearing at best.

It does seem wrong. I do hope chimney-sweeping isn’t coming back as an Olympic event.

IanB2 said:

You wonder if they have measured the 400m for the hurdles correctly…

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FT front page.
UK’s education policies during Covid under fire in damning report

Paywalled but here is the IFG report it is based on:
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/schools-and-coronavirus.pdf

On Wednesday 18 March 2020, with just two days’ notice, Boris Johnson, in the second of his televised broadcasts from Downing Street, announced that England’s 24,000 schools were to close “until further notice” from that Friday evening. Exams, due to take place three months later, were cancelled.

What followed was easily the most disruptive period in children’s education since at least the start of the Second World War. Schools closed only to be opened, closed, and then re-opened again. Exams were cancelled, not once but twice, with knock- on effects to university admissions that will be felt for years to come. Parents, heads and teachers struggled – with access to laptops for home schooling, with the home schooling itself, and with coronavirus testing regimes for pupils and staff. Free school meals became a burning political issue. When it came to education, U-turn was to follow U-turn. Well into March 2021, and indeed beyond, pupils taking GCSEs, A-levels and BTecs remained unclear about precisely how they were to be assessed. At times it felt as though the school system was in chaos.

What follows is an analysis of what went wrong – and a few things that went right – in the hope that some lessons might be learnt should the education system ever have to go through anything similar again.

The IFG is a pretty useless organisation that Laurence Fox look objective and intelligent, and is just as ignorant of educational matters as the DfE itself. Since it makes a very basic error of fact in the first paragraph* I am not optimistic about the quality of the report.

Probably best to ignore it. We will start getting reports from the actual experts - teachers - in the next few months and those will be the ones to pay attention to.

Incidentally the FT is another paper where quality is dropping off a cliff. Five years ago it was the one paper that still had top quality journalism. Now it can’t even get basic statistics right (it’s constantly shrieking that Oakervee said HS2 will cost ‘not less than £106 billion,’ which is a lie so transparent even Archer would blush at it).

*Gavin Williamson announced the closure of schools in the House of Commons. The press conference was where Johnson announced the cancellation of exams.

The announcements were intended to be simultaneous. Here is what Boris said:-
So I can announce today and Gavin Williamson making statement now in House of Commons that after schools shut their gates from Friday afternoon
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-statement-on-coronavirus-18-march-2020

Well, they weren’t.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FT front page.
UK’s education policies during Covid under fire in damning report

Paywalled but here is the IFG report it is based on:
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/schools-and-coronavirus.pdf

On Wednesday 18 March 2020, with just two days’ notice, Boris Johnson, in the second of his televised broadcasts from Downing Street, announced that England’s 24,000 schools were to close “until further notice” from that Friday evening. Exams, due to take place three months later, were cancelled.

What followed was easily the most disruptive period in children’s education since at least the start of the Second World War. Schools closed only to be opened, closed, and then re-opened again. Exams were cancelled, not once but twice, with knock- on effects to university admissions that will be felt for years to come. Parents, heads and teachers struggled – with access to laptops for home schooling, with the home schooling itself, and with coronavirus testing regimes for pupils and staff. Free school meals became a burning political issue. When it came to education, U-turn was to follow U-turn. Well into March 2021, and indeed beyond, pupils taking GCSEs, A-levels and BTecs remained unclear about precisely how they were to be assessed. At times it felt as though the school system was in chaos.

What follows is an analysis of what went wrong – and a few things that went right – in the hope that some lessons might be learnt should the education system ever have to go through anything similar again.

The IFG is a pretty useless organisation that Laurence Fox look objective and intelligent, and is just as ignorant of educational matters as the DfE itself. Since it makes a very basic error of fact in the first paragraph* I am not optimistic about the quality of the report.

Probably best to ignore it. We will start getting reports from the actual experts - teachers - in the next few months and those will be the ones to pay attention to.

Incidentally the FT is another paper where quality is dropping off a cliff. Five years ago it was the one paper that still had top quality journalism. Now it can’t even get basic statistics right (it’s constantly shrieking that Oakervee said HS2 will cost ‘not less than £106 billion,’ which is a lie so transparent even Archer would blush at it).

*Gavin Williamson announced the closure of schools in the House of Commons. The press conference was where Johnson announced the cancellation of exams.

