General Politics Thread

[Iain]

Is he doing his 'when I were a lad' routine again?

[Miguel Sanchez]

I think there was a Scottish history thread or somesuch, but I'm tired and can't be bothered looking for it so I've found Kinky's youtube account as well as the best way of replying to him

[Granny Danger]

Beyond corrupt.

Israel passes law shielding Netanyahu from being removed amid protests over judicial changes

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/23/middleeast/israel-judicial-reforms-prime-minister-law-intl/index.html

I wonder if the U.K. government (or the official opposition for that matter) will pass comment on this egregious misuse of power.

Edited March 23, 2023 by Granny Danger

[BFTD]

2 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

Beyond corrupt.

Israel passes law shielding Netanyahu from being removed amid protests over judicial changes

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/23/middleeast/israel-judicial-reforms-prime-minister-law-intl/index.html

I wonder if the U.K. government (or the official opposition for that matter) will pass comment on this egregious misuse of power.

Only approvingly in private.

[StellarHibee]

 

[StellarHibee]

Coming to a store near you.

 

[MazzyStar]

 

It’s important to remember that most of these “pro democracy” protesters will have stayed silent when it comes the oppression of Palestinians, of which they benefit massively from. 

Another thing to remember is that even when so called “liberals” have been in power in Israel, the building of settlements, blockades still happened and general treatment of Palestinians was no different. Yitzhak Rabin of course won the Nobel peace prize. Whilst Minister of Defence he ordered Israeli soldiers to break the bones of unarmed Palestinians and yet he was seen as too sympathetic towards Palestinians by some and was assassinated by a far right nationalist. 

Edited March 27, 2023 by MazzyStar

[Guest]

9 hours ago, MazzyStar said:

 

It’s important to remember that most of these “pro democracy” protesters will have stayed silent when it comes the oppression of Palestinians, of which they benefit massively from. 

Another thing to remember is that even when so called “liberals” have been in power in Israel, the building of settlements, blockades still happened and general treatment of Palestinians was no different. Yitzhak Rabin of course won the Nobel peace prize. Whilst Minister of Defence he ordered Israeli soldiers to break the bones of unarmed Palestinians and yet he was seen as too sympathetic towards Palestinians by some and was assassinated by a far right nationalist. 

That Twitter account has a Youtube channel, if you don't already know. I listened to his latest video the other day, on the Lava Jato case in Brazil, it was excellent.

[Granny Danger]

Not sure where else to put this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-65164041

“Man who raped girl, 13, given community sentence“
 

This strikes me as ridiculously lenient and an insult to the victim.  Sentencing guidelines are just that, guidelines,  and should be advisory.

 

[BFTD]

18 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

Not sure where else to put this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-65164041

“Man who raped girl, 13, given community sentence“
 

This strikes me as ridiculously lenient and an insult to the victim.  Sentencing guidelines are just that, guidelines,  and should be advisory.

We obviously don't know the details, but the mind boggles at what extenuating circumstances would make a non-custodial sentence reasonable in that situation.

I'm not going to come over all hang 'em and flog 'em about it, but it's also eyebrow-raising that someone over 25 would only be recommended for 4-5 years for raping a tween.

[Guest]

I was reading this about Portugal just now:

Quote

Workers in Portugal now face mass poverty. Half of workers received less than 1,000 euros per month in 2022, a percentage that rises to 65 percent among youth under 30. Health and education continue to deteriorate due to cuts, while hospitals and schools are threatened with ruin because of nurses and teachers shortages. Even before the strike, many students were without classes due to a lack of educators to teach the subjects.

Economic recovery was largely based on tourism, which has fuelled a real estate bubble. In cities like Lisbon, it is impossible to find even a room for less than 600 euros per month.

Fifteen large companies listed on the Lisbon stock exchange recently paid 2.5 billion euros in dividends to their owners, a historical record.

It's the same shite everywhere. 

[MazzyStar]

1 hour ago, FreedomFarter said:

I was reading this about Portugal just now:

It's the same shite everywhere. 

That can’t be true. The media told me we’re much worse off for not being in the EU while life is great for everyone in the EU. 

