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Post by Foggy on Jan 26, 2018 0:33:34 GMT
Flicking through general election maps on Wikipedia I have often noticed a periodic large bit of orange/yellow just of the south coast. Any chance of a Lib Dem resurgence here? Or in one of the proposed east/west constituencies? That makes me wonder how far back the maps go! I think the Lib Dems will look at the 2021 results and from there decide which of the two constituencies to focus their resources on.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 26, 2018 0:07:13 GMT
I’d been tipped off that this might happen a couple of days ago, but I didn’t really believe it. What’s most curious is that according to our team there, our (ancient) canvass returns had historic LDs as returning to us. As someone with close family ties to the island I would dearly love for it to return as an area of strength for us. Apparently the one councillor we gained last May has his head screwed on and a lot of the old trouble makers are gone, so you never know! Importantly a few of the driving forces who left during the coalition are now back in the fold and active too. As I've mentioned up thread, our old supporters coming back doesn't surprise me at all. In places like the Island, ultra parochial places, on the ground, grass roots politics will go down very well especially when a national political picture is so depressingly hopeless. One of the reasons why I predict even this far out that 2019 will be utter carnage for the Tories in areas of strength for us, especially in more rural areas. There are no elections due in this area next year. I appreciate you might have meant the 2019 locals in general, but, well... the Island is the Island, after all.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 24, 2018 20:27:43 GMT
It would be hard: the CNI is almost certainly watching him and presumably so is the VSSE if he's still in Belgium. Boat is the obvious solution- the Spanish coastline is really badly monitored, hence all the stuff that gets smuggled in but presumably that would be spotted if it was into Catalonia so my bet is the Basque Country and a series of cars or vans down to Barcelona. Private plane is too obvious. Sheesh, it's all beginning to sound like the plot of an action thriller! The first attempt at an investiture has been scheduled for next Tuesday. If no candidate is successful, that will set the clock ticking on the race to swear someone (anyone?) in as President before we end up with yet another round of elections to try to solve the impasse.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 24, 2018 18:33:59 GMT
The new Speaker of the Parliament has today held a meeting with Carles Puidgemont, in which the prospective President did not rule out turning up to a vote to swear him in. There is no word on how he would smuggle himself back into Spain for that to happen.
The CUP have demanded that the ERC and JxCat promise to take steps to make their imaginary republic "materialise" in order to secure their support for the investiture of any prospective joint candidate (presumably Puigdemont) of the separatist parties.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 24, 2018 18:28:11 GMT
How much power and responsibility do the Lander have in Austria? My understanding is that they are much weaker than their German equivalents, even though they have all the paraphernalia of flags, parliaments, Governors etc. Buried in Georg's mammoth opening post: He was actually trying to make a point about the Lower Austrian Social Democrats there, but it is in fact a very telling paragraph if you want to know just how relatively powerless the Austrian states are. Remember that whereas Germany is avowedly a Bundesrepublik, Austria only calls itself a Republik. Decentralisation was entirely voluntary and not made necessary by Austrian history or psyche (once the other territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been shed). There is much criticism that it leads to wasteful replication of federal schemes at the Land level rather than any meaningful policy differences based on the partisan alignment of the government. This perception is only exacerbated in regions that still use the Proporz system for the allocation of seats on the executive council.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 22, 2018 23:14:15 GMT
But will the ward get a visit from The Famous Vix Lowthion Who Is Really Famous? The local teacher campaigned there on behalf of her party's candidate 10 days ago, as far as I can see:
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Post by Foggy on Jan 21, 2018 21:03:30 GMT
I'll take that as a yes, then. Labour didn't hold Croydon Central going into June's election and they'd already regained Wolverhampton SW from the Tories in 2015 IIRC. The Lib Dems had already lost Colchester before last year too!
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Post by Foggy on Jan 21, 2018 19:27:42 GMT
Watched this programme on iplayer today. David Butler and John Curtice are stars. The 2017 BBC dress rehearsal was 'interesting'. Managed to spot Halifax & Wolverhampton South West going blue. The swing for Wolverhampton South East was bang on but the figures...Lab 19979,Con 10784, UKIP 5263, LD 576, Green 272... Having recorded it on Sky Q here are some more snippets from the rehearsals: Dunbartonshire East (Lib Dem GAIN from SNP), Wolverhampton South West ( Lab GAIN from Con), Wolverhampton South East (Lab HOLD), Walsall North (Con GAIN from Lab), Peterborough (Lab GAIN from Con), Croydon Central ( Lab HOLD) Were some of the graphics wrong in the rehearsal, then?
