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Post by andrew111 on Aug 6, 2019 17:56:38 GMT
Why not opt for Clarity Common sense Not confusing people Avoiding accidents Simplicity And just use bloody English and stop being fucking daft prats for absolutely no purpose whatever. Go on, tell me there are confused Welsh drivers that cannot cope with signs in English. Well are there? Do that and members of Meibion Glyndwr will get the spray paint out and then nobody will know where they are going. I think we need to accept that in Wales, Welsh will be on the road signs, for political reasons perhaps rather than reasons of road safety or navigation, but that's how it is. Also because we should celebrate the lingustic diversity of our islands and recognise that the descendents of the people who gave our country its name have preserved their language for thousands of years against all the odds.
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Post by andrew111 on Aug 6, 2019 18:26:21 GMT
The problem for the Lib Dems is that there are not all that many Remainy Tory seats where they are close enough to win, while seats like Devon and Cornwall Nth are more Leavy than B&R. Truro and Falmouth is quite Remain but Labour have got into a position where they are the challengers that can probably never quite win, while the Lib Dems could... On paper this may be true, however given that Labour have moved sharply to the left and the Tories moving towards advocating 'No Deal' it looks like we could well be heading for a big political realignment (something I didn't think would happen until very recently). For example there's a large number of strongly Remain seats in London (both Labour held and Tory held) which if things carry on the way they look to be going currently I reckon the Lib Dems stand a decent shot at winning despite the fact that they're nowhere near on paper. Seats I'm thinking of are the likes of Wimbledon, Putney, Battersea, Cities of London and Westminster, Chelsea and Fulham, Kensington, Ealing Central and Acton, Hampstead and Kilburn, Finchley and Golders Green etc. The Home Counties too contain a number of seats which that the Lib Dems could come from nowhere to be competitive in if they can gobble up the large number of Tory Remainers and soft Brexiteers that you find in these type of areas as well as squeezing down the Labour vote (remember Labour actually got respectable vote totals in these type of seats last time). In Hertfordshire where I live the Lib Dems are almost certain to gain St Albans but in my opinion they really should be setting their sights far higher than that by targeting Watford, Hitchin and Harpenden and South West Hertfordshire particularly if facing a No Deal Tory Party. Whilst I wouldn't advocate abandoning their old strongholds in the rural West Country completely, similar to the point I made about Brecon and Radnorshire these type of places don't really contain many of the types of people who've switched their voting intention to the Lib Dems in the last few months. Where the Lib Dems will have picked up lots of new voters are heavily concentrated in the types of seats mentioned in the previous 2 paragraphs. It would be in my opinion a big tactical mistake for the party not to recognise this and adjust their campaigning strategy accordingly especially as wealthy urban/surburban areas have the potential to be a reliable long term base for the party in contrast to the way their electoral coalition pre-2010 proved to extremely unreliable. There are certainly a raft of seats the Lib Dems won in the Euro elections in London and the SE, and a tipping point may (or may not) have been reached in London in particular similar to the tipping point the SNP got in Scotland in 2015. The problem is that the Lib Dems have been bitten in the last 3 elections by spreading themselves too thin. Seats like Watford with a strong local government base will i am sure be on the list, but some of the others you mention lack much local organisation and the capability of a Party with 60 MPs and 120 full time staffers was much greater than now. Of course if you are over 30% in London seats may fall without pounding the streetsa
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timmullen1
Labour
Closing account as BossMan declines to respond to messages seeking support.
Posts: 11,823
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Post by timmullen1 on Aug 6, 2019 18:29:09 GMT
I think you have gone way over the top there Carlton. He got flustered and made a mistake. He was not trying to offend anyone. Time to move on What do you mean "Got flustered...."? He is the sodding Lord Lieutenant and has no business in that position if he can't do a very simple job of reading out a result. It was not a 5th Form girl prefect overawed by the occasion and wishing she had not said 'Yes' when asked. He should have run through it and practised before a mirror and his wife if he did not feel competent and confident. It is not a case of 'moving on'. He is an appointed high official and completely fouled up on a simple occasion and he must take the deserved flak. If I had that job it would have been done firmly and competentently, so shoulf he have done. He’s not the Lord Lieutenant. The Lord Lieutenant is Tia Jones a farmer and author from Machynlleth, so unless there’s been some pretty spectacular gender realignment surgery since she was appointed in September......
