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Post by Foggy on Jan 14, 2018 17:46:01 GMT
That having been made clear, [expectation management] I find it necessary to point out that I am currently studying for an MSc and have found myself with three majors assignments to write over Christmas. As a result, my campaigning efforts have been pretty minimal and I'm not expecting a brilliant result. [/expectation management]. On the plus side, I'm attending a press conference organised by a local campaign group on Tuesday, so that could get me a few votes if it goes well. Best of luck with your course. Sounds like you'll need even more luck to win that seat on the council this week!
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Post by Foggy on Jan 11, 2018 22:47:36 GMT
Trying to minimise cross-county seats, I'd take one each from Cumbria, Lancashire, Staffs and the West Mids Met county. The North East is awkward, might have to combine it all. Cambridgeshire, Buckinghamshire, Kent and the Isle of Wight definitely gain a seat. Going by some quick, not entirely accurate calculations I'd allocate new seats to Suffolk, Hertfordshire, Surrey, West Sussex, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and combine Rutland with Lincolnshire for one. Might cause problems in some smaller counties though. In the South West, Devon, Somerset, Gloucestershire and Avon ( if we still consider that relevant) all look to have at least half an extra quota, but there's only three seats to go around. We most certainly do not.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 10, 2018 3:06:07 GMT
I'm a little hazy on the specifics, but due to the elected members incarcerated or in exile, the independentists do not have a majority as they cannot vote ex-situ. This seems to be exactly what JxCat and Esquerra want for three reasons. First, they can continue the Pythonesque "Help! Help! We're being repressed" line simmering away. Secondly, it means that they can avoid trying to govern together again when they have little in common, other than the independence question. Finally, it means that they can also avoid being held hostage by CUP who have gone on record to say that they will not support the government unless they acknowledge the independence declaration back in the autumn. Thoughts? Tin-foil hats? The exiled and imprisoned leaders who were declared elected last month have apparently managed to 'present their credentials' in absentia to the clerk of the Catalan Parliament, but it remains to be seen when a decision will be made about their status. If things are in limbo then that would indeed leave the separatists without a majority. If it turns out they weren't eligible to be candidates then that would appear to benefit people further down their lists, rather than other parties (nor would it invalidate the whole election, although if there isn't a new President in a few months then we're heading for a new vote in the late spring or early summer anyway). There isn't much common ground amongst the non-secessionist parties either, so leaving the case of Puigdemont and Junqueras unresolved indefinitely wouldn't exactly help to stabilise the situation. Your second paragraph is essentially my reading of the situation too. The shrieking propaganda about oppression is really getting out of hand. Assange and the Russians even managed to get #1octubreTV3 (the date of the referendum and the name of the regional public service broadcaster) trending worldwide on Twitter for a while yesterday.
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Post by Foggy on Jan 9, 2018 4:03:58 GMT
Any BR is a net gain for the Cons but by going for the motherload (rigid quota, old electoral register, seat reductions) it looks more likely than not to fail. For which load of mothers are the Conservatives supposed to have gone – and more to the point, what does that have to do with the Boundary Review?
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Post by Foggy on Dec 27, 2017 3:20:52 GMT
The source Tim cited refers to Margareta as 'Her Majesty'. She has no right to use that style.
Boogs called her Queen. She has no right to that title. The only deposed royal family that springs to mind who tried to pull that trick was the House of Zog.
The thought of her as President is an appealing one, the notion of Radu Duda as First Gentleman less so. In either case she should not be a partisan candidate for the post, and any chance of dynastic succession via her nephew should be dismissed.
