Westministers : Saving the Union

[RedToothBrush]

Apparently we need a tunnel. Just like we needed the £53 million failed Garden Bridge.

Nice little earner for anyone involved.

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I think Betfair is a little optimistic.

For now, I am looking forward to seeing what May's elections will bring and what we can expect to see from the SNP.

@TheABC

I think Betfair is a little optimistic.

For now, I am looking forward to seeing what May's elections will bring and what we can expect to see from the SNP.

Betfairs raison d'etre is to encourage people to place bets with Betfair.

Oh you terrible meanies, being so cynical about poor Carrie and Boris just wanting a decent place to live.

That 35 - 50 age bracket is still key - and has been the swinging vote in the last two elections. And I'm not convinced I know what Labour is currently offering it.

I'm smack in the middle of this demographic, and for me and my more politically interested female friends this is posing a genuine dilemma. When the rights of women and girls are being sidelined, and any pushback is cast as 'phobia' or 'hate' we're politically homeless and I can't see that changing any time soon. What a time to be alive, eh?

Lance Forman sounds like a nice man. His son is the CEO of Turning Point. The Twitter thread is long and ongoing but, suffice to say, LF can go on the boycott list as well. When "bitch" is so casually a part of someone's vocabulary, I always think it tells you a lot about their views of women.

www.intrafish.com/trade/pro-brexit-salmon-smoker-lance-forman-now-wants-government-compensation-for-brexit-related-costs/2-1-952195

Lance Forman is a Grade A arse.

He’s awfully quick to block on Twitter too.

I have no idea who he is, but in principle those who voted for Johnson on the basis that he promised a Great Deal, which has now turned into an extremely bad deal, do have something to complain about. Imagine going to a top class restaurant, paying £££ and after an hour's wait, they rustled up a supermarket ham sandwich. You would be incandescent with rage, and this is an equivalent. The only thing was, they knew what Johnson was like..... Caveat emptor and all that.

Lance Forman - ex Brexit Party MEP and now a director of The Foundation For Independence (although for some reason he doesn’t appear on the “about us” page). His son is CEO of the UK branch of Turning Point (pro Trump, right wing nastiness aimed at students).

Also, whilst claiming that Brexit is Great and denying that anyone is having trouble exporting to the EU, his own company seems unable to export either.

I see that Johnson has got vaccine bounce in the polls over Labour. It's depressing - they may have got it right, but it's due largely to international scientific effort and the NHS.

But meanwhile, despite the propaganda, the Brexit problems are not going away and no one will be able to invent a vaccine to get rid of them.

Bad form to quote oneself:

The high street (as we know it) can't be saved. Anyone who thinks it can really needs to ask why we weren't able to "save the horse drawn cart" once motor transport was invented. Anyone who says it can is merely eyeing up a nice little wodge of public money they can feather their nest with.

but ...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56227339

Budget 2021: £5bn fund to help High Street recover from Covid

(Contd)

Tory cronies, get those shovels ready for the 2021 £5 billion pound giveaway. Hurry, no time to lose. Quickly friend request your nearest Tory MP for a chance to get your snout in the trough in this years Soaraway Sunak. If you've ever wondered how many used fivers you can fit on a snow shovel - now's your chance.

and

centralbylines.co.uk/a-sense-of-identity-national-identity-and-the-coming-census/

Every decade a census is taken in England and Wales. This snapshot of all people and households gives information to help plan resource allocation, and will help future historians understand us. This year, there is a lot of chatter on social media asking the question ‘Do you feel European?’ with speculation whether we should, or even can, add this to our census form.

The Office of National Statistics acknowledges that national identity is “multi-dimensional.”We have been allowed and encouraged to self identify since the 2011 census introduced this new question to observe the increased interest in ‘national’ consciousness. The previous 2001 census in England and Wales did not have a National Identity question. The Scottish Census had options for Scottish, Irish, British or Other; the lack of an option to state you were English or Welsh caused people to campaign to have their national identity acknowledged.

"Imagine being such a big racist that the Home Office feels the need to intervene"

www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/reactions-as-farages-asylum-seeker-covid-claims-denied-by-home-office-222674

My hope is that the SNP win an overwhelming victory in Scotland - have a mandate for a Second Referendum which they win comfortably

Many Scots don’t wish this!

@Coquohvan

My hope is that the SNP win an overwhelming victory in Scotland - have a mandate for a Second Referendum which they win comfortably

Many Scots don’t wish this!

Well, it's their vote.

Got that right!

It looks like the House of Sturgeon is slowly crumbling.
However, she remains the best asset for Scottish Inderpendence.
I think she will refuse to resign if found guilty of misleading, supported by rank and file SNP.
Independence is a huge step. To proceed whilst led by a Party riven with internal strife would be "interesting" to watch.
Abit like the Tories leading us into "Brexit"

It looks like the House of Sturgeon is slowly crumbling. However, she remains the best asset for Scottish Independence.

It's telling that because the media writes in personalities, it somehow thinks in personalities too. It's lazy and usually less than helpful.

Sturgeon is not Farage in drag. Sentiment for Scottish independence isn't contingent on her situation.

Well, it's their vote.

We have heard rather a lot of the Will of the People, over the last few years - so even if the vote was only 52% for it would be hard to argue why the Will of Scottish People somehow didn't count as much as what was predominantly the Will of English People. If it's significantly more then the arguments would be even harder to argue against. Unless of course the Government (and English generally) think that the Scots don't count as much as an English person?

But it would all depend on how the mandate, if won, was discharged. It's hard to believe now that our Referendum question was Do you want hard Brexit or No Deal, with the Leave EU part being taken as read.

I did wonder if this argument of Sturgeon vs. Salmond is being bigged up for all it's worth for a reason. Johnson's normal propaganda has so far failed dismally, so they are trying something new.

I did wonder if this argument of Sturgeon vs. Salmond is being bigged up for all it's worth for a reason. Johnson's normal propaganda has so far failed dismally, so they are trying something new.

My take too. However, it's an interesting question as to the key person phenomena in a lot of history. History which is of course written after events. Would Germany have been the same if Hitler hadn't happened ? It's not like he personally went door to door in some perverse parody of Santa Claus, converting everyone to a mind of German supremacy and Jewish betrayal in one evening, is it ? Maybe fascisms time had come - whoever was around.

By the same token, would Britain have won the war if Churchill had never been born ? After all, it's not like he personally took Gold Beach.

And so on.

Playing the person not the ball is (a) banned in association football, and (b) usually a good sign your opponent is losing. Badly.

It looks like the House of Sturgeon is slowly crumbling

I think it’s more that Salmond is imploding and he’s trying to take Sturgeon down with him.

He’s so fixated in revenge that he’s content to damage the indy cause to get it.

Good question DGR. Impossible to tell, but maybe if we thought of something like the Cuban Missile crisis - the problem was averted. The USSR withdrew their missiles and (although the propaganda didn't tell us about it at the time) the US withdrew their missiles from Turkey.

Would this have happened ten years earlier with the hysterical anti-communism of the McCarthy era, and with Stalin still in charge in Russia?

He’s so fixated in revenge that he’s content to damage the indy cause to get it.

To be honest, that's a rather low ambition, isn't it ? Certain when compared to Boris "I'll destroy the UK as is and fuck it's economy
" Johnson.

and...