Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2022 15:06:21 GMT
I know one shouldn't assume that everybody thinks the same, but as I said earlier in the thread this ridiculous stretched out internal Tory leadership election while the country sinks must be infuriating a lot of people across the voting board.
It just looks self indulgent out of touch and bald people arguing over a comb.
I think they are making themselves completely unelectable. But I would think that, wouldn't I?
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Post by pete on Aug 18, 2022 15:16:17 GMT
I think the pair of ****** need to spell what they mean.
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Post by laszlo4new on Aug 18, 2022 15:17:28 GMT
Just because the Finish prime minister is criticised for dancing in a private party. But at least she was good in it... And his predecessor: youtu.be/tbCDFNRA-WoAnd of course Bush and Putin: youtu.be/aqqYnq7Sr-0
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Post by alec on Aug 18, 2022 16:11:58 GMT
www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/18/berlin-scrambling-to-import-lng-as-russia-throttles-gas-supply"Shortly after Russian troops crossed on to Ukrainian soil in the spring, the talk was that building LNG terminals would take three to five years. Now politicians are confident the terminal and its connecting pipeline can be built in seven months, with works finishing on 21 December and gas flowing the day after."
Edit: Also noteworthy that EU gas storage levels are at 75%+ capacity, increasing at a daily rate largely unchanged since March.
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oldnat
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Extremist - Undermining the UK state and its institutions
Posts: 6,083
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Post by oldnat on Aug 18, 2022 17:20:21 GMT
"Lets keep it simple then...... 'Unionist' and 'Nationalist'."
OK. "Unionists" are those who wish their polity to be a member state of the European Union. "Nationalists" are those who wish their polity to exist outwith that Union.
"You can put your slant as to this and that about attitudes in England and (Wales)."
Since pjw1961's comment was that "terminology is used "to wind up their English supporters", I restricted my response to that. To see yourself, or your group, as being so important, that everyone else is focussed on you, is a classic form of the "hypervigilant" subtype of narcissistic personality disorder - though I had hoped that a gentler reference would be adequate. It is, of course, not unique to England that some people demonstrate that characteristic to some degree or other. Such people, who often display a contradictory set of attitudes incorporating arrogance and victimhood, are to be found everywhere. I observed it as being regrettably common in Scotland in the 3rd quarter of the 20th century.
"For me the self centredness comes from Scottish Nationalists who see themselves as having an escape route from a failing union and who seem to relish every opportunity to tell us that."
Since the whole point of the constitutional debate in Scotland is to advocate what people think is best for Scotland, of course it is self (or at least polity) centred. Research has shown that the number of people who think Scotland should be in no political union at all is very small, and the prospect of being in both the UK and European Unions for the foreseeable future is vanishingly small, the key question is which of the two available Unions is best for Scotland to be in. Those in other polities will have to make their own choices.
However, I am glad to see you confirming that the UK Union is failing - "a sinking ship" - so we should all consider the best options to replace it.
"It's as if we are all on a sinking ship but some of us have access to a lifeboat. Imagine being in the group that don't have access to the lifeboat!"
Perhaps not the best analogy. The officers commanding the tramp steamer "UK" ensured that there were no lifeboats. Those with a bit of gumption are building a raft, while others just sit around moaning about those selfish buggers who don't choose to drown with the rest of us.
"Many people in England and Wales have very similar views and attitudes to people in Scotland"
True - but a non-sequitur. Just as many in Ireland, IoM and the Channel Islands (not to mention in other states around the world) have the same. Sharing such attitudes does not entail being in a political union.
"There is more that unifies us than divides us in relation to culture, language, foreign affairs, defence etc. The areas that are different can be managed by devolution and both Labour and LibDems have an honourable history in devolving power."
Since foreign affairs and defence are matters reserved to Westminster, it should be obvious that they cannot be managed by devolution. Hireton has already dealt with your other points.
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oldnat
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Extremist - Undermining the UK state and its institutions
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Post by oldnat on Aug 18, 2022 17:44:37 GMT
More than three quarters of Northern Ireland's population projected to be in fuel poverty in January. Presumably partly because many homes rely on heating oil which is uncapped ( alec ?)
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steve
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Post by steve on Aug 18, 2022 17:51:51 GMT
oldnat It's not essentially all that dramatic when the warmest and wealthiest part of the UK sees nearly 60% in fuel poverty. It's a national Tory government inflicted disaster.
