Next permanent Scotland manager

[Trogdor]

4 minutes ago, itzdrk said:

If you are trying in some way to suggest Forbes is a centrist then I have no words.  

I'd say Forbes is centre right on economic policy.

That doesn't equate to taking away the bedroom tax mitigation, reversing the progressive income tax, charging for tuition fees, charging for prescriptions and rampant deregulation that some on here seem to think it does though.

[StellarHibee]

10 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

Right and left wing is a matter of perspective. If you're Jeremy Corbyn, pretty much everyone is to your right.

Right and left wing chat is for people stuck in their tribes. How about the sensible wing? The wing that stands up for the environment, living standards, a reasonable level of economic equality, health, education, local business.... etc.

[MazzyStar]

1 minute ago, StellarHibee said:

Right and left wing chat is for people stuck in their tribes. How about the sensible wing? The wing that stands up for the environment, living standards, a reasonable level of economic equality, health, education, local business.... etc.

^^^^Centrist found. 

[welshbairn]

33 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

I wonder how popular this view is within the SNP and Scottish government.

Quinoa is also an excellent source of protein and fibre, which is important to maintain the constant sense of smug self-satisfaction among so many Green MSPs.

Edited to add - the Greens have apparently said that if the next First Minister does not continue a legal challange to the GRR veto they will pull out of the coalition.  I suppose it's their right to say that and have their own policies but what if the government lawyers advise that there aren't any legal grounds for a challange?  From what this story says about the candidates, if the legal advice is not to proceed they won't so the coaltion will fall anyway?

https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23409763.greens-will-quit-government-fm-fails-challenge-gender-law-veto/

Given the list of "reasons" given by Westminster for the GRR bill not fitting into the Equalities Act, like what if a woman appealing for equal pay using the comparative example of a man who later self id'd as a female half way through the proceedings, I doubt the legal advice would be that it's not worth taking it to court. Section 35 specifies that any objection has to be based on reasonable grounds

[StellarHibee]

3 minutes ago, MazzyStar said:

^^^^Centrist found. 

Fascist or Marxist?

[Trogdor]

7 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Given the list of "reasons" given by Westminster for the GRR bill not fitting into the Equalities Act, like what if a woman appealing for equal pay using the comparative example of a man who later self id'd as a female half way through the proceedings, I doubt the legal advice would be that it's not worth taking it to court. Section 35 specifies that any objection has to be based on reasonable grounds

The UK Supreme Court will not rule against the UK Government on matters pertaining to the Scottish Parlaiment, ever. See the Section 30 ruling which went further than was necessary to remove any ambiguity. A challenge to Section 35 will end up the same. It is a fools errand and a lost cause. 

It really is about time that Patrick Harvie, Lorna Slater, Ross Greer et al were fired by trebuchet into the Forth along with their demands.

[MazzyStar]

11 minutes ago, StellarHibee said:

Fascist or Marxist?

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, Trogdor said:

The UK Supreme Court will not rule against the UK Government on matters pertaining to the Scottish Parlaiment, ever. See the Section 30 ruling which went further than was necessary to remove any ambiguity. A challenge to Section 35 will end up the same. It is a fools errand and a lost cause. 

It really is about time that Patrick Harvie, Lorna Slater, Ross Greer et al were fired by trebuchet into the Forth along with their demands.

I'm pretty sure the SG knew that the Section 30 appeal had no chance of succeeding, it was about establishing that a de facto referendum through an election was the only democratic option open to express the will of the Scottish people. Section 35 is different.

Edited March 24, 2023 by welshbairn

[sophia]

3 hours ago, MazzyStar said:

Because other than freedom of movement, there is barely anything. 

What an utterly ridiculous thing to suggest.

There are many positives and chief amongst them is being able to wind up greedy Tory trawler owners and wee Bertie 

 

 

Unlucky Bertie 

Edited March 24, 2023 by sophia

[The_Kincardine]

7 hours ago, renton said:

I wouldn't like the big gap between a single referendum.

Instead, I would make it so that a referendum was held as part of each Holyrood cycle, but that you needed at least two Yes votes in a row to begin negotiations for independence.

That way, you remove constitutional politics from the everyday management of Holyrood since you are getting the referendum regardless of who is in power. It also generates a significant cooling off period between votes. A Yes vote generated more by frustration at Westminster or some government policy can be mitigated against: Unionism would have 5 years to answer the criticisms brought up by one Yes vote. 

Hold the vote midway between Holyrood cycles. No percentage thresholds, but with a consistent, agreed question.

You might well find that making the extraordinary referendum into an ordinary part of the political cycle might take the sting out of it for Unionism, or it might normalise the idea for more people to support Indy in the longer term.

This would be an issue to thrash out or negotiate on but for it to be, " an ordinary part of the political cycle" would be to put Scotland onto a permanent referendum footing.  The 'deal' for giving HR the power to call a referendum would have to be couched in such a way as to make it the exception rather than the norm.

3 hours ago, Lurkst said:

Are you an empty-headed Jock Natter? YES/NO

That would work for me.  Gets right to the heart of the issue!

[The_Kincardine]

53 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I'm pretty sure the SG knew that the Section 30 appeal had no chance of succeeding, it was about establishing that a de facto referendum through an election was the only democratic option open. Section 35 is different.