The announcements were intended to be simultaneous. Here is what Boris said:-
So I can announce today and Gavin Williamson making statement now in House of Commons that after schools shut their gates from Friday afternoon
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-statement-on-coronavirus-18-march-2020

Well, they weren’t.

Was Boris late then? Late starts were not unknown in Downing Street press statements. Hansard times Gavin Williamson at 5.16pm.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2020-03-18/debates/FCD4DEB2-86A8-4F95-8EB8-D0EF4C752D7D/EducationalSettings

Nigelb said:

ydoethur said:

One of the issues with reports like this is those who aren’t experts on education will almost certainly focus on the wrong things. They will talk about how the DfE constantly made the wrong decisions. About the impact of school closures. About the failure to get technology rolled out to those who needed it.

But actually the more pertinent question is not how do we avoid that, but why did we end up with those problems? How is it that we still select far too many civil servants on the basis of who mummy was shagging nine months before they were born, despite the fact they are thick as mince and lazy as Dominic Cummings? And how do they tend to end up in certain departments? Why is our school building stock so bad at dealing with viruses, given they are such a common problem? Why are they so overcrowded, making transmission easier? Those are the reasons we had to shut them. Why do we not routinely issue laptops or tablets to secondary school age children, as we should have been doing for five years? Think how much easier remote learning and catch-up would have been if we did.

I’m going to be controversial here and say I don’t think Covid in and of itself caused the problems in our education system. What it has done is shine an absolutely pitiless spotlight on how many things are wrong with it and how fragile the system is, due to the very high stress it is always under.

And the issue is that by discussing the impact of Covid, the point that it was a systemic issue will be missed.

Much of that is down to resource constraints, so don’t expect it to change any time soon.
My wife has taken voluntary redundancy, and daughter is switching careers.

RochdalePioneers said:

IanB2 said:

A brief insight into the internecine complexity of political factionalism within Labour:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/03/labours-factions-keir-starmer-left-party-right

Not just factions fighting within Labour for control of the party, but sub-factions fighting for control of the factions…..

Meh. Group most of the sub-factions together largely into the two groups. The ones who think the worst election defeat since 1935 was a Bad Thing. And those who pretend there was no 2019 election and instead look at 2017 which Jeremy almost won and would have done if not for the evil Labour MPs.

IanB2 said:

All sub 15C 0700 temps this week, after a long run of warm mornings up to 21C. Have we seen the best of the summer already?

Charles said:

mwadams said:

Without reference to the veracity of the story, or otherwise, it should be no surprise that line of attack is on the non-white woman in the White House. The Dems must have discussed strategy for this before the nomination, surely?

I think it’s more that Biden has given her a bunch of really difficult stuff to do (eg solve immigration across the Mexican border). He’s basically stitched her up

IanB2 said:

All sub 15C 0700 temps this week, after a long run of warm mornings up to 21C. Have we seen the best of the summer already?

OldKingCole said:

IanB2 said:

All sub 15C 0700 temps this week, after a long run of warm mornings up to 21C. Have we seen the best of the summer already?

12.6C here. At least it's sunny, and I think the forecast is optimistic after the weekend.

So possibly Good Morning is appropriate.

And Ydoethur, two (so far) teachers in my family plan to continue to do so, although another has left the classroom to become an Ed Psych. Currently just finished, satisfactorily, the first year.

StuartDickson said:

Quincel said:

StuartDickson said:

Sturgeon on brink of cooperation deal with Scottish Greens
Exclusive: agreement would cement a pro-independence majority at Holyrood and may give Greens ministerial seats

The formal deal, which will stop short of a full coalition of the kind agreed by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats under David Cameron and Nick Clegg in 2010, would give the Scottish National party and Scottish Greens a clear majority of seats at Holyrood.

It would allow the first minister to present a strong pro-climate agenda in advance of the Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow this November, and outvote anti-independence parties in Holyrood.

It would be the first time after 14 years in power the SNP had signed a formal deal with another party

The deal will present Scottish Labour, currently Holyrood’s third-largest party, with a significant political challenge. It is likely to give Sturgeon a resilient centre-left majority and removes her need to seek deals with Labour to get policies through the devolved parliament.

the Conservatives are taking a softer line on the potential for a fresh independence referendum

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/03/sturgeon-on-brink-cooperation-deal-scottish-greens

Forgive my pedantry, but if there is a formal deal which gives Greens ministerial seats then in what way does it stop short of full coalition?