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steve
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Posts: 12,260
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Post by steve on Aug 18, 2022 17:54:12 GMT
Cosplay Thatcher
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Aug 18, 2022 17:59:20 GMT
Liz Truss has spent her campaign posing in front of Union flags while accusing the media of "talking the country down" and Keir Starmer of being a "plastic patriot." Now newly-leaked comments have revealed what she really thinks about this country. No hypocrite like a Tory hypocrite. They wrap themselves in the flag and love to define themselves as patriots but they seem to hate everything worthwhile in this country. TBF, they same to hate each other even more. Brexit Tories, American Republicans, German AfD supporters. They are the plastic patriots. Real patriotism is taking your society as it is and wanting it to work as well as possible for the greatest number and be respected internationally. The puerile and superficial ‘new right’ populists think patriotism is just flag waving, tribalism and petty yah boo oneupmanship.
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oldnat
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Extremist - Undermining the UK state and its institutions
Posts: 6,083
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Post by oldnat on Aug 18, 2022 18:11:33 GMT
Anent plastic patriots
I was in London in 2008 when Team GB were parading through the city. Lots of little plastic union flags had been given out, and were littering the streets. Rather appropriately, there was a union flag on one side and an advert for a credit card company on the other.
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Aug 18, 2022 18:56:13 GMT
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Post by crossbat11 on Aug 18, 2022 19:59:30 GMT
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Post by bedknobsandboomstick on Aug 18, 2022 20:13:00 GMT
Brilliant twitter thread here summarising the account of a Russian paratrooper who took part in the capture of Kherson and has now fled the country.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Aug 18, 2022 20:29:27 GMT
In this country, we still kid ourselves that we had a reasonable response. I'd really like to see some recognition that the science advisory system got far too close to politicians, and was far too timid in challenging false statements by ministers, for one thing, but we are still making some of the howlers the CDC has made - like 5 day isolation recommendation for a disease that commonly remains infectious for twice that length. But in the UK there is no sign at all of any appetite for reform. I trust you recall how repeatedly the scientific advisors stood up and claimed covid was enjoying exponential growth and was about to cause mass death...even when the latest data suggested exponential growth had already ended. Fundamentally this was one of the biggest lies of this whole over reaction, and it seems to have been supported by the scientific advice at least as much as the political. Admittedly we don't know to what extent van tam and Co were ordered to lie to the public. You will also be aware that the time a person remains infectious is highly variable and might range from just hours to weeks in extreme cases. Thus it is necessary to make a compromise between preventing all possible spread and allowing a percentage. You could order everyone home for a month to be fairly certain, but then you must pay the economic cost of doing so. In no outbreak have we succeeded in preventing that strain of covid infecting most of the population such that it then dies out for lack of new victims, herd immunity achieved. In no case therefore did isolation actually work, so why are you asking to extend it? Fundamentally it was a terrible mistake to prevent spread of covid in the uk in the working population. This was only justifiable to prevent hospitals becoming so overloaded patients went untreated- which never happened. What we really did was deliberately keep covid going longer and thereby suspended treatments for other diseases, which is becoming apparent now.
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Aug 18, 2022 21:13:37 GMT
A quote from this week's Bagehot column in the Economist:
"Labour is often scrutinised as if it is in government, whereas the Conservatives are somehow able to campaign as an opposition in office."
They don't mention the BBC specifically but it's fairly clear that's that's what is meant. That organisation will have serious questions to answer one day. In a few short years it has destroyed it's own credibility, just like the nation it reflects I suppose..
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2022 21:13:54 GMT
you might find this an interesting read
Abstract Public attitudes that are in opposition to scientific consensus can be disastrous and include rejection of vaccines and opposition to climate change mitigation policies. Five studies examine the interrelationships between opposition to expert consensus on controversial scientific issues, how much people actually know about these issues, and how much they think they know. Across seven critical issues that enjoy substantial scientific consensus, as well as attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines and mitigation measures like mask wearing and social distancing, results indicate that those with the highest levels of opposition have the lowest levels of objective knowledge but the highest levels of subjective knowledge. Implications for scientists, policymakers, and science communicators are discussed.
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DISCUSSION Results from five studies show that the people who disagree most with the scientific consensus know less about the relevant issues, but they think they know more. These results suggest that this phenomenon is fairly general, although the relationships were weaker for some more polarized issues, particularly climate change. It is important to note that we document larger mismatches between subjective and objective knowledge among participants who are more opposed to the scientific consensus. Thus, although broadly consistent with the Dunning-Kruger effect and other research on knowledge miscalibration, our findings represent a pattern of relationships that goes beyond overconfidence among the least knowledgeable. However, the data are correlational, and the normal caveats apply.
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steve
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Post by steve on Aug 18, 2022 21:24:18 GMT
For those who think of Truss as just a moral vacuum flowing in whichever direction gets her status within the party .Think again.
She's actually a thoroughly unpleasant right wing loon as well.
