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A transitory blip or long term damage for the Scottish secessionist movement? – politicalbetting.com
A transitory blip or long term damage for the Scottish secessionist movement? – politicalbetting.com
New @YouGov for @timesscotland.https://t.co/NnquAOi1Nw pic.twitter.com/aosgxgz5BG
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The other interesting thing to watch is the rise in Labour's ratings in Scotland. They have been on a slow but steady upward trajectory and Anas Sarwar is doing a good job.
If Labour can get into double figure MPs, as I now think quite possible, it has implications for their chances of an overall Westminster majority.
I’m betting TSE will be first again this afternoon.
There’s an arguably a big space between ‘transitory blip’ and the ‘long term’. It’s hard to see how it cannot have at least a small effect on the next election; which category does that fall under ?
And to some extent the behaviours of the UK government might be discounted, unless they do something else particularly offensive to Scotland, since very few believe the Conservatives will still be in government after the next UK general election.
The publishing figures for 2022 were rather depressing. In a country of 332 million people, only 28 books out of ~300,000 titles sold more than 500,000 copies. Eight were by one author, Colleen Hoover, and no book of history or politics sold more than 295,000 copies.
https://twitter.com/JasonColavito/status/1620151389363245057
Note the point about the impracticality of controlling such systems in the winter months.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/why-would-the-chinese-government-be-flying-a-large-stratospheric-balloon/
What is significant, as we very rarely have the opportunity to extract such data, is Sturgeon’s -4 rating. That is a statistically significant drop from her typical range of about +5 to +10. However, it is a little premature to say that Sturgeon has had it when the other party leaders have ratings like this:
Rishi Sunak
England -26
Scotland -33
Keir Starmer
England -3
Scotland -13
Ed Davey
England -10
Scotland -20
Ipsos, January
Starmer, who is increasingly considered a shoo-in for next PM is on the same level as Sturgeon in his own country and about 9 points behind Sturgeon in her country. If he’s a coming superstar, why is he rating significantly worse that Scotland’s head of government?
With the Scottish Liberal Democrats unanimously behind the legislation, Scottish Labour overwhelmingly in favour and even a significant minority of Scottish Tories voting for it, it is to say the least a bit odd to blame the SNP-Green government. This bill has broad and deep parliamentary support. Built over the last 6 years.
Mr. B, old figures, but a few years ago I read that even 'successful' authors made an average of less than $10,000 a year. Essentially, very, very few can actually do it as a job, so people have to either have enough free time and money to do it as an entertaining hobby, be one of the tiny number who make enough to scratch a living, or not bother.
And the latter option removes an awful lot of people who might have interesting stories or useful things to say.
The opposition parties are now on 54% and the government parties + their C&S partner, the far-right Sweden Democrats, have sunk to 44%.
The small parties are in trouble:
Centre Party (with brand-new leader) 5%
Greens 5%
Christian Democrats 4%
Liberals 3%
The new Centre leader is a very uninspiring chap and I find it hard to believe that that party is going to recover any time soon.
The threshold to get into parliament is 4%.
Governing coalition:
Moderaterna (roughly Tory Wets) 19%
Kristdemokraterna (socially liberal Christian Democrats) 4%
Liberalerna (roughly Lib Dems) 3%
C&S
Sverigedemokraterna (anti-immigration) 18%
Opposition
Socialdemokraterna (roughly centrist Labour) 37%
Vänsterpartiet (roughly Corbynistas) 8%
Miljöpartiet (Greens) 5%
Centerpartiet (agrarian) 5%
Source: Sveriges Radio Ekot.
It'll get worse as Gen Zs and younger read less and less.
It may remove an awful lot of people who have interesting stories, but it'll also get rid of rather more blowhards with nothing to say, who will have to retreat from bookstores to obscure political sites.
All I want to say for now is that the right-wing here and in the US have weaponised culture wars and this 'anti-woke' agenda.
That's the biggest problem with Nicola. Not that she was wrong but that her timing was and in some ways that's even worse because it can damage a cause for years. Really astute politicians know when to make their move and when to bide their time.
