Questions Of The Day (Politics)

[Wile E. Coyote]

It was a case of "it takes a thief to catch a thief", on Sky as they brought in Beth Rigby to analyse BJ's performance. Maybe SKY should have used both Beth and Kaye Burley as viewers really needed a second studio example, to fully get into the Covid Breaching mindset.

I shall suggest it to SKY.

[Grant]

If Humza becomes the new first minister it will prove my theory that the SNP is not about independence for Scotland. It’s about attracting those 20% of Scots who hate the English plus another 20% of the woke brigade.
A pity if he wins because it makes independence more unlikely by exposing the SNP for what it truly is.

[Wile E. Coyote]

I think part of the problem for the SNP is that contra Cameron, Sturgeon and Salmond, who all stated that Brexit would lead to increasing calls for an Indy Ref, it has in fact made Scottish Independence a lot less likely in the minds of ordinary sensible Scots. The idea that they are going to spend the next 20 years or so in a three way argument with Westminster and the EU, so you get finally out of the Union only to negotiate back in the European Union (slow!) lane, as they want all the opt outs that Britain had, is not an enticing one. I can't see Freedom of Movement into Scotland, with then a hard English Scottish border to stop all EU nationals crossing but still letting in Brits and Scots both ways, ever working.

Brexit has really cemented the Union, unless the SNP decide to actually argue the case for an Independent Scotland (outside the EU)

[Mick Harper]

A good point. Britain vis à vis a newly independent Scotland will be in the same position as the EU was to newly Brexited Britain i.e. they can make it easy or they can make it hard. Guess which one, Scotland?

Only kidding. Go with our blessing (though not, I'm afraid, with all the money we give you). A word in your shell-like, Northern Ireland...

[Mick Harper]

The north of England used to be the independent nation of Northumbria...

[Mick Harper]

The M25 is a natural boundary. I can't remember whether Windsor is inside or outside.

[Wile E. Coyote]

The levelling up policy looks distinctly like a return to what used to be quaintly known as regional policy, that is before Thatch opened the M25, and decided to concentrate all UK efforts on wealth creation within the circle. Of course such has been the success of this policy, we now spend billions on the repair and maintenance of the M25 as well as wanting faster rail links in, this is because no right minded soul, except those in migrant camps in Calais who have already tried Paris and rightly think London can't be worse, would actually want to live inside the M25. It is a crime-ridden Metropoliton hell hole, you go there to do business, you don't want to live there.

[Mick Harper]

We don't want you living there either.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Who the hell was it that decided to put Rotterdam and Amsterdam, both in the same place? I don't know, but it was a massive error that is going to take many, many years to undo.

Charles 1st got it right by setting up in Oxford, and issuing coinage from there
https://www.ashmolean.org/oxford-crown

[Mick Harper]

Talking of Paris, I just don't get this French pension business. They said a million people were out yesterday and they've been coming out for a year. So this isn't just standard boulevard agit prop, France's equivalent of a test series against Australia. They're really steamed about it.

But why? Every Frenchie must know that a pension retirement age of 62 is utterly unfeasible when life expectancy is in the eighties. But that's the thing about the French, they never associate the government with themselves. It's quite a good national trait in itself but to imagine their pensions are not being paid by themselves is pushing the principle too far. I assume ol' Pretty Boy will ram it through, and everything will settle down, but you never know with the French. They've got form.

[Mick Harper]

Talking of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, what the hell are you talking about, Wiley? Do you want me to send you my paper on the immortality of nation states with special refence to the Hispano-Dutch ceasefire line of 1576?

[Mick Harper]

So Labour is considering banning Jeremy Corbyn from standing as a Labour candidate at the next election because, the apparatchiks told us, he did so badly at the 2019 general election. Yes, read that again. Not because he is an anti-Semite, not because he leads a party within a party, not because he disagrees fundamentally with current policies, but for heading up a poor election campaign. Me, I wouldn't want to belong to any party that has, as one of its principles, that doing something well (leading the party at the 2017 general election) but not being able to repeat it (2019), means you are not permitted to throw your hat in the ring to break the tie.

Though it was a bit rich when (a surprisingly chipper-looking) Jon Lansman popped up on our screens to denounce the move. After all, as a Trotskyist, he wouldn't allow anyone to stand again ever if he had his way.

[Mick Harper]

Uh-oh. Hamza talks much too fast. This is not a well-researched area but I can assure you it is not a good sign. At best it is evidence of someone who is more intelligent than others but is not very popular with others. Such people have to gabble in order to get their message across before people leave the room. I would apply it to myself but I am unpopular because I'm more intelligent. An important distinction. At worst it is a sign that the speaker is a plausible mountebank who hasn't learned his trade very well. But either way it's not a good trait to have when you are primus inter pares.

And certainly not when you're only primus by a whisker because the popular candidate believes women caught in adultery should be stoned to death. She believes in the literal truth of the Bible and that's what God said so she has no choice in the matter. Though technically speaking Hamza is required to advocate the policy himself if he is, as he says he is, a good Muslim. He boxed clever by relying on nobody liking to discuss Islam in public and kept schtum during the campaign.

But who knows, Scottish people may find this adds piquancy to their sex-lives. It's so cold up there they mostly do it fully clothed in shop doorways. "Are ye married, hen?" "Aye." "Good, let's be having yer."

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

Seeing Hamza's parents being interviewed on the box set me to wondering about their son's real attachment to Scotland. I don't quibble with the SNP's broad church approach to Who is Scottish? or Hamza's perfect right -- and desire -- to lead it, but their project is not really about the technical advantages of independence. They themselves have a hard job arguing they will be better off going it alone. It is justified at some deeper, more atavistic level. (Very similar to Brexit in fact.)

Nor would I quibble with that. I wouldn't want to be ruled by a bunch of toffee-nosed London gits, and I should know I live under the lash of Sadiq Khan. But at this level, Hamza just doesn't feel it. He can't feel it.