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Post by gwynthegriff on Aug 6, 2019 18:29:29 GMT
Do that and members of Meibion Glyndwr will get the spray paint out and then nobody will know where they are going. I think we need to accept that in Wales, Welsh will be on the road signs, for political reasons perhaps rather than reasons of road safety or navigation, but that's how it is. Also because we should celebrate the lingustic diversity of our islands and recognise that the descendents of the people who gave our country its name have preserved their language for thousands of years against all the odds. Actually, I think it goes further than that. There is a sentiment amongst a lot of English folk that use of the Welsh language is there simply to cause them annoyance and confusion and that we (by which I mean Welsh-speakers) only use the language to be awkward. We don't (well, not generally). We use it because ... it is our native language which we learnt from our parents and grandparents and in which - in many cases - we find the first port of call when we try to express a concept in speech or writing, or thought. And as native citizens why shouldn't we be able to use it? * ( * And using it means having it available as an option in formal settings.)
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Aug 6, 2019 20:16:33 GMT
What do you mean "Got flustered...."? He is the sodding Lord Lieutenant and has no business in that position if he can't do a very simple job of reading out a result. It was not a 5th Form girl prefect overawed by the occasion and wishing she had not said 'Yes' when asked. He should have run through it and practised before a mirror and his wife if he did not feel competent and confident. It is not a case of 'moving on'. He is an appointed high official and completely fouled up on a simple occasion and he must take the deserved flak. If I had that job it would have been done firmly and competentently, so shoulf he have done. He’s not the Lord Lieutenant. The Lord Lieutenant is Tia Jones a farmer and author from Machynlleth, so unless there’s been some pretty spectacular gender realignment surgery since she was appointed in September...... It would have seemed an odd sort of job for the Lord Lieutenant, whose role is normally to represent the Queen at ceremonial occasions (such as Remembrance Day)
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Aug 6, 2019 21:37:23 GMT
Perhaps the numbers for Penrith and the Border should be given in Yan, Tan, Tethera form.
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john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,543
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Post by john07 on Aug 6, 2019 21:58:59 GMT
I find some of their efforts painful and amusing in roughly equal measures. I'm a huge fan of the double act employed by Wrexham, who I've seen on two election night programmes now. Woman with brown hair walks to the microphone, says her bit, then steps back. Woman with blonde hair walks up, says her bit in Welsh, steps back. They look like they should be coming out of a cuckoo clock. Are there not more speakers of Scouse in Wrexham than Welsh? My main experience of Wales is in Anglesey, where most have some understanding of Welsh and two-thirds of the population speak it as their first language. Good luck to the Welsh speakers in other parts of Wales who will certainly have a more uphill struggle to preserve their culture.
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Post by johnloony on Aug 6, 2019 22:16:59 GMT
Welsh numbers are not difficult to translate; they are grammatically the same as in English. I picked it up quite quickly when watching the 1997 referendum. Not necessarily. There are about 2 or 3 different methods of doing numbers in Welsh (or, at least, some of the numbers), including a base-10 system, a base-20 system, and some oddments. For example, 18 can be "ten eight" or "twice-nine" or "three-on-fifteen". 30 can be "thirty" or "ten-on-twenty". 35 could be "thirty-five" or "fifteen-on-twenty". 40 can be "forty" or "two-twenties" (and so on). A further complication is that 2, 3 and 4 have different forms for the two genders (dau/dwy, tri/tair, pedwar/pedair). But for the purposes of declaring elections results, most sensible Returning Officers would use the base-10 system, and that is what he did last week. As far as I can remember, the numbers he read out were: 12,401 = deuddeg mil, pedwar cant, ac un (twelve thousand, four hundred and one) 1,680 = un mil, chwe chant, wyth deg (one thousand, six hundred, eight ten) 13,826 = tri-ar-ddeg mil, wyth cant, ugain a chwech (three-on-ten thousand, eight hundred, twenty and six) 3,331 = tair mil, tri chant, trideg ac un (three thousand, three hundred, thirty and one) For the 1,680 I think he said "un mil..." and not just "mil...". The "tair mil" bit reminded me that "mil" is feminine, so it's "tair mil" not "tri mil". The only bit that caught me unawares when I was writing the numbers down was the "ac un" bit at the end of the 12,401. It was very quick (like "acun") and I didn't initially realise that he had said the last two digits of the first number. In other words, he did read out the numbers in Welsh accurately, helpfully, and (as far as I can tell) fluently, and from the preliminary part of the declaration (the bit before the names and numbers) it was clear that he's a fluent Welsh speaker (or, at least, a fluent Welsh reader). There was definitely no language barrier, just a brain barrier.