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Post by Foggy on Jan 21, 2018 19:06:46 GMT
He's been about a fair bit. It is quite amusing that the Spaniards can't keep track of him in the EU and don't want to issue an EWA. It rumbles on: the Spanish government have today said they will in fact ask prosecutors to issue a European Arrest Warrant after all, if Puigdemont tries to travel to Copenhagen from Belgium this week.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 21, 2018 18:48:20 GMT
I think I might join Lega Nord when in Sansepolcro in the late spring. They have offices in our road. I can see the logic of you joining a party of tax dodgers and criminals? You are Umberto Bossi and I claim my £50! *5 million lira
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Post by Foggy on Jan 19, 2018 20:23:03 GMT
I believe Davıd Boothroyd answered it much more recently, but in a different thread. Honestly, I’m not trying to steal any thunder. Was genuinely doing some quick turnout calculations and needed to know. Well, it's hardly your fault if people are using the wrong thread to ask questions!
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Post by Foggy on Jan 19, 2018 19:53:08 GMT
There's an attempt to explain the new electoral system in English (except that it seems to assume all electors are female) here and an idea of what the ballot paper is supposed to look like here. There have already been attempts to get the latest Canipranzium declared unconstitutional in the courts, although with Parliament having been dissolved and nearly 5 years since the last election, it's probably too late to prevent its application this time. It does seem too close to the electoral law that was used from 1994 to 2001 before being quashed by the judiciary. The lack of a majority bonus is the biggest difference from the allocation method used at the past 3 general elections, and it's nothing like the two-round system that Renzi proposed either. The bottom line is that it's more difficult to see a stable government resulting from all this that will last the full legislative term.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 19, 2018 19:36:27 GMT
Puigdemont has said today that it'd easier to govern from Brussels than from prison. JxCat and the ERC have some sort of agreement to invest him, but they don't have a majority without the votes of the CUP and there's the obvious complication that any President has to turn up physically in order to be sworn in.
Any attempt to invest Puigdemont in absentia will lead to a prolongation of central control from Madrid under Article 155, which will mean that the stated purpose of the election – to 'recover normality' – will not have been realised.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 19, 2018 19:22:06 GMT
I think this has already been asked, and answered. That answer is no, btw. Thank you and sorry I didn’t bother scrolling through all 15 pages. I believe Davıd Boothroyd answered it much more recently, but in a different thread.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 19, 2018 8:06:15 GMT
And, not to put too fine a point on it, Palestinians have had, on their doorstep, a whole load of very similar countries to decamp to if they want to or need to. Israelis/Jews really don't have anywhere else to go. It's an isolated, unique, one-of-a-kind country. Yes, some people will argue they go to the USA on the other side of the world, but that's really, really not comparable to the 'United States of Islam' option available to Palestinians. It's a pipe dream, I know, but I'd like to see something resembling the biblical boundaries of the land of Israel restored. Yes, at the expense of territory from identikit Arab states. The world needs more unique countries and fewer Qatars, Chads and Luxembourgs. I'm sure you are just trolling now to see if I will respond, but I will not, since these ideas are not original and come straight from the racist zealots who are members of the current Israeli government.
Nice photo of Esther, do you have one of her in a swimsuit?
I don't agree that the world needs fewer Luxembourgs either. I don't think this is at all acceptable. If southern England was handed over to another country and I was evicted from my property I wouldn't just accept being told "stop whinging, you can live in Australia or New Zealand, you're all identikit anglo countries." Arab countries aren't all "identikit"; they have fought wars with each other (Jordan vs the PLO aided by Syria, Saudi vs Yemen in progress, Syria vs assorted Lebanese, Nasser's Egypt vs Oman off the top of my head.) We went to war (in alliance with Saudi and Syria) to preserve the independence of Kuwait from Iraq. As for the post you are replying to: pre 1948 Palestinian Arabs could live all over Palestine. The UN proposed borders would have handed over about half the place to Israel, Israel took more in the '48 fighting, then the lot in '67. A small amount was handed back on limited terms (which the Israelis insist does not about to independence) and the Palestinians are supposed to be grateful and make concessions - but the existence of Israel at all (however justified for other reasons) involves massive sacrifices and compromises by the Palestinians. Not only are these never enough, they aren't recognised as having happened at all - to the extent that it can be claimed that it is the Palestinians who seek "more land". There is only one side that is grabbing land in this situation. I've been clear that I hold no optimism for a Palestinian state being democratic or tolerant but it is not surprising that they see no prospect for anything other than war when the opposing side expects them to hand over all their land and be grateful for scraps. As for "biblical boundaries" of Israel: WTF? Why not the boundaries of Achaemenid Persia for Iran if antiquity is the reason? Or if we are going by mythological