[ICTJohnboy]

Good to see that England have found someone to blame for the teachers strike.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/scotland-is-making-education-strikes-in-england-worse/

[Guest]

1 hour ago, MazzyStar said:

That can’t be true. The media told me we’re much worse off for not being in the EU while life is great for everyone in the EU. 

Ha! Funny you say that. Here's the full section without my edit applied.

Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/03/26/nsfk-m26.html

I left that out my original quoted excerpt not to shield the EU but because I was wanting the focus to be on that final sentence. The record payouts to owners of private companies while workers are immiserated.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, ICTJohnboy said:

Good to see that England have found someone to blame for the teachers strike.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/scotland-is-making-education-strikes-in-england-worse/

I can't access that but I'm intrigued. Can you summarise their argument?

[carpetmonster]

2 minutes ago, FreedomFarter said:

I can't access that but I'm intrigued. Can you summarise their argument?

It let me read it - I presume it's a one free article per however long and I'm not liable to use it again so here you go mate:

 

 

If anyone thought that the public sector strikes were fading out, this week marks a resurgence, with Passport Office staff striking for five weeks – apparently on behalf of other civil servants whose absence might be less noticed – along with the National Education Union (NEU). The education union voted by a margin of 98 to 2 per cent for two days’ strikes on 27 April and 2 May. Pleas to save children further disruption to their education following months of school closures during Covid-19 appear to have fallen on deaf ears.

The NEU vote shows one thing which has been little commented upon during this round of strikes: the true cost of the Barnett formula. One of the factors behind the vote seems to be that Scottish teachers have recently settled a pay dispute with the Scottish government by accepting a 14 per cent deal – 7 per cent backdated to last April, a further 5 per cent this month and another 2 per cent next January. Next to that, the offer made to teachers in England might seem mean. In England, NEU members voted to reject a pay rise of 4.3 per cent plus a one-off payment of £1,000, as a well as a minimum salary for new recruits of £30,000.

 

Why has the Scottish government been able to be so generous? Certainly not because the SNP-Green government has managed the public finances better. The Barnett formula, established in the 1970s to set a formula for block grants to Scotland in the pre-devolution 1970s, offers the Scottish government a handsome bonus in terms of per capita spending. Over time, the disparity between public spending in England and that in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland was expected to narrow, but it has failed to do so.

 

This has quite a lot to do with faster population growth in England than in Scotland during the intervening years. For every pound spent on public services in England, Holyrood gets to spend £1.21 (a figure for the year 2018/19, calculated by the Institute for Government). True, there are isolated parts of the Highlands where demographics is always going to make it expensive to provide services such as education – small schools, long journeys from home to school etc. – but then again, living costs are also lower in Scotland than in the south of England.

If what happens in Scotland stays in Scotland the extra money available to spend on public services might seem a tad unfair, but if the Scottish government is going to use its extra to cash to fund hefty pay deals, and those pay deals are going to be used by public sector unions south of the border, we have an even bigger problem.

Trouble is, which Westminster government, trying to keep the union together, is going to risk reforming the Barnett formula? A House of Lords report in 2009 did propose reform, but nothing came of it. As a result, the UK government faces serious blowback in the form of higher wage demands in England as a result of extra money being made available to fund higher wages in Scotland. With the SNP government drifting leftwards as a result of Humza Yousaf’s election as first minister it is hard to see how this is going to be resolved in the near future.

No commitment. Cancel any time.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

The guid, oanest tax paying laddies of South Bucks funding better wages for tartan gonk teachers ? 

[Guest]

31 minutes ago, carpetmonster said:

living costs are also lower in Scotland than in the south of England.

The further right your economic policy, the more centralised your wealth concentration and the higher prices are pushed up in that region. The ideology of The Spectator is to blame there. 

The article is what I thought It'd be. A diatribe against the threat of a better example. 

Edited April 3, 2023 by FreedomFarter

[coprolite]

12 hours ago, MazzyStar said:

That can’t be true. The media told me we’re much worse off for not being in the EU while life is great for everyone in the EU. 

They told me barmy Brussels bureaucrats banned bendy bananas and we needed to take control of our borders. 

I definitely missed the "life is great for everyone in the EU" story. That would have been some work of fiction. 

[Binos]

The snp with green influences,  have completely lost their shit

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-65178708