Two or three years from now, whatever obfuscations are dribbling out of Sir Keir's mouth, the climate here in the UK will feel very different, as it did when Tony Blair's New Labour took over in 1997. The time to move forward with trans freedoms will come, regardless of whether the hateful oldies hate it, but that time is not yet.
Ideologues of all sorts often do this and Socialists are every bit as bad as the Right. They love to dictate and force their ideas on others because of course 'they know best'. Look at Sadiq with the Ulez.
FFS ... this is exactly what I mean.
xx
@TelePolitics: 🔵 The 1922 Committee will consider a rule change to allow a no confidence vote in Rishi Sunak if the party suffers… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1622086582466498561
She’ll remain my profile pic for as long as she is an asset.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nicola-sturgeons-betrayal-has-killed-confidence-of-loyalists-dnxkmtjxx
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sturgeon-has-made-a-mess-on-gender-issues-but-independence-is-bigger-than-she-is-r30hrjcbm
Mr Dickson is quite correct - this has been a Green driven project from the get go. The mystery is why Sturgeon has chosen to expend so much political capital on it. Although the “broad and deep support” is largely from Scottish government funded bodies, not the public who are broadly and deeply opposed.
@KateAndrs: Was Liz Truss denied a 'realistic chance' to succeed?
Overview and analysis of the former prime minister's essay,… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1622134120104034305
Is now the time to right that wrong...
Scottish Daily Mail
Scottish Daily Express
Telegraph Scotland
The Nat onal
It is an incontrovertible fact that the First Minister, having invested much political capital in the GRR Bill, has failed yet again….
Given Monday evening’s car-crash interviews on national television, the First Minister’s previous omnipotent invincibility is clearly no longer what it was….
Can the First Minister, clearly with her back against the firmest of political walls, really expect to take the Yes community with her if she has to spend the next 18-24 months “fixing” the GRR mess? Does she really have anything left “in the tank”?…
Has she the courage and selflessness to fall on her political sword having had her flagship policy fail to make it onto the statute book?
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/23298991.fm-courage-fall-political-sword/
Liz Truss believes she’s a genius.
Johnson believes he’s loved by the public.
Rishi Sunak believes we like him.
Ste… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1622016290956222468
I’m still old enough to remember when public opinion was still overwhelmingly in favour of capital punishment, and were furious with the political parties for abolishing it. That fizzled out. Ditto anti-gay campaigns.
What percentage of the public are nowadays in favour of corporal and/or capital punishment? Can’t remember seeing data on that in decades. It’s a dead issue.
While anti-gay sentiment still exists in society, it is a fraction of what it was in the 70s and 80s.
In a few decades folk will look back at the anti-trans loonies and wonder what the fuss was about.
(Incidentally, a trans person won the first round of Melodifestivalen last night. Notably, all age groups gave the 12 point maximum.)
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23256763.gender-recognition-reform-polls-people-say/
If it turns out to have actually damaged her as the threader suggests, that’s rather ironic.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=DrhnXeEG7jk
Not that there was much actual commentary, because the interviews spoke pretty well for themselves.
Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's ex-president, dies aged 79
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64528348
Don’t all political, careers, ended in failure; is the trans row going to be what we finally remember Nicola Sturgeon for?
For some reason I thought you lived in the Midlands?
I think though that it will fade as an issue like it has in other countries where self-ID is policy, such as Ireland or Argentina. Perhaps not by the next GE, where there is likely to be some adverse impact, but in the longer term.
The cross party support for self-ID means it is unlikely to be repealed, though I do expect that we will get some safeguards via amendments and case law.
I realise that Anglocentrism is rife, especially around here, but not everything on this planet revolves around you precious little petals.
The S.35 issues were largely around the safeguarding issues that self-ID creates.
The notion that “we can pass a bad law and let the courts sort out our mess” is an abdication of political responsibility.
This requires a lot more careful and deeper thinking than the TWAW and “No debate” crowd have put in so far.
And once the “affirmative care” (sic) lawsuits start coming…..
And now, when the rest of the country is much as it was before, the South West seems to have a problem.
