Freedom for Tooting! And other similar nutty fringe communities

[chrisp65]

9 minutes ago, sidcow said:

I'm not convinced The EU would automatically let Wales (or Scotland) join. 

They've seen what an absolute shitfest the Northern Ireland hard border with the UK has become. 

I'm not sure there is enough on offer from Wales (or Scotland) for their benefit to make them take on that headache. 

I think Spain could black ball it.

[Cizzler]

17 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

But we can do stats all day, it’s whether you think your affairs are better dealt with by yourself, or by someone else. 

It’s a positive thing, making your own decisions, not a negative.

I guess this is what I’m unsure about.

Why is the U.K. “someone else”, when Wales is a member of the union.

Why is average public spend p/person higher in Scotland/Wales/N.Ire if Westminster is making decisions solely for the benefit of England?

You made a point earlier that England must be exploiting Wales to Wales’ adversity, as why else would they want to keep it. But why is it zero-sum? Why can’t it be that both regions are better off together in the Union and will both be negatively affected if it split?

If Wales did split, I really don’t understand what the monetary policy would be? What currency would they have?

How would they address the current fiscal deficit? Tax revenue p/person is currently 76%, but public spending p/person is 108% - clearly it would be difficult to maintain the current level of public spending in Wales based on current tax receipts?

Wales would suddenly have to also pay for their own Defence, their own HMRC/civil service, etc, etc. Costs which there are significant benefits from splitting over a wider population.

Clearly there’s anger at the status quo. There’s a general malaise across the entirety of the U.K. at the moment in my opinion. I just wonder if there are better solutions than separation. 

[chrisp65]

14 minutes ago, Cizzler said:

I guess this is what I’m unsure about.

Why is the U.K. “someone else”, when Wales is a member of the union.

Why is average public spend p/person higher in Scotland/Wales/N.Ire if Westminster is making decisions solely for the benefit of England?

You made a point earlier that England must be exploiting Wales to Wales’ adversity, as why else would they want to keep it. But why is it zero-sum? Why can’t it be that both regions are better off together in the Union and will both be negatively affected if it split?

If Wales did split, I really don’t understand what the monetary policy would be? What currency would they have?

How would they address the current fiscal deficit? Tax revenue p/person is currently 76%, but public spending p/person is 108% - clearly it would be difficult to maintain the current level of public spending in Wales based on current tax receipts?

Wales would suddenly have to also pay for their own Defence, their own HMRC/civil service, etc, etc. Costs which there are significant benefits from splitting over a wider population.

Clearly there’s anger at the status quo. There’s a general malaise across the entirety of the U.K. at the moment in my opinion. I just wonder if there are better solutions than separation. 

The spend is higher in less densely populated areas, that’s why London gets all the spend, because a £1 spent on the tube benefits a larger number of people. Which perversely makes it look like the people of Brecon or Bodmin are having more spent on them, when in reality, Bodmin is not where the spending is happening. 

I don’t think I’ve used the word exploiting? On money, I can’t say I’m overly bothered about that, it works itself out, well it certainly has for the first 50 countries to break away, Ireland don’t appear to have struggled without the pound? Malta, as an example of a small European nation that was run from Westminster. It became independent in 1964, kept using the pound until 1972, switched to its own currency in 1972, switched to the euro in 2018. Malta has survived this. It’s not the problem its made out to be.

 

How would Wales pay off the historic debt accrued by others in its name? Same way Westminster was planning on paying it off I guess?

Wales would need its own separate tax offices? Yes, as would the remainder of the UK, how would they manage it? They’d manage it becuase it’s already regionalised and there is HMRC already in Cardiff. Along with a mint just down the road in Llantrisant and government buildings all over south Wales, from the ONS, to UK Trade etc.. Seriously, on all those admin points about passports or tax or customs officials there are lots of countries smaller than Wales that manage this. I mean, I’m sure if we were nice about it, the Polish could make Welsh passports as well as UK ones. It’s why Estonia isn’t asking to be allowed back in to Russia, this stuff fixes itself, it’s normal. Independence is normal.

It doesn’t need to be super complicated it doesn’t need to be bitter. To suggest it’s just too hard would suggest the people of the four UK nations are somehow less capable of organising themselves than every other nation on earth. I don’t believe that. To suggest we couldn’t share military defence makes me wonder how NATO is supposed to function.

 

 

[VILLAMARV]

There's gold in them there hills....

[VILLAMARV]

On 24/07/2023 at 17:05, Cizzler said:

Who does Wales export electricity and water to?

Quite a lot of posters on here. Cofiwch Cwm Elan, Cofiwch Dryweryn etc

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

Quite a lot of posters on here. Cofiwch Cwm Elan, Cofiwch Dryweryn etc

Yes, quite, Birmingham and Liverpool would be f***ed without Welsh water

[sidcow]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

Yes, quite, Birmingham and Liverpool would be f***ed without Welsh water

The only logical course of action when the water supplies are restricted is to go to war with Wales. 

They'd better stock up on Leopard 2's.

[VILLAMARV]

Cofiwych Epynt too then

[ml1dch]

The issues of having a large vote share, equally shared across the whole country.

If you win nearly all the seats by five points, a six point drop in your support completely f***s you.

