Just again on NATO, I'm still a bit befuddled. If any country can join - and if you do join it means America is pledged to defend you if you are attacked - how can this actually be so in practice? Surely America can't find such a deal acceptable. Why would they be happy to defend any old country from attack? Surely they can say, "No, we wouldn't be prepared to spill blood for you so you can't join, sorry." I must be missing something, I think.
It's limited to European and North American countries. And the US, like every existing member, has a veto on new members.
Yeah, I think the 'any country can join' at best should be 'any European country that meets the standards of democracy and freedom can apply' with approval subject to unanimous decision of all existing members.
Specifically, "To join the Alliance, nations are expected to respect the values of the North Atlantic Treaty, and to meet certain political, economic and military criteria, set out in the Alliance’s 1995 Study on Enlargement. These criteria include a functioning democratic political system based on a market economy; fair treatment of minority populations; a commitment to resolve conflicts peacefully; an ability and willingness to make a military contribution to NATO operations; and a commitment to democratic civil-military relations and institutions."
The Conservative vote has been static at around 33/34% for a while now. The Traffic Light Alliance has been correspondingly static at around 55%. There are variations within the TLA however and it is these which explain the fluctuations in Labour's lead.
I'm not expecting much change before the defenestration of the buffoon in No 10. I am currently predicting that soon after the locals in May, but it's Boris so I'm not betting on it.
How about the NI increase becoming a concrete reality? That's due to kick in when people get their April pay, isn't it?
Not sure I see anything shifting the dial much, Stuart, apart from Johnson's long overdue departure. After that I would expect changes to be gradual.
I certainly wouldn't be calling the next election yet.
I would expect a honeymoon for the next Conservative Prime Minister, and a polling boost. After that I suspect normal service would resume and economic factors would become more relevant.
Anecdotally speaking I find those I speak to who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in 2019 (despite what polling suggests) still utterly detest the Labour Party, and the association with Corbyn still looms large.
That supports my view of the situation. There is a solid majority against many of the policies espoused by labour activists and as national policy under Corbyn. Starmer has signalled a retreat but hasn't reassured sufficiently (yet) and may never do so. I suspect that more of BoJo's disgraceful antics and the likely economic problems would swing more votes to Labour. However, Labour are strongly running against the ideological "grain" of the majority at present and are more than capable of losing the next election which an opposition should really be strong favourites to win.
"Ideological grain" is a good term. I'm as sure as needs be that this photo will be memed for the election campaign:
EXCL: Labour ex Attorney General Peter Goldsmith takes 'leave of absence' from House of Lords - to not have to declare how much he earns from foreign government clients, including Russia
Today MPs and peers call for the 'absence' system to be scrapped
I suspect if we had a ledger of Tory politicians and non-Tory politicians working on behalf of the Big Bear, one entry would be comfortably more substantial than the other.
Really? I know I was surprised to find Barry Gardiner had been working for the Chinese. But I'd be surprised to find any Tory or Labour politicians taking the Russian shilling. Even Corbyn - who loses few opportunities to advance Russian interests - I assume does it because he believes the Russians to be in the right rather than because they're paying him. This may sound hopelessly naive.
Yes hopelessly naive, the Americans trying to control Russian money call London Londongrad, and explicitly talk about links to the Conservative party.
This is from the Centre for American Progress, according to Politico the most influential think tank under Bidens administration:
"Establish a standing U.S.-U.K. joint counter-kleptocracy working group. The United States and the United Kingdom should work closely together to counter Russian kleptocrats. The United Kingdom, in particular, has become a major hub for Russian oligarchs and their wealth, with London gaining the moniker “Londongrad.” Uprooting Kremlin-linked oligarchs will be a challenge given the close ties between Russian money and the United Kingdom’s ruling conservative party, the press, and its real estate and financial industry."
EXCL: Labour ex Attorney General Peter Goldsmith takes 'leave of absence' from House of Lords - to not have to declare how much he earns from foreign government clients, including Russia
Today MPs and peers call for the 'absence' system to be scrapped
I suspect if we had a ledger of Tory politicians and non-Tory politicians working on behalf of the Big Bear, one entry would be comfortably more substantial than the other.
I suspect that’s due to the balance of power. If labour were the party of govt it would be different. It’s apolitical. The Augean stables need purging.
An exchange official said only about 25% of euro clearing at LCH is between EU counterparties, meaning coming under Brussels' regulatory purview.
Oh good. We are only losing a quarter of a vast sum.
I was worried there for a minute ....
I thought you'd be disappointed we weren't losing 100%.....
I do not really give a d*mn any longer. "We" voted to be poorer, or some such. I lost. I am sucking it up...
In that case why do you keep gleefully posting things that you think are bad news for the UK (but often aren't)?
Because I am a bad person. Why else?
Not a bad person, just a bad loser.
Possibly. One of the things about being a "loser" in any political argument is the opportunity to see that one was generally right with the passage of time. I have largely "got over" Brexit, and while I "respect (if that is not too strong a word) the result, I still get a bit of amusement (though no pleasure) in noticing that it has been one massive balls up as many of us predicted, with virtually no upside whatsoever. I particularly get amusement from the idea of Jacob Rees Mogg desperately looking for those "opportunities" that don't really exist.
The difference is you are not jumping gleefully on any supposed bit of adverse news to do down the country. That is why you are not a bad loser. Every debate has winners and losers and it is how both the winners and the losers behave after the result that defines them far more than which side they were actually on. You want what is best for the country and just differ on how best to get there. As I read it, if Britain outside of the EU is successful that is more important to you than right or wrong over the question of leaving.
Sadly for some posters that is not the case. Being right is more important than what the actual effect is on their country.
They are the bad losers - and in some cases the bad winners.
People get very exercised about this in particular because, as just about everyone including our blessed MPs understands, "Britain outside the EU" is suffering economically.
As per my post last week the only legitimate reason for wanting the UK to leave the EU is one of sovereignty which, while absolute, and something we always were, was also compromised by our membership of the EU. And that is a wholly understandable view, if a huge minority one.
That any economic or other perhaps more tangible benefit has accrued to the UK outside the EU is fanciful. That is why people who care about their country continue to be upset. We believe that the UK and its population has suffered.
Simply not true. In the biggest ever survey, on this issue, the largest number of Leave voters cited Sovereignty as the main reason for their vote
On the day of the referendum Lord Ashcroft's polling team questioned 12,369 people who had completed voting.[3] This poll produced data that showed that 'Nearly half (49%) of leave voters said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the European Union was "the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK". ("in the UK." meaning: "by the UK." logically implying: "on behalf of 66 million UK citizens not 508 million EU residents.")
In other surveys immigration comes out just ahead of sovereignty, but it is very close
Interestingly, you are a classic example of THIS:
"When asked to rank the reasons why their counterparts voted the way they did, Leave voters characterise Remain voters more accurately than Remain voters characterise Leave voters. In particular, Remain voters underestimate the importance that Leave voters attach to the EU having no role in UK law-making."
We were always sovereign but there were certain things we couldn't do because we had agreed to be part of a bigger grouping. I am not about to get into a discussion about peoples' perception vs reality of our sovereignty but I would guess that people thought the EU did more and we could do less than was the case.
Oh yes of course there was also immigration. I try to avoid pointing that out because Leavers get very defensive about it and compete to tell me how they welcome ever more immigrants.
I see you are still spreading the same old myths Topping.
Once an external government has the power to make new laws over which you have no control and which you cannot veto then you are no longer sovereign. There is no other organisation we are a member of which can do this to us. Now that might be acceptable to you which is your choice but it doesn't change the basic fact that it removes sovereignty - something you apparently don't care much about.
Mate don't take it out on me speak to David Davis. He's your man on the sovereignty spot.
And of course we were sovereign. How could we leave the EU if we weren't?
That's a stupid argument. It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR.
This post is a little silly and coming from you quite surprising. It's exactly the same nonsense that some of the more excitable Scottish nationalists come out with when they claim Scotland is a colony. You're better than this.
Nope read what I wrote rather than what you want it to say. If the mere fact you left a bloc means you were always sovereign - which is the idiotic claim made by Topping - then all those former Eastern bloc countries were always sovereign and so is Scotland right now. A claim which is so obviously ludicrous that I am amazed you can even contemplate it.
Ok, let's leave my NATO analogy (it's not a great one, to be fair).
Instead consider enforcement.
Former USSR country, while part of USSR - most senior politician does something directly against USSR policy or rules, what's the punishment? Prosecution. Imprisonment. Worse, perhaps. UDI? The tanks roll in.
Scottish government does something against UK law, e.g. unauthorised referendum, UDI. Possible prosecution (treason?). Theoretically, the tanks roll in (depends how far up the government HYUFD has got!)
UK government, while in EU, does something against EU law (or, say, refuses to enact EU law into domestic law). Or has a referendum on 'independence' without asking EU for permission. Or declares UDI. Enforcement? EU could take UK to court. UK gets told to behave and/or fined? Enforcement? The absolute worst is getting kicked out or perhaps trade sanctions. The EU has no power to try the UK PM, does it? Civil court case, perhaps, but not criminal. Has a referendum on leaving without permission? We didn't need EU permission. UDI? EU points to A50, but in practice we can just tear up the treaties and exit immediately by repealing EU law.
Edit: I accept there is debate over sovereignty, particularly with QMV, but the UK always had the ability to take its toys home if it really didn't like it (as we indeed did). Scotland and the former USSR states do not/did not have that ability. The situations are different. Whether the UK was sovereign does however depend on where you draw that line, so I'm not really arguing on that, just that the USSR is not a good comparison to the EU.
Again not true - at least as far as Scotland is concerned. We all recognise that Scotland has the right to withdraw from the United Kingdom - indeed there has been a vote on that very subject. And yet no one would reasonably claim that Scotland is currently a sovereign state - which is exactly what Topping is saying by equating the right to leave with Sovereignty.
Basically Topping is talking garbage either through ignorance or dishonesty. A country can regain sovereignty through the act of leaving but that does not mean that country was always sovereign.
The line should be the definition - "the authority of a state to govern itself". As long as a country is part of an organisation that can make laws over which the state has no veto it cannot be claimed to be sovereign.
Without going all HYUFD, Scotland has no right to withdraw from the UK. Legally, that is. I think we all believe and (I would support) that Scotland would be able to withdraw if there was a clear majority for doing so, but the position is that a referendum is at the gift of the UK government, not Scotland's. That's the difference. Scotland does not have sovereignty as its independence is dependent on the will of the larger UK and nor can Scotland's leaders ignore the laws of the UK without serious sanction including, ultimately, their removal as leaders of Scotland (much like events we saw in Spain, for example). That was never the situation for the UK within the EU.
You draw your sovereignty line at QMV. That's fine. I disagree, but I respect your view and I'm not saying you're wrong on that, we just have different definitions of severeignty. There's still a difference between Scotland within the UK and the UK within the EU.
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Today's wordle was the first I genuinely thought I might not get. Stumped after 4. Had only 2 letters in wrong places. Lucky with the Hail Mary guess on 5. Done in 6.
Ah, go to settings and change to Hard Mode for a challenge - it insists you use all hints given at all times. No more fishing…
I found it very difficult today - genuine jeopardy. After five goes I had all the different letters and some slots they couldn't be in - so I could tell it wasn't a word with nice standard letter formation - but it still took me far too long of juggling those letters to find it. Nerdle, on the other hand - after three consecutive 3/6s, my first 2 today.
I start off with the same three words every time (*), and I ignore the results until all three words have been entered. I generally get the word on the fourth or fifth try in a couple of minutes.
Mrs J tries the same first word every time, and then spends scores of minutes with pen and paper thinking through the alternatives of each row. I'm unconvinced her approach is much more successful. My 'method' is probably scorned by many who want to get the magic (and fluke) 2.
(*) Beast, Rhino and Pluck. Covers the vowels and a few common letters, with no repeats.
Today's wordle was the first I genuinely thought I might not get. Stumped after 4. Had only 2 letters in wrong places. Lucky with the Hail Mary guess on 5. Done in 6.
Ah, go to settings and change to Hard Mode for a challenge - it insists you use all hints given at all times. No more fishing…
Done. Now I have to wait until tomorrow to see what that means in practice.
An exchange official said only about 25% of euro clearing at LCH is between EU counterparties, meaning coming under Brussels' regulatory purview.
Oh good. We are only losing a quarter of a vast sum.
I was worried there for a minute ....
I thought you'd be disappointed we weren't losing 100%.....
I do not really give a d*mn any longer. "We" voted to be poorer, or some such. I lost. I am sucking it up...
In that case why do you keep gleefully posting things that you think are bad news for the UK (but often aren't)?
Because I am a bad person. Why else?
Not a bad person, just a bad loser.
Possibly. One of the things about being a "loser" in any political argument is the opportunity to see that one was generally right with the passage of time. I have largely "got over" Brexit, and while I "respect (if that is not too strong a word) the result, I still get a bit of amusement (though no pleasure) in noticing that it has been one massive balls up as many of us predicted, with virtually no upside whatsoever. I particularly get amusement from the idea of Jacob Rees Mogg desperately looking for those "opportunities" that don't really exist.
The difference is you are not jumping gleefully on any supposed bit of adverse news to do down the country. That is why you are not a bad loser. Every debate has winners and losers and it is how both the winners and the losers behave after the result that defines them far more than which side they were actually on. You want what is best for the country and just differ on how best to get there. As I read it, if Britain outside of the EU is successful that is more important to you than right or wrong over the question of leaving.
Sadly for some posters that is not the case. Being right is more important than what the actual effect is on their country.
They are the bad losers - and in some cases the bad winners.
People get very exercised about this in particular because, as just about everyone including our blessed MPs understands, "Britain outside the EU" is suffering economically.
As per my post last week the only legitimate reason for wanting the UK to leave the EU is one of sovereignty which, while absolute, and something we always were, was also compromised by our membership of the EU. And that is a wholly understandable view, if a huge minority one.
That any economic or other perhaps more tangible benefit has accrued to the UK outside the EU is fanciful. That is why people who care about their country continue to be upset. We believe that the UK and its population has suffered.
Simply not true. In the biggest ever survey, on this issue, the largest number of Leave voters cited Sovereignty as the main reason for their vote
On the day of the referendum Lord Ashcroft's polling team questioned 12,369 people who had completed voting.[3] This poll produced data that showed that 'Nearly half (49%) of leave voters said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the European Union was "the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK". ("in the UK." meaning: "by the UK." logically implying: "on behalf of 66 million UK citizens not 508 million EU residents.")
In other surveys immigration comes out just ahead of sovereignty, but it is very close
Interestingly, you are a classic example of THIS:
"When asked to rank the reasons why their counterparts voted the way they did, Leave voters characterise Remain voters more accurately than Remain voters characterise Leave voters. In particular, Remain voters underestimate the importance that Leave voters attach to the EU having no role in UK law-making."
We were always sovereign but there were certain things we couldn't do because we had agreed to be part of a bigger grouping. I am not about to get into a discussion about peoples' perception vs reality of our sovereignty but I would guess that people thought the EU did more and we could do less than was the case.
Oh yes of course there was also immigration. I try to avoid pointing that out because Leavers get very defensive about it and compete to tell me how they welcome ever more immigrants.
I see you are still spreading the same old myths Topping.
Once an external government has the power to make new laws over which you have no control and which you cannot veto then you are no longer sovereign. There is no other organisation we are a member of which can do this to us. Now that might be acceptable to you which is your choice but it doesn't change the basic fact that it removes sovereignty - something you apparently don't care much about.
Mate don't take it out on me speak to David Davis. He's your man on the sovereignty spot.
And of course we were sovereign. How could we leave the EU if we weren't?
That's a stupid argument. It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR.
This post is a little silly and coming from you quite surprising. It's exactly the same nonsense that some of the more excitable Scottish nationalists come out with when they claim Scotland is a colony. You're better than this.
Nope read what I wrote rather than what you want it to say. If the mere fact you left a bloc means you were always sovereign - which is the idiotic claim made by Topping - then all those former Eastern bloc countries were always sovereign and so is Scotland right now. A claim which is so obviously ludicrous that I am amazed you can even contemplate it.
Ok, let's leave my NATO analogy (it's not a great one, to be fair).
Instead consider enforcement.
Former USSR country, while part of USSR - most senior politician does something directly against USSR policy or rules, what's the punishment? Prosecution. Imprisonment. Worse, perhaps. UDI? The tanks roll in.
Scottish government does something against UK law, e.g. unauthorised referendum, UDI. Possible prosecution (treason?). Theoretically, the tanks roll in (depends how far up the government HYUFD has got!)
UK government, while in EU, does something against EU law (or, say, refuses to enact EU law into domestic law). Or has a referendum on 'independence' without asking EU for permission. Or declares UDI. Enforcement? EU could take UK to court. UK gets told to behave and/or fined? Enforcement? The absolute worst is getting kicked out or perhaps trade sanctions. The EU has no power to try the UK PM, does it? Civil court case, perhaps, but not criminal. Has a referendum on leaving without permission? We didn't need EU permission. UDI? EU points to A50, but in practice we can just tear up the treaties and exit immediately by repealing EU law.
