UK Politics: Trumpy Cat Trumpy Cat Where Have You Been?

[Chaircat Meow]

31 minutes ago, mormont said:

It's not an argument: it's an observed fact that attitudes to immigration are a, more positive in areas with higher immigrant populations and b, already similar in Scotland and in London.

The idea that the relatively tolerant attitude in Scotland is down to lack of immigration while the relatively tolerant attitude in London is down to high immigration? That's an argument, and a poor one. One that appears to be an attempt to accommodate your belief that London levels of immigration in Scotland will produce a different reaction than London levels of immigration in London. But you offer no real reason to think that, other than that you believe it.

I am not sure attitudes to immigration are that different between England and Scotland. I have Social Attitude Surveys where the % of people saying immigration ought to be stopped or reduced were broadly similar in England and Scotland. However, there is clearly a difference in the intensity of the feeling, or the degree to which the electorate translates its views into votes on these issues.

The issue with your argument is the notion of 'area.' You are viewing London as one area, and Scotland as another 'area.' One might instead choose to view England and Scotland as the relevant areas, in which case the area with more immigrants does indeed have more opposition to immigration (according to you, anyway). London is, afterall, only the capital city of England, but Scotland is a country in its own right. In any case, it seems clear that rapid demographic change does produce strong opposition to immigration. Look at places like Lincolnshire. They might have low immigrant populations compared to London, but they still react very strongly to rapidly increasing levels. And, as JonSnow says, you need to account for the very different demographics of London and Scotland.

The SNP weakness wrt immigration and the EU more generally has been taken note of on the pro-UK side, but the issue we will have is that all of the pro-Union leaders, Rennie, Dugdale and Davidson, are not very well placed to exploit this because they have similar attitudes to the SNP.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

16 minutes ago, mormont said:

It's not an argument: it's an observed fact that attitudes to immigration are a, more positive in areas with higher immigrant populations and b, already similar in Scotland and in London.

The idea that the relatively tolerant attitude in Scotland is down to lack of immigration while the relatively tolerant attitude in London is down to high immigration? That's an argument, and a poor one. One that appears to be an attempt to accommodate your belief that London levels of immigration in Scotland will produce a different reaction than London levels of immigration in London. But you offer no real reason to think that, other than that you believe it.

The difference is that London has an already high level of immigration, has done for decades. So people are more tolerant towards it because they either ARE immigrants, or are second, third generation. The native white population has left and is outside London grumbling about it.

Scotland simply has never had that, its almost entirely homogenous and its white british population has never had to feel threatened because its completely secure in its majority status. 

The two populations are very different and I don;t think its too out there to assume they will react differently.

 

[Chaircat Meow]

12 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

The difference is that London has an already high level of immigration, has done for decades. So people are more tolerant towards it because they either ARE immigrants, or are second, third generation. The native white population has left and is outside London grumbling about it.

Scotland simply has never had that, its almost entirely homogenous and its white british population has never had to feel threatened because its completely secure in its majority status. 

The two populations are very different and I don;t think its too out there to assume they will react differently.

 

You are sounding very unChannel4JonSnowish these days, if you don't mind me saying so.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

As in less like me or less like the real Channel4JonSnow?

[Chaircat Meow]

1 minute ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

As in less like me or less like the real Channel4JonSnow?

The latter I suppose.

[mormont]

22 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

I am not sure attitudes to immigration are that different between England and Scotland. I have Social Attitude Surveys where the % of people saying immigration ought to be stopped or reduced were broadly similar in England and Scotland. However, there is clearly a difference in the intensity of the feeling, or the degree to which the electorate translates its views into votes on these issues.

I'd agree with that. My experience is, going back to my earlier post, that many Scottish people understand that the country needs more immigration for demographic reasons and therefore view it as a necessary evil. Simply put, a lot of our industries would collapse without immigration (tourism, for example, or fish farming, as well as the usual ones like social care and the NHS).

