UK General Discussion Thread: mayy lmao

[afleitch]

Will Khan retain Tooting? I know Johnson has been both Mayor and MP for the past year.

It's Khans choice. There's no requirement for him to stand down. Boris was a special case in a way (end of his second term). However logistically, given the particulars of the Mayor's role, he will probably have to. If he does, i'd expect to see a by-election on the same date as the EU referendum.

[afleitch]

The Gorbals' last high rise was flattened today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciiRfAM5W_E&list=PLNxwX7r4A556TiEwhBR9aALJQK-knBNp8

Something strangely apt coming as it does after Thursday.

[afleitch]

This is completely unrelated, but how relevant is the issue of abortion in the UK? Are there any pro-life leaders, or pro-life labourites, and are they allowed to vote with their conscience.

Abortion is a conscience vote yes. Laws at present are balanced enough  (despite being quite restrictive in parts) to generally satisfy everyone except the most rabid pro-lifers who are generally a fringe movement who can't get the ear of policy makers or the attention of the public.

They got permission to protest outside a Glasgow hospital earlier this year for the whole of lent and while I ended up on an informal list of people who were planning to escort women to and from appointments we weren't needed as they drifted away after a few days.

[afleitch]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-36444932

[afleitch]

F-ck

Rest In Peace.

[afleitch]

The assailant has been named as Thomas Mair.

Here he is in 2011; http://www.batleynews.co.uk/news/local/volunteer-at-award-winning-site-1-2976712

'Thomas Mair has been helping at the Birstall park for over a year, and said it’s done him more good than all the physiotherapy and medication in the world.

Read more: http://www.batleynews.co.uk/news/local/volunteer-at-award-winning-site-1-2976712#ixzz4BlBmdBXC'

[afleitch]

[afleitch]

Some media outlets were downplaying the already very obvious as late as this morning...

Of course they will

[afleitch]

It's already at a point where it couldn't win a referendum, let alone attract the support of more than a handful of MPs. Dead issue and gets deader with every passing year.

It's the sort of issue that can't be adequately polled because people generally don't discuss it. You might get an initial 'yes' that very quickly becomes a firm no once you actually start talking about it (and miscarriages of justice etc, which the UK media love)

It's one of three things that are off the table politically along with 'privatising' the NHS, and tweaking with abortion legislation.

[afleitch]

Watson returns from Glastonbury and issues the following statement:

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Aren't we lucky.

Watson's at Glastonbury, Corbyn's stuck in his house taking phone calls, Boris is playing cricket and Osborne is dead (possibly) or more likely hiding out at the dentist in some Majoresque plot.

Allowing Nicola to have one of her finest political weekends

[afleitch]

Boris now says the vote to leave was "not entirely overwhelming" and Gove wants the exit talks to be informal.

They're  beginning to realise what exactly they've done and they're terrified.

Plan Boris was obviously for a narrow Remain vote and for him to then ride the coattails of anger amongst Tory members in the Shires to no. 10.

Plan UKIP was the same.

[afleitch]

The Maomentum rally appears strong outside parliament- although it's filled with SWP placards. My hope (which was 100% wrong last summer) is that Corbynites will be loud, but party members could swing the leadership race.

I'm already seeing Angela Eagle being called a Blairite

Very Sandernista. It's catching.

[afleitch]

[afleitch]

Merkel:

'We will make sure that negotiations will not be carried out as a cherry-picking exercise. There must be and there will be a palpable difference between those countries who want to be members of the European family and those who don’t ...

Whoever wants to leave this family cannot expect to shed all its responsibilities but keep the privileges ...

Those for example, who want free access to the single market will in return have to respect European basic rights and freedoms ... That’s true for GB just as much as for the others.

Free acccess to the single market is granted to those who accept the four basic European freedoms - that of people, goods, services and capital .Norway for instance is not a member of the European Union but has access to the single market because it accepts open migration from the European Union.'

Hello Schengen!

[afleitch]

This is slightly disturbing

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/30/transgender-woman-denied-direct-access-to-ultra-orthodox-jewish-children

[afleitch]

Labour are just 2% behind the Greens on the constituency vote with YouGov in Scotland. Labour would theoretically pick up no constituency seats and the wonder of maths (as happened last year) could see them slip into 4th even if they are just ahead of the Greens.

[afleitch]

Labour are just 2% behind the Greens on the constituency vote with YouGov in Scotland. Labour would theoretically pick up no constituency seats and the wonder of maths (as happened last year) could see them slip into 4th even if they are just ahead of the Greens.

Is it not the regional vote that the Greens are 2% behind Labor on? As they pick up a lot of SNP constituency voters on the Scottish Parliament list vote.
 
Eitherway, Labour are in the mid-teens now - but only hold Edinburgh South. Labour did gain the equivalent constituency from the SNP in the Scottish Parliament election. The Conservatives won the list vote there - albeit partially due to SNP constituency voters moving to the Greens on the list. #RedMorningside.

The Greens might hypothetically beat Labour on votes; especially if they stood candidates in every constituency. Although they probably won't, as it would split the "independence vote" - a la Edinburgh Central in the Scottish Parliament election.

The local elections this year will be really interesting in regards to the Labour-Green battle for third.

Yes. Sorry typo.

[afleitch]

YouGov poll asking people about things that could be reinstated following Brexit: http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/tl8kg6q3i9/InternalResults_170222_AfterBrexit_W.pdf

Death penalty at 36% support...must be the lowest ever, surely?

It's Britain's membership of the ECHR not the EU that precludes the return of the rope, and I think May will have a tougher time pulling Britain out of that.

this is the result of 44 years of right wing press saying that the EEC/EU is the source of all that is "wrong" with Britain. what about the rest:

imperial measures are fairly commonly used in parallel with metric and I don't see that changing any time soon, plenty of things still come in standard sized packs of 454g

smoking ban is completely unrelated to the EU, I was on a site visit in Germany last week and they had smoking areas inside factories and warehouses

Blue Passports, literally a symbolic gesture, no harm in it if it makes people happy,  the insides will still conform to more or less the same standards anyway

£.s.d was replaced before we joined the EU and the Dominions decimalised of their own accord in the 60's

incandescent bulbs: 33% of Ukip voters want to willfully use a less efficient product just..because?

corporal punishment: the ECHR ruled that it isn't a human rights violation as late as 1993, 11 years after British Laws Passed at Wetminster ended it in state schools

They could bring back a functioning opposition. I do get nostalgic about that.

[afleitch]

[afleitch]

Additional strange (and not very pleasant actually) detail: the 'Student Loans Company' (the state corporation that oversees the entire tottering edifice) is based in Glasgow. I.e. the people who send out nasty letters (which are usually phrased in a misleading style implying that i.e. it is real debt that you SCUM have not paid back WHY NOT) to graduates have mostly not had to pay into the system themselves/neither have their children.

And as someone who knows people who work at the SLC there is no joy nor revelling in irony on their part. And Scottish students still take out loams that they pay back through SLC. And I'm still paying back after 10 years as is my friend who works there