Edit: I accept there is debate over sovereignty, particularly with QMV, but the UK always had the ability to take its toys home if it really didn't like it (as we indeed did). Scotland and the former USSR states do not/did not have that ability. The situations are different. Whether the UK was sovereign does however depend on where you draw that line, so I'm not really arguing on that, just that the USSR is not a good comparison to the EU.
Again not true - at least as far as Scotland is concerned. We all recognise that Scotland has the right to withdraw from the United Kingdom - indeed there has been a vote on that very subject. And yet no one would reasonably claim that Scotland is currently a sovereign state - which is exactly what Topping is saying by equating the right to leave with Sovereignty.
Basically Topping is talking garbage either through ignorance or dishonesty. A country can regain sovereignty through the act of leaving but that does not mean that country was always sovereign.
The line should be the definition - "the authority of a state to govern itself". As long as a country is part of an organisation that can make laws over which the state has no veto it cannot be claimed to be sovereign.
Richard you're losing it. Being in the EU was like being a Soviet state. You are making yourself into a laughing stock.
The UK was and is sovereign. Ask David Davis, arch remoaner leaver. He will explain it all to you. I can't promise it will be in words that you can understand but you have slightly jumped the shark with the whole Soviet thing so try to get what you can out of it. Here it is "we were always sovereign". .
The Conservative vote has been static at around 33/34% for a while now. The Traffic Light Alliance has been correspondingly static at around 55%. There are variations within the TLA however and it is these which explain the fluctuations in Labour's lead.
I'm not expecting much change before the defenestration of the buffoon in No 10. I am currently predicting that soon after the locals in May, but it's Boris so I'm not betting on it.
How about the NI increase becoming a concrete reality? That's due to kick in when people get their April pay, isn't it?
Not sure I see anything shifting the dial much, Stuart, apart from Johnson's long overdue departure. After that I would expect changes to be gradual.
I certainly wouldn't be calling the next election yet.
I would expect a honeymoon for the next Conservative Prime Minister, and a polling boost. After that I suspect normal service would resume and economic factors would become more relevant.
Anecdotally speaking I find those I speak to who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in 2019 (despite what polling suggests) still utterly detest the Labour Party, and the association with Corbyn still looms large.
That supports my view of the situation. There is a solid majority against many of the policies espoused by labour activists and as national policy under Corbyn. Starmer has signalled a retreat but hasn't reassured sufficiently (yet) and may never do so. I suspect that more of BoJo's disgraceful antics and the likely economic problems would swing more votes to Labour. However, Labour are strongly running against the ideological "grain" of the majority at present and are more than capable of losing the next election which an opposition should really be strong favourites to win.
"Ideological grain" is a good term. I'm as sure as needs be that this photo will be memed for the election campaign:
I don’t see an issue with that. Guto Harri took a knee on GB News. I’d do it to although getting back up would be an issue.
I doubt it would cost many votes. A well meaning gesture against racism. It’s not supporting the political extremists that want to get rid of the police.
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Is non-compliance not quite tricky when it is optional?
The Conservative vote has been static at around 33/34% for a while now. The Traffic Light Alliance has been correspondingly static at around 55%. There are variations within the TLA however and it is these which explain the fluctuations in Labour's lead.
I'm not expecting much change before the defenestration of the buffoon in No 10. I am currently predicting that soon after the locals in May, but it's Boris so I'm not betting on it.
How about the NI increase becoming a concrete reality? That's due to kick in when people get their April pay, isn't it?
Not sure I see anything shifting the dial much, Stuart, apart from Johnson's long overdue departure. After that I would expect changes to be gradual.
I certainly wouldn't be calling the next election yet.
I would expect a honeymoon for the next Conservative Prime Minister, and a polling boost. After that I suspect normal service would resume and economic factors would become more relevant.
Anecdotally speaking I find those I speak to who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in 2019 (despite what polling suggests) still utterly detest the Labour Party, and the association with Corbyn still looms large.
That supports my view of the situation. There is a solid majority against many of the policies espoused by labour activists and as national policy under Corbyn. Starmer has signalled a retreat but hasn't reassured sufficiently (yet) and may never do so. I suspect that more of BoJo's disgraceful antics and the likely economic problems would swing more votes to Labour. However, Labour are strongly running against the ideological "grain" of the majority at present and are more than capable of losing the next election which an opposition should really be strong favourites to win.
"Ideological grain" is a good term. I'm as sure as needs be that this photo will be memed for the election campaign:
I don’t see an issue with that. Guto Harri took a knee on GB News. I’d do it to although getting back up would be an issue.
I doubt it would cost many votes. A well meaning gesture against racism. It’s not supporting the political extremists that want to get rid of the police.
If it's good enough for Eminem it's good enough for SKS.
The Conservative vote has been static at around 33/34% for a while now. The Traffic Light Alliance has been correspondingly static at around 55%. There are variations within the TLA however and it is these which explain the fluctuations in Labour's lead.
I'm not expecting much change before the defenestration of the buffoon in No 10. I am currently predicting that soon after the locals in May, but it's Boris so I'm not betting on it.
How about the NI increase becoming a concrete reality? That's due to kick in when people get their April pay, isn't it?
Not sure I see anything shifting the dial much, Stuart, apart from Johnson's long overdue departure. After that I would expect changes to be gradual.
I certainly wouldn't be calling the next election yet.
I would expect a honeymoon for the next Conservative Prime Minister, and a polling boost. After that I suspect normal service would resume and economic factors would become more relevant.
Anecdotally speaking I find those I speak to who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in 2019 (despite what polling suggests) still utterly detest the Labour Party, and the association with Corbyn still looms large.
That supports my view of the situation. There is a solid majority against many of the policies espoused by labour activists and as national policy under Corbyn. Starmer has signalled a retreat but hasn't reassured sufficiently (yet) and may never do so. I suspect that more of BoJo's disgraceful antics and the likely economic problems would swing more votes to Labour. However, Labour are strongly running against the ideological "grain" of the majority at present and are more than capable of losing the next election which an opposition should really be strong favourites to win.
"Ideological grain" is a good term. I'm as sure as needs be that this photo will be memed for the election campaign:
He has a point that Johnson's policy decision seemed to be about nothing more than saving his skin and blindsided all established authorities. Will also seems keen to get back to normal. 'Like most I relish life opening up.' Or does he?
'while the new normal could never be the normal of pre-pandemic, it was still normal enough..... This dream is where the vast majority would love us to be. Personally, I delight in the escalating return to normality – dinners, lunches with colleagues, getting out and about much more freely – but I am watchful. On buses, trains and tubes, I take care to wear a mask and make sure, if I can, that I sit with others wearing them. I willingly wear a mask in shops, cinema, theatre or going around galleries. I keep my social distance. I enjoy the possibilities of Zoom, a working life organised around online slots, but saving time on travelling. If asked to take a lateral flow test before a large gathering, I happily comply. I live a life as normally as possible – but remain vigilant about the danger of contracting Covid. It’s how I expect to continue.'
Now he isn't clear if ontinue means indefinite future and it isn't clear whether he sees restrictions applying to men in their 70s like him or if we should all be doing this for ever and eternity. I wonder how Will would have felt in his youth if he had to comply with these impositions on a permanent basis? Over Christmas I was with with my brother and sister in law who have three young children. They aren't overly political people but like many are sick to death of covid. They worry about the impact on their children who've obviously been negatively affected by the pandemic. They were angry at the way those in authority seemed desperate to deny omicron was milder than delta in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
A few days ago I went to see a friend and his partner, both in their early 30s with no kids. I was quite taken aback that my friend had decided against travelling to London due to covid and had been urging his (70ish) mother to only go out once a week, citing no higher authority than Chris Whitty for his concern. His partner's 92 year old grandmother is also part of their close circle and the idea of passing covid on to her horrifies him.
I do get that. But what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives as semi hermits at the behest of the very old and clinically vulnerable? It isn't entirely obvious that would be a very healthy strategy either. Getting infected with a mild variant of covid might help protect you against a nastier one that comes along later. People's general immunity could be weakening significantly.
When the mask mandate gets dropped I suspect we will see rather a lot of people continuing to wear then in certain circumstances - 2 years gets you used to things.
The mask debate has become so polarised but I think they should still be worn indoors because not to do so puts others at risk at harm. I have avoided covid so far and would really rather not catch it. I know it will damage me mentally and I am wary of the longterm effects of covid. I will continue to wear a mask for the foreseeable and I know many others who do.
Life will not return to how it was for a long time. In some parts of the world it will not do so in our lifetimes and 50 years from now the children of today will still be scarred by the experience.
Some good has come from this pandemic: a recalibration of life's priorities and the marvel of realising that commuting is a stupid way to live the only life you have. Work from home as much as you can and reconnect with nature and the green planet.
The only place I've been to recently where people were still wearing masks was the blood donating centre.
Sadly my place of work (the Uni) still 'strongly recommends' them in public areas, such as when moving round corridors etc. I think this has come from above (so advice from DFE) and I'm not convinced it will change when all the restrictions go. After all, its only a recommendation currently.
High mask compliance in Sainsbury's and the fish and chip shop earlier today.
Is non-compliance not quite tricky when it is optional?
I'll tell you what was odd, though subject to small-sample bias, is there did not seem to be many people using the free anti-plague spray to wipe down their trolleys before use. I always do but more to protect from colds than covid.
The Conservative vote has been static at around 33/34% for a while now. The Traffic Light Alliance has been correspondingly static at around 55%. There are variations within the TLA however and it is these which explain the fluctuations in Labour's lead.
I'm not expecting much change before the defenestration of the buffoon in No 10. I am currently predicting that soon after the locals in May, but it's Boris so I'm not betting on it.
How about the NI increase becoming a concrete reality? That's due to kick in when people get their April pay, isn't it?
Not sure I see anything shifting the dial much, Stuart, apart from Johnson's long overdue departure. After that I would expect changes to be gradual.
I certainly wouldn't be calling the next election yet.
I would expect a honeymoon for the next Conservative Prime Minister, and a polling boost. After that I suspect normal service would resume and economic factors would become more relevant.
Anecdotally speaking I find those I speak to who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in 2019 (despite what polling suggests) still utterly detest the Labour Party, and the association with Corbyn still looms large.
That supports my view of the situation. There is a solid majority against many of the policies espoused by labour activists and as national policy under Corbyn. Starmer has signalled a retreat but hasn't reassured sufficiently (yet) and may never do so. I suspect that more of BoJo's disgraceful antics and the likely economic problems would swing more votes to Labour. However, Labour are strongly running against the ideological "grain" of the majority at present and are more than capable of losing the next election which an opposition should really be strong favourites to win.
"Ideological grain" is a good term. I'm as sure as needs be that this photo will be memed for the election campaign:
I don’t see an issue with that. Guto Harri took a knee on GB News. I’d do it to although getting back up would be an issue.
I doubt it would cost many votes. A well meaning gesture against racism. It’s not supporting the political extremists that want to get rid of the police.
An exchange official said only about 25% of euro clearing at LCH is between EU counterparties, meaning coming under Brussels' regulatory purview.
Oh good. We are only losing a quarter of a vast sum.
I was worried there for a minute ....
I thought you'd be disappointed we weren't losing 100%.....
I do not really give a d*mn any longer. "We" voted to be poorer, or some such. I lost. I am sucking it up...
In that case why do you keep gleefully posting things that you think are bad news for the UK (but often aren't)?
Because I am a bad person. Why else?
Not a bad person, just a bad loser.
Possibly. One of the things about being a "loser" in any political argument is the opportunity to see that one was generally right with the passage of time. I have largely "got over" Brexit, and while I "respect (if that is not too strong a word) the result, I still get a bit of amusement (though no pleasure) in noticing that it has been one massive balls up as many of us predicted, with virtually no upside whatsoever. I particularly get amusement from the idea of Jacob Rees Mogg desperately looking for those "opportunities" that don't really exist.
The difference is you are not jumping gleefully on any supposed bit of adverse news to do down the country. That is why you are not a bad loser. Every debate has winners and losers and it is how both the winners and the losers behave after the result that defines them far more than which side they were actually on. You want what is best for the country and just differ on how best to get there. As I read it, if Britain outside of the EU is successful that is more important to you than right or wrong over the question of leaving.
Sadly for some posters that is not the case. Being right is more important than what the actual effect is on their country.
They are the bad losers - and in some cases the bad winners.
People get very exercised about this in particular because, as just about everyone including our blessed MPs understands, "Britain outside the EU" is suffering economically.
As per my post last week the only legitimate reason for wanting the UK to leave the EU is one of sovereignty which, while absolute, and something we always were, was also compromised by our membership of the EU. And that is a wholly understandable view, if a huge minority one.
That any economic or other perhaps more tangible benefit has accrued to the UK outside the EU is fanciful. That is why people who care about their country continue to be upset. We believe that the UK and its population has suffered.
Simply not true. In the biggest ever survey, on this issue, the largest number of Leave voters cited Sovereignty as the main reason for their vote
On the day of the referendum Lord Ashcroft's polling team questioned 12,369 people who had completed voting.[3] This poll produced data that showed that 'Nearly half (49%) of leave voters said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the European Union was "the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK". ("in the UK." meaning: "by the UK." logically implying: "on behalf of 66 million UK citizens not 508 million EU residents.")
In other surveys immigration comes out just ahead of sovereignty, but it is very close
Interestingly, you are a classic example of THIS:
"When asked to rank the reasons why their counterparts voted the way they did, Leave voters characterise Remain voters more accurately than Remain voters characterise Leave voters. In particular, Remain voters underestimate the importance that Leave voters attach to the EU having no role in UK law-making."
We were always sovereign but there were certain things we couldn't do because we had agreed to be part of a bigger grouping. I am not about to get into a discussion about peoples' perception vs reality of our sovereignty but I would guess that people thought the EU did more and we could do less than was the case.
Oh yes of course there was also immigration. I try to avoid pointing that out because Leavers get very defensive about it and compete to tell me how they welcome ever more immigrants.
I see you are still spreading the same old myths Topping.
Once an external government has the power to make new laws over which you have no control and which you cannot veto then you are no longer sovereign. There is no other organisation we are a member of which can do this to us. Now that might be acceptable to you which is your choice but it doesn't change the basic fact that it removes sovereignty - something you apparently don't care much about.
Mate don't take it out on me speak to David Davis. He's your man on the sovereignty spot.
And of course we were sovereign. How could we leave the EU if we weren't?
That's a stupid argument. It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR.
This post is a little silly and coming from you quite surprising. It's exactly the same nonsense that some of the more excitable Scottish nationalists come out with when they claim Scotland is a colony. You're better than this.
Nope read what I wrote rather than what you want it to say. If the mere fact you left a bloc means you were always sovereign - which is the idiotic claim made by Topping - then all those former Eastern bloc countries were always sovereign and so is Scotland right now. A claim which is so obviously ludicrous that I am amazed you can even contemplate it.
Ok, let's leave my NATO analogy (it's not a great one, to be fair).
Instead consider enforcement.
Former USSR country, while part of USSR - most senior politician does something directly against USSR policy or rules, what's the punishment? Prosecution. Imprisonment. Worse, perhaps. UDI? The tanks roll in.
Scottish government does something against UK law, e.g. unauthorised referendum, UDI. Possible prosecution (treason?). Theoretically, the tanks roll in (depends how far up the government HYUFD has got!)
UK government, while in EU, does something against EU law (or, say, refuses to enact EU law into domestic law). Or has a referendum on 'independence' without asking EU for permission. Or declares UDI. Enforcement? EU could take UK to court. UK gets told to behave and/or fined? Enforcement? The absolute worst is getting kicked out or perhaps trade sanctions. The EU has no power to try the UK PM, does it? Civil court case, perhaps, but not criminal. Has a referendum on leaving without permission? We didn't need EU permission. UDI? EU points to A50, but in practice we can just tear up the treaties and exit immediately by repealing EU law.
Edit: I accept there is debate over sovereignty, particularly with QMV, but the UK always had the ability to take its toys home if it really didn't like it (as we indeed did). Scotland and the former USSR states do not/did not have that ability. The situations are different. Whether the UK was sovereign does however depend on where you draw that line, so I'm not really arguing on that, just that the USSR is not a good comparison to the EU.
Again not true - at least as far as Scotland is concerned. We all recognise that Scotland has the right to withdraw from the United Kingdom - indeed there has been a vote on that very subject. And yet no one would reasonably claim that Scotland is currently a sovereign state - which is exactly what Topping is saying by equating the right to leave with Sovereignty.
Basically Topping is talking garbage either through ignorance or dishonesty. A country can regain sovereignty through the act of leaving but that does not mean that country was always sovereign.
The line should be the definition - "the authority of a state to govern itself". As long as a country is part of an organisation that can make laws over which the state has no veto it cannot be claimed to be sovereign.
Richard you're losing it. Being in the EU was like being a Soviet state. You are making yourself into a laughing stock.
The UK was and is sovereign. Ask David Davis, arch remoaner leaver. He will explain it all to you. I can't promise it will be in words that you can understand but you have slightly jumped the shark with the whole Soviet thing so try to get what you can out of it. Here it is "we were always sovereign". .
There is nothing that will ever be illumanated by David Davis.
Today's wordle was the first I genuinely thought I might not get. Stumped after 4. Had only 2 letters in wrong places. Lucky with the Hail Mary guess on 5. Done in 6.