22 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

The issue with your argument is the notion of 'area.' You are viewing London as one area, and Scotland as another 'area.'

Well, the comparison was not mine originally. There are likely to be variances within Scotland - though they might not be as marked as one might suppose. Usually urban areas are more accepting of immigration, but in Scotland many rural communities are only viable because of it.

22 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

One might instead choose to view England and Scotland as the relevant areas

One might, but that comparison would also be fraught with problems. England is a much larger and more populous area than Scotland, just as Scotland is physically much larger and ethnically less diverse than London. So I don't think any good purpose could be served by that.

[Werthead]

Quote

The petition calling on the British Parliament to block another referendum is now at 110,000 signatures.

Interesting to see how many of those are from Scottish voters. 

[Chaircat Meow]

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Interesting to see how many of those are from Scottish voters. 

Yeah. The number of signatures from each individual English/Welsh and NI constituency is really small but there are so many of them it could be quite a big % of the overall number. Could be a lot of Scots living in the rest of the UK behind those signatures of course.

[SeanF]

WRT attitudes to immigration, Trevor Philips cited research that showed that White British voters in London were as unhappy with mass immigration as White British voters in the rest of England, and just as likely to vote Conservative or UKIP as such voters elsewhere.  It's just that in London, they make up 45% of the population, compared to over 80% in the rest of England.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

13 minutes ago, SeanF said:

WRT attitudes to immigration, Trevor Philips cited research that showed that White British voters in London were as unhappy with mass immigration as White British voters in the rest of England, and just as likely to vote Conservative or UKIP as such voters elsewhere.  It's just that in London, they make up 45% of the population, compared to over 80% in the rest of England.

Yes that's part of what I was getting at.

[Werthead]

Do we think there's legs on the election spending scandal? Between 20 and 25 Tory MPs currently being investigated (including mine) for overspending on their election funding and Tory Central Office personnel spotted out supporting and funding campaigns they shouldn't have been involved with.

C4 News has been pushing this hard but it's not gotten that much traction in other outlets. But the fact that 17 police forces are investigating seems significant.

[Maltaran]

#toryelectionfraud was big on Twitter for a while some time back, but I haven't seen any of it for months. I assume today's news will start it up again (although I notice your MP has put out a statement saying the police have cleared him).

[A Horse Named Stranger]

23 hours ago, Werthead said:

Technically, although how flexible that "rule" is remains to be seen. The Euro itself is desperately unpopular even in countries where the EU itself is popular and being able to join the EU but not the Euro is quite tempting. Of course, supporters of the Euro want new members to be forced to join the Euro to help bolster it.

Scotland I suspect would like to "stay within" the EU (i.e. the rUK leaves but Scotland is still in it) but it appears that this will be impossible.

Both scenarios look implausible, to say the least. 

The EU states that still have their own currency like the Danes, they were already in the EU when the Euro came into being. And the Danes rejected the Euro twice (?) I think. I really don't know any new states that did not adopt the Euro. For all I know it's at least expected from newcomers to fall in line and adopt the Euro.

As for Scotland (UK) in the EU, while the rest of the UK is out. That simply doesn't work in any shape or form. It starts with the English border, and it ends with what happens if Westminster passes laws for the UK (including Scotland) that are not in accordance with EU law (or vice versa). Even the cool Scottish accent isn't worth the headache.

IndyRef2 will basically be down to a preferential choice. The prospect of an EU membership with the Euro as currency (which might not sound that bad when the Pound starts falling again if May fails to get a good deal). Or stay a member of UK.

 

[Chaircat Meow]

42 minutes ago, Notone said:

Both scenarios look implausible, to say the least. 

The EU states that still have their own currency like the Danes, they were already in the EU when the Euro came into being. And the Danes rejected the Euro twice (?) I think. I really don't know any new states that did not adopt the Euro. For all I know it's at least expected from newcomers to fall in line and adopt the Euro.