Romania has had rubbish Presidents in the past (I mean yeah Ceaușescu obviously, but I refer here to post-Communist ones) and will no doubt have some more rubbish Presidents in future. It does not appear to have a rubbish one at the moment. A referendum to restore the monarchy should not be used to try to leverage him out of office.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 27, 2017 1:42:55 GMT
They are talking about mirroring what the Canadian supreme court dictated before one of the Quebec referenda by saying that if the Spanish state is divisible, then so is Catalonia and whatever a region votes for, it will get. (I don't know much about Quebec, this is just how it has been retold to me by them). I'm surprised Maxime hasn't addressed this point. Your friends are probably thinking of the Reference Re Secession of Québec which came after both plebiscites in La Belle Province. Much has been written about it in Castillian and Catalan in both the media and legal circles, partly thanks to recent events, but also due to the academic career of the late Carme Chacón. It hasn't settled the debate in Canada, since Conservatives and Liberals there largely refuse to accept that a 50%+1 vote would be sufficient grounds for separation in a theoretical third referendum. The NDP gets painted as a bogeyman for supporting this basic democratic principle, and at the last general election, anglo Canadians lapped it up... whilst even a lot of francophones were at least prepared to give Justin Trudeau the benefit of the doubt. The ruling was diplomatic enough to be welcomed at the time, but its findings haven't settled the argument to this day. It's held up as a potential international example even though it relied largely on interpreting the Canadian Constitution (only acknowledging international law in order to claim that Canadian law doesn't deviate from it). For example – it led to the Loi sur la clarté référendaire which would be illegal under the present Spanish Constitution, because it recognises that an independence referendum is a possibility. The Constitution of Spain mentions the term 'indivisible' near the start, but the Canadian equivalent does not do so anywhere, so the comparison isn't always instructive.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 26, 2017 23:33:39 GMT
What exactly is the mechanism for assigning seats between the four constituencies, and what impact does that have relative to equal apportionment or a single national list? And, given that Barcelona is significantly larger than the other three constituencies, what would be the impact of splitting it into two constituencies? Someone has done the calculations that answer your first question (based on the provisional result from Thursday night, so slightly off from the revised figures on Christmas Eve, but still a good indicator). The number of seats per constituency was fixed 40 years ago and it would only take an ordinary law to change it AFAIK, but no Catalan government has ever been interested in doing so. I guess that splitting Barcelona into two smaller constituencies would mitigate the effect of the unionists' lead in the area even further, but it would also make it more difficult for the CUP (and at the election just gone, the PP) to pass the effective threshold in each constituency.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 24, 2017 22:16:12 GMT
^ That might well make a unionist minority government a possibility. No, they'd be replaced by other list candidates. Eight of the newly elected representatives are either in jail or will be jailed if they return to Spain. I find it telling that, in an EU country, the result of a democratic election could possibly be challenged by the simple expedient of locking up, or threatening to lock up, elected representatives who support the "wrong" side - and the EU remains remarkably quiet about this, whilst at the same time the EU are very keen to interfere in the internal affairs of countries such as Hungary and Poland. Did you miss the part where it was pointed out that their seats wouldn't simply be left empty?
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Post by Foggy on Dec 24, 2017 21:33:24 GMT
Well, then you are being silly. Puigdemont has not banned all other languages. He's been speaking French on Belgian TV, for starters, and he supported the 2006 Statute of Autonomy (before the courts struck some of it down) which recognised Aranese as a co-official minority language within Catalonia. The CUP are the most likely party to claim Spanish is 'asphyxiating' Catalan and that its use should be outlawed. That can be offputting to people who are only one or two generations removed from other regions of Spain. For an 'internationalist' group they can be very inward-looking with their EUsceptic and anti-tourist views, too. Turning the campaigning into a question of identity is something both sides have done, yes. That's not the same as claiming those of Andalusian and Castillian origin are less inclined to vote for separation. Have read the education and language acts, not being silly I haven't read those particular bits of legislation as enacted, but I do know those are both policy areas where both the autonomous Catalan administration and the central government in Madrid have tried to take too hard a line, which does nobody any good. Anyway, the votes from abroad were counted today and one seat in Tarragona flipped. The PP will now have 4 seats after all (still not enough to form an official group in Parliament) at the expense of Ciutadans, who are back down to 36. All other parties and constituencies have an unchanged seat allocation.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 24, 2017 16:08:19 GMT