Ah, go to settings and change to Hard Mode for a challenge - it insists you use all hints given at all times. No more fishing…
Done. Now I have to wait until tomorrow to see what that means in practice.
Generally good fun. However, you can get into a situation where the only guess possible is the right answer, which can take some of the play out of it.
Today's wordle was the first I genuinely thought I might not get. Stumped after 4. Had only 2 letters in wrong places. Lucky with the Hail Mary guess on 5. Done in 6.
Ah, go to settings and change to Hard Mode for a challenge - it insists you use all hints given at all times. No more fishing…
I found it very difficult today - genuine jeopardy. After five goes I had all the different letters and some slots they couldn't be in - so I could tell it wasn't a word with nice standard letter formation - but it still took me far too long of juggling those letters to find it. Nerdle, on the other hand - after three consecutive 3/6s, my first 2 today.
I start off with the same three words every time (*), and I ignore the results until all three words have been entered. I generally get the word on the fourth or fifth try in a couple of minutes.
Mrs J tries the same first word every time, and then spends scores of minutes with pen and paper thinking through the alternatives of each row. I'm unconvinced her approach is much more successful. My 'method' is probably scorned by many who want to get the magic (and fluke) 2.
(*) Beast, Rhino and Pluck. Covers the vowels and a few common letters, with no repeats.
Surely an obvious improvement is to have a clock on it, and a score that is a function of time and number of guesses used (and a deduction for entering words not in their dictionary).
The Conservative vote has been static at around 33/34% for a while now. The Traffic Light Alliance has been correspondingly static at around 55%. There are variations within the TLA however and it is these which explain the fluctuations in Labour's lead.
I'm not expecting much change before the defenestration of the buffoon in No 10. I am currently predicting that soon after the locals in May, but it's Boris so I'm not betting on it.
How about the NI increase becoming a concrete reality? That's due to kick in when people get their April pay, isn't it?
Not sure I see anything shifting the dial much, Stuart, apart from Johnson's long overdue departure. After that I would expect changes to be gradual.
I certainly wouldn't be calling the next election yet.
I would expect a honeymoon for the next Conservative Prime Minister, and a polling boost. After that I suspect normal service would resume and economic factors would become more relevant.
Anecdotally speaking I find those I speak to who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in 2019 (despite what polling suggests) still utterly detest the Labour Party, and the association with Corbyn still looms large.
That supports my view of the situation. There is a solid majority against many of the policies espoused by labour activists and as national policy under Corbyn. Starmer has signalled a retreat but hasn't reassured sufficiently (yet) and may never do so. I suspect that more of BoJo's disgraceful antics and the likely economic problems would swing more votes to Labour. However, Labour are strongly running against the ideological "grain" of the majority at present and are more than capable of losing the next election which an opposition should really be strong favourites to win.
"Ideological grain" is a good term. I'm as sure as needs be that this photo will be memed for the election campaign:
If Starmer's opponents think such a dog whistle will have any effect, they will surely be disappointed. Rather than by manufactured wokery voters are more likely to be triggered by fuel and energy prices, inflation and interest rates. The Conservatives would be best advised to get those things right. If they need to adopt your tactic, they are losing.
The Conservative vote has been static at around 33/34% for a while now. The Traffic Light Alliance has been correspondingly static at around 55%. There are variations within the TLA however and it is these which explain the fluctuations in Labour's lead.
I'm not expecting much change before the defenestration of the buffoon in No 10. I am currently predicting that soon after the locals in May, but it's Boris so I'm not betting on it.
How about the NI increase becoming a concrete reality? That's due to kick in when people get their April pay, isn't it?
Not sure I see anything shifting the dial much, Stuart, apart from Johnson's long overdue departure. After that I would expect changes to be gradual.
I certainly wouldn't be calling the next election yet.
I would expect a honeymoon for the next Conservative Prime Minister, and a polling boost. After that I suspect normal service would resume and economic factors would become more relevant.
Anecdotally speaking I find those I speak to who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in 2019 (despite what polling suggests) still utterly detest the Labour Party, and the association with Corbyn still looms large.
That supports my view of the situation. There is a solid majority against many of the policies espoused by labour activists and as national policy under Corbyn. Starmer has signalled a retreat but hasn't reassured sufficiently (yet) and may never do so. I suspect that more of BoJo's disgraceful antics and the likely economic problems would swing more votes to Labour. However, Labour are strongly running against the ideological "grain" of the majority at present and are more than capable of losing the next election which an opposition should really be strong favourites to win.
"Ideological grain" is a good term. I'm as sure as needs be that this photo will be memed for the election campaign:
An exchange official said only about 25% of euro clearing at LCH is between EU counterparties, meaning coming under Brussels' regulatory purview.
Oh good. We are only losing a quarter of a vast sum.
I was worried there for a minute ....
I thought you'd be disappointed we weren't losing 100%.....
I do not really give a d*mn any longer. "We" voted to be poorer, or some such. I lost. I am sucking it up...
In that case why do you keep gleefully posting things that you think are bad news for the UK (but often aren't)?
Because I am a bad person. Why else?
Not a bad person, just a bad loser.
Possibly. One of the things about being a "loser" in any political argument is the opportunity to see that one was generally right with the passage of time. I have largely "got over" Brexit, and while I "respect (if that is not too strong a word) the result, I still get a bit of amusement (though no pleasure) in noticing that it has been one massive balls up as many of us predicted, with virtually no upside whatsoever. I particularly get amusement from the idea of Jacob Rees Mogg desperately looking for those "opportunities" that don't really exist.
The difference is you are not jumping gleefully on any supposed bit of adverse news to do down the country. That is why you are not a bad loser. Every debate has winners and losers and it is how both the winners and the losers behave after the result that defines them far more than which side they were actually on. You want what is best for the country and just differ on how best to get there. As I read it, if Britain outside of the EU is successful that is more important to you than right or wrong over the question of leaving.
Sadly for some posters that is not the case. Being right is more important than what the actual effect is on their country.
They are the bad losers - and in some cases the bad winners.
People get very exercised about this in particular because, as just about everyone including our blessed MPs understands, "Britain outside the EU" is suffering economically.
As per my post last week the only legitimate reason for wanting the UK to leave the EU is one of sovereignty which, while absolute, and something we always were, was also compromised by our membership of the EU. And that is a wholly understandable view, if a huge minority one.
That any economic or other perhaps more tangible benefit has accrued to the UK outside the EU is fanciful. That is why people who care about their country continue to be upset. We believe that the UK and its population has suffered.
Simply not true. In the biggest ever survey, on this issue, the largest number of Leave voters cited Sovereignty as the main reason for their vote
On the day of the referendum Lord Ashcroft's polling team questioned 12,369 people who had completed voting.[3] This poll produced data that showed that 'Nearly half (49%) of leave voters said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the European Union was "the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK". ("in the UK." meaning: "by the UK." logically implying: "on behalf of 66 million UK citizens not 508 million EU residents.")
In other surveys immigration comes out just ahead of sovereignty, but it is very close
Interestingly, you are a classic example of THIS:
"When asked to rank the reasons why their counterparts voted the way they did, Leave voters characterise Remain voters more accurately than Remain voters characterise Leave voters. In particular, Remain voters underestimate the importance that Leave voters attach to the EU having no role in UK law-making."
We were always sovereign but there were certain things we couldn't do because we had agreed to be part of a bigger grouping. I am not about to get into a discussion about peoples' perception vs reality of our sovereignty but I would guess that people thought the EU did more and we could do less than was the case.
Oh yes of course there was also immigration. I try to avoid pointing that out because Leavers get very defensive about it and compete to tell me how they welcome ever more immigrants.
I see you are still spreading the same old myths Topping.
Once an external government has the power to make new laws over which you have no control and which you cannot veto then you are no longer sovereign. There is no other organisation we are a member of which can do this to us. Now that might be acceptable to you which is your choice but it doesn't change the basic fact that it removes sovereignty - something you apparently don't care much about.
Mate don't take it out on me speak to David Davis. He's your man on the sovereignty spot.
And of course we were sovereign. How could we leave the EU if we weren't?
That's a stupid argument. It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR.
This post is a little silly and coming from you quite surprising. It's exactly the same nonsense that some of the more excitable Scottish nationalists come out with when they claim Scotland is a colony. You're better than this.
Nope read what I wrote rather than what you want it to say. If the mere fact you left a bloc means you were always sovereign - which is the idiotic claim made by Topping - then all those former Eastern bloc countries were always sovereign and so is Scotland right now. A claim which is so obviously ludicrous that I am amazed you can even contemplate it.
Ok, let's leave my NATO analogy (it's not a great one, to be fair).
Instead consider enforcement.
Former USSR country, while part of USSR - most senior politician does something directly against USSR policy or rules, what's the punishment? Prosecution. Imprisonment. Worse, perhaps. UDI? The tanks roll in.
Scottish government does something against UK law, e.g. unauthorised referendum, UDI. Possible prosecution (treason?). Theoretically, the tanks roll in (depends how far up the government HYUFD has got!)
UK government, while in EU, does something against EU law (or, say, refuses to enact EU law into domestic law). Or has a referendum on 'independence' without asking EU for permission. Or declares UDI. Enforcement? EU could take UK to court. UK gets told to behave and/or fined? Enforcement? The absolute worst is getting kicked out or perhaps trade sanctions. The EU has no power to try the UK PM, does it? Civil court case, perhaps, but not criminal. Has a referendum on leaving without permission? We didn't need EU permission. UDI? EU points to A50, but in practice we can just tear up the treaties and exit immediately by repealing EU law.
Edit: I accept there is debate over sovereignty, particularly with QMV, but the UK always had the ability to take its toys home if it really didn't like it (as we indeed did). Scotland and the former USSR states do not/did not have that ability. The situations are different. Whether the UK was sovereign does however depend on where you draw that line, so I'm not really arguing on that, just that the USSR is not a good comparison to the EU.
Again not true - at least as far as Scotland is concerned. We all recognise that Scotland has the right to withdraw from the United Kingdom - indeed there has been a vote on that very subject. And yet no one would reasonably claim that Scotland is currently a sovereign state - which is exactly what Topping is saying by equating the right to leave with Sovereignty.
Basically Topping is talking garbage either through ignorance or dishonesty. A country can regain sovereignty through the act of leaving but that does not mean that country was always sovereign.
The line should be the definition - "the authority of a state to govern itself". As long as a country is part of an organisation that can make laws over which the state has no veto it cannot be claimed to be sovereign.
Richard you're losing it. Being in the EU was like being a Soviet state. You are making yourself into a laughing stock.
The UK was and is sovereign. Ask David Davis, arch remoaner leaver. He will explain it all to you. I can't promise it will be in words that you can understand but you have slightly jumped the shark with the whole Soviet thing so try to get what you can out of it. Here it is "we were always sovereign". .
There is nothing that will ever be illumanated by David Davis.
Not wrong. But in his limited capacity as a leading leaver you would have thought he would be aware of the whys and wherefores around the UK's sovereignty status.
The Conservative vote has been static at around 33/34% for a while now. The Traffic Light Alliance has been correspondingly static at around 55%. There are variations within the TLA however and it is these which explain the fluctuations in Labour's lead.
I'm not expecting much change before the defenestration of the buffoon in No 10. I am currently predicting that soon after the locals in May, but it's Boris so I'm not betting on it.
How about the NI increase becoming a concrete reality? That's due to kick in when people get their April pay, isn't it?
Not sure I see anything shifting the dial much, Stuart, apart from Johnson's long overdue departure. After that I would expect changes to be gradual.
I certainly wouldn't be calling the next election yet.
I would expect a honeymoon for the next Conservative Prime Minister, and a polling boost. After that I suspect normal service would resume and economic factors would become more relevant.
Anecdotally speaking I find those I speak to who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in 2019 (despite what polling suggests) still utterly detest the Labour Party, and the association with Corbyn still looms large.
That supports my view of the situation. There is a solid majority against many of the policies espoused by labour activists and as national policy under Corbyn. Starmer has signalled a retreat but hasn't reassured sufficiently (yet) and may never do so. I suspect that more of BoJo's disgraceful antics and the likely economic problems would swing more votes to Labour. However, Labour are strongly running against the ideological "grain" of the majority at present and are more than capable of losing the next election which an opposition should really be strong favourites to win.
I suspect economic hardship, should it take effect might focus minds.
An exchange official said only about 25% of euro clearing at LCH is between EU counterparties, meaning coming under Brussels' regulatory purview.
Oh good. We are only losing a quarter of a vast sum.
I was worried there for a minute ....
I thought you'd be disappointed we weren't losing 100%.....
I do not really give a d*mn any longer. "We" voted to be poorer, or some such. I lost. I am sucking it up...
In that case why do you keep gleefully posting things that you think are bad news for the UK (but often aren't)?
Because I am a bad person. Why else?
Not a bad person, just a bad loser.
Possibly. One of the things about being a "loser" in any political argument is the opportunity to see that one was generally right with the passage of time. I have largely "got over" Brexit, and while I "respect (if that is not too strong a word) the result, I still get a bit of amusement (though no pleasure) in noticing that it has been one massive balls up as many of us predicted, with virtually no upside whatsoever. I particularly get amusement from the idea of Jacob Rees Mogg desperately looking for those "opportunities" that don't really exist.
The difference is you are not jumping gleefully on any supposed bit of adverse news to do down the country. That is why you are not a bad loser. Every debate has winners and losers and it is how both the winners and the losers behave after the result that defines them far more than which side they were actually on. You want what is best for the country and just differ on how best to get there. As I read it, if Britain outside of the EU is successful that is more important to you than right or wrong over the question of leaving.
Sadly for some posters that is not the case. Being right is more important than what the actual effect is on their country.
They are the bad losers - and in some cases the bad winners.
People get very exercised about this in particular because, as just about everyone including our blessed MPs understands, "Britain outside the EU" is suffering economically.
As per my post last week the only legitimate reason for wanting the UK to leave the EU is one of sovereignty which, while absolute, and something we always were, was also compromised by our membership of the EU. And that is a wholly understandable view, if a huge minority one.
That any economic or other perhaps more tangible benefit has accrued to the UK outside the EU is fanciful. That is why people who care about their country continue to be upset. We believe that the UK and its population has suffered.
Simply not true. In the biggest ever survey, on this issue, the largest number of Leave voters cited Sovereignty as the main reason for their vote
On the day of the referendum Lord Ashcroft's polling team questioned 12,369 people who had completed voting.[3] This poll produced data that showed that 'Nearly half (49%) of leave voters said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the European Union was "the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK". ("in the UK." meaning: "by the UK." logically implying: "on behalf of 66 million UK citizens not 508 million EU residents.")
In other surveys immigration comes out just ahead of sovereignty, but it is very close
Interestingly, you are a classic example of THIS:
"When asked to rank the reasons why their counterparts voted the way they did, Leave voters characterise Remain voters more accurately than Remain voters characterise Leave voters. In particular, Remain voters underestimate the importance that Leave voters attach to the EU having no role in UK law-making."
We were always sovereign but there were certain things we couldn't do because we had agreed to be part of a bigger grouping. I am not about to get into a discussion about peoples' perception vs reality of our sovereignty but I would guess that people thought the EU did more and we could do less than was the case.
Oh yes of course there was also immigration. I try to avoid pointing that out because Leavers get very defensive about it and compete to tell me how they welcome ever more immigrants.
I see you are still spreading the same old myths Topping.
Once an external government has the power to make new laws over which you have no control and which you cannot veto then you are no longer sovereign. There is no other organisation we are a member of which can do this to us. Now that might be acceptable to you which is your choice but it doesn't change the basic fact that it removes sovereignty - something you apparently don't care much about.
Mate don't take it out on me speak to David Davis. He's your man on the sovereignty spot.
And of course we were sovereign. How could we leave the EU if we weren't?
That's a stupid argument. It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR.
This post is a little silly and coming from you quite surprising. It's exactly the same nonsense that some of the more excitable Scottish nationalists come out with when they claim Scotland is a colony. You're better than this.
Nope read what I wrote rather than what you want it to say. If the mere fact you left a bloc means you were always sovereign - which is the idiotic claim made by Topping - then all those former Eastern bloc countries were always sovereign and so is Scotland right now. A claim which is so obviously ludicrous that I am amazed you can even contemplate it.
Ok, let's leave my NATO analogy (it's not a great one, to be fair).
Instead consider enforcement.
Former USSR country, while part of USSR - most senior politician does something directly against USSR policy or rules, what's the punishment? Prosecution. Imprisonment. Worse, perhaps. UDI? The tanks roll in.
Scottish government does something against UK law, e.g. unauthorised referendum, UDI. Possible prosecution (treason?). Theoretically, the tanks roll in (depends how far up the government HYUFD has got!)
UK government, while in EU, does something against EU law (or, say, refuses to enact EU law into domestic law). Or has a referendum on 'independence' without asking EU for permission. Or declares UDI. Enforcement? EU could take UK to court. UK gets told to behave and/or fined? Enforcement? The absolute worst is getting kicked out or perhaps trade sanctions. The EU has no power to try the UK PM, does it? Civil court case, perhaps, but not criminal. Has a referendum on leaving without permission? We didn't need EU permission. UDI? EU points to A50, but in practice we can just tear up the treaties and exit immediately by repealing EU law.