About the only thing that I should note with regard to Severn Trent is that its reservoirs *could* have been fuller last year had one in the Elan Valley not been emptied so work could be done on the dam. So it is probably more down than it seems, but far from crisis mode.
More rain to top them up to 100% by the end of March would be good, but there's nowhere I can see that should be sparking serious concerns other than the West Country.
What's less usual is that here it's one Parliament blocking another, which I believe is a new departure.
We saw this with the UNCRC bill, which I think was testing the waters for GRR. If it is a strategy, I think it's actually quite smart in that it will package the denial of Indyref2 in with lots of other stuff that Holyrood wants to do.
Anyway, good morning from a stunning but very cold Cairngorms plateau.
LTNs have come about because Google maps = rampant rat running.
It is unreasonable to require a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria* for Gender Recognition and have a waiting list of years to be seen.
The corollary of halting self ID is massive investment and expansion of Gender Recognition services to get those waiting times down to respectable levels. The dispersal of services by closing the Tavistock clinic should seed these across the country, but the demand is huge and mental health impacts very substantial.
*itself effectively self ID as there is no physical test, just questions and answers.
“I don’t have information about whether those claims have validity.”
Isn't that point of *self-declaration*?
Someone declares they're a woman, so they're a woman….
The first minister has said Isla Bryson is “almost certainly” masquerading as a woman, casting doubt on the rapist’s gender identity
@NicolaSturgeon appeared to contradict her own self-declaration policy for trans people
Latest at the @timesscotland
https://twitter.com/mark_mclaughlin/status/1621197486697156608
A group of transgender people have lost their legal case against NHS England over waiting times to get seen by a gender specialist.
The two trans adults and two trans children had tried to get the wait times - more than four years in one of their cases - deemed illegal.
But a High Court judge ruled on Monday the waiting times are lawful.
The Good Law Project - which helped to bring the legal action - said it would seek permission to appeal.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64288386.amp
And then he gave us 'transitory blip'...
For me.
Better to hold your hands up and say we’re going to think again and understand the concerns. It might be embarrassing but continuing to defend the bill which is clearly flawed is doing a lot of damage to the SNP.
I was hoping for an absolute not a relative performance.
I suppose it's an improvement on 'X faces the wrath of Khan.'
The afternoon thread contains a classical history reference.
If you could help educate the likes of Morris Dancer on the reference I’d appreciate it.
What's next? Legislate to ban gravity - it's very dangerous, you know. People fall off cliffs on a regular basis.
When a simple question cannot be answered, you know you're in trouble.
You may be relying on @HYUFD .
Yesterday he and I had a positively sensible conversation on history, so there is definitely hope!
The bigger surprise is Sweden has joined Italy and Austria as the only western nation to have had a government reliant on the support of a far right party and that government still has 3 years of its term left anyway
https://youtube.com/watch?v=yysKhJ1U-vM
You know the tide is starting to turn, when a famously Republican Democrat-donating commentator such as Bill Maher, can get rounds of applause from his famously conservative liberal audience in that hotbed of conservatism liberalism that is Los Angeles, for suggesting that the witch hunt has gone too far, and that society is failing to learn the obvious lessons of the past.
The government appears to have barely noticed that there is a global race to dominate the green technologies of the future. In investment attracted, jobs created, income earned and lives bettered, the prizes for the winners will be huge. In prosperity foregone, the penalty for the laggards will be severe.
The United States is out of the blocks. The European Union is hurrying along the track. China is competing too. Here in dear old blighty, we are not even at the starting line.
Some of the blame belongs with Brexit, which has made the UK a less appealing destination for investment. Culpability also lies with the incessant instability since the referendum. We need a long-term plan to invest in the R&D, skills and infrastructure necessary for a green economy, but that’s not going to happen when you have a succession of short-term prime ministers too consumed by scandals and scrabbling for their survival to think about the future.
Being a serious competitor in this race will require an industrial strategy, a concept to which many Tories are ideologically allergic. Rishi Sunak has had nothing of substance to say about the green transition since he became prime minister.
The only future economy is a green economy. The coming decades will see one of the greatest industrial transformations in human history. The UK needs to be at the races, not fiddling with its laces while others speed away down the track leaving us for dust.