fictions, how about restoring King Arthur's conquest of the Roman Empire for Britain? Australia and New Zealand are on the other side of the world and have radical differences from us (Christmas in the Summer FFS) - that's really not the same as moving from Gaza to Beirut. And this country is, like Israel, one of the more objectively unique ones, so I don't buy that analogy. If you were forced to move from Abingdon to Bath, or Carshalton to Twickenham, or even to Orkney or Shetland, that would be a better comparison. Judging by the places I've been in the Middle East, I wouldn't be able to tell that Doha, Dubai and Muscat were all in different countries. I'm not suggesting that this phenomenon is unique to that region - it's common enough in bloody Europe as well. But there is nothing remotely like Israel for their people to go to - and a lot, or possibly every single one, of the neighbouring countries would be actively hostile to taking them in. The state of Israel really wasn't created out of spite but absolute necessity (with only really a modest nod to history and sacronsanctity). Arthurian restoration would indeed have some merit. What a fine idea. I might concentrate on that once I've been successful in my campaign to bring back the French monarchy. I'm half-tempted to say that this sounds like a Sisyphean task... and the other half is tempted to answer that it looks as if Le Roi Emmanuel Ier of the House of Macron has already got there first! Moving from Abingdon to Orkney, incidentally, would just constitute a transfer between two Lib Dem seats.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 16, 2018 18:36:40 GMT
4. Stop David Cameron from resigning, so that we never get lumbered with Blunderwoman in the first place. In constitutional terms, it was bad that he resigned anyway, because it gives legitimacy to the idea that the people can get rid of a prime minister by voting a certain way in a referendum (instead of voting on the issue of the referendum itself). He should have given himself the job of enacting Brexit (as ordered by the voters) and would presumably not have been stupid enough to call the 2017 election like Mrs Hubris did. 5. Improve the result of the 2015 election, so that Mrs May doesn't think that the majority is "not enough" and therefore doesn't call the 2017 election. One way of doing this would be to combine the best bits of 2015 and 2017 (for example, 13 seats in Scotland, and a few gains in northern England, from 2017, unseating Dennis Skinner perhaps, and southern England from 2015). In the autumn of 2014, when UKIP was on 17% in the opinion polls, it looked as though it would get about 5 seats, instead of only getting 13% and 1 seat. To make the result more "fair", I would like the idea of UKIP having 5 seats instead of 1 (perhaps Thurrock, Thanet South, Grimsby, Hartlepool as well as Clacton). A few more seats for the UUP instead of DUP. SF gaining the seats from the SDLP earlier, so that there are 2 or 3 fewer de facto Labour votes in the Commons. Overall, I like the idea that UKIP got 13% in a general election as well as a Conservative majority. You make a very good point about the principle having been established that a Prime Minister can be forced to resign by the outcome of a referendum. It's another argument against direct democracy above anything but the most local of levels. Wishing for the wipeout of SDLP two years earlier than it happened to the benefit of Sinn Féin is just pure, horrid, partisan tactical nastiness. Of course, I also vehemently disagree that scenario 2 could possibly have been a positive thing.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 16, 2018 17:32:49 GMT
Back on topic, the constituent sitting of the Parliament is due to take place on Wednesday. Forcadell has said she does not wish to continue as Speaker. Mariano Rajoy admits that the application of Article 155 will continue if any attempt is made to invest Carles Puigdemont as President 'telematically'. What if they voted for a mascot instead, after all Hartlepool did and got away with it? An actual monkey would be a better President than either of the last two (at least) holders of that office! The ERC have proposed their own Roger Torrent, a deputy spokesperson for Junts pel Sí in the previous legislative period, as a possible new Speaker. The Spanish government have said that they'll go back to the Constitutional Court if Puigdemont tries to send a delegate to vote on his behalf from Brussels.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 15, 2018 21:09:42 GMT
Thank you. I have 2 essays down, and I'm working on number 3 at the moment. As much as I'd like to win a principle council seat, I've had to weigh the certainty of a respected qualification that will allow me to enter a new career on the one side, with a distant chance of about a year on Bournemouth Council before its most likely abolished on the other, so getting a good result in my Masters came out on top without too much mental anguish. I'm just hoping for a result on Thursday that isn't embarrassing. You're most welcome, my dear fellow. It certainly seems like you have your priorities in order, but I'm not sure that any local authority has principles anymore!
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Post by Foggy on Jan 15, 2018 20:59:27 GMT
Back on topic, the constituent sitting of the Parliament is due to take place on Wednesday. Forcadell has said she does not wish to continue as Speaker.
Mariano Rajoy admits that the application of Article 155 will continue if any attempt is made to invest Carles Puigdemont as President 'telematically'.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 14, 2018 17:47:28 GMT
The Greens have been campaigning hard in this division, so I'm not sure that the realisation of your expectation is going to be entirely straightforward.
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