Edit: I accept there is debate over sovereignty, particularly with QMV, but the UK always had the ability to take its toys home if it really didn't like it (as we indeed did). Scotland and the former USSR states do not/did not have that ability. The situations are different. Whether the UK was sovereign does however depend on where you draw that line, so I'm not really arguing on that, just that the USSR is not a good comparison to the EU.
Again not true - at least as far as Scotland is concerned. We all recognise that Scotland has the right to withdraw from the United Kingdom - indeed there has been a vote on that very subject. And yet no one would reasonably claim that Scotland is currently a sovereign state - which is exactly what Topping is saying by equating the right to leave with Sovereignty.
Basically Topping is talking garbage either through ignorance or dishonesty. A country can regain sovereignty through the act of leaving but that does not mean that country was always sovereign.
The line should be the definition - "the authority of a state to govern itself". As long as a country is part of an organisation that can make laws over which the state has no veto it cannot be claimed to be sovereign.
Richard you're losing it. Being in the EU was like being a Soviet state. You are making yourself into a laughing stock.
The UK was and is sovereign. Ask David Davis, arch remoaner leaver. He will explain it all to you. I can't promise it will be in words that you can understand but you have slightly jumped the shark with the whole Soviet thing so try to get what you can out of it. Here it is "we were always sovereign". .
There is nothing that will ever be illumanated by David Davis.
Not wrong. But in his limited capacity as a leading leaver you would have thought he would be aware of the whys and wherefores around the UK's sovereignty status.
He should be, but I doubt it. His main feature is laziness. He can be very good indeed if the facts fall in to his lap, but very poor overall.
- Cases falling. R is falling. Overall UK R is 0.8 - Hospital admissions down. R solidly below 1 - MV beds down - In hospital down. - Deaths down. The fall is accelerating, if anything.
The Conservative vote has been static at around 33/34% for a while now. The Traffic Light Alliance has been correspondingly static at around 55%. There are variations within the TLA however and it is these which explain the fluctuations in Labour's lead.
I'm not expecting much change before the defenestration of the buffoon in No 10. I am currently predicting that soon after the locals in May, but it's Boris so I'm not betting on it.
How about the NI increase becoming a concrete reality? That's due to kick in when people get their April pay, isn't it?
Not sure I see anything shifting the dial much, Stuart, apart from Johnson's long overdue departure. After that I would expect changes to be gradual.
I certainly wouldn't be calling the next election yet.
I would expect a honeymoon for the next Conservative Prime Minister, and a polling boost. After that I suspect normal service would resume and economic factors would become more relevant.
Anecdotally speaking I find those I speak to who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in 2019 (despite what polling suggests) still utterly detest the Labour Party, and the association with Corbyn still looms large.
That supports my view of the situation. There is a solid majority against many of the policies espoused by labour activists and as national policy under Corbyn. Starmer has signalled a retreat but hasn't reassured sufficiently (yet) and may never do so. I suspect that more of BoJo's disgraceful antics and the likely economic problems would swing more votes to Labour. However, Labour are strongly running against the ideological "grain" of the majority at present and are more than capable of losing the next election which an opposition should really be strong favourites to win.
"Ideological grain" is a good term. I'm as sure as needs be that this photo will be memed for the election campaign:
If Starmer's opponents think such a dog whistle will have any effect, they will surely be disappointed. Rather than by manufactured wokery voters are more likely to be triggered by fuel and energy prices, inflation and interest rates. The Conservatives would be best advised to get those things right. If they need to adopt your tactic, they are losing.
I'm not predicting it will be officially part of the Tory campaign.
Couldn't Boris Johnson at least pretended he disapproves of death threats against the Leader of the Opposition?
The only day he has been close to losing his job was when he tried to do the apology interview. He is hopeless at it and it takes away several of the key USPs of his "Boris" persona. His electoral chances improve if he does not give a shit about whatever he does wrong, hence that is what we will get from now on.
His judgment is Tory MPs will not have the character to act against him for it, and that the public may forgive him by 2024. He is probably right on the former and quite possibly on the latter as well.
Today's wordle was the first I genuinely thought I might not get. Stumped after 4. Had only 2 letters in wrong places. Lucky with the Hail Mary guess on 5. Done in 6.
Ah, go to settings and change to Hard Mode for a challenge - it insists you use all hints given at all times. No more fishing…
I found it very difficult today - genuine jeopardy. After five goes I had all the different letters and some slots they couldn't be in - so I could tell it wasn't a word with nice standard letter formation - but it still took me far too long of juggling those letters to find it. Nerdle, on the other hand - after three consecutive 3/6s, my first 2 today.
I start off with the same three words every time (*), and I ignore the results until all three words have been entered. I generally get the word on the fourth or fifth try in a couple of minutes.
Mrs J tries the same first word every time, and then spends scores of minutes with pen and paper thinking through the alternatives of each row. I'm unconvinced her approach is much more successful. My 'method' is probably scorned by many who want to get the magic (and fluke) 2.
(*) Beast, Rhino and Pluck. Covers the vowels and a few common letters, with no repeats.
Two words for me: Louis and Teary. Covers all the vowels and Y, and the very common consonants L, S, R and T, with no repeat letters. I think it's good to cover Y, for words like tryst.
With this system, I got today's in 4, but on reflection should have got it in 3.
The Conservative vote has been static at around 33/34% for a while now. The Traffic Light Alliance has been correspondingly static at around 55%. There are variations within the TLA however and it is these which explain the fluctuations in Labour's lead.
I'm not expecting much change before the defenestration of the buffoon in No 10. I am currently predicting that soon after the locals in May, but it's Boris so I'm not betting on it.
How about the NI increase becoming a concrete reality? That's due to kick in when people get their April pay, isn't it?
Not sure I see anything shifting the dial much, Stuart, apart from Johnson's long overdue departure. After that I would expect changes to be gradual.
I certainly wouldn't be calling the next election yet.
I would expect a honeymoon for the next Conservative Prime Minister, and a polling boost. After that I suspect normal service would resume and economic factors would become more relevant.
Anecdotally speaking I find those I speak to who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in 2019 (despite what polling suggests) still utterly detest the Labour Party, and the association with Corbyn still looms large.
That supports my view of the situation. There is a solid majority against many of the policies espoused by labour activists and as national policy under Corbyn. Starmer has signalled a retreat but hasn't reassured sufficiently (yet) and may never do so. I suspect that more of BoJo's disgraceful antics and the likely economic problems would swing more votes to Labour. However, Labour are strongly running against the ideological "grain" of the majority at present and are more than capable of losing the next election which an opposition should really be strong favourites to win.
"Ideological grain" is a good term. I'm as sure as needs be that this photo will be memed for the election campaign:
If Starmer's opponents think such a dog whistle will have any effect, they will surely be disappointed. Rather than by manufactured wokery voters are more likely to be triggered by fuel and energy prices, inflation and interest rates. The Conservatives would be best advised to get those things right. If they need to adopt your tactic, they are losing.
I'm not predicting it will be officially part of the Tory campaign.
You clearly think it has legs...or at least knees.
The plan to nuke the North York Moors to create a massive gad storage reservoir.
Didn't @Heathener want hydrocarbons from "nuclear" recently? btw I have no idea what gad storage reservoirs are. I just saw nukes and fracking in the same post!
I am such a cad I mis-spelt gas as gad. It was bad of me, I shall have to repent at mass with my lass, unless you give me a pass.
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
I see the police have moved onto the next stage of their regular justifications to make no changes - the 'By criticising the police you upset them' evasion and the 'if you criticise the police the public lose faith in them' strategy.
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
Couldn't Boris Johnson at least pretended he disapproves of death threats against the Leader of the Opposition?
The only day he has been close to losing his job was when he tried to do the apology interview. He is hopeless at it and it takes away several of the key USPs of his "Boris" persona. His electoral chances improve if he does not give a shit about whatever he does wrong, hence that is what we will get from now on.
His judgment is Tory MPs will not have the character to act against him for it, and that the public may forgive him by 2024. He is probably right on the former and quite possibly on the latter as well.
All he has to say is, "Of course no-one should be subject to death threats". Dunno. Johnson is so far from any normally acceptable behaviour, let alone decency, my tiny brain doesn't encompass it.
Couldn't Boris Johnson at least pretended he disapproves of death threats against the Leader of the Opposition?
The only day he has been close to losing his job was when he tried to do the apology interview. He is hopeless at it and it takes away several of the key USPs of his "Boris" persona. His electoral chances improve if he does not give a shit about whatever he does wrong, hence that is what we will get from now on.
His judgment is Tory MPs will not have the character to act against him for it, and that the public may forgive him by 2024. He is probably right on the former and quite possibly on the latter as well.
All he has to say is, "Of course no-one should be subject to death threats". Dunno. Johnson is so far from any normally acceptable behaviour, let alone decency, my tiny brain doesn't encompass it.
Then he has to answer another question on it, "Do you think your accusations indirectly led to the death threats?". If he just says nothing, or even better "nothing but people want to hear about Brexit and vaccines and see some more flags" his path is smoother.
I see the police have moved onto the next stage of their regular justifications to make no changes - the 'By criticising the police you upset them' evasion and the 'if you criticise the police the public lose faith in them' strategy.
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
Sadly, it usually works to at least kick the can down the road.
I'm a fan of most trades unions, but not of the Police Federation. They protect their own at any expense, and do nothing to counter the revolting culture outlined in the recent report on Charing Cross Police Station. They constantly say there's just a rare 'bad apple', and won't countenance the evidence of whole orchards. And the idea that they've suddenly become fans of Dick is ludicrous.
Khan (and Patel) should ignore them. If the Police Federation think that a decision is bad, it almost certainly means it's the right decision.
I see the police have moved onto the next stage of their regular justifications to make no changes - the 'By criticising the police you upset them' evasion and the 'if you criticise the police the public lose faith in them' strategy.
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
Couldn't Boris Johnson at least pretended he disapproves of death threats against the Leader of the Opposition?
The only day he has been close to losing his job was when he tried to do the apology interview. He is hopeless at it and it takes away several of the key USPs of his "Boris" persona. His electoral chances improve if he does not give a shit about whatever he does wrong, hence that is what we will get from now on.
His judgment is Tory MPs will not have the character to act against him for it, and that the public may forgive him by 2024. He is probably right on the former and quite possibly on the latter as well.
All he has to say is, "Of course no-one should be subject to death threats". Dunno. Johnson is so far from any normally acceptable behaviour, let alone decency, my tiny brain doesn't encompass it.
Have you ever considered he quite likely doesn't give a toss if the threats were indeed enacted?
An exchange official said only about 25% of euro clearing at LCH is between EU counterparties, meaning coming under Brussels' regulatory purview.
Oh good. We are only losing a quarter of a vast sum.
I was worried there for a minute ....
I thought you'd be disappointed we weren't losing 100%.....
I do not really give a d*mn any longer. "We" voted to be poorer, or some such. I lost. I am sucking it up...
In that case why do you keep gleefully posting things that you think are bad news for the UK (but often aren't)?
Because I am a bad person. Why else?
Not a bad person, just a bad loser.
Possibly. One of the things about being a "loser" in any political argument is the opportunity to see that one was generally right with the passage of time. I have largely "got over" Brexit, and while I "respect (if that is not too strong a word) the result, I still get a bit of amusement (though no pleasure) in noticing that it has been one massive balls up as many of us predicted, with virtually no upside whatsoever. I particularly get amusement from the idea of Jacob Rees Mogg desperately looking for those "opportunities" that don't really exist.
The difference is you are not jumping gleefully on any supposed bit of adverse news to do down the country. That is why you are not a bad loser. Every debate has winners and losers and it is how both the winners and the losers behave after the result that defines them far more than which side they were actually on. You want what is best for the country and just differ on how best to get there. As I read it, if Britain outside of the EU is successful that is more important to you than right or wrong over the question of leaving.
Sadly for some posters that is not the case. Being right is more important than what the actual effect is on their country.
They are the bad losers - and in some cases the bad winners.
People get very exercised about this in particular because, as just about everyone including our blessed MPs understands, "Britain outside the EU" is suffering economically.
As per my post last week the only legitimate reason for wanting the UK to leave the EU is one of sovereignty which, while absolute, and something we always were, was also compromised by our membership of the EU. And that is a wholly understandable view, if a huge minority one.
That any economic or other perhaps more tangible benefit has accrued to the UK outside the EU is fanciful. That is why people who care about their country continue to be upset. We believe that the UK and its population has suffered.
Simply not true. In the biggest ever survey, on this issue, the largest number of Leave voters cited Sovereignty as the main reason for their vote
On the day of the referendum Lord Ashcroft's polling team questioned 12,369 people who had completed voting.[3] This poll produced data that showed that 'Nearly half (49%) of leave voters said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the European Union was "the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK". ("in the UK." meaning: "by the UK." logically implying: "on behalf of 66 million UK citizens not 508 million EU residents.")
In other surveys immigration comes out just ahead of sovereignty, but it is very close
Interestingly, you are a classic example of THIS:
"When asked to rank the reasons why their counterparts voted the way they did, Leave voters characterise Remain voters more accurately than Remain voters characterise Leave voters. In particular, Remain voters underestimate the importance that Leave voters attach to the EU having no role in UK law-making."
We were always sovereign but there were certain things we couldn't do because we had agreed to be part of a bigger grouping. I am not about to get into a discussion about peoples' perception vs reality of our sovereignty but I would guess that people thought the EU did more and we could do less than was the case.
Oh yes of course there was also immigration. I try to avoid pointing that out because Leavers get very defensive about it and compete to tell me how they welcome ever more immigrants.
I see you are still spreading the same old myths Topping.
Once an external government has the power to make new laws over which you have no control and which you cannot veto then you are no longer sovereign. There is no other organisation we are a member of which can do this to us. Now that might be acceptable to you which is your choice but it doesn't change the basic fact that it removes sovereignty - something you apparently don't care much about.
Mate don't take it out on me speak to David Davis. He's your man on the sovereignty spot.
And of course we were sovereign. How could we leave the EU if we weren't?
That's a stupid argument. It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR.
This post is a little silly and coming from you quite surprising. It's exactly the same nonsense that some of the more excitable Scottish nationalists come out with when they claim Scotland is a colony. You're better than this.
Nope read what I wrote rather than what you want it to say. If the mere fact you left a bloc means you were always sovereign - which is the idiotic claim made by Topping - then all those former Eastern bloc countries were always sovereign and so is Scotland right now. A claim which is so obviously ludicrous that I am amazed you can even contemplate it.
Ok, let's leave my NATO analogy (it's not a great one, to be fair).
Instead consider enforcement.
Former USSR country, while part of USSR - most senior politician does something directly against USSR policy or rules, what's the punishment? Prosecution. Imprisonment. Worse, perhaps. UDI? The tanks roll in.
Scottish government does something against UK law, e.g. unauthorised referendum, UDI. Possible prosecution (treason?). Theoretically, the tanks roll in (depends how far up the government HYUFD has got!)
UK government, while in EU, does something against EU law (or, say, refuses to enact EU law into domestic law). Or has a referendum on 'independence' without asking EU for permission. Or declares UDI. Enforcement? EU could take UK to court. UK gets told to behave and/or fined? Enforcement? The absolute worst is getting kicked out or perhaps trade sanctions. The EU has no power to try the UK PM, does it? Civil court case, perhaps, but not criminal. Has a referendum on leaving without permission? We didn't need EU permission. UDI? EU points to A50, but in practice we can just tear up the treaties and exit immediately by repealing EU law.
Edit: I accept there is debate over sovereignty, particularly with QMV, but the UK always had the ability to take its toys home if it really didn't like it (as we indeed did). Scotland and the former USSR states do not/did not have that ability. The situations are different. Whether the UK was sovereign does however depend on where you draw that line, so I'm not really arguing on that, just that the USSR is not a good comparison to the EU.
Again not true - at least as far as Scotland is concerned. We all recognise that Scotland has the right to withdraw from the United Kingdom - indeed there has been a vote on that very subject. And yet no one would reasonably claim that Scotland is currently a sovereign state - which is exactly what Topping is saying by equating the right to leave with Sovereignty.
Basically Topping is talking garbage either through ignorance or dishonesty. A country can regain sovereignty through the act of leaving but that does not mean that country was always sovereign.
The line should be the definition - "the authority of a state to govern itself". As long as a country is part of an organisation that can make laws over which the state has no veto it cannot be claimed to be sovereign.
Richard you're losing it. Being in the EU was like being a Soviet state. You are making yourself into a laughing stock.
The UK was and is sovereign. Ask David Davis, arch remoaner leaver. He will explain it all to you. I can't promise it will be in words that you can understand but you have slightly jumped the shark with the whole Soviet thing so try to get what you can out of it. Here it is "we were always sovereign". .
When you get to the point where you have to misrepresent what I said in such an obvious way then it is clear you have lost both the argument and any sense of decency. Do stop embarrassing yourself, stop being such an utter fuckwit and accept that when it comes to the question of sovereignty - as has been obvious for so long - you really don't know what you are talking about.
I see the police have moved onto the next stage of their regular justifications to make no changes - the 'By criticising the police you upset them' evasion and the 'if you criticise the police the public lose faith in them' strategy.
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
Sadly, it usually works to at least kick the can down the road.
