Freedom for Tooting! And other similar nutty fringe communities

[chrisp65]

46 minutes ago, blandy said:

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!).

If it was one thing, I could accept there’s some quirk I’m not aware of that would make it too challenging for a nascent government.

But it’s across too many sectors and for too long. Labour are keen to tinker with the voting system and dramatically increase the number of politicians and the size of government. But with no clear explanation as to why. If it was a clear answer of we need more people to take more responsibility then I could accept it, I’d support it. But it isn’t. They are about to undo 25 years of success and ever increasing public support.

The follow up 2011 referendum on increasing powers under devolution included the devolution of water. The ref received a 64% yes vote from the public. Yet here we are over a decade later. If this is because Labour believe Wales uniquely in europe doesn’t have the ability to look after its own affairs, that’s a pretty dismal self assessment of their 25 years in power. They need a bit more belief in themselves and a bit less sitting around the fax machine waiting for big Labour to tell them what to do.

 

[blandy]

12 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

If it was one thing, I could accept there’s some quirk I’m not aware of that would make it too challenging for a nascent government.

But it’s across too many sectors and for too long. Labour are keen to tinker with the voting system and dramatically increase the number of politicians and the size of government. But with no clear explanation as to why. If it was a clear answer of we need more people to take more responsibility then I could accept it, I’d support it. But it isn’t. They are about to undo 25 years of success and ever increasing public support.

The follow up 2011 referendum on increasing powers under devolution included the devolution of water. The ref received a 64% yes vote from the public. Yet here we are over a decade later. If this is because Labour believe Wales uniquely in europe doesn’t have the ability to look after its own affairs, that’s a pretty dismal self assessment of their 25 years in power. They need a bit more belief in themselves and a bit less sitting around the fax machine waiting for big Labour to tell them what to do.

 

Perfectly valid and you know more than me. What I don’t understand is if it’s pure politics, a Tory did the original uk parliament bill giving Wales the right to “take back control” of water. It was not (afaik) opposed by welsh labour, but supported. Not actually following through (so far) with actually doing it and asking for more time, doesn’t seem remotely like a vote winner for anyone. And similar (looking from the outside) for other areas, like plod, or whatever. Enacting control already granted seems like a no brainer for wales guvmint. It can’t just be being scared to say boo to the big goose.  So complexity or incompetence or lack of resource in the legal/ civil service areas, or all 3 see, at least as likely to me.

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

Perfectly valid and you know more than me. What I don’t understand is if it’s pure politics, a Tory did the original uk parliament bill giving Wales the right to “take back control” of water. It was not (afaik) opposed by welsh labour, but supported. Not actually following through (so far) with actually doing it and asking for more time, doesn’t seem remotely like a vote winner for anyone. And similar (looking from the outside) for other areas, like plod, or whatever. Enacting control already granted seems like a no brainer for wales guvmint. It can’t just be being scared to say boo to the big goose.  So complexity or incompetence or lack of resource in the legal/ civil service areas, or all 3 see, at least as likely to me.

I doubt very much I know more than you. It comes down to what your gut feeling is on whether you want one big and most often conservative government or a smaller more dynamic and outward looking one.

It is always going to be far more complex than my uninformed paragraphs of waffle. But Drakeford does come over as a perfectly nice chap and not a natural leader (which probably makes him a great candidate for leadership). But he’s not exactly been ambitious, he’s trying to tow a line of believing in the British project but needing a degree of difference to justify his existence.

He would probably argue that slowly slowly catchy monkey. I would suggest he was offered several monkeys he’d had a decade to prepare for and said no thanks. 

 

[VILLAMARV]

4 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

Natural Resources Wales

In a possibly contentious week on the message boards you've found the real low. For shame. No need for this sort of language.

 

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, VILLAMARV said:

In a possibly contentious week on the message boards you've found the real low. For shame. No need for this sort of language.

 

Truly an organisation that needs disbanding and starting again with totally different leadership and oversight.

[VILLAMARV]

18 hours ago, blandy said:

I thought it seemed worth quoting

It was, absolutely outrageous stuff from Dwr Cymru. I've just been reading a few articles on it this morning.

There's an ongoing battle round me about new licences for intensive chicken farming. As NRW seem happy to quote negligent testing figures to greenwash what's going on in the rivers - notably in the press with the Wye - citizen science groups have set themselves up all over the place to test their own rivers and waterways. There are many treatment plants along the tributries and rivers that lead into the severn estuary and out into the sea. They'd better be working from Dwr Cymru and NRW's point of view. The people are starting to hold both of them to account.

[chrisp65]

Super Majority

Quote

Northern Ireland Office minister and leading Brexiteer Steve Baker made the comments as he suggested a “50% plus one” majority would not be advisable for a vote on Irish unification.

 

One rule for us…

[bickster]

20 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Super Majority

One rule for us…

I know the wording of the GFI is vague but it’s vague on the side of the government believing the time to be right. It’s quite clear that 50%+1 is the margin required in any unification referendum. He’s talking out of his arse this proving his qualification for a ministerial role in this government

[Jareth]

Labour are right to not take anything for granted. They've deffed off the Muslim vote and now we have the SNP leader being quite charismatic. Drakeford in Wales came out of the Covid crisis very strong, I think the SNP may still have a say. But obvs there are lots of racist Scots!

 

[chrisp65]

 

 

Up 5% in 7 months. I’d expect a dip when Labour get in and then the realisation 3 or 4 years later it didn’t materially change anything.