[chrisp65]

15% of Scots want the tories to rule them.

If the vote Labour, then at the next political churn in 4, 5, or 8 years time, then they’ll have the tories ruling over them again.

Eventually, people must work this out.

[ml1dch]

"Actually, I've decided I really like the union after all"

[ml1dch]

Got my deckchair out and my saltire ready to wave. 

Wonder how it'll go.

[bickster]

7 hours ago, ml1dch said:

Wonder how it'll go

I'm sure it'll just be over shadowed by by-election frenzy.

It's a conspiracy by the RWM to keep it out of the news

[blandy]

On 24/07/2023 at 19:51, chrisp65 said:

Welsh Water is a not for profit organisation without share holders, its registered address is in Cardiff

Lovely not for profit Welsh water has been doing the dirty

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/19/welsh-water-admits-spilling-untreated-sewage-near-dolphin-habitat-for-decade?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-5

Quote

Welsh Water has admitted to spilling untreated sewage near a rare dolphin habitat for at least a decade.

A BBC investigation found the water company had been illegally discharging untreated wastewater at dozens of sewage plants, often for years at a time.…Welsh Water was discharging sewage before it reached its stipulated overflow level, which means it should have been treating it, but was not.

The data, from 11 Welsh sewage plants, found that 10 released untreated waste before their stipulated overflow level had been reached. The worst-performing plant was Cardigan, which spilled for more than 200 days a year from 2019-2022, and it almost never treated the sewage it was supposed to. The treatment plant spills into the Teifi estuary, where there is one of Europe’s largest populations of bottlenose dolphins…

 

[chrisp65]

55 minutes ago, blandy said:

Lovely not for profit Welsh water has been doing the dirty

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/19/welsh-water-admits-spilling-untreated-sewage-near-dolphin-habitat-for-decade?CMP=oth_b-aplnews_d-5

 

 

I was asked a question, if it was privatised, I responded it was not for profit and registered locally.

Not sure why I’ve been quoted?

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

 

I was asked a question, if it was privatised, I responded it was not for profit and registered locally.

Not sure why I’ve been quoted?

I saw the story in the news, recalled there'd been some discussion of water companies and stuff. did a VT search for Welsh Water and your post came up. I thought it seemed worth quoting in the context of the view out there that Wales controls it's own water company, independently from Wasteminster, and it does it in a free range, organic, vegan manner, and yet still they do the same as the privatised ones and kill dolphins for the sheer fun of it*.

 

*may not be true.

[chrisp65]

Just now, blandy said:

I saw the story in the news, recalled there'd been some discussion of water companies and stuff. did a VT search for Welsh Water and your post came up. I thought it seemed worth quoting in the context of the view out there that Wales controls it's own water company, independently from Wasteminster, and it does it in a free range, organic, vegan manner, and yet still they do the same as the privatised ones and kill dolphins for the sheer fun of it*.

 

*may not be true.

I’m not aware of this free range organic vegan view out there. The Welsh Parliament doesn’t control Welsh Water and Natural Resources Wales needs reforming.

A quick glance at any of Fergal Sharkey’s shit in the sea maps over the last few years would tell you they need to get their act together.

Not Fergal Sharkey’s shit, although I suppose a proportion of it would be.

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

The Welsh Parliament doesn’t control Welsh Water

I didn't know that. I thought it had been transferred to Welsh full control a while back. Just yahoogled it and you're (unsurprisingly) right. Seems like Wales asked for (passing of control) it to be delayed.

Quote

A letter obtained by Plaid Cymru shows that after the bill was passed, the Welsh government asked for the project to bring the powers to Wales to be put on ice.

The letter, written in 2018, asked for a delay in devolving the power until 2022.

 

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

I didn't know that. I thought it had been transferred to Welsh full control a while back. Just yahoogled it and you're (unsurprisingly) right. Seems like Wales asked for (passing of control) it to be delayed.

 

Vote Labour get Westminster.

They did it with transport too, and now they’re bitching about the HS2 differential when they had they chance to make a clean defining line.

They did it with policing too, apparently it looked too hard for a ‘new’ Assembly to deal with.

Drakeford waves his little Ddraig Goch when it suits him and its safe, but ultimately he does what the grown ups in head office tell him to do.

[blandy]

39 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Vote Labour get Westminster.

They did it with transport too, and now they’re bitching about the HS2 differential when they had they chance to make a clean defining line.

They did it with policing too, apparently it looked too hard for a ‘new’ Assembly to deal with.

Drakeford waves his little Ddraig Goch when it suits him and its safe, but ultimately he does what the grown ups in head office tell him to do.

That's one explanation.

I wonder, though, whether perhaps there's an element of complexity involved - by that I mean that determining how to break up/hand over control of this, that or the other entity from one parliament to another one, might not be a bit of a "I did not fully appreciate the complexity of ...". If only there were some recent example we could think of?

Not trying to be sarcy (to you), but the water thing, and allowing for politics as you say, it does seem a bit of a complicated thing, still - like with pipes and pumps and infrastructure and legacy stuff which run through more than one place, in multiple instances and then there was the germ that came and gave us all pandemic disease and stuff had to be done that took away all the human resource and admin and civil service effort from doing stuff like making water welsh again (MWWA!).