I'm a fan of most trades unions, but not of the Police Federation. They protect their own at any expense, and do nothing to counter the revolting culture outlined in the recent report on Charing Cross Police Station. They constantly say there's just a rare 'bad apple', and won't countenance the evidence of whole orchards. And the idea that they've suddenly become fans of Dick is ludicrous.
Khan (and Patel) should ignore them. If the Police Federation think that a decision is bad, it almost certainly means it's the right decision.
I hope they'll have a poll on the firing of Dick soon. My sense is the police federation are going to be in for an unpleasant surprise
I see the police have moved onto the next stage of their regular justifications to make no changes - the 'By criticising the police you upset them' evasion and the 'if you criticise the police the public lose faith in them' strategy.
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
Sadly, it usually works to at least kick the can down the road.
I'm a fan of most trades unions, but not of the Police Federation. They protect their own at any expense, and do nothing to counter the revolting culture outlined in the recent report on Charing Cross Police Station. They constantly say there's just a rare 'bad apple', and won't countenance the evidence of whole orchards. And the idea that they've suddenly become fans of Dick is ludicrous.
Khan (and Patel) should ignore them. If the Police Federation think that a decision is bad, it almost certainly means it's the right decision.
I hope they'll have a poll on the firing of Dick soon. My sense is the police federation are going to be in for an unpleasant surprise
Isn't the MPF a different lot from the wider PF? Might be unfair to cross-confound them.
I see the police have moved onto the next stage of their regular justifications to make no changes - the 'By criticising the police you upset them' evasion and the 'if you criticise the police the public lose faith in them' strategy.
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
Sadly, it usually works to at least kick the can down the road.
I'm a fan of most trades unions, but not of the Police Federation. They protect their own at any expense, and do nothing to counter the revolting culture outlined in the recent report on Charing Cross Police Station. They constantly say there's just a rare 'bad apple', and won't countenance the evidence of whole orchards. And the idea that they've suddenly become fans of Dick is ludicrous.
Khan (and Patel) should ignore them. If the Police Federation think that a decision is bad, it almost certainly means it's the right decision.
I hope they'll have a poll on the firing of Dick soon. My sense is the police federation are going to be in for an unpleasant surprise
I don't think they actually believe the public things when they say the public think it. We know for a ffact some Police Federation representatives are out and out liars.
In the late 1990s / noughties there was an obsession with the idea that computers could never be wrong. I wonder whether this was one of the reasons for the Post Office / Horizon scandal.
I see the police have moved onto the next stage of their regular justifications to make no changes - the 'By criticising the police you upset them' evasion and the 'if you criticise the police the public lose faith in them' strategy.
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
Couldn't Boris Johnson at least pretended he disapproves of death threats against the Leader of the Opposition?
The only day he has been close to losing his job was when he tried to do the apology interview. He is hopeless at it and it takes away several of the key USPs of his "Boris" persona. His electoral chances improve if he does not give a shit about whatever he does wrong, hence that is what we will get from now on.
His judgment is Tory MPs will not have the character to act against him for it, and that the public may forgive him by 2024. He is probably right on the former and quite possibly on the latter as well.
All he has to say is, "Of course no-one should be subject to death threats". Dunno. Johnson is so far from any normally acceptable behaviour, let alone decency, my tiny brain doesn't encompass it.
Have you ever considered he quite likely doesn't give a toss if the threats were indeed enacted?
Perhaps Cressida could stand for Mayor of London. Running on her record......
Couldn't Boris Johnson at least pretended he disapproves of death threats against the Leader of the Opposition?
The only day he has been close to losing his job was when he tried to do the apology interview. He is hopeless at it and it takes away several of the key USPs of his "Boris" persona. His electoral chances improve if he does not give a shit about whatever he does wrong, hence that is what we will get from now on.
His judgment is Tory MPs will not have the character to act against him for it, and that the public may forgive him by 2024. He is probably right on the former and quite possibly on the latter as well.
All he has to say is, "Of course no-one should be subject to death threats". Dunno. Johnson is so far from any normally acceptable behaviour, let alone decency, my tiny brain doesn't encompass it.
Have you ever considered he quite likely doesn't give a toss if the threats were indeed enacted?
Normal people would not want anyone to think they condoned death threats and would assert that point. I confess I don't get Johnson, or his appeal. Never have done.
In the late 1990s / noughties there was an obsession with the idea that computers could never be wrong. I wonder whether this was one of the reasons for the Post Office / Horizon scandal.
Yes.
There was a bizarre idea that ATMs could never be wrong. Which ended when a Met Policeman (IIRC) was prosecuted for fraud, for claiming that an ATM hadn't dispensed the money.
I see the police have moved onto the next stage of their regular justifications to make no changes - the 'By criticising the police you upset them' evasion and the 'if you criticise the police the public lose faith in them' strategy.
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
Sadly, it usually works to at least kick the can down the road.
I'm a fan of most trades unions, but not of the Police Federation. They protect their own at any expense, and do nothing to counter the revolting culture outlined in the recent report on Charing Cross Police Station. They constantly say there's just a rare 'bad apple', and won't countenance the evidence of whole orchards. And the idea that they've suddenly become fans of Dick is ludicrous.
Khan (and Patel) should ignore them. If the Police Federation think that a decision is bad, it almost certainly means it's the right decision.
I hope they'll have a poll on the firing of Dick soon. My sense is the police federation are going to be in for an unpleasant surprise
I don't think they actually believe the public things when they say the public think it. We know for a ffact some Police Federation representatives are out and out liars.
The Conservative vote has been static at around 33/34% for a while now. The Traffic Light Alliance has been correspondingly static at around 55%. There are variations within the TLA however and it is these which explain the fluctuations in Labour's lead.
I'm not expecting much change before the defenestration of the buffoon in No 10. I am currently predicting that soon after the locals in May, but it's Boris so I'm not betting on it.
How about the NI increase becoming a concrete reality? That's due to kick in when people get their April pay, isn't it?
Not sure I see anything shifting the dial much, Stuart, apart from Johnson's long overdue departure. After that I would expect changes to be gradual.
I certainly wouldn't be calling the next election yet.
I would expect a honeymoon for the next Conservative Prime Minister, and a polling boost. After that I suspect normal service would resume and economic factors would become more relevant.
Anecdotally speaking I find those I speak to who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in 2019 (despite what polling suggests) still utterly detest the Labour Party, and the association with Corbyn still looms large.
I suspect the same is true in reverse - from those who voted anything except Tory because of the fact Bozo is a low level incompetent mobster....
Boris Johnson is NOT a Bush League Putinist. That position is filled by Viktor Orbán.
Instead, Boris Johnson is a Little League Putinist . . . representing a really posh reform school . . .
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
In the late 1990s / noughties there was an obsession with the idea that computers could never be wrong. I wonder whether this was one of the reasons for the Post Office / Horizon scandal.
It's always amusing how people in the field have wildly different views from people outside of it. For example, essentially nobody who works in computing, and particularly those that deal with computer security, thinks that electronic voting* is a good idea. Voting is way too important to trust to computers.
* It's not even just the security and auditing issues, imagine all the denial of service opportunities that it creates.
An exchange official said only about 25% of euro clearing at LCH is between EU counterparties, meaning coming under Brussels' regulatory purview.
Oh good. We are only losing a quarter of a vast sum.
I was worried there for a minute ....
I thought you'd be disappointed we weren't losing 100%.....
I do not really give a d*mn any longer. "We" voted to be poorer, or some such. I lost. I am sucking it up...
In that case why do you keep gleefully posting things that you think are bad news for the UK (but often aren't)?
Because I am a bad person. Why else?
Not a bad person, just a bad loser.
Possibly. One of the things about being a "loser" in any political argument is the opportunity to see that one was generally right with the passage of time. I have largely "got over" Brexit, and while I "respect (if that is not too strong a word) the result, I still get a bit of amusement (though no pleasure) in noticing that it has been one massive balls up as many of us predicted, with virtually no upside whatsoever. I particularly get amusement from the idea of Jacob Rees Mogg desperately looking for those "opportunities" that don't really exist.
The difference is you are not jumping gleefully on any supposed bit of adverse news to do down the country. That is why you are not a bad loser. Every debate has winners and losers and it is how both the winners and the losers behave after the result that defines them far more than which side they were actually on. You want what is best for the country and just differ on how best to get there. As I read it, if Britain outside of the EU is successful that is more important to you than right or wrong over the question of leaving.
Sadly for some posters that is not the case. Being right is more important than what the actual effect is on their country.
They are the bad losers - and in some cases the bad winners.
People get very exercised about this in particular because, as just about everyone including our blessed MPs understands, "Britain outside the EU" is suffering economically.
As per my post last week the only legitimate reason for wanting the UK to leave the EU is one of sovereignty which, while absolute, and something we always were, was also compromised by our membership of the EU. And that is a wholly understandable view, if a huge minority one.
That any economic or other perhaps more tangible benefit has accrued to the UK outside the EU is fanciful. That is why people who care about their country continue to be upset. We believe that the UK and its population has suffered.
Simply not true. In the biggest ever survey, on this issue, the largest number of Leave voters cited Sovereignty as the main reason for their vote
On the day of the referendum Lord Ashcroft's polling team questioned 12,369 people who had completed voting.[3] This poll produced data that showed that 'Nearly half (49%) of leave voters said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the European Union was "the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK". ("in the UK." meaning: "by the UK." logically implying: "on behalf of 66 million UK citizens not 508 million EU residents.")
In other surveys immigration comes out just ahead of sovereignty, but it is very close
Interestingly, you are a classic example of THIS:
"When asked to rank the reasons why their counterparts voted the way they did, Leave voters characterise Remain voters more accurately than Remain voters characterise Leave voters. In particular, Remain voters underestimate the importance that Leave voters attach to the EU having no role in UK law-making."
We were always sovereign but there were certain things we couldn't do because we had agreed to be part of a bigger grouping. I am not about to get into a discussion about peoples' perception vs reality of our sovereignty but I would guess that people thought the EU did more and we could do less than was the case.
Oh yes of course there was also immigration. I try to avoid pointing that out because Leavers get very defensive about it and compete to tell me how they welcome ever more immigrants.
I see you are still spreading the same old myths Topping.
Once an external government has the power to make new laws over which you have no control and which you cannot veto then you are no longer sovereign. There is no other organisation we are a member of which can do this to us. Now that might be acceptable to you which is your choice but it doesn't change the basic fact that it removes sovereignty - something you apparently don't care much about.
Mate don't take it out on me speak to David Davis. He's your man on the sovereignty spot.
And of course we were sovereign. How could we leave the EU if we weren't?
That's a stupid argument. It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR.
This post is a little silly and coming from you quite surprising. It's exactly the same nonsense that some of the more excitable Scottish nationalists come out with when they claim Scotland is a colony. You're better than this.
Nope read what I wrote rather than what you want it to say. If the mere fact you left a bloc means you were always sovereign - which is the idiotic claim made by Topping - then all those former Eastern bloc countries were always sovereign and so is Scotland right now. A claim which is so obviously ludicrous that I am amazed you can even contemplate it.
Ok, let's leave my NATO analogy (it's not a great one, to be fair).
Instead consider enforcement.
Former USSR country, while part of USSR - most senior politician does something directly against USSR policy or rules, what's the punishment? Prosecution. Imprisonment. Worse, perhaps. UDI? The tanks roll in.
Scottish government does something against UK law, e.g. unauthorised referendum, UDI. Possible prosecution (treason?). Theoretically, the tanks roll in (depends how far up the government HYUFD has got!)
UK government, while in EU, does something against EU law (or, say, refuses to enact EU law into domestic law). Or has a referendum on 'independence' without asking EU for permission. Or declares UDI. Enforcement? EU could take UK to court. UK gets told to behave and/or fined? Enforcement? The absolute worst is getting kicked out or perhaps trade sanctions. The EU has no power to try the UK PM, does it? Civil court case, perhaps, but not criminal. Has a referendum on leaving without permission? We didn't need EU permission. UDI? EU points to A50, but in practice we can just tear up the treaties and exit immediately by repealing EU law.
Edit: I accept there is debate over sovereignty, particularly with QMV, but the UK always had the ability to take its toys home if it really didn't like it (as we indeed did). Scotland and the former USSR states do not/did not have that ability. The situations are different. Whether the UK was sovereign does however depend on where you draw that line, so I'm not really arguing on that, just that the USSR is not a good comparison to the EU.
Again not true - at least as far as Scotland is concerned. We all recognise that Scotland has the right to withdraw from the United Kingdom - indeed there has been a vote on that very subject. And yet no one would reasonably claim that Scotland is currently a sovereign state - which is exactly what Topping is saying by equating the right to leave with Sovereignty.
Basically Topping is talking garbage either through ignorance or dishonesty. A country can regain sovereignty through the act of leaving but that does not mean that country was always sovereign.
The line should be the definition - "the authority of a state to govern itself". As long as a country is part of an organisation that can make laws over which the state has no veto it cannot be claimed to be sovereign.
Richard you're losing it. Being in the EU was like being a Soviet state. You are making yourself into a laughing stock.
The UK was and is sovereign. Ask David Davis, arch remoaner leaver. He will explain it all to you. I can't promise it will be in words that you can understand but you have slightly jumped the shark with the whole Soviet thing so try to get what you can out of it. Here it is "we were always sovereign". .
When you get to the point where you have to misrepresent what I said in such an obvious way then it is clear you have lost both the argument and any sense of decency. Do stop embarrassing yourself, stop being such an utter fuckwit and accept that when it comes to the question of sovereignty - as has been obvious for so long - you really don't know what you are talking about.
People are laughing at you Richard. You should probably stop while you're behind.
Misrepresenting you. You wish. This is what you said:
"It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR. "
Complete and utter fuckwittery from a complete and utter arsehole so I suppose no suprise there. You sadsack moron.
That’s what happens to party’s polling when voters find out your leader protected Jimmy Saville,
I would say personally it's, mainly , Johnson getting to strut his stuff in Ukraine, with issues connected with possible war often tending to fracture leftwing/liberal coalitions of voters - see Starmer and his issues - and unite more rightwing ones. Don't forget also that in the first week or two after the Savile smear , the polls seemed more unchanged ; and with one or two even extending the Labour lead, AFAIK. Now partygate is off the menu for a bit.
I see the police have moved onto the next stage of their regular justifications to make no changes - the 'By criticising the police you upset them' evasion and the 'if you criticise the police the public lose faith in them' strategy.
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
Sadly, it usually works to at least kick the can down the road.
I'm a fan of most trades unions, but not of the Police Federation. They protect their own at any expense, and do nothing to counter the revolting culture outlined in the recent report on Charing Cross Police Station. They constantly say there's just a rare 'bad apple', and won't countenance the evidence of whole orchards. And the idea that they've suddenly become fans of Dick is ludicrous.
Khan (and Patel) should ignore them. If the Police Federation think that a decision is bad, it almost certainly means it's the right decision.
Rare agreement across the usual political lines for that one. How many more bad apples need to be sent down, before they realise there’s a whole rotten orchard?
Disband the Met, replace it with local and national forces under the mayor and home office, and let’s see every officer be vetted again.
An exchange official said only about 25% of euro clearing at LCH is between EU counterparties, meaning coming under Brussels' regulatory purview.
Oh good. We are only losing a quarter of a vast sum.
I was worried there for a minute ....
I thought you'd be disappointed we weren't losing 100%.....
I do not really give a d*mn any longer. "We" voted to be poorer, or some such. I lost. I am sucking it up...
In that case why do you keep gleefully posting things that you think are bad news for the UK (but often aren't)?
Because I am a bad person. Why else?
Not a bad person, just a bad loser.
Possibly. One of the things about being a "loser" in any political argument is the opportunity to see that one was generally right with the passage of time. I have largely "got over" Brexit, and while I "respect (if that is not too strong a word) the result, I still get a bit of amusement (though no pleasure) in noticing that it has been one massive balls up as many of us predicted, with virtually no upside whatsoever. I particularly get amusement from the idea of Jacob Rees Mogg desperately looking for those "opportunities" that don't really exist.
The difference is you are not jumping gleefully on any supposed bit of adverse news to do down the country. That is why you are not a bad loser. Every debate has winners and losers and it is how both the winners and the losers behave after the result that defines them far more than which side they were actually on. You want what is best for the country and just differ on how best to get there. As I read it, if Britain outside of the EU is successful that is more important to you than right or wrong over the question of leaving.
Sadly for some posters that is not the case. Being right is more important than what the actual effect is on their country.
They are the bad losers - and in some cases the bad winners.
People get very exercised about this in particular because, as just about everyone including our blessed MPs understands, "Britain outside the EU" is suffering economically.
As per my post last week the only legitimate reason for wanting the UK to leave the EU is one of sovereignty which, while absolute, and something we always were, was also compromised by our membership of the EU. And that is a wholly understandable view, if a huge minority one.
That any economic or other perhaps more tangible benefit has accrued to the UK outside the EU is fanciful. That is why people who care about their country continue to be upset. We believe that the UK and its population has suffered.
Simply not true. In the biggest ever survey, on this issue, the largest number of Leave voters cited Sovereignty as the main reason for their vote
On the day of the referendum Lord Ashcroft's polling team questioned 12,369 people who had completed voting.[3] This poll produced data that showed that 'Nearly half (49%) of leave voters said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the European Union was "the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK". ("in the UK." meaning: "by the UK." logically implying: "on behalf of 66 million UK citizens not 508 million EU residents.")
