Brexit ?

[Oberon]

I'd be down for PM Astley, we've had an Asquith which is close enough.

That being said, one of the latest rumours from Bojo central is that if he gets the Tory leadership then he might not call an election.

Little wonder the crowd outside Parliament this evening were chanting "What's your plan?!"

[blackswan40]

I prefer Billy Bragg heres on of his iccle numbers

Days Like These lyrics

The party that became so powerful by sinking
Foreign boats
Is dreaming up new promises because promises
Win votes
And being resolute in conference with the
Ad man's expertise
The majority by their silence shall pay for days like these

The right to build communities is back behind
Closed doors
'tween government and people stands the right arm
Of the law
And shame upon the patriot when the mark of the
Bulldog breed
Is a family without a home and a pensioner in need

Those whose lives are ruled by dogma are waiting
For a sign
The better dead than red brigade are listening on the line
And the liberal, with a small l cries in front of the tv
And another demonstration passes on to history
Peace, bread, work, and freedom is the best we
Can achieve
And wearing badges is not enough in days like these

[MGR1]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

It's slang for pissed, which in BritSpeak can also mean schnockered, so I guess yeah, it could be.

I think I did see something a while ago that said that we Scots have something like 90 different terms for being drunk....

Mike.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by MGR1

I think I did see something a while ago that said that we Scots have something like 90 different terms for being drunk....

Mike.

There are certainly more than 90 grades of being drunk

[Skybird]

Brilliant idea in Der Tagesspiegel:

after the Brits voted for Brexit, and the English football team executed it, Hodgson becomes new Prime Minister.

[Takeda Shingen]

In the meanwhile market prices in Great Britain seem to have stabilized with a loaf of bread being valued at 2 and a half cartons of cigarettes. Similarly most merchants will accept 3 liters of unfiltered water or 8 pounds of scrap metal.

[bertieck476]

Dont see what the Scots have got to be miffed at. When you had your referendum everyone knew there was going to be another referendum on EU membership, but Scotland voted to stay.
Ms sturgeon saying its a democratic disgrace is all about rabble rousing so the snp can justify another independence vote, if the first one had resulted in 51 to 49 for yes she wouldn't be calling it a democratic disgrace, you'd be a independent scotland now even though practically half wanted to keep the union.
I cant get over the hypocrisy of the snp's position, leading up to the independence referendum European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said it would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to join the European Union. This was just waved away as nonsense, they were happy to go ahead and try and win independence and be outside the EU but now its a disgrace.

[MGR1]

Well, Sturgeon's had her little jaunt to Brussels to fight Scotland's corner.

Naturally she's been told "we'll talk to you if/when Scotland's an independent state". Add to the fact that no national leaders wished to speak with her, plus the "the whole UK is leaving, not part of it" twitter comment from Hollande and the usual rhetoric from Spain, I can't quite see how useful her publicly stated mission was.

However, we don't actually know the precise contenets of her discussions, and I highly doubt anyone will be told.

From what I can decipher of what seems to be the SNP's policies at the moment, they know that there's nothing they can do about the UK leaving the EU. Soooo, I lay reasonable odds that Sturgeon's sounding out the EU's opinions on an independent Scotland being successfull in applying for and getting EU membership.

It would be reasonable to say this was just a scouting and fact finding mission to help the SNP design a new campaign plan for themselves in the event of another IndyRef for Scotland.

Mike.

[MGR1]

Originally Posted by bertieck476

Dont see what the Scots have got to be miffed at. When you had your referendum everyone knew there was going to be another referendum on EU membership, but Scotland voted to stay.
Ms sturgeon saying its a democratic disgrace is all about rabble rousing so the snp can justify another independence vote, if the first one had resulted in 51 to 49 for yes she wouldn't be calling it a democratic disgrace, you'd be a independent scotland now even though practically half wanted to keep the union.
I cant get over the hypocrisy of the snp's position, leading up to the independence referendum European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said it would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to join the European Union. This was just waved away as nonsense, they were happy to go ahead and try and win independence and be outside the EU but now its a disgrace.

The SNP are nothing if not persistant, Bertie. Independence for Scotland is their entire raison d'etre and they're now sitting on some very dedicated support, probably a bit too dedicated even for their own tastes.

All of Sturgeon's rhetoric is for the benefit of her own domestic support, not the rest of the UK.

There also isn't any large scale, organised, political opposition to the SNP within Scotland. Scotland isn't a one party dictatorship, but it has tended to one party hegemony, to use one Scottish political commentators term. True adverserial, two party, democracy has never fully developed here. It's a bit weak in comparison with England's.