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Post by johnloony on Aug 6, 2019 22:18:17 GMT
Well, just as I suspected they are as big a load of fuck-wit tossers as the Highland Scots. Reason??? There is no reason we are just gormless narrow-minded complete berks and do it for no good reason at all to make an idiotic point. It costs a fortune to do, most of world don't know what it means, it causes confusion and accidents, no one actually needs it ..............But, hey, we feel good about making a gormless half-wit point that is important to 3% stupid end of the population. And those same people fuck up all the documents, and cause a fortune to be spent on radio, TV, in the courts and fuck up the education system. Woden fucking wept. The utter vacuous gormless stupidity of the so called Celtic fringes. Come back Victorians and do a better job at stamping it all out once for bloody all. Ignorance abounds! The beauty, resilience, strength and character of the Welsh language comes directly from its battle against such prejudice and hatred. Gwenno recently recorded two highly acclaimed albums in Welsh and Cornish, partly through her desire to combat the prejudice thrown against both. They were critically acclaimed and awarded. Welsh holds up against almost all small minded attacks on it, either through road signs and S4C, or indie bands and language courses at college. I suppose it is, like Remain, a cause which will never die. And diolch mawr for that! I presume you mean "diolch yn fawr".
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2019 7:17:37 GMT
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Post by gwynthegriff on Aug 7, 2019 9:17:01 GMT
Welsh numbers are not difficult to translate; they are grammatically the same as in English. I picked it up quite quickly when watching the 1997 referendum. Not necessarily. There are about 2 or 3 different methods of doing numbers in Welsh (or, at least, some of the numbers), including a base-10 system, a base-20 system, and some oddments. For example, 18 can be "ten eight" or "twice-nine" or "three-on-fifteen". 30 can be "thirty" or "ten-on-twenty". 35 could be "thirty-five" or "fifteen-on-twenty". 40 can be "forty" or "two-twenties" (and so on). A further complication is that 2, 3 and 4 have different forms for the two genders (dau/dwy, tri/tair, pedwar/pedair). But for the purposes of declaring elections results, most sensible Returning Officers would use the base-10 system, and that is what he did last week. As far as I can remember, the numbers he read out were: 12,401 = deuddeg mil, pedwar cant, ac un (twelve thousand, four hundred and one) 1,680 = un mil, chwe chant, wyth deg (one thousand, six hundred, eight ten) 13,826 = tri-ar-ddeg mil, wyth cant, ugain a chwech (three-on-ten thousand, eight hundred, twenty and six) 3,331 = tair mil, tri chant, trideg ac un (three thousand, three hundred, thirty and one) For the 1,680 I think he said "un mil..." and not just "mil...". The "tair mil" bit reminded me that "mil" is feminine, so it's "tair mil" not "tri mil". The only bit that caught me unawares when I was writing the numbers down was the "ac un" bit at the end of the 12,401. It was very quick (like "acun") and I didn't initially realise that he had said the last two digits of the first number. In other words, he did read out the numbers in Welsh accurately, helpfully, and (as far as I can tell) fluently, and from the preliminary part of the declaration (the bit before the names and numbers) it was clear that he's a fluent Welsh speaker (or, at least, a fluent Welsh reader). There was definitely no language barrier, just a brain barrier. If your recollection is correct then he used a mix of systems, and got some wrong! Which further underlines the point we have both made that numbers are not straightforward.
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The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 36,546
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Post by The Bishop on Aug 7, 2019 10:27:03 GMT
I think you have gone way over the top there Carlton. He got flustered and made a mistake. He was not trying to offend anyone. Time to move on Though given it was such a high profile gaffe, we are at least owed an explanation of what actually happened. Has there been one?