In other surveys immigration comes out just ahead of sovereignty, but it is very close
Interestingly, you are a classic example of THIS:
"When asked to rank the reasons why their counterparts voted the way they did, Leave voters characterise Remain voters more accurately than Remain voters characterise Leave voters. In particular, Remain voters underestimate the importance that Leave voters attach to the EU having no role in UK law-making."
We were always sovereign but there were certain things we couldn't do because we had agreed to be part of a bigger grouping. I am not about to get into a discussion about peoples' perception vs reality of our sovereignty but I would guess that people thought the EU did more and we could do less than was the case.
Oh yes of course there was also immigration. I try to avoid pointing that out because Leavers get very defensive about it and compete to tell me how they welcome ever more immigrants.
I see you are still spreading the same old myths Topping.
Once an external government has the power to make new laws over which you have no control and which you cannot veto then you are no longer sovereign. There is no other organisation we are a member of which can do this to us. Now that might be acceptable to you which is your choice but it doesn't change the basic fact that it removes sovereignty - something you apparently don't care much about.
Mate don't take it out on me speak to David Davis. He's your man on the sovereignty spot.
And of course we were sovereign. How could we leave the EU if we weren't?
That's a stupid argument. It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR.
This post is a little silly and coming from you quite surprising. It's exactly the same nonsense that some of the more excitable Scottish nationalists come out with when they claim Scotland is a colony. You're better than this.
Nope read what I wrote rather than what you want it to say. If the mere fact you left a bloc means you were always sovereign - which is the idiotic claim made by Topping - then all those former Eastern bloc countries were always sovereign and so is Scotland right now. A claim which is so obviously ludicrous that I am amazed you can even contemplate it.
Ok, let's leave my NATO analogy (it's not a great one, to be fair).
Instead consider enforcement.
Former USSR country, while part of USSR - most senior politician does something directly against USSR policy or rules, what's the punishment? Prosecution. Imprisonment. Worse, perhaps. UDI? The tanks roll in.
Scottish government does something against UK law, e.g. unauthorised referendum, UDI. Possible prosecution (treason?). Theoretically, the tanks roll in (depends how far up the government HYUFD has got!)
UK government, while in EU, does something against EU law (or, say, refuses to enact EU law into domestic law). Or has a referendum on 'independence' without asking EU for permission. Or declares UDI. Enforcement? EU could take UK to court. UK gets told to behave and/or fined? Enforcement? The absolute worst is getting kicked out or perhaps trade sanctions. The EU has no power to try the UK PM, does it? Civil court case, perhaps, but not criminal. Has a referendum on leaving without permission? We didn't need EU permission. UDI? EU points to A50, but in practice we can just tear up the treaties and exit immediately by repealing EU law.
Edit: I accept there is debate over sovereignty, particularly with QMV, but the UK always had the ability to take its toys home if it really didn't like it (as we indeed did). Scotland and the former USSR states do not/did not have that ability. The situations are different. Whether the UK was sovereign does however depend on where you draw that line, so I'm not really arguing on that, just that the USSR is not a good comparison to the EU.
Again not true - at least as far as Scotland is concerned. We all recognise that Scotland has the right to withdraw from the United Kingdom - indeed there has been a vote on that very subject. And yet no one would reasonably claim that Scotland is currently a sovereign state - which is exactly what Topping is saying by equating the right to leave with Sovereignty.
Basically Topping is talking garbage either through ignorance or dishonesty. A country can regain sovereignty through the act of leaving but that does not mean that country was always sovereign.
The line should be the definition - "the authority of a state to govern itself". As long as a country is part of an organisation that can make laws over which the state has no veto it cannot be claimed to be sovereign.
Richard you're losing it. Being in the EU was like being a Soviet state. You are making yourself into a laughing stock.
The UK was and is sovereign. Ask David Davis, arch remoaner leaver. He will explain it all to you. I can't promise it will be in words that you can understand but you have slightly jumped the shark with the whole Sot thing so try to get what you can out of it. Here it is "we were always sovereign". .
When you get to the point where you have to misrepresent what I said in such an obvious way then it is clear you have lost both the argument and any sense of decency. Do stop embarrassing yourself, stop being such an utter fuckwit and accept that when it comes to the question of sovereignty - as has been obvious for so long - you really don't know what you are talking about.
People are laughing at you Richard. You should probably stop while you're behind.
Misrepresenting you. You wish. This is what you said:
"It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR. "
Complete and utter fuckwittery from a complete and utter arsehole so I suppose no suprise there. You sadsack moron.
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
I see the police have moved onto the next stage of their regular justifications to make no changes - the 'By criticising the police you upset them' evasion and the 'if you criticise the police the public lose faith in them' strategy.
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
Couldn't Boris Johnson at least pretended he disapproves of death threats against the Leader of the Opposition?
The only day he has been close to losing his job was when he tried to do the apology interview. He is hopeless at it and it takes away several of the key USPs of his "Boris" persona. His electoral chances improve if he does not give a shit about whatever he does wrong, hence that is what we will get from now on.
His judgment is Tory MPs will not have the character to act against him for it, and that the public may forgive him by 2024. He is probably right on the former and quite possibly on the latter as well.
All he has to say is, "Of course no-one should be subject to death threats". Dunno. Johnson is so far from any normally acceptable behaviour, let alone decency, my tiny brain doesn't encompass it.
Have you ever considered he quite likely doesn't give a toss if the threats were indeed enacted?
Perhaps Cressida could stand for Mayor of London. Running on her record......
...but would the Labour Party select a woman, especially a lesbian candidate?
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
No, the real purpose of the universe is to provide God with the answer to pineapple on pizza ...
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
In the late 1990s / noughties there was an obsession with the idea that computers could never be wrong. I wonder whether this was one of the reasons for the Post Office / Horizon scandal.
The Post Office were putting in this system to look for fraud. When it gave them a load of fraud, they thought it was working as expected and prosecuted the fraud.
(You just have to ignore the bit where everyone who was involved in the project knew it was riddled with bugs and churning out rubbish).
I see the police have moved onto the next stage of their regular justifications to make no changes - the 'By criticising the police you upset them' evasion and the 'if you criticise the police the public lose faith in them' strategy.
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
Couldn't Boris Johnson at least pretended he disapproves of death threats against the Leader of the Opposition?
The only day he has been close to losing his job was when he tried to do the apology interview. He is hopeless at it and it takes away several of the key USPs of his "Boris" persona. His electoral chances improve if he does not give a shit about whatever he does wrong, hence that is what we will get from now on.
His judgment is Tory MPs will not have the character to act against him for it, and that the public may forgive him by 2024. He is probably right on the former and quite possibly on the latter as well.
All he has to say is, "Of course no-one should be subject to death threats". Dunno. Johnson is so far from any normally acceptable behaviour, let alone decency, my tiny brain doesn't encompass it.
Have you ever considered he quite likely doesn't give a toss if the threats were indeed enacted?
Perhaps Cressida could stand for Mayor of London. Running on her record......
...but would the Labour Party select a woman, especially a lesbian candidate?
Dick is almost certainly a LD not Labour and not Tory either
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
I dont have the answers. One thing I do love is the evolution of the phenonoma. When the first UFO’s became a thing in the forties, the first report wasn’t of flying saucers, but of things moving like a saucer skipping across the sky. Yet from that ufos became flying saucers. And so the fake photo producers use that as the basis for their fakes. And then there is the evolution of the alien. The sheer variety of aliens would keep Star Trek in new species for decades. Many are humanoid, but since the 1990s the grey has been the dominant form. In earlier times people saw fairies and elves. Now it’s aliens. Except it’s really not. I’m fascinated but the Fortean, have been all my life. Ive seen a few weird things, but on every occasion an explanation is available. I’ve never seen a ghost, even when my aunt did. (I saw a barn owl...). The ABC we saw in the field turned out to be a large black, but sadly domestic, cat. The weird flames and house on fire I saw a couple of weeks hence was the reflection of the just risen sun, at just the right angle. I could go on. The only one I can’t explain was my encounter with pan on Salisbury plain, but tbh I probably just spooked myself. As to why now, we’ll QAnon has been raging, and ufo or uap is related to this. There have been people making claims forever. Why? Well for fun, and because they get kicks out of it.
An exchange official said only about 25% of euro clearing at LCH is between EU counterparties, meaning coming under Brussels' regulatory purview.
Oh good. We are only losing a quarter of a vast sum.
I was worried there for a minute ....
I thought you'd be disappointed we weren't losing 100%.....
I do not really give a d*mn any longer. "We" voted to be poorer, or some such. I lost. I am sucking it up...
In that case why do you keep gleefully posting things that you think are bad news for the UK (but often aren't)?
Because I am a bad person. Why else?
Not a bad person, just a bad loser.
Possibly. One of the things about being a "loser" in any political argument is the opportunity to see that one was generally right with the passage of time. I have largely "got over" Brexit, and while I "respect (if that is not too strong a word) the result, I still get a bit of amusement (though no pleasure) in noticing that it has been one massive balls up as many of us predicted, with virtually no upside whatsoever. I particularly get amusement from the idea of Jacob Rees Mogg desperately looking for those "opportunities" that don't really exist.
The difference is you are not jumping gleefully on any supposed bit of adverse news to do down the country. That is why you are not a bad loser. Every debate has winners and losers and it is how both the winners and the losers behave after the result that defines them far more than which side they were actually on. You want what is best for the country and just differ on how best to get there. As I read it, if Britain outside of the EU is successful that is more important to you than right or wrong over the question of leaving.
Sadly for some posters that is not the case. Being right is more important than what the actual effect is on their country.
They are the bad losers - and in some cases the bad winners.
People get very exercised about this in particular because, as just about everyone including our blessed MPs understands, "Britain outside the EU" is suffering economically.
As per my post last week the only legitimate reason for wanting the UK to leave the EU is one of sovereignty which, while absolute, and something we always were, was also compromised by our membership of the EU. And that is a wholly understandable view, if a huge minority one.
That any economic or other perhaps more tangible benefit has accrued to the UK outside the EU is fanciful. That is why people who care about their country continue to be upset. We believe that the UK and its population has suffered.
Simply not true. In the biggest ever survey, on this issue, the largest number of Leave voters cited Sovereignty as the main reason for their vote
On the day of the referendum Lord Ashcroft's polling team questioned 12,369 people who had completed voting.[3] This poll produced data that showed that 'Nearly half (49%) of leave voters said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the European Union was "the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK". ("in the UK." meaning: "by the UK." logically implying: "on behalf of 66 million UK citizens not 508 million EU residents.")
In other surveys immigration comes out just ahead of sovereignty, but it is very close
Interestingly, you are a classic example of THIS:
"When asked to rank the reasons why their counterparts voted the way they did, Leave voters characterise Remain voters more accurately than Remain voters characterise Leave voters. In particular, Remain voters underestimate the importance that Leave voters attach to the EU having no role in UK law-making."
We were always sovereign but there were certain things we couldn't do because we had agreed to be part of a bigger grouping. I am not about to get into a discussion about peoples' perception vs reality of our sovereignty but I would guess that people thought the EU did more and we could do less than was the case.
Oh yes of course there was also immigration. I try to avoid pointing that out because Leavers get very defensive about it and compete to tell me how they welcome ever more immigrants.
I see you are still spreading the same old myths Topping.
Once an external government has the power to make new laws over which you have no control and which you cannot veto then you are no longer sovereign. There is no other organisation we are a member of which can do this to us. Now that might be acceptable to you which is your choice but it doesn't change the basic fact that it removes sovereignty - something you apparently don't care much about.
Mate don't take it out on me speak to David Davis. He's your man on the sovereignty spot.
And of course we were sovereign. How could we leave the EU if we weren't?
That's a stupid argument. It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR.
This post is a little silly and coming from you quite surprising. It's exactly the same nonsense that some of the more excitable Scottish nationalists come out with when they claim Scotland is a colony. You're better than this.
Nope read what I wrote rather than what you want it to say. If the mere fact you left a bloc means you were always sovereign - which is the idiotic claim made by Topping - then all those former Eastern bloc countries were always sovereign and so is Scotland right now. A claim which is so obviously ludicrous that I am amazed you can even contemplate it.
Ok, let's leave my NATO analogy (it's not a great one, to be fair).
Instead consider enforcement.
Former USSR country, while part of USSR - most senior politician does something directly against USSR policy or rules, what's the punishment? Prosecution. Imprisonment. Worse, perhaps. UDI? The tanks roll in.
Scottish government does something against UK law, e.g. unauthorised referendum, UDI. Possible prosecution (treason?). Theoretically, the tanks roll in (depends how far up the government HYUFD has got!)
UK government, while in EU, does something against EU law (or, say, refuses to enact EU law into domestic law). Or has a referendum on 'independence' without asking EU for permission. Or declares UDI. Enforcement? EU could take UK to court. UK gets told to behave and/or fined? Enforcement? The absolute worst is getting kicked out or perhaps trade sanctions. The EU has no power to try the UK PM, does it? Civil court case, perhaps, but not criminal. Has a referendum on leaving without permission? We didn't need EU permission. UDI? EU points to A50, but in practice we can just tear up the treaties and exit immediately by repealing EU law.
Edit: I accept there is debate over sovereignty, particularly with QMV, but the UK always had the ability to take its toys home if it really didn't like it (as we indeed did). Scotland and the former USSR states do not/did not have that ability. The situations are different. Whether the UK was sovereign does however depend on where you draw that line, so I'm not really arguing on that, just that the USSR is not a good comparison to the EU.
Again not true - at least as far as Scotland is concerned. We all recognise that Scotland has the right to withdraw from the United Kingdom - indeed there has been a vote on that very subject. And yet no one would reasonably claim that Scotland is currently a sovereign state - which is exactly what Topping is saying by equating the right to leave with Sovereignty.
Basically Topping is talking garbage either through ignorance or dishonesty. A country can regain sovereignty through the act of leaving but that does not mean that country was always sovereign.
The line should be the definition - "the authority of a state to govern itself". As long as a country is part of an organisation that can make laws over which the state has no veto it cannot be claimed to be sovereign.
Richard you're losing it. Being in the EU was like being a Soviet state. You are making yourself into a laughing stock.
The UK was and is sovereign. Ask David Davis, arch remoaner leaver. He will explain it all to you. I can't promise it will be in words that you can understand but you have slightly jumped the shark with the whole Sot thing so try to get what you can out of it. Here it is "we were always sovereign". .
When you get to the point where you have to misrepresent what I said in such an obvious way then it is clear you have lost both the argument and any sense of decency. Do stop embarrassing yourself, stop being such an utter fuckwit and accept that when it comes to the question of sovereignty - as has been obvious for so long - you really don't know what you are talking about.
People are laughing at you Richard. You should probably stop while you're behind.
Misrepresenting you. You wish. This is what you said:
"It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR. "
Complete and utter fuckwittery from a complete and utter arsehole so I suppose no suprise there. You sadsack moron.
This is unedifying. You should both desist
Richard loves it. He is super quick to become offensive which is his absolute right on PB (and elsewhere although I suspect it is only on PB). It evidently fulfils some need for him to have bad tempered exchanges in particular (perhaps only) about Brexit and I am happy to oblige.
As to the substance, comparing the UK to FSU states indicates that his judgement is not shall we say "reliable".
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
In the late 1990s / noughties there was an obsession with the idea that computers could never be wrong. I wonder whether this was one of the reasons for the Post Office / Horizon scandal.
I read that the system was introduced in part to find fraud, and so when they thought they had found it, they felt vindicated, and the sense of righteousness stemmed from that…
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
They came. They saw. They scarpered.
It's an interesting one. I assume that there is intelligent life in the universe. I don't assume it's benign, pace Carl Sagan who famously in the Cosmos series suggested that any beings with the development to travel between the stars would be sufficiently developed to be benign.
We know that the biggest barrier to space travel is the vastness and the need, essentially, to travel close to the speed of light. But let's say that it's solvable.
Even then, this particular planet on which we exist is around 4.5 billion years old but only has experienced well developed human life for c. 2000 years? 3000 years? Shall we be more generous and say 4500 years at a hell of a stretch?
What are the chances that in a universe of c. 15 billion years age that these visitors would have managed to reach this planet of ours in that narrow time slot of 4500 years out of 4,500,000,000 years?
By my reckoning intelligent human life has been on this planet for 0.000001 % of its existence. Come too early and they meet a bunch of ravenous dinosaurs. Come too late and they meet a desolate wasteland after Vlad has pressed the red button.
The Conservative vote has been static at around 33/34% for a while now. The Traffic Light Alliance has been correspondingly static at around 55%. There are variations within the TLA however and it is these which explain the fluctuations in Labour's lead.
I'm not expecting much change before the defenestration of the buffoon in No 10. I am currently predicting that soon after the locals in May, but it's Boris so I'm not betting on it.
How about the NI increase becoming a concrete reality? That's due to kick in when people get their April pay, isn't it?
Not sure I see anything shifting the dial much, Stuart, apart from Johnson's long overdue departure. After that I would expect changes to be gradual.
I certainly wouldn't be calling the next election yet.
I would expect a honeymoon for the next Conservative Prime Minister, and a polling boost. After that I suspect normal service would resume and economic factors would become more relevant.