Very good question, which the article fails to answer.

Any agreement which gives both parties seats in Cabinet, a shared programme of legislation and an agreed Budget is a coalition. End of.

ydoethur said:

OldKingCole said:

IanB2 said:

All sub 15C 0700 temps this week, after a long run of warm mornings up to 21C. Have we seen the best of the summer already?

12.6C here. At least it's sunny, and I think the forecast is optimistic after the weekend.

So possibly Good Morning is appropriate.

And Ydoethur, two (so far) teachers in my family plan to continue to do so, although another has left the classroom to become an Ed Psych. Currently just finished, satisfactorily, the first year.

So we have @Nigelb with 100% out, me with 67% out, and you with 33% out.

We need somebody with 0% here to complete the set.

Incidentally, I am seriously pissed off with Essex after yesterday. How on earth did you win from the position five overs out?

Foxy said:

ydoethur said:

Scott_xP said:

...

In fairness, he is good at opening things up. He was right to open schools on March 8th and experts, e.g. me, were wrong. He was right to open up last month and experts, or at least, SAGE, were wrong.

Whether he’s showing shrewd judgment or just amazingly lucky is another question, but given how important it is let’s not quibble.

Not so good when opening schools for a day in early January.

IshmaelZ said:

ydoethur said:

OldKingCole said:

IanB2 said:

All sub 15C 0700 temps this week, after a long run of warm mornings up to 21C. Have we seen the best of the summer already?

12.6C here. At least it's sunny, and I think the forecast is optimistic after the weekend.

So possibly Good Morning is appropriate.

And Ydoethur, two (so far) teachers in my family plan to continue to do so, although another has left the classroom to become an Ed Psych. Currently just finished, satisfactorily, the first year.

So we have @Nigelb with 100% out, me with 67% out, and you with 33% out.

We need somebody with 0% here to complete the set.

Incidentally, I am seriously pissed off with Essex after yesterday. How on earth did you win from the position five overs out?

My youngest sister is a teacher and AFAIK has no plans to change. HTH.

IanB2 said:

I see that (diesel-car driving) Allegra Stratton's job title is now "Environmental Advisor to the PM". Despite having no obvious qualifications for experience for such a position.

Alistair said:

Do you know who else has declining ratings relevant for people doing next President betting

It's only DeSantis.

https://twitter.com/travisakers/status/1422677158472785926?s=19

It turns out Floridians are more concerned about not catching Covid than we first thought.

ydoethur said:

OldKingCole said:

IanB2 said:

All sub 15C 0700 temps this week, after a long run of warm mornings up to 21C. Have we seen the best of the summer already?

12.6C here. At least it's sunny, and I think the forecast is optimistic after the weekend.

So possibly Good Morning is appropriate.

And Ydoethur, two (so far) teachers in my family plan to continue to do so, although another has left the classroom to become an Ed Psych. Currently just finished, satisfactorily, the first year.

So we have @Nigelb with 100% out, me with 67% out, and you with 33% out.

We need somebody with 0% here to complete the set.

Incidentally, I am seriously pissed off with Essex after yesterday. How on earth did you win from the position five overs out?

OldKingCole said:

ydoethur said:

Scott_xP said:

...

In fairness, he is good at opening things up. He was right to open schools on March 8th and experts, e.g. me, were wrong. He was right to open up last month and experts, or at least, SAGE, were wrong.

Whether he’s showing shrewd judgment or just amazingly lucky is another question, but given how important it is let’s not quibble.

He does seem to be amazingly lucky. Does that quote about practising hard apply, or is will there come a point when Lady Luck announces that his allowance has expired.
Although you could say that that happened when he had to deal with Covid!

Incidentally, I like the smile on the policeman's face.

Fishing said:

Charles said:

mwadams said:

Without reference to the veracity of the story, or otherwise, it should be no surprise that line of attack is on the non-white woman in the White House. The Dems must have discussed strategy for this before the nomination, surely?

I think it’s more that Biden has given her a bunch of really difficult stuff to do (eg solve immigration across the Mexican border). He’s basically stitched her up

Choosing a medocrity because of her race and gender and giving her difficult stuff to do without the means to do it - how could that possibly end badly?