What that boils down to is that the SNP are considered to be the best of a bad lot. They may not be dynamite governing, but they have made a much better job of it than their Labour predecessors. They've actually tried to fix things, whilst their Labour and Unionist (i.e. Tory) predecessors generally didn't. As I've written before, if previous UK Governments had run the country (not just Scotland, but the entire UK) more wisely in comparison to the way they actually have, I don't think the SNP (and UKIP, let's be honest) would have been able to find a font of discontent they could use to further they're own aims.

There's also a little matter of national identity and how you view the UK:

Is it one single nation, or is it four nations working together?

Mike.

[Catfish]

^ If Scotland, England and Ireland edit: and Wales, sorry (thanks MGR1) each send its own football teams, they should all be independent. Otherwise the UK should have one team?

[MGR1]

Don't forget Wales!

When it comes to football (soccer) the UK fields four teams and in rugby, three (Northern Ireland joins with Eire for that).

Likewise cricket - it's England, not the UK.

In ideal circumstances in all three it should be "Team GB" as it is for other sports.

It has been mooted for football, but it hasn't progressed very far largely due to fears that it would end up being "Team England" by another name.

That's what I mean by the UK's national identity being something of a question mark as it means different things to different people.

As mapuc asked in his earlier thread, when is it British and when is it not? A question not helped when "England" has always been shorthand for "Britain".

Mike.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by MGR1

Is it one single nation, or is it four nations working together?

Working what? I think the together has gone out the window somewhat.

[Skybird]

The parliament of the German federal state of Northrhine-Westfalia now considers it to be discrmination if the official oaths that representatives swear if they get elected into offices or parlimant include the formula "I swear to serve... blablabla... for the German people." This prevents integration, said the Green socialists, and the red socialist agreed. Instead, the formula now reads "for the state of Northrhine-Westfalia" only - the evil, wicked, sub-valued, racist, integration-preventing German people no longer get mentioned.

This has two implications. First, politicians consider themselves to no longer working for the people, and worse: they put the state before the people; and second: they deny that this country belongs to and is property of the people and their forefathers who over generation have formed and build this country.

In 2014, the former Swedish prime minister told the Swedish people this:

"There is a choice of which country Sweden will be. Is this a land that is owned by those who have lived here for three or four generations, or is Sweden [a country] where people who come here in mid-life makes it to be and develops it? To me, it is obvious that it should be the latter and that there is a stronger and better society if it will be open [to more immigration].”

In other words: Sweden does not belong to the Swedes. It belongs to the foreigners.

Europe will not stop until it has completely destroyed itself.

Don't dare to waver, dear Brits - your decision was a tough one, but you made the right one. Obeying the tyrants in Brussel would have been easier, yes: but the easy way often is not the right way. And do not allow the EU to blackmail you in the future: "no market access if no total and uncontrolled migration into Britain". That island of yours - is yours, and yours alone. Do not let them take it away from you.

Juncker today said he wants to bypass all national parliaments and waving through the CETA agreement with Canada all alone, only decided by the EU central commitee. And he dares to pull that stunt after what just has happened in Britain! Totally disconnected form reality, he still has no clue that his doings and plans are not part of a solution, but represents the essence of the crisis the EU is in. Stupid old man. Unscrupulous, silly man.

BTW, has anyone ever noticed how he uses body language and physical domination gestures to press persons he deals with vis a vis into a subordinate position and into the defensive from all beginning on? He grabs their heads and dunk them down, pats their faces and heads with one hand and hold their head with the other so that they cannot escape, and he pulls them down and kisses them onto the top of the head, or leaves his hand rest on their head for longer time, resulting them in necessarily having a bowed head. You can see this kind of aggressive body language in quite some mammal species.

Dieser Typ ist so ekelhaft.

If somebody would dare to grab my head for a greeting, and foricng my head down and forcing me to allow him kissing me and patting me, he would risk a violent reply.

[Catfish]

^ You've got to cut drunks some slack

[MGR1]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Working what? I think the together has gone out the window somewhat.

Yup, definitely a problem if people in both England and Scotland can't think of a good reason to keep the UK together beyond money and inertia.

Certainly the vitriol directed at each other by internet warriors hardly helps.

Wasn't it an American who said that Britain had a problem defining itself after the Empire? Perhaps the UK is indeed in the "endgame" period.

Who knows what the future holds, as they say.

Mike.