Anecdotally speaking I find those I speak to who switched from Labour to the Conservatives in 2019 (despite what polling suggests) still utterly detest the Labour Party, and the association with Corbyn still looms large.
That supports my view of the situation. There is a solid majority against many of the policies espoused by labour activists and as national policy under Corbyn. Starmer has signalled a retreat but hasn't reassured sufficiently (yet) and may never do so. I suspect that more of BoJo's disgraceful antics and the likely economic problems would swing more votes to Labour. However, Labour are strongly running against the ideological "grain" of the majority at present and are more than capable of losing the next election which an opposition should really be strong favourites to win.
"Ideological grain" is a good term. I'm as sure as needs be that this photo will be memed for the election campaign:
Excellent news, Isam's back!
Are you still ok with our £300/£100 bet on Starmer PM after the GE? I do hope so.
An exchange official said only about 25% of euro clearing at LCH is between EU counterparties, meaning coming under Brussels' regulatory purview.
Oh good. We are only losing a quarter of a vast sum.
I was worried there for a minute ....
I thought you'd be disappointed we weren't losing 100%.....
I do not really give a d*mn any longer. "We" voted to be poorer, or some such. I lost. I am sucking it up...
In that case why do you keep gleefully posting things that you think are bad news for the UK (but often aren't)?
Because I am a bad person. Why else?
Not a bad person, just a bad loser.
Possibly. One of the things about being a "loser" in any political argument is the opportunity to see that one was generally right with the passage of time. I have largely "got over" Brexit, and while I "respect (if that is not too strong a word) the result, I still get a bit of amusement (though no pleasure) in noticing that it has been one massive balls up as many of us predicted, with virtually no upside whatsoever. I particularly get amusement from the idea of Jacob Rees Mogg desperately looking for those "opportunities" that don't really exist.
The difference is you are not jumping gleefully on any supposed bit of adverse news to do down the country. That is why you are not a bad loser. Every debate has winners and losers and it is how both the winners and the losers behave after the result that defines them far more than which side they were actually on. You want what is best for the country and just differ on how best to get there. As I read it, if Britain outside of the EU is successful that is more important to you than right or wrong over the question of leaving.
Sadly for some posters that is not the case. Being right is more important than what the actual effect is on their country.
They are the bad losers - and in some cases the bad winners.
People get very exercised about this in particular because, as just about everyone including our blessed MPs understands, "Britain outside the EU" is suffering economically.
As per my post last week the only legitimate reason for wanting the UK to leave the EU is one of sovereignty which, while absolute, and something we always were, was also compromised by our membership of the EU. And that is a wholly understandable view, if a huge minority one.
That any economic or other perhaps more tangible benefit has accrued to the UK outside the EU is fanciful. That is why people who care about their country continue to be upset. We believe that the UK and its population has suffered.
Simply not true. In the biggest ever survey, on this issue, the largest number of Leave voters cited Sovereignty as the main reason for their vote
On the day of the referendum Lord Ashcroft's polling team questioned 12,369 people who had completed voting.[3] This poll produced data that showed that 'Nearly half (49%) of leave voters said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the European Union was "the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK". ("in the UK." meaning: "by the UK." logically implying: "on behalf of 66 million UK citizens not 508 million EU residents.")
In other surveys immigration comes out just ahead of sovereignty, but it is very close
Interestingly, you are a classic example of THIS:
"When asked to rank the reasons why their counterparts voted the way they did, Leave voters characterise Remain voters more accurately than Remain voters characterise Leave voters. In particular, Remain voters underestimate the importance that Leave voters attach to the EU having no role in UK law-making."
We were always sovereign but there were certain things we couldn't do because we had agreed to be part of a bigger grouping. I am not about to get into a discussion about peoples' perception vs reality of our sovereignty but I would guess that people thought the EU did more and we could do less than was the case.
Oh yes of course there was also immigration. I try to avoid pointing that out because Leavers get very defensive about it and compete to tell me how they welcome ever more immigrants.
I see you are still spreading the same old myths Topping.
Once an external government has the power to make new laws over which you have no control and which you cannot veto then you are no longer sovereign. There is no other organisation we are a member of which can do this to us. Now that might be acceptable to you which is your choice but it doesn't change the basic fact that it removes sovereignty - something you apparently don't care much about.
Mate don't take it out on me speak to David Davis. He's your man on the sovereignty spot.
And of course we were sovereign. How could we leave the EU if we weren't?
That's a stupid argument. It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR.
This post is a little silly and coming from you quite surprising. It's exactly the same nonsense that some of the more excitable Scottish nationalists come out with when they claim Scotland is a colony. You're better than this.
Nope read what I wrote rather than what you want it to say. If the mere fact you left a bloc means you were always sovereign - which is the idiotic claim made by Topping - then all those former Eastern bloc countries were always sovereign and so is Scotland right now. A claim which is so obviously ludicrous that I am amazed you can even contemplate it.
Ok, let's leave my NATO analogy (it's not a great one, to be fair).
Instead consider enforcement.
Former USSR country, while part of USSR - most senior politician does something directly against USSR policy or rules, what's the punishment? Prosecution. Imprisonment. Worse, perhaps. UDI? The tanks roll in.
Scottish government does something against UK law, e.g. unauthorised referendum, UDI. Possible prosecution (treason?). Theoretically, the tanks roll in (depends how far up the government HYUFD has got!)
UK government, while in EU, does something against EU law (or, say, refuses to enact EU law into domestic law). Or has a referendum on 'independence' without asking EU for permission. Or declares UDI. Enforcement? EU could take UK to court. UK gets told to behave and/or fined? Enforcement? The absolute worst is getting kicked out or perhaps trade sanctions. The EU has no power to try the UK PM, does it? Civil court case, perhaps, but not criminal. Has a referendum on leaving without permission? We didn't need EU permission. UDI? EU points to A50, but in practice we can just tear up the treaties and exit immediately by repealing EU law.
Edit: I accept there is debate over sovereignty, particularly with QMV, but the UK always had the ability to take its toys home if it really didn't like it (as we indeed did). Scotland and the former USSR states do not/did not have that ability. The situations are different. Whether the UK was sovereign does however depend on where you draw that line, so I'm not really arguing on that, just that the USSR is not a good comparison to the EU.
Again not true - at least as far as Scotland is concerned. We all recognise that Scotland has the right to withdraw from the United Kingdom - indeed there has been a vote on that very subject. And yet no one would reasonably claim that Scotland is currently a sovereign state - which is exactly what Topping is saying by equating the right to leave with Sovereignty.
Basically Topping is talking garbage either through ignorance or dishonesty. A country can regain sovereignty through the act of leaving but that does not mean that country was always sovereign.
The line should be the definition - "the authority of a state to govern itself". As long as a country is part of an organisation that can make laws over which the state has no veto it cannot be claimed to be sovereign.
Richard you're losing it. Being in the EU was like being a Soviet state. You are making yourself into a laughing stock.
The UK was and is sovereign. Ask David Davis, arch remoaner leaver. He will explain it all to you. I can't promise it will be in words that you can understand but you have slightly jumped the shark with the whole Sot thing so try to get what you can out of it. Here it is "we were always sovereign". .
When you get to the point where you have to misrepresent what I said in such an obvious way then it is clear you have lost both the argument and any sense of decency. Do stop embarrassing yourself, stop being such an utter fuckwit and accept that when it comes to the question of sovereignty - as has been obvious for so long - you really don't know what you are talking about.
People are laughing at you Richard. You should probably stop while you're behind.
Misrepresenting you. You wish. This is what you said:
"It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR. "
Complete and utter fuckwittery from a complete and utter arsehole so I suppose no suprise there. You sadsack moron.
This is unedifying. You should both desist
Hi. You're back on here. Did you go with your heart and stay in Colombo? Or did you return in time for violent storms and WWIII?
That’s what happens to party’s polling when voters find out your leader protected Jimmy Saville,
I would say personally it's, mainly , Johnson getting to strut his stuff in Ukraine, with issues connected with possible war often tending to fracture leftwing/liberal coalitions of voters - see Starmer and his issues - and unite more rightwing ones. Don't forget also that in the first week or two after the Savile smear , the polls seemed more unchanged ; and with one or two even extending the Labour lead, AFAIK. Now partygate is off the menu for a bit.
But is it not understood, it takes that fortnight for stories to work their way into the polling. The afternoon Boris flagged this up, it was just a Westminster bubble thing, the last few weeks just about everyone has heard the claim.
Also the trend isn’t much of a Conservative or Boris recovery - the trend is a marginally up Conservative vote whilst Labour vote is collapsing.
Also Boris and his government don’t sound remotely convincing over Ukraine, starting to take incoming from their own benches now after the bad week UK government had last week on Ukraine. Maybe that is because they made such a pigs ear of Afghanistan. Or maybe it’s just Boris hated not trusted each time he speaks now, everyone would prefer Rishi Sunak and and Ben Wallace managing the Ukraine crisis rather than 🛒 and 🥜
But as far as we can see polling trend here, Conservatives not recovering much whilst labour vote is in free fall.
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
They came. They saw. They scarpered.
They saw the leaders they would be taken to.
Yes, I doubt that Putin, Bozo or Trump would go down well with the Galactic Federation.
I see the police have moved onto the next stage of their regular justifications to make no changes - the 'By criticising the police you upset them' evasion and the 'if you criticise the police the public lose faith in them' strategy.
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
Couldn't Boris Johnson at least pretended he disapproves of death threats against the Leader of the Opposition?
The only day he has been close to losing his job was when he tried to do the apology interview. He is hopeless at it and it takes away several of the key USPs of his "Boris" persona. His electoral chances improve if he does not give a shit about whatever he does wrong, hence that is what we will get from now on.
His judgment is Tory MPs will not have the character to act against him for it, and that the public may forgive him by 2024. He is probably right on the former and quite possibly on the latter as well.
All he has to say is, "Of course no-one should be subject to death threats". Dunno. Johnson is so far from any normally acceptable behaviour, let alone decency, my tiny brain doesn't encompass it.
Have you ever considered he quite likely doesn't give a toss if the threats were indeed enacted?
Perhaps Cressida could stand for Mayor of London. Running on her record......
...but would the Labour Party select a woman, especially a lesbian candidate?
Dick is almost certainly a LD not Labour and not Tory either
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
They came. They saw. They scarpered.
They saw the leaders they would be taken to.
Yes, I doubt that Putin, Bozo or Trump would go down well with the Galactic Federation.
Well, there's the good Federation of Star Trek, and the bad Federation of Blake's 7....
I see the police have moved onto the next stage of their regular justifications to make no changes - the 'By criticising the police you upset them' evasion and the 'if you criticise the police the public lose faith in them' strategy.
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
Couldn't Boris Johnson at least pretended he disapproves of death threats against the Leader of the Opposition?
The only day he has been close to losing his job was when he tried to do the apology interview. He is hopeless at it and it takes away several of the key USPs of his "Boris" persona. His electoral chances improve if he does not give a shit about whatever he does wrong, hence that is what we will get from now on.
His judgment is Tory MPs will not have the character to act against him for it, and that the public may forgive him by 2024. He is probably right on the former and quite possibly on the latter as well.
All he has to say is, "Of course no-one should be subject to death threats". Dunno. Johnson is so far from any normally acceptable behaviour, let alone decency, my tiny brain doesn't encompass it.
Have you ever considered he quite likely doesn't give a toss if the threats were indeed enacted?
Perhaps Cressida could stand for Mayor of London. Running on her record......
...but would the Labour Party select a woman, especially a lesbian candidate?
Dick is almost certainly a LD not Labour and not Tory either
I am not sure how you reach that conclusion.
There are many would argue that she must be all three, as they're all Dick's.
An exchange official said only about 25% of euro clearing at LCH is between EU counterparties, meaning coming under Brussels' regulatory purview.
Oh good. We are only losing a quarter of a vast sum.
I was worried there for a minute ....
I thought you'd be disappointed we weren't losing 100%.....
I do not really give a d*mn any longer. "We" voted to be poorer, or some such. I lost. I am sucking it up...
In that case why do you keep gleefully posting things that you think are bad news for the UK (but often aren't)?
Because I am a bad person. Why else?
Not a bad person, just a bad loser.
Possibly. One of the things about being a "loser" in any political argument is the opportunity to see that one was generally right with the passage of time. I have largely "got over" Brexit, and while I "respect (if that is not too strong a word) the result, I still get a bit of amusement (though no pleasure) in noticing that it has been one massive balls up as many of us predicted, with virtually no upside whatsoever. I particularly get amusement from the idea of Jacob Rees Mogg desperately looking for those "opportunities" that don't really exist.
The difference is you are not jumping gleefully on any supposed bit of adverse news to do down the country. That is why you are not a bad loser. Every debate has winners and losers and it is how both the winners and the losers behave after the result that defines them far more than which side they were actually on. You want what is best for the country and just differ on how best to get there. As I read it, if Britain outside of the EU is successful that is more important to you than right or wrong over the question of leaving.
Sadly for some posters that is not the case. Being right is more important than what the actual effect is on their country.
They are the bad losers - and in some cases the bad winners.
People get very exercised about this in particular because, as just about everyone including our blessed MPs understands, "Britain outside the EU" is suffering economically.
As per my post last week the only legitimate reason for wanting the UK to leave the EU is one of sovereignty which, while absolute, and something we always were, was also compromised by our membership of the EU. And that is a wholly understandable view, if a huge minority one.
That any economic or other perhaps more tangible benefit has accrued to the UK outside the EU is fanciful. That is why people who care about their country continue to be upset. We believe that the UK and its population has suffered.
Simply not true. In the biggest ever survey, on this issue, the largest number of Leave voters cited Sovereignty as the main reason for their vote
On the day of the referendum Lord Ashcroft's polling team questioned 12,369 people who had completed voting.[3] This poll produced data that showed that 'Nearly half (49%) of leave voters said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the European Union was "the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK". ("in the UK." meaning: "by the UK." logically implying: "on behalf of 66 million UK citizens not 508 million EU residents.")
In other surveys immigration comes out just ahead of sovereignty, but it is very close
Interestingly, you are a classic example of THIS:
"When asked to rank the reasons why their counterparts voted the way they did, Leave voters characterise Remain voters more accurately than Remain voters characterise Leave voters. In particular, Remain voters underestimate the importance that Leave voters attach to the EU having no role in UK law-making."
We were always sovereign but there were certain things we couldn't do because we had agreed to be part of a bigger grouping. I am not about to get into a discussion about peoples' perception vs reality of our sovereignty but I would guess that people thought the EU did more and we could do less than was the case.
Oh yes of course there was also immigration. I try to avoid pointing that out because Leavers get very defensive about it and compete to tell me how they welcome ever more immigrants.
I see you are still spreading the same old myths Topping.
Once an external government has the power to make new laws over which you have no control and which you cannot veto then you are no longer sovereign. There is no other organisation we are a member of which can do this to us. Now that might be acceptable to you which is your choice but it doesn't change the basic fact that it removes sovereignty - something you apparently don't care much about.
Mate don't take it out on me speak to David Davis. He's your man on the sovereignty spot.
And of course we were sovereign. How could we leave the EU if we weren't?
That's a stupid argument. It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR.
This post is a little silly and coming from you quite surprising. It's exactly the same nonsense that some of the more excitable Scottish nationalists come out with when they claim Scotland is a colony. You're better than this.
Nope read what I wrote rather than what you want it to say. If the mere fact you left a bloc means you were always sovereign - which is the idiotic claim made by Topping - then all those former Eastern bloc countries were always sovereign and so is Scotland right now. A claim which is so obviously ludicrous that I am amazed you can even contemplate it.
Ok, let's leave my NATO analogy (it's not a great one, to be fair).
Instead consider enforcement.
Former USSR country, while part of USSR - most senior politician does something directly against USSR policy or rules, what's the punishment? Prosecution. Imprisonment. Worse, perhaps. UDI? The tanks roll in.
Scottish government does something against UK law, e.g. unauthorised referendum, UDI. Possible prosecution (treason?). Theoretically, the tanks roll in (depends how far up the government HYUFD has got!)
UK government, while in EU, does something against EU law (or, say, refuses to enact EU law into domestic law). Or has a referendum on 'independence' without asking EU for permission. Or declares UDI. Enforcement? EU could take UK to court. UK gets told to behave and/or fined? Enforcement? The absolute worst is getting kicked out or perhaps trade sanctions. The EU has no power to try the UK PM, does it? Civil court case, perhaps, but not criminal. Has a referendum on leaving without permission? We didn't need EU permission. UDI? EU points to A50, but in practice we can just tear up the treaties and exit immediately by repealing EU law.
Edit: I accept there is debate over sovereignty, particularly with QMV, but the UK always had the ability to take its toys home if it really didn't like it (as we indeed did). Scotland and the former USSR states do not/did not have that ability. The situations are different. Whether the UK was sovereign does however depend on where you draw that line, so I'm not really arguing on that, just that the USSR is not a good comparison to the EU.
Again not true - at least as far as Scotland is concerned. We all recognise that Scotland has the right to withdraw from the United Kingdom - indeed there has been a vote on that very subject. And yet no one would reasonably claim that Scotland is currently a sovereign state - which is exactly what Topping is saying by equating the right to leave with Sovereignty.