Yet it didn't establish that in any way at all.  A de facto referendum is still the piece of nonsense that it has always been.

[welshbairn]

3 minutes ago, The_Kincardine said:

Yet it didn't establish that in any way at all.  A de facto referendum is still the piece of nonsense that it has always been.

Edited my post. I didn't agree with the de facto referendum strategy but the court case was useful in making it absolutely clear that there is no democratic route to independence if Westminster refuse to play.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, StellarHibee said:

Right and left wing chat is for people stuck in their tribes. How about the sensible wing? The wing that stands up for the environment, living standards, a reasonable level of economic equality, health, education, local business.... etc.

I think right and left can be used as informal shorthands when making comparisons. 

[welshbairn]

2 hours ago, StellarHibee said:

Right and left wing chat is for people stuck in their tribes. How about the sensible wing? The wing that stands up for the environment, living standards, a reasonable level of economic equality, health, education, local business.... etc.

Centrist Liberal has become the demon for left and right. I think it's because of a confusion of neoliberalism which is unconstrained capitalism and oligarchic theft with social democratic liberalism which is basically why can't we just be nice to each other and make things fairer. Folk from left and right have justifiably got frustrated with social liberalism as not really achieving much in economic fairness, but mirroring it with neoliberalism is like equating Rees Mogg with John McDonnell, a democratic socialist very much in the centre left spectrum.

Edited March 24, 2023 by welshbairn

[MazzyStar]

2 hours ago, sophia said:

What an utterly ridiculous thing to suggest.

There are many positives and chief amongst them is being able to wind up greedy Tory trawler owners and wee Bertie 

 

 

Unlucky Bertie 

I have no idea who Bertie Armstrong is. 

[D Angelo Barksdale]

It's socialism or barbarism lads. Always has been, always will be.

[vikingTON]

3 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Centrist Liberal has become the demon for left and right. I think it's because of a confusion of neoliberalism which is unconstrained capitalism and oligarchic theft with social democratic liberalism which is basically why can't we just be nice to each other and make things fairer. Folk from left and right have justifiably got frustrated with social liberalism as not really achieving much in economic fairness, but mirroring it with neoliberalism is like equating Rees Mogg with John McDonnell, a democratic socialist very much in the centre left spectrum.

There's no such thing as 'social democratic liberalism'. That's a contradiction in terms. 

The Western Twitter-inhabiting liberal is neither neoliberal nor a live and let live pluralist as you seem to be describing. They're a fundamentalist for whatever narrow individual identity politics cause they can attach themselves onto.

Liberals used to venerate political rights over social justice; now it is minority identity rights over...  err, social justice. It's the same bait and switch tactic deployed by the same bourgeois class in society ever since the 1830 revolution in France.

Edited March 24, 2023 by vikingTON

[Guest]

9 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Centrist Liberal has become the demon for left and right. I think it's because of a confusion of neoliberalism which is unconstrained capitalism and oligarchic theft with social democratic liberalism which is basically why can't we just be nice to each other and make things fairer. Folk from left and right have justifiably got frustrated with social liberalism as not really achieving much in economic fairness, but mirroring it with neoliberalism is like equating Rees Mogg with John McDonnell, a democratic socialist very much in the centre left spectrum.

This is why I personally rail against liberals rather than liberalism. Without even realising it, today's self-identifying "liberals" are nearly all captive to neoliberalism. They're unaware neoliberalism has only been around since the 1970s and has been enforced on us all using state violence. Its not a simple modern twist on a celebrated old philosophy, rather it goes fundamentally against key aspects of classical liberalism. Consider these quotes from the founder of classical liberal economics, Adam Smith:

 

Here he described the parasitic nature of the ownership class. How they profit from the work of others.

Quote

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce. The wood of the forest, the grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which, when land was in common, cost the labourer only the trouble of gathering them, come, even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them. He must then pay for the licence to gather them, and must give up to the landlord a portion of what his labour either collects or produces.

 

This complaint from him matches how modern landlords treat tenants with housing. It also parallels with how the privatisation of previously state-owned services does not improve those services and costs the public more in having to subsidise the company's profit margins.

Quote

The landlord demands a rent even for unimproved land, and the supposed interest or profit upon the expense of improvement is generally an addition to this original rent. Those improvements, besides, are not always made by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes by that of the tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the landlord commonly demands the same augmentation of rent as if they had been all made by his own. 

 

On the personal character of our Rees-Moggian overlords.

Quote

[Landlords] are the only one of the three orders whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but comes to them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan or project of their own. That indolence, which is the natural effect of the ease and security of their situation, renders them too often, not only ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind.

[ICTChris]

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/jason-leitch-says-kate-forbes-29544962
 

lol 

[KingRocketman II]

1 minute ago, ICTChris said:

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/jason-leitch-says-kate-forbes-29544962
 

lol 

to be fair, he never gave any inclination of his beliefs at any point before - even when chatting and laughing/having the "bantz" with the OTB boys. But yikes.......

“Whether you like the politics of the country or the politics of... that's quite a moment. We have an evangelical, born again Christian standing to be the First Minister of this country. That feels like an important moment to me. I don't know how that feels to you.”