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Post by andrew111 on Aug 7, 2019 12:41:06 GMT
I think you have gone way over the top there Carlton. He got flustered and made a mistake. He was not trying to offend anyone. Time to move on Though given it was such a high profile gaffe, we are at least owed an explanation of what actually happened. Has there been one? A high profile gaffe would have been witnessed by more people than a few thousand political hacks at 2.30 am.. I can't find any evidence that anyone other than a handful on this thread even noticed!
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Post by pepperminttea on Aug 7, 2019 14:44:49 GMT
On paper this may be true, however given that Labour have moved sharply to the left and the Tories moving towards advocating 'No Deal' it looks like we could well be heading for a big political realignment (something I didn't think would happen until very recently). For example there's a large number of strongly Remain seats in London (both Labour held and Tory held) which if things carry on the way they look to be going currently I reckon the Lib Dems stand a decent shot at winning despite the fact that they're nowhere near on paper. Seats I'm thinking of are the likes of Wimbledon, Putney, Battersea, Cities of London and Westminster, Chelsea and Fulham, Kensington, Ealing Central and Acton, Hampstead and Kilburn, Finchley and Golders Green etc. The Home Counties too contain a number of seats which that the Lib Dems could come from nowhere to be competitive in if they can gobble up the large number of Tory Remainers and soft Brexiteers that you find in these type of areas as well as squeezing down the Labour vote (remember Labour actually got respectable vote totals in these type of seats last time). In Hertfordshire where I live the Lib Dems are almost certain to gain St Albans but in my opinion they really should be setting their sights far higher than that by targeting Watford, Hitchin and Harpenden and South West Hertfordshire particularly if facing a No Deal Tory Party. Whilst I wouldn't advocate abandoning their old strongholds in the rural West Country completely, similar to the point I made about Brecon and Radnorshire these type of places don't really contain many of the types of people who've switched their voting intention to the Lib Dems in the last few months. Where the Lib Dems will have picked up lots of new voters are heavily concentrated in the types of seats mentioned in the previous 2 paragraphs. It would be in my opinion a big tactical mistake for the party not to recognise this and adjust their campaigning strategy accordingly especially as wealthy urban/surburban areas have the potential to be a reliable long term base for the party in contrast to the way their electoral coalition pre-2010 proved to extremely unreliable. There are certainly a raft of seats the Lib Dems won in the Euro elections in London and the SE, and a tipping point may (or may not) have been reached in London in particular similar to the tipping point the SNP got in Scotland in 2015. The problem is that the Lib Dems have been bitten in the last 3 elections by spreading themselves too thin. Seats like Watford with a strong local government base will i am sure be on the list, but some of the others you mention lack much local organisation and the capability of a Party with 60 MPs and 120 full time staffers was much greater than now. Of course if you are over 30% in London seats may fall without pounding the streetsa Given the trajectory of the Conservatives and Labour it would in my view be a mistake to be at least somewhat ambitious. Of course getting cocky and going for seats with huge percentage winning shares e.g. Holborn and St Pancras (at 70.1%) would be a huge tactical error but seats with winning shares in the 40s or low 50s could well be obtainable if the party is over 20% nationally as this would imply shares of over 30% in middles class metropolitan areas (places like most of the North East and East Midlands would still have fairly derisory Lib Dem votes) which could be boosted further by heavy campaigning. A lot of those London seats I mentioned don't have many Lib Dem councillors atm but they probably now have sizeable memberships which if mobilised would be a big asset. Plus South West London (including Richmond Park which should be counted as a surefire Lib Dem pickup) where a lot of the most experienced Lib Dem activists are won't need anywhere near as much campaigning next time so these activists can be deployed to other areas. Same for the Home Counties but with the added benefit of having a stronger councillor base.
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Post by gwynthegriff on Aug 7, 2019 19:40:40 GMT
Though given it was such a high profile gaffe, we are at least owed an explanation of what actually happened. Has there been one? A high profile gaffe would have been witnessed by more people than a few thousand political hacks at 2.30 am.. I can't find any evidence that anyone other than a handful on this thread even noticed! I think the London media covering the event certainly noticed !