A lesson for Labour anyway: try and pick the best candidate, not the one with the right genitalia.

IshmaelZ said:

ydoethur said:

Foxy said:

ydoethur said:

OldKingCole said:

IanB2 said:

All sub 15C 0700 temps this week, after a long run of warm mornings up to 21C. Have we seen the best of the summer already?

12.6C here. At least it's sunny, and I think the forecast is optimistic after the weekend.

So possibly Good Morning is appropriate.

And Ydoethur, two (so far) teachers in my family plan to continue to do so, although another has left the classroom to become an Ed Psych. Currently just finished, satisfactorily, the first year.

So we have @Nigelb with 100% out, me with 67% out, and you with 33% out.

We need somebody with 0% here to complete the set.

Incidentally, I am seriously pissed off with Essex after yesterday. How on earth did you win from the position five overs out?

Do other countries have such ferocious attrition of teachers? Or is it a British problem? Apart from the staffing issues it seems very wasteful.

Or is it like the loss of Foundation Doctors a symptom of much deeper malaise within the system?

Difficult to compare with other countries because teacher systems tend to be quite idiosyncratic. So for example in France it is expected a large number of graduates go into teaching, are assigned to a school, do it for 2-3 years and then do something else. But in the USA, where many state systems would be roughly comparable, around 8% a year leave teaching whereas a ‘natural’ rate would be about 3%. That’s a bit lower than ours but it’s not ridiculously different.

https://www.epi.org/publication/u-s-schools-struggle-to-hire-and-retain-teachers-the-second-report-in-the-perfect-storm-in-the-teacher-labor-market-series/

There are reasons for it. First of all, it’s bloody hard work, and not jus pt because of the nature of the beast. Teachers are the only profession I know where hard work is almost a fetish, so you will (true story) hear a primary school teacher boast that she takes her marking everywhere, even to her daughter’s swimming lessons. Such an attitude does bring pressure on the others and to those who don’t know how to find their own pace and stick to it, can be fatal.

There is also far too much pointless meddling by non-experts in media and the government which makes it very difficult to do effectively. Spielman is the epitome of this with her comical ineptitude designed to generate click bait in the Mail, but it affects most of the DfE. Woodhead was of course another example. It’s rather demoralising to be told you’re useless and lazy by functionally illiterate lowlifes who work 37 hour weeks in cosy offices when working 60 hour weeks under tough conditions.

And, of course, a lot go into teaching with high ideals and/or the expectation of short hours and long holidays and find the reality so different they just can’t take it. Woodhead, again, being an example, although he was forced out of teaching for other reasons.

But I think ultimately teaching in the British way is just very hard to do. To encourage discussion, thought, creativity and do it among 30 people a significant minority of whom don’t want to be there and can actually be violent is very, very tough. To do it on average 4.6 times a day forty weeks a year is even harder.

"Teachers are the only profession I know where hard work is almost a fetish" - try solicitors or accountants, both obsessed with chargeable hours and presenteeism.

Fishing said:

Charles said:

mwadams said:

Without reference to the veracity of the story, or otherwise, it should be no surprise that line of attack is on the non-white woman in the White House. The Dems must have discussed strategy for this before the nomination, surely?

I think it’s more that Biden has given her a bunch of really difficult stuff to do (eg solve immigration across the Mexican border). He’s basically stitched her up

Choosing a medocrity because of her race and gender and giving her difficult stuff to do without the means to do it - how could that possibly end badly?

A lesson for Labour anyway: try and pick the best candidate, not the one with the right genitalia.

IshmaelZ said:

GOOOOOLD in womens 470s sailing

squareroot2 said:

ydoethur said:

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Quincel said:

Looks like we have our youngest medalist!

Not even the youngest on the podium. Silver medallist Kokona Hiraki is only 12.

Very young competitors used to feature in women's gymnastics – Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci et al – but aiui the rules were changed and a minimum age imposed. Should this happen here? Watching young girls fall and cry becomes wearing at best.

It does seem wrong. I do hope chimney-sweeping isn’t coming back as an Olympic event.

Chimney sweeping as a sport went to pot long ago.

It's been brushed away to give other sports a chance.