Liz Truss called for patients to be charged for GP visits, 2009 paper reveals PM hopeful co-authored pamphlet that also called for doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10% and abolition of universal child benefit.
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
Member
A step on the way toward the demise of the liberal elite? Or just a blip…
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Aug 18, 2022 21:33:39 GMT
Lockdown effects feared to be killing more people than Covid
Unexplained excess deaths outstrip those from virus as medics call figures ‘terrifying’
“The effects of lockdown may now be killing more people than are dying of Covid, official statistics suggest.
Figures for excess deaths from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that around 1,000 more people than usual are dying each week from conditions other than the virus.
The Telegraph understands that the Department of Health has ordered an investigation into the figures amid concern that the deaths are linked to delays to and deferment of treatment for conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
Over the past two months, the number of excess deaths not from Covid dwarfs the number linked to the virus. It comes amid renewed calls for Covid measures such as compulsory face masks in the winter.”
Telegraph
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Post by alec on Aug 18, 2022 21:46:46 GMT
oldnat - not sure if the NI Fuel poverty projections are so much to do with oil prices or low income levels to be honest, as heating oil costs are now falling - although still above recent periods.
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Post by alec on Aug 18, 2022 21:54:46 GMT
c-a-r-f-r-e-w - that reporting in the Telegraph, and any statements from the DoH linking excess deaths to lockdowns, is tragically idiotic. You will probably recall that up until March this year, we had a run where excess deaths were below average, and then we let omicron take over. Since then, we've had collapsing NHS emergency services and a substantial impact on a week by week basis of NHS diagnostic services. Excess deaths have been high, with confirmed covid accounting for around 50% of the excess, but 'deaths at home' apparently unrelated to covid remaining the biggest single contributor. We know from large scale cohort studies that even mild covid causes hugely elevated risks in a range of illnesses, with death rates significantly higher in the year following a covid infection. (One study out today found various brain and neurological diseases remained twice as common in infected vs uninfected, persisting for the full 2 years of the study). So, we have a health service unable to adequately deal with emergencies and a disease that has been allowed to run riot that we know kills people in significant numbers for months and years after infection, yet the excess deaths occuring now are apparently the result of something that we did over a year ago? This is a diversion. People will die because of it.
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steve
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Post by steve on Aug 18, 2022 21:56:30 GMT
c-a-r-f-r-e-w For those of us not focussed exclusively on covid the implications of lockdown and the cancellation of preventative health care were obvious. Sadly but not unexpectedly they prove to be becoming apparent.
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Post by mercian on Aug 18, 2022 22:12:26 GMT
Ah, the good old Guardian! In my original post I did say that there were short-term Brexit effects and that our inflation might be a couple of percentage points higher than other countries. So what? I can't remember who made the post I was replying to but he said that the "country is seemingly going to suffer far more than other European countries". A couple of percent higher inflation at the moment doesn't mean that (IMO).
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Post by mercian on Aug 18, 2022 22:27:45 GMT
An estimated 86.4% of pensioner couples are expected to fall into fuel poverty, traditionally defined as when energy costs exceed 10% of a household’s net income, and 90.4% of lone parents with two or more children. Well in that case we're already well into so-called fuel poverty. I'm saving a bit less, and we haven't gone out for a meal quite so often, but otherwise we just keep bowling along. No big deal. I appreciate that some will find it harder than us, but our case (where we're not really bothered) shows how these terms can be misleading.
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Post by mercian on Aug 18, 2022 22:42:46 GMT
The reason I don't smoke is because of psychological trauma (at least that's how it felt) I was 14 an my mate, who had been smoking for at least two weeks told me it was time I started smoking; we were standing outside the main entrance to Swansea Market on a busy Saturday afternoon, I took a cigarette from him and, as is my wont, approached matters enthusiastically. This entailed me taking as deep a draft of smoke in one go as I could; the consequence was as dramatic as it was inevitable; I coughed incessantly until I vomited falling to the floor in the process. It being Swansea and a Saturday afternoon in 1975 I was immediately surrounded by a group of caring/nosey (delete as appropriate) old ladies expressing sympathy and disgust in equal measure. The resultant excess embarrassment quotient I felt has scarred me for life Well we were poor (cue 4 Yorkshiremen jokes). I resisted smoking until 14 unlike my friends one of whom started at 9! Anyway, we bought woodbines or Extra (3s 3d for 20) and took a drag and passed them round, so you'd recovered by the time they got back to you!
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Post by guymonde on Aug 18, 2022 22:56:11 GMT
Oh no, we tea drinkers are in trouble, time to start reusing the leaves. You could repurpose them for tea leaf reading. Surely a very topical new green industry.Especially if it's green tea I suppose.