Yes, it would be, but I don't see anybody in this thread doing that. I am, the divisive nature of the Separatists campaigning is turning it into an identity thing, now this other C's eedjit is doing it from the other side. Well, then you are being silly. Puigdemont has not banned all other languages. He's been speaking French on Belgian TV, for starters, and he supported the 2006 Statute of Autonomy (before the courts struck some of it down) which recognised Aranese as a co-official minority language within Catalonia. The CUP are the most likely party to claim Spanish is 'asphyxiating' Catalan and that its use should be outlawed. That can be offputting to people who are only one or two generations removed from other regions of Spain. For an 'internationalist' group they can be very inward-looking with their EUsceptic and anti-tourist views, too. Turning the campaigning into a question of identity is something both sides have done, yes. That's not the same as claiming those of Andalusian and Castillian origin are less inclined to vote for separation.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 24, 2017 14:03:08 GMT
Silly trying to deny that people who moved to Catalonia from elsewhere are less likely to be in favour of independence. Yes, it would be, but I don't see anybody in this thread doing that.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 23, 2017 18:58:27 GMT
Labour's 2010 vote share in seats where they came 3rd in 2010 and 1st in 2017:Cambridge*: 24.3% Canterbury: 16.1% Colne Valley: 26.4% Leeds North West: 21.0% Portsmouth South: 13.7% Reading East: 25.5% Sheffield, Hallam: 16.1% Increase from 2010 to 2017:Cambridge: +27.6% Colne Valley: +21.4% Leeds North West: +23.1% Portsmouth South: +27.4% Reading East: +23.6% Sheffield, Hallam: +22.3% *LAB gain in 2015 On current boundaries, all 6 of these would've voted Conservative in 1992. 3/6 voted Liberal Democrat in 2010. What happened to Canterbury in the second list? I make it four seats out of seven that went LD at the 2010 election.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 23, 2017 18:45:30 GMT
Pronouncing Dalek as if there were an 'r' in it – as my aunt does – can be an amusing affectation. Spelling it with one, on the other hand, is just plain ignorant and moronic. Incidentally 'dàlek' is a Serbo-Croat word meaning 'far' or 'distant', but Terry Nation has always claimed that he had no idea of this when he came up with the name for the race. It's not as if he could've just Googled it back in the 1960s! I thought everyone pronounces Dalek as “dar-lek”? I’m a northerner and still add an r there. Not everyone says it that way, but my aunt is from Bristol so it's certainly not just a northern thing either. On topic: I wonder what a Welsh council's 'Cabinet Member for Streetscene and Countryside' is supposed to have responsibility for?
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Post by Foggy on Dec 22, 2017 23:16:38 GMT
A shame to see the pro-independence parties retain their majority, but I suppose a continuation of this self-induced crisis is what the Catalan people really want. That's just falling into the separatist trap of treating only pro-independence Catalans as 'true' Catalans. This isn't an ethnic conflict anyway. Andalusians and Castillians are of the same ethnicity as Catalans. It's not a cultural one either. Catalan culture is part of Spanish culture. All EU citizens resident in Catalonia had the right to vote this week and that is only good and proper.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 22, 2017 0:44:54 GMT
So PSC are PSOE and CeC are Podemos? The PSOE has been branded as the Partit dels Socialists de Catalunya in Catalonia for decades now. The latter name is far more prominent and this is a successful arrangement. The Catalan branch has sensibly advocated a federal Spain for a while, which the central party is only just coming round to. What Podemos and its 'confluences' choose to call themselves from region to region and from one election to the next is needlessly complicated, but the short answer to your second question would be yes.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 22, 2017 0:10:24 GMT
The stunning success of C's is a sign of hardening positions on the other side of the divide. It's not a surprise, but is important. So the Austerity Unionists pipped the Austerity Separatists or am reading this wrong I think you aren't. One of the consequences of making the main divide in Catalan politics unionist/separatist rather than left/right is that both sides can get away with lies, further corruption and generally continuing to shaft ordinary people. In the poll on this thread I've voted for the second option. Had I actually been living in Catalonia I'd have voted for PACMA (who appear to have come eighth in the popular vote).