As for Scotland (UK) in the EU, while the rest of the UK is out. That simply doesn't work in any shape or form. It starts with the English border, and it ends with what happens if Westminster passes laws for the UK (including Scotland) that are not in accordance with EU law (or vice versa). Even the cool Scottish accent isn't worth the headache.

IndyRef2 will basically be down to a preferential choice. The prospect of an EU membership with the Euro as currency (which might not sound that bad when the Pound starts falling again if May fails to get a good deal). Or stay a member of UK.

 

It won't be. Believe me. Even if you are right, the nats will not be honest about this. They know Scots won't accept the EU membership and the euro. They would be defeated.

However, I'm not sure you are right. Sure, new countries will be obliged to adopt the euro eventually, but as I said before, the EU has no enforcement mechanism here, so if Scotland simply refused to honour its treaty commitments wrt the currency, what could the EU do?

[mormont]

Again, the point is moot for the foreseeable future since whatever one believes about Scotland's economy, everyone agrees it doesn't meet the criteria necessary for Scotland to join the Euro at present and isn't likely to do so for a while. So, the issue will actually be about whether Scotland will pledge to join the Euro if and when the economic conditions are met, which may sound familiar to those of us who remember the late '90s.

This doesn't really help the SNP because if anything, the question of which currency we use meantime is likely to be tougher to answer.

In the meantime, we're still part of a UK where it appears that the main opposition is the Conservative party, who have managed to overturn a key Conservative economic policy after one week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39278968

I do wonder, though: do seals actually guffaw?

[williamjm]

2 hours ago, Notone said:

The EU states that still have their own currency like the Danes, they were already in the EU when the Euro came into being. And the Danes rejected the Euro twice (?) I think. I really don't know any new states that did not adopt the Euro.

Out of the post-Euro states the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Croatia haven't joined the Euro and some of them have been in the EU for over a decade.

This doesn't really help the SNP because if anything, the question of which currency we use meantime is likely to be tougher to answer.

I wonder if they'll suggest the Scottish pound this time, at least it's easy to see how to implement it, unlike the idea of keeping the (UK) pound which seemed to cause lots of confusion during the last campaign.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

16 hours ago, williamjm said:

Out of the post-Euro states the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Croatia haven't joined the Euro and some of them have been in the EU for over a decade.

 

 

I wonder if they'll suggest the Scottish pound this time, at least it's easy to see how to implement it, unlike the idea of keeping the (UK) pound which seemed to cause lots of confusion during the last campaign.

Ok, I stand corrected. I thought it became obligatory to join the Euro, and that they had adopted it. I probably thought too much of the Baltic states and what kind of ordeals they put their citizens through. One of the reasons they are not too sympathetic towards Greece and their debt drama. But that's another story. 

Thanks for the correction in any case.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

The government is going to reject a second Scottish referendum...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-39293513

 

While I agree we've got enough to be dealing with as it is, I feel this will push more people towards independence.

I bet the Spanish government's pleased though.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

12 hours ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

The government is going to reject a second Scottish referendum...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-39293513

 

While I agree we've got enough to be dealing with as it is, I feel this will push more people towards independence.

I bet the Spanish government's pleased though.

May was in a difficult position though, I can only imagine the Chaos if she allowed another referendum, as if things are not unstable enough at the moment. 

This all seems like opportunism to me from Sturgeon anyway, yes she has to be seen to try and get another referendum, but at the same time its just another way to blackmail the government into getting more and more powers. 

[mormont]

13 hours ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

The government is going to reject a second Scottish referendum...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-39293513

 

While I agree we've got enough to be dealing with as it is, I feel this will push more people towards independence.

I bet the Spanish government's pleased though.

Maybe not independence, but it'll certainly drive people towards voting SNP. I doubt the Spanish government give a hoot, but Ruth Davidson must be feeling fed up.