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Post by mercian on Aug 18, 2022 22:59:43 GMT
With regard to splinter parties/groups. I think you can argue that UKIP, BNP and the National Front are not dissimilar in relationship to the Tories as the Socialist Workers are to Labour. Militant, like UKIP was really a vehicle to attempt to take over an established party, UKIP succeeded. I think the success of UKIP was largely facilitated by the BBC's determination to have their spokespeople on the political programmes such as Andrew Neil's late night ego-fest and Question time. Farage was also painted as a personable kind of chap who talked a lot of sense, those on the left are rarely given that kind of leeway. Maybe Mick Lynch is having a moment, but he isn't seeking parliamentary election. UKIP's success was because many thousands of people around the country, of all shades of political opinion, were heartily fed up with the EU. UKIP was (don't know about the surviving rump) not a right-wing party. It had one meaningful policy. Any others were just window-dressing. As such, it gained supporters of all political persuasions. Surely the BBC couldn't ignore a party that got more votes than Labour in every EU election since 2009, and more than anyone in 2014 and 2019? In 2015 GE they got more votes than LibDems and ScotNats combined and came 2nd in over 100 seats.
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Post by mercian on Aug 18, 2022 23:02:22 GMT
I think its also true that towards the right acceptance of hierarchy and resulting authority is more tolerated, so that once the leader is in place there is an instinct to fall in line and achieve your best position within the hierarchy comes to the fore. Until the moment that the leader becomes a liability. Then the right is much more ruthless (IMO).
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Post by mercian on Aug 18, 2022 23:05:23 GMT
The above post I found opague as it mixes so many different blocks of voters. You say the ROC voter can only vote Tory or abstain. So they can't vote Lib-Dem? & those who stolidly give a 3-4% return for Reform in polls are supporting a party that doesn't in effect exist, if Farage doesn't field candidates. How are these specilalist ROC voters identified? LibDems are LoC in many voters' eyes. Also, Farage doesn't ostensibly have anything to do with Reform UK which is led by Richard Tice.
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Post by mercian on Aug 18, 2022 23:14:29 GMT
The semantic debate about splits & splitters is not helpful? It makes Mercian's mistake of assuming that new parties or groups are sliced or spun-off from old ones which is not always or indeed usually true. 1. As Moddy Mark said the SWP was never part of the Labour Party & hence could not split-off from it. The SWP (formerly IS) was Trotskyist & originated from the Trotsky-founded Fourth international. It did try entryism into the Lab Party to gain members, and often advised people to "Vote Labour without Illusions" (ha ha) but subsequently relied on student radicalism in the '60s, as did many Trot parties, this was their heyday, & the recruitment of factory workers & manual labourers. Most of the other revolutionary groups, the RCG, RCP, WRP, Sparticist League etc were also Trots and were not splits from the Labour P. These are not revolutionary anarchists but all were revoultionary vanguard parties which believe you must build a revolutionary movement from the ground up. Their early history is conveyed & satirised in John Sullivan's brilliantly funny pamphlet, Go Fourth & Multiply. There have been numerous splits among these non-Labour groups as there always are with powerless groups on the fringes of politics. 2. As well as splits from major parties, ILP in 1932, SDP 1981, etc there gave also been attempts not to split but to reform the Lab P. from within. Militant or the Militant Tendency had Trotskyite roots & relied on entryism or infiltration, and as we all know was expelled from the Lbour P in the '80s. Momentum was/is another attempt to radicalise the LP without splitting. 3.There have been numerous right-wing groups which were not split-offs from the Tory party even if they drew on ROC support, and they have also been subject to constant splits, internal feuds & coups, e.g.s the NP & the BNP, UKREF, UKIP, REFUK,etc. The neo-Nazi parties achieved more electoral sucess in the 60s & 70s than the Trots once they directed their Nazism toward immigration. UKIP absorbed much of BNP's electoral support, & indeed many former BNP members, as well as attracting mass Lab, Tory & non-voters. It did not gain electoral success until Farage stiched together racism, English nationalism & anti-EU immigration. He made BNP policies "respectable". Otherwise decent people have told me they voted UKIP who would never have dared told me they voted BNP. Since his departure, as we know, UKIP has been riven with divisions. I've got to correct a couple of things there. 1. I said that Labour was a unifying force on the left, which had a tendency to split (meaning the left rather than Labour particularly). I apologise if that wasn't clear. 2. UKIP was the only party that specifically banned people who had ever been a member of the BNP, NF and a few others from being members. That doesn't mean that some former voters for those parties didn't switch of course, but they were tiny numbers compared to UKIP at its peak.
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Post by mercian on Aug 18, 2022 23:20:07 GMT
Plenty of other jobs available.
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