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Post by Foggy on Dec 21, 2017 23:46:04 GMT
The composition of the new Catalan Parliament: CATALAN NATIONALIST (70):JxC 34 (new) ERC 32 ( new) CUP 4 (-6) SPANISH UNIONIST (57):C's 37 (+12) PSC 17 (+1) PP 3 (-8) NEUTRAL/PRO-REFERENDUM (8):CeC 8 (-3) I think, in the style of the pop charts, we can safely refer to the ERC as a re-entry here rather than a new party. The confusion over how to split the JxSí seats from the previous Parliament explains why the gains and losses might not add up. It's not a great result, but it's good enough. Separatist vote down a touch, unionist vote up, Citizens largest party. Importantly, separatists didn't get a majority of votes (again) and UDI is dead. A shame that JxC came second though, as it means pratt Piugdemont may try to take the presidency again. It's a pity and quite a surprise, really. This was the best chance the ERC have ever had (and possibly will ever have) at topping the poll, or at least becoming the largest catalanista party... and yet they've still managed to fall behind a list that's an empty vehicle for an exiled President propped up by the shell of a defunct and corrupt party. They also falied to finish first in any province, which is astonishing. That's an even worse result for the PP though. Albiol will not be able to form an official group in the legislature. That's a total embarrassment. A lot of potential CUP voters must've broken for JxCat at the last moment too, which is most peculiar. As usual for a Spanish election, we have the overseas votes to be counted in a couple of days which could flip a seat or two (normally towards the left). Turnout was at 81% last I checked, so there's no way anyone can call into doubt the legitimacy of what the voters have expressed. Madrid digging its heels in and carrying on with the imposition of direct rule or ordering more new elections until Catalans vote the 'correct' way would not be a wise tactic from here. Unfortunately they're going to have to let another secessionist administration form and then start talks about Catalonia's relationship with the central Spanish state, with no preconditions and nothing off the table. I can't see that happening though.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 21, 2017 21:59:29 GMT
Separatist parties presently on 70 of 135 seats & hard to see them not getting a majority of at least 68. That will certainly be a disappointment to centralising forces in Madrid. Within those parties, it looks like JxCat might just finish ahead of the ERC which would also be a huge blow to the left compared to what the polls had predicted. Puigdemont seems to have something of a personal vote even from Brussels, especially in his home province of Girona.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 21, 2017 21:30:10 GMT
That's interesting but it won't affect the seat distribution. The overrepresentation of the three non-Barcelona provinces is fixed in law. An exit poll says that Ciutadans will win more seats than any of the earlier polls were expecting, but that the three pro-independence parties between them will still have a majority... so the election essentially solves nothing. The only part of it that will bring a slight "return to normality" (the Spanish government's reasoning for dissolving Parliament two months ago) is the re-splitting of Junts pel Sí into its constituent parts. They've just started counting the votes. TV coverage in Spanish here and in Catalan here. No, but it may have an affect on the seat distribution within those regions. No, it might have an effect on it. If you're watching the Spanish coverage, the phrasing might be confusing you. When they said Party X has taken a seat from Party Y in a particular province, it means the former is up a seat compared to a few minutes ago in the count, not that the latter has lost a seat with respect to the past election (in this case 2015, when JxCat were parts of JxSí in any event). Thanks for clarifying my meaning, despite the patronising tone. You may well have known what you meant (though it didn't come across that way), but it was important to explain what 'taking a seat' means in the context of Spanish coverage for other readers. Tone of voice doesn't really come across well in the written word online, but please don't start seeing offence where none was intended. According to TV3, it's up to 70.9% counted now. As it stands, neither the CUP nor the PP has enough seats to form a parliamentary group in their own right. Results from the Barcelona area are likely to bring both parties' vote shares up slightly, mind.
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Post by Foggy on Dec 21, 2017 20:58:42 GMT
Still very early days, only 6% of the vote is in. But Ciudadanos is doing well. They've taken at least one seat from JxCat in Girona. If you're watching the Spanish coverage, the phrasing might be confusing you. When they said Party X has taken a seat from Party Y in a particular province, it means the former is up a seat compared to a few minutes ago in the count, not that the latter has lost a seat with respect to the past election (in this case 2015, when JxCat were parts of JxSí in any event).
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