[blandy]

26 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Up 5% in 7 months. I’d expect a dip when Labour get in and then the realisation 3 or 4 years later it didn’t materially change anything.

A question if I may. It looks like in England that there seems to be, from the polls, a wide view that Labour would be better at doing guvmint than the Tories, not just in “who would you vote for”, but in “who do you think is better on health/economy/ enviro…etc.” type questions. So for Wales, I guess the indie party would need to be seen as better than Labour on doing stuff. Do you get the sense that Plaid Cymru is seen or going to be seen as more capable at the nitty gritty stuff?

It seems like there’s always two hurdles, if not 3 for a pro Indie campaign or party to jump. It’s kind of easy to say “we wanna be free”, but harder to say how you are better politicians than whoever is guvmint. And obviously they have to have a sizeable lead in any poll/vote on whether to go independent by the population. From a distance (though I can see Wales on a clear day) it doesn’t seem like Palid is remotely close to crossing any of the 3 hurdles. Is that not how it is?

[chrisp65]

23 minutes ago, blandy said:

A question if I may. It looks like in England that there seems to be, from the polls, a wide view that Labour would be better at doing guvmint than the Tories, not just in “who would you vote for”, but in “who do you think is better on health/economy/ enviro…etc.” type questions. So for Wales, I guess the indie party would need to be seen as better than Labour on doing stuff. Do you get the sense that Plaid Cymru is seen or going to be seen as more capable at the nitty gritty stuff?

It seems like there’s always two hurdles, if not 3 for a pro Indie campaign or party to jump. It’s kind of easy to say “we wanna be free”, but harder to say how you are better politicians than whoever is guvmint. And obviously they have to have a sizeable lead in any poll/vote on whether to go independent by the population. From a distance (though I can see Wales on a clear day) it doesn’t seem like Palid is remotely close to crossing any of the 3 hurdles. Is that not how it is?

It’s a mixed bag.

Plaid does currently have a formal co-operation agreement with Labour so they have some influence and experience at government. All year 4 school kids are about to get free school dinners, that’s a Plaid policy and implementation. Other agreed policies coming down the line include rates reform, universal free childcare up to age 2, a nationalised building firm to beat the disposal of councils. But yes, they are the third largest party and not likely to form their own government any time soon. Other than, there are changes to voting coming including a form of PR. This coupled with more indie parties being more vocal and having more profile might begin to change that. Parties like Gwlad and Propel now have some nascent presence and even a few concillors so whilst I might not like them, they are adding to the mix and making it less of a one umbrella party single issue movement.  Then, of course, the Green Party is also committed independence. So there are a few hopes there combined with PR.

As party leaders go in Wales, there’s next to nothing between Drakeford, Davies, and ap Iorwerth in the polls (all bumping around 30% approval). On that one, I think there’s a bit of a perception that whilst ap Iorwerth is a bit of a Cardiff luvvie, he’s also more appealing to the Welsh speaking homelands of Plaid, so some of the english speaking gains made by Leanne Edwards have been lost.

Shorter version: we need a Welsh Labour Party, despite Labour trying to gaslight us in to thinking there already is one, there isn’t. Too much of the Labour mindset is beholden to their superiors in Westminster and as such they will always have in built self perpetuating lack of confidence in themselves. 

 

[bickster]

It seems the SNP have decided they need a Brain Drain

45% Tax band for people earning over £75,000 per year

[chrisp65]

When the only way to win votes is mimicking the tories and admiring Thatcher! Suicide.

 

 

[chrisp65]

When the speaker in the House of Commons apologised for bending the rules for labour, he suggested he could grant the SNP an additional emergency debate.

They have now requested this debate, and he’s told them it wouldn’t be within the rules, so no.

Another 9 MPs have signed the motion of no confidence in Hoyle, bringing the total to 80. 

[ml1dch]

9 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

Another 9 MPs have signed the motion of no confidence in Hoyle, bringing the total to 80. 

Just another 230 or so to go then.

[chrisp65]

16 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

Just another 230 or so to go then.

There isn’t a magic number, there isn’t a codified process to get rid of the speaker. 

[ml1dch]

19 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

There isn’t a magic number, there isn’t a codified process to get rid of the speaker. 

Given (s)he is installed by a majoriy vote of MPs, presumably (s)he is also removed by a majority vote of MPs.

And given Labour don't want him gone, and the Tories have got no interest in setting the precedent that any speaker that makes a decision unhelpful to the Government should just be removed and replaced, it's hard to see where the majority for Hoyle's removal comes from.

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, ml1dch said:

Given (s)he is installed by a majoriy vote of MPs, presumably (s)he is also removed by a majority vote of MPs.

And given Labour don't want him gone, and the Tories have got no interest in setting the precedent that any speaker that makes a decision unhelpful to the Government should just be removed and replaced, it's hard to see where the majority for Hoyle's removal comes from.

Yeah, there isn’t a magic number, it’s not a ‘majority’ thing. The speaker has to decide if they have the confidence of the house, would a change of speaker improve the situation..

I guess it’s another of these things based on the honour principle.

Westminster being seen to be run for the benefit of the two main parties in Westminster is probably as good an outcome as the SNP could have hoped for.

[ml1dch]

14 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Westminster being seen to be run for the benefit of the two main parties in Westminster is probably as good an outcome as the SNP could have hoped for.

Yup. I imagine that's all they wanted out of the whole thing from the start. Turn up, kick a few bins over, chuck a few stones, make the whole thing look ridiculous. Which is fair enough, it's literally the point of them being in Westminster. 

Edited February 27 by ml1dch