StuartDickson said:

TimT said:

Now here's a headline you really don't ever want to read:

"Chipmunks near Lake Tahoe test positive for the plague"

Between escalating nuclear stockpiles, a rapidly deteriorating geopolitical climate, indications of Cold War II, a multi-year pandemic, the Greenland ice sheet close to total failure, the Arctic soon history, self-sufficiency being unfashionable, trade friction beginning to hamper food supplies, a population explosion and concomitant annihilation of other species and habitats and astonishingly poor world leaders, one wonders if we’re not about to get an uncomfortably realistic exposition of life in the Middle Ages.

… and now The Plague.

The only thing missing is the asteroid strike or imminent destruction of Japan, California and the Pacific rim by earthquake and associated tsunamis.

I am slightly shocked to learn that the average age of a civilisation is only 336 years!! That’s tiny! And then ponder how long ago The Enlightenment was.

Great civilisations are not murdered. Instead, they take their own lives.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190218-are-we-on-the-road-to-civilisation-collapse

RochdalePioneers said:

StuartDickson said:

Quincel said:

StuartDickson said:

Sturgeon on brink of cooperation deal with Scottish Greens
Exclusive: agreement would cement a pro-independence majority at Holyrood and may give Greens ministerial seats

The formal deal, which will stop short of a full coalition of the kind agreed by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats under David Cameron and Nick Clegg in 2010, would give the Scottish National party and Scottish Greens a clear majority of seats at Holyrood.

It would allow the first minister to present a strong pro-climate agenda in advance of the Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow this November, and outvote anti-independence parties in Holyrood.

It would be the first time after 14 years in power the SNP had signed a formal deal with another party

The deal will present Scottish Labour, currently Holyrood’s third-largest party, with a significant political challenge. It is likely to give Sturgeon a resilient centre-left majority and removes her need to seek deals with Labour to get policies through the devolved parliament.

the Conservatives are taking a softer line on the potential for a fresh independence referendum

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/03/sturgeon-on-brink-cooperation-deal-scottish-greens

Forgive my pedantry, but if there is a formal deal which gives Greens ministerial seats then in what way does it stop short of full coalition?

Very good question, which the article fails to answer.

Any agreement which gives both parties seats in Cabinet, a shared programme of legislation and an agreed Budget is a coalition. End of.

It would be a sensible assumption that the Green Party will get the Environment brief. If they are in government but not in coalition then what? Are the SNP handing the entire environment brief and policy over to the Green Party to run independently?

Either way, Scotland elected 73 explicitly pro-independence MSPs giving a comfortable majority. Despite HYUFD's endless whining that it isn't a majority, it is. I will be greatly entertained to watch nippy bleat on about a referendum without actually producing one, but that is the "settled will of the Scottish people" or whatever the Tories latest phrase is.

Nigelb said:

StuartDickson said:

TimT said:

Now here's a headline you really don't ever want to read:

"Chipmunks near Lake Tahoe test positive for the plague"

Between escalating nuclear stockpiles, a rapidly deteriorating geopolitical climate, indications of Cold War II, a multi-year pandemic, the Greenland ice sheet close to total failure, the Arctic soon history, self-sufficiency being unfashionable, trade friction beginning to hamper food supplies, a population explosion and concomitant annihilation of other species and habitats and astonishingly poor world leaders, one wonders if we’re not about to get an uncomfortably realistic exposition of life in the Middle Ages.

… and now The Plague.

The only thing missing is the asteroid strike or imminent destruction of Japan, California and the Pacific rim by earthquake and associated tsunamis.

I am slightly shocked to learn that the average age of a civilisation is only 336 years!! That’s tiny! And then ponder how long ago The Enlightenment was.

Great civilisations are not murdered. Instead, they take their own lives.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190218-are-we-on-the-road-to-civilisation-collapse

A more pertinent question is whether we'll be recognisably human in a century's time.

rcs1000 said:

On topic: like many, I’m not a massive Harris fan, and think Buttigieg far superior.

But… don’t ignore the massive advantages of the incumbent VP. Should Biden find himself indisposed, she is President. And even if he doesn’t, she is massive favorite to succeed.

Add in the Republicans potentially picking Trump as nominee, and you have the perfect storm for a very poor candidate to end up in the Oval Office.

Scott_xP said:

IshmaelZ said:

GOOOOOLD in womens 470s sailing

The French have protested