Basically Topping is talking garbage either through ignorance or dishonesty. A country can regain sovereignty through the act of leaving but that does not mean that country was always sovereign.
The line should be the definition - "the authority of a state to govern itself". As long as a country is part of an organisation that can make laws over which the state has no veto it cannot be claimed to be sovereign.
Richard you're losing it. Being in the EU was like being a Soviet state. You are making yourself into a laughing stock.
The UK was and is sovereign. Ask David Davis, arch remoaner leaver. He will explain it all to you. I can't promise it will be in words that you can understand but you have slightly jumped the shark with the whole Sot thing so try to get what you can out of it. Here it is "we were always sovereign". .
When you get to the point where you have to misrepresent what I said in such an obvious way then it is clear you have lost both the argument and any sense of decency. Do stop embarrassing yourself, stop being such an utter fuckwit and accept that when it comes to the question of sovereignty - as has been obvious for so long - you really don't know what you are talking about.
People are laughing at you Richard. You should probably stop while you're behind.
Misrepresenting you. You wish. This is what you said:
"It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR. "
Complete and utter fuckwittery from a complete and utter arsehole so I suppose no suprise there. You sadsack moron.
This is unedifying. You should both desist
Have you gone soft and become a better person in the Global South sun or something?
I see the police have moved onto the next stage of their regular justifications to make no changes - the 'By criticising the police you upset them' evasion and the 'if you criticise the police the public lose faith in them' strategy.
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
Couldn't Boris Johnson at least pretended he disapproves of death threats against the Leader of the Opposition?
The only day he has been close to losing his job was when he tried to do the apology interview. He is hopeless at it and it takes away several of the key USPs of his "Boris" persona. His electoral chances improve if he does not give a shit about whatever he does wrong, hence that is what we will get from now on.
His judgment is Tory MPs will not have the character to act against him for it, and that the public may forgive him by 2024. He is probably right on the former and quite possibly on the latter as well.
All he has to say is, "Of course no-one should be subject to death threats". Dunno. Johnson is so far from any normally acceptable behaviour, let alone decency, my tiny brain doesn't encompass it.
Have you ever considered he quite likely doesn't give a toss if the threats were indeed enacted?
Perhaps Cressida could stand for Mayor of London. Running on her record......
...but would the Labour Party select a woman, especially a lesbian candidate?
Dick is almost certainly a LD not Labour and not Tory either
I am not sure how you reach that conclusion.
Well she is obviously not Labour, especially after Khan effectively sacked her and nor is she a Tory either I expect
That’s what happens to party’s polling when voters find out your leader protected Jimmy Saville,
I would say personally it's, mainly , Johnson getting to strut his stuff in Ukraine, with issues connected with possible war often tending to fracture leftwing/liberal coalitions of voters - see Starmer and his issues - and unite more rightwing ones. Don't forget also that in the first week or two after the Savile smear , the polls seemed more unchanged ; and with one or two even extending the Labour lead, AFAIK. Now partygate is off the menu for a bit.
But is it not understood, it takes that fortnight for stories to work their way into the polling. The afternoon Boris flagged this up, it was just a Westminster bubble thing, the last few weeks just about everyone has heard the claim.
Also the trend isn’t much of a Conservative or Boris recovery - the trend is a marginally up Conservative vote whilst Labour vote is collapsing.
Also Boris and his government don’t sound remotely convincing over Ukraine, starting to take incoming from their own benches now after the bad week UK government had last week on Ukraine. Maybe that is because they made such a pigs ear of Afghanistan. Or maybe it’s just Boris hated not trusted each time he speaks now, everyone would prefer Rishi Sunak and and Ben Wallace managing the Ukraine crisis rather than 🛒 and 🥜
But as far as we can see polling trend here, Conservatives not recovering much whilst labour vote is in free fall.
Hm, I personally would say the Tories consolidating, and the left-of-centre always in double trouble on war issues - criticised from the left for being too compromised on issues of peace, and under a cloud of doubt as the not most reliable option in a war situation, from the right. That would also tally with a greater loss than Tory gain, to my mind, because I think there are fewer primarily militarily and strategically than peace-minded Labour voters.
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
Indeed. It is mathematically near-certain other sentient life forms have evolved somewhere out there in the TRILLIONS of stars in billions of galaxies, with mega-bazillions of planets
And how would a super advanced civilisation explore its local galaxy? The same way the first super advanced Chinese or European or Pacific civilisations explored the world - they sent out expendable machines in the form of ships with crews prepared to die, on journeys from which they would probably not return, nonetheless hoping to find new realms.
For me it seems quite probable that the galaxy is swarming with AI-powered drones, near indestructible, able to survive enormously long interstellar journeys, which are busy sending back info about any life they find, to the Home Planet.
And that COULD be what we are seeing. Alien drones with "AI pilots", not alien life itself- tho at some point the difference between "intelligent life" and "AI" must be debatable, and perhaps absurd and irrelevant
That’s what happens to party’s polling when voters find out your leader protected Jimmy Saville,
I would say personally it's, mainly , Johnson getting to strut his stuff in Ukraine, with issues connected with possible war often tending to fracture leftwing/liberal coalitions of voters - see Starmer and his issues - and unite more rightwing ones. Don't forget also that in the first week or two after the Savile smear , the polls seemed more unchanged ; and with one or two even extending the Labour lead, AFAIK. Now partygate is off the menu for a bit.
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
That’s what happens to party’s polling when voters find out your leader protected Jimmy Saville,
Defamatory and poorly spelled.
I agree with you Farooq. Is this better?
“ is this what happens to a party’s polling when voters are told by a Primeminister the Opposition leader protected Jimmy Saville from getting just reward? “
We are not on side of the argument, dog whistle politics never works are we?
Apparently this is a video shot by a pilot or co pilot inside the cockpit of a USAF fighter, possible F-18 or Hornet, the reddit debate goes into this in some depth. The video has been around for many years - probably dates from 2008 (hence the grainy imagery, probably a handheld cassette camera).
is it a fake? What the F is it? The audio is quite bizarre and seems to be mild chatter in a passenger aircraft which does not match the images at all. Murkier and murkier. Yet the video matches prior descriptions of cryptic footage claimed by UAP bods to show UFOS very close indeed to USAF jets - and filmed
For balance, one crucial aspect of an earlier vid which kicked off this whole Flap - the "rotation" of the gimbal UAP has now been, I think, comprehensively debunked
"I met with Mick West and his Gimbal simulator checks out. He answered all of Mechanical Engineer Paul Bradley’s questions and it looks like the Gimbal object spin is related to the pod. I still think range is less than 10nm so no change in my position, still a UAP"
I managed to find the video via YouTube. Wow. No, not really. Yet again I go back to this. If that’s a passenger aircraft, why isn’t everyone yelling and looking out the window? Why such a short clip? Maybe my standards of proof are just too high? I’ve enjoyed Craig Charles’s programme on ufos, but nothing in them has in any way made me think it’s aliens.
Read the Reddit thread. It is not filmed in a passenger aircraft. It is 99% likely filmed in a USAF fighter - hence the tight scratchy plastic canopy. It is a well informed sub-Reddit - they often get experienced pilots on there, as they do on that particular thread, describing the exact layout of the wings, and so on
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
Every time we look out the window, we see a Universe made of galaxies that mirror our own. Each galaxy teeming with umpty billion stars, a black hole at its centre, each star with its own solar system. The only thing we haven't found to mirror our own solar system is life.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
They came. They saw. They scarpered.
It's an interesting one. I assume that there is intelligent life in the universe. I don't assume it's benign, pace Carl Sagan who famously in the Cosmos series suggested that any beings with the development to travel between the stars would be sufficiently developed to be benign.
We know that the biggest barrier to space travel is the vastness and the need, essentially, to travel close to the speed of light. But let's say that it's solvable.
Even then, this particular planet on which we exist is around 4.5 billion years old but only has experienced well developed human life for c. 2000 years? 3000 years? Shall we be more generous and say 4500 years at a hell of a stretch?
What are the chances that in a universe of c. 15 billion years age that these visitors would have managed to reach this planet of ours in that narrow time slot of 4500 years out of 4,500,000,000 years?
By my reckoning intelligent human life has been on this planet for 0.000001 % of its existence. Come too early and they meet a bunch of ravenous dinosaurs. Come too late and they meet a desolate wasteland after Vlad has pressed the red button.
Firstly, anyone who has been to the caves in Lascaux or Font-de-Gaume would recognize that clearly intelligent life has been around at least 35,000 years, not 3,000. But why are you assuming that aliens would only visit earth once, especially if they found any form of life on their first visit. And why would you assume that they have to visit in order to observe us? Your assumptions indicate that your aliens only have human-level technology, or at best, human-imaginable technology.
Comments
Specifically, "To join the Alliance, nations are expected to respect the values of the North Atlantic Treaty, and to meet certain political, economic and military criteria, set out in the Alliance’s 1995 Study on Enlargement. These criteria include a functioning democratic political system based on a market economy; fair treatment of minority populations; a commitment to resolve conflicts peacefully; an ability and willingness to make a military contribution to NATO operations; and a commitment to democratic civil-military relations and institutions."
This is from the Centre for American Progress, according to Politico the most influential think tank under Bidens administration:
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-the-united-states-should-respond-if-russia-invades-ukraine/
"Establish a standing U.S.-U.K. joint counter-kleptocracy working group. The United States and the United Kingdom should work closely together to counter Russian kleptocrats. The United Kingdom, in particular, has become a major hub for Russian oligarchs and their wealth, with London gaining the moniker “Londongrad.” Uprooting Kremlin-linked oligarchs will be a challenge given the close ties between Russian money and the United Kingdom’s ruling conservative party, the press, and its real estate and financial industry."
You draw your sovereignty line at QMV. That's fine. I disagree, but I respect your view and I'm not saying you're wrong on that, we just have different definitions of severeignty. There's still a difference between Scotland within the UK and the UK within the EU.
Mrs J tries the same first word every time, and then spends scores of minutes with pen and paper thinking through the alternatives of each row. I'm unconvinced her approach is much more successful. My 'method' is probably scorned by many who want to get the magic (and fluke) 2.
(*) Beast, Rhino and Pluck. Covers the vowels and a few common letters, with no repeats.
The UK was and is sovereign. Ask David Davis, arch
remoanerleaver. He will explain it all to you. I can't promise it will be in words that you can understand but you have slightly jumped the shark with the whole Soviet thing so try to get what you can out of it. Here it is "we were always sovereign"..
I doubt it would cost many votes. A well meaning gesture against racism. It’s not supporting the political extremists that want to get rid of the police.
- Cases falling. R is falling. Overall UK R is 0.8
- Hospital admissions down. R solidly below 1
- MV beds down
- In hospital down.
- Deaths down. The fall is accelerating, if anything.
His judgment is Tory MPs will not have the character to act against him for it, and that the public may forgive him by 2024. He is probably right on the former and quite possibly on the latter as well.
With this system, I got today's in 4, but on reflection should have got it in 3.
Possibly…
https://www.ft.com/content/8b97213d-a9b4-4263-8248-3f66b17f5d29
The Met Police Federation has declared it has "no faith" in Sadiq Khan after the "very public ousting" of Dame Cressida Dick as commissioner.
She resigned from the role on Thursday over the mayor of London's lack of confidence in her plans for reform.
More than 31,000 rank-and-file officers are represented by the Met Police Federation.
Chairman Ken Marsh warned that the atmosphere among Met Police officers was at "rock bottom"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-60375845
Sadly, it usually works to at least kick the can down the road.
Khan (and Patel) should ignore them. If the Police Federation think that a decision is bad, it almost certainly means it's the right decision.
Perhaps this will turn out to be Khan's Waterloo and Cressida lives on. Have you ever considered he quite likely doesn't give a toss if the threats were indeed enacted?
There was a bizarre idea that ATMs could never be wrong. Which ended when a Met Policeman (IIRC) was prosecuted for fraud, for claiming that an ATM hadn't dispensed the money.
That’s what happens to party’s polling when voters find out your leader protected Jimmy Saville,
Instead, Boris Johnson is a Little League Putinist . . . representing a really posh reform school . . .
This week’s policy: “We will pay, but the UK Government will owe us compensation"
Can’t wait to find out what next week’s SNP pension policy will be…
https://twitter.com/staylorish/status/1493241306688204808?s=21
The audio is therefore a mystery, because that DOES sound like a passenger jet. But as you say everyone should be screaming. Somehow the wrong audio is attached to this video. Why? Who the F knows. Maybe it is a prank
But - as the Reddit thread also analyses and postulates - the audio may be weird and wrong but the video is difficult to work out. It would be tricky to fake - some say just quite hard, some say extremely hard.
However I agree with your final point. Nothing in these generally flaky videos convinces me we are being visited by advanced Chinese drones, let alone extra-dimensional beings, or visitors from Betelgeuse.
What does intrigue me, and baffle me, is the way the American elite is taking this all so seriously. Is it a mass psychosis? A deep conspiracy? After Covid, these seem quite plausible explanations. Lab leak was a massive deep conspiracy - as in: a cover up of a plausible hypothesis. Some thing lockdown is a mass psychosis
Strange days, strange days
And it *could* still be aliens, or non humans. Every day we discover more exo-planets, and the chances of non-earth life, out there, increase
* It's not even just the security and auditing issues, imagine all the denial of service opportunities that it creates.
Misrepresenting you. You wish. This is what you said:
"It is like saying the former Eastern European states were sovereign because they were able to gain independence from the USSR. "
Complete and utter fuckwittery from a complete and utter arsehole so I suppose no suprise there. You sadsack moron.
Disband the Met, replace it with local and national forces under the mayor and home office, and let’s see every officer be vetted again.
It would be one hell of a waste of a Universe if it just held us. And mind-bogglingly unlikely. The entire Universe, solely to house people comparing their Wordle scores? Nah.....
#BREAKING France's foreign minister warns 'all elements' are in place for 'major offensive' by Russia against Ukraine
https://twitter.com/afp/status/1493289464898142210?s=21
The only way you will get malcyg joining the Tories is if someone wants to mess with his pension.
(You just have to ignore the bit where everyone who was involved in the project knew it was riddled with bugs and churning out rubbish).
I’m fascinated but the Fortean, have been all my life. Ive seen a few weird things, but on every occasion an explanation is available. I’ve never seen a ghost, even when my aunt did. (I saw a barn owl...). The ABC we saw in the field turned out to be a large black, but sadly domestic, cat. The weird flames and house on fire I saw a couple of weeks hence was the reflection of the just risen sun, at just the right angle. I could go on. The only one I can’t explain was my encounter with pan on Salisbury plain, but tbh I probably just spooked myself.
As to why now, we’ll QAnon has been raging, and ufo or uap is related to this. There have been people making claims forever. Why? Well for fun, and because they get kicks out of it.
As to the substance, comparing the UK to FSU states indicates that his judgement is not shall we say "reliable".
We know that the biggest barrier to space travel is the vastness and the need, essentially, to travel close to the speed of light. But let's say that it's solvable.
Even then, this particular planet on which we exist is around 4.5 billion years old but only has experienced well developed human life for c. 2000 years? 3000 years? Shall we be more generous and say 4500 years at a hell of a stretch?
What are the chances that in a universe of c. 15 billion years age that these visitors would have managed to reach this planet of ours in that narrow time slot of 4500 years out of 4,500,000,000 years?
By my reckoning intelligent human life has been on this planet for 0.000001 % of its existence. Come too early and they meet a bunch of ravenous dinosaurs. Come too late and they meet a desolate wasteland after Vlad has pressed the red button.
Are you still ok with our £300/£100 bet on Starmer PM after the GE? I do hope so.
Also the trend isn’t much of a Conservative or Boris recovery - the trend is a marginally up Conservative vote whilst Labour vote is collapsing.
Also Boris and his government don’t sound remotely convincing over Ukraine, starting to take incoming from their own benches now after the bad week UK government had last week on Ukraine. Maybe that is because they made such a pigs ear of Afghanistan. Or maybe it’s just Boris hated not trusted each time he speaks now, everyone would prefer Rishi Sunak and and Ben Wallace managing the Ukraine crisis rather than 🛒 and 🥜
But as far as we can see polling trend here, Conservatives not recovering much whilst labour vote is in free fall.
Met drugs chief faces sack for ‘taking LSD and cannabis’
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/met-drugs-chief-faces-sack-for-taking-lsd-and-cannabis-vq88jvvc2 (£)
He's been suspended on full pay since July 2020.
And how would a super advanced civilisation explore its local galaxy? The same way the first super advanced Chinese or European or Pacific civilisations explored the world - they sent out expendable machines in the form of ships with crews prepared to die, on journeys from which they would probably not return, nonetheless hoping to find new realms.
For me it seems quite probable that the galaxy is swarming with AI-powered drones, near indestructible, able to survive enormously long interstellar journeys, which are busy sending back info about any life they find, to the Home Planet.
And that COULD be what we are seeing. Alien drones with "AI pilots", not alien life itself- tho at some point the difference between "intelligent life" and "AI" must be debatable, and perhaps absurd and irrelevant
“ is this what happens to a party’s polling when voters are told by a Primeminister the Opposition leader protected Jimmy Saville from getting just reward? “
We are not on side of the argument, dog whistle politics never works are we?