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Post by justin124 on Aug 7, 2019 20:15:18 GMT
There are certainly a raft of seats the Lib Dems won in the Euro elections in London and the SE, and a tipping point may (or may not) have been reached in London in particular similar to the tipping point the SNP got in Scotland in 2015. The problem is that the Lib Dems have been bitten in the last 3 elections by spreading themselves too thin. Seats like Watford with a strong local government base will i am sure be on the list, but some of the others you mention lack much local organisation and the capability of a Party with 60 MPs and 120 full time staffers was much greater than now. Of course if you are over 30% in London seats may fall without pounding the streetsa Given the trajectory of the Conservatives and Labour it would in my view be a mistake to be at least somewhat ambitious. Of course getting cocky and going for seats with huge percentage winning shares e.g. Holborn and St Pancras (at 70.1%) would be a huge tactical error but seats with winning shares in the 40s or low 50s could well be obtainable if the party is over 20% nationally as this would imply shares of over 30% in middles class metropolitan areas (places like most of the North East and East Midlands would still have fairly derisory Lib Dem votes) which could be boosted further by heavy campaigning. A lot of those London seats I mentioned don't have many Lib Dem councillors atm but they probably now have sizeable memberships which if mobilised would be a big asset. Plus South West London (including Richmond Park which should be counted as a surefire Lib Dem pickup) where a lot of the most experienced Lib Dem activists are won't need anywhere near as much campaigning next time so these activists can be deployed to other areas. Same for the Home Counties but with the added benefit of having a stronger councillor base. I believe that far too much is being read into LD success at the EU elections. Turnout was only 37% , both the main parties largely abstained from campaigning , and the attitudes of the minority who did vote tends to be pretty frivolous towards such elections. I will be surprised if Labour loses any London seats to them at a GE.
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Post by andrew111 on Aug 7, 2019 21:27:08 GMT
Given the trajectory of the Conservatives and Labour it would in my view be a mistake to be at least somewhat ambitious. Of course getting cocky and going for seats with huge percentage winning shares e.g. Holborn and St Pancras (at 70.1%) would be a huge tactical error but seats with winning shares in the 40s or low 50s could well be obtainable if the party is over 20% nationally as this would imply shares of over 30% in middles class metropolitan areas (places like most of the North East and East Midlands would still have fairly derisory Lib Dem votes) which could be boosted further by heavy campaigning. A lot of those London seats I mentioned don't have many Lib Dem councillors atm but they probably now have sizeable memberships which if mobilised would be a big asset. Plus South West London (including Richmond Park which should be counted as a surefire Lib Dem pickup) where a lot of the most experienced Lib Dem activists are won't need anywhere near as much campaigning next time so these activists can be deployed to other areas. Same for the Home Counties but with the added benefit of having a stronger councillor base. I believe that far too much is being read into LD success at the EU elections. Turnout was only 37% , both the main parties largely abstained from campaigning , and the attitudes of the minority who did vote tends to be pretty frivolous towards such elections. I will be surprised if Labour loses any London seats to them at a GE. Time will tell i guess. We need some London polls. I think people tend to attribute results they dont like to turnout without much justification. Winning the vote in London was pretty unprecedented for the Lib Dems, and that could have quite an effect on the next vote. However i think the Lib Dems will need rather more than 27% in London in a General Election to gain a lot of seats. Bermondsey and Streatham have to be possible gains from Labour with rather less though. Meanwhile i see Hanretty has the Lib Dems topping the poll in Maidenhead. One can but hope!
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Post by Merseymike on Aug 7, 2019 21:31:48 GMT
I don't think the LibDems will win Streatham. Bermondsey perhaps - though given the MP that would be a move to the left.
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Post by andrew111 on Aug 7, 2019 22:17:39 GMT
I don't think the LibDems will win Streatham. Bermondsey perhaps - though given the MP that would be a move to the left. I was surprised at how close the Lib Dems came to winning Streatham in 2010. That influenced my thinking. Hard to tell in Bermondsey with Hughes retiring and an MP who perhaps pushes some Remainer buttons...
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Post by johnloony on Aug 8, 2019 13:09:28 GMT
I have received a reply from Powys County Council electoral services. The full reply is, and I quote: I have replied to the reply, stating that I want a proper reply. I will allow a few days so that they can talk to each other and sort out a response, but if I don't get a proper reply then I may take the matter further.
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