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UK Politics - From Russia with Love


Which Tyler

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8 hours ago, mormont said:

I've noted for many years that the devotion that many NI Unionists have for the mainland is not as passionately reciprocated. 

I suspect this is a legacy of the Good Friday Agreement - now that the IRA is no longer blowing things up, no one here ever really thinks about NI any more. I doubt many people could name a notable Unionist other than maybe Ian Paisley, and he's been dead 3 years.

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22 minutes ago, Pebble said:

I wonder what you would say when I call American Football Rugby with body armour.

A few years ago I would have said that this angers me to my core, but I watched the rugby World Cup a few years ago and I’m not going to lie, the sports pretty dope!

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I will however admit that we did take Basketball and corrupted that to be Netball so its not all a one way game perversion thing going on.

This, OTOH, disgusts me!

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1 hour ago, Pebble said:

I wonder what you would say when I call American Football Rugby with body armour.

 

I will however admit that we did take Basketball and corrupted that to be Netball so its not all a one way game perversion thing going on.

 

More like rugby after a health and safety review (and extra tea-breaks). But yeah, baseball really is rounders taken far too seriously.

Oh yeah, we kinda cocked up with Netball, but have you seen what they did with hockey though? I can forgive the Canadians, as they don't have any flattish land that isn't frozen over, but the US?

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So I just Googled what Netball actually is.

What an abomination! 

That's why people say you're all godless!!!

3 hours ago, polishgenius said:



Just wait till you see Aussie Rules.

Hard to argue that's an improvement. It does look pretty chaotic though.

 

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13 hours ago, Pebble said:

Baseball?  that's Rounders isn't it?

Rounders with ad breaks.

It's still better than cricket, though.

12 hours ago, Maltaran said:

I suspect this is a legacy of the Good Friday Agreement - now that the IRA is no longer blowing things up, no one here ever really thinks about NI any more. I doubt many people could name a notable Unionist other than maybe Ian Paisley, and he's been dead 3 years.

Ian Paisley Jr?

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15 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

A few years ago I would have said that this angers me to my core, but I watched the rugby World Cup a few years ago and I’m not going to lie, the sports pretty dope!

If you're interested - not only is Rugby's Americanised version (fewer players, more ad breaks; all over in 15 minutes for those with short attention spans) in the summer olympics as of Rio; but there's a new Major League starting up in the US currently in their pre-season; but kicking off for real next weekend. Broadcast on CBSSN; I think you can also watch British club rugby as well on some of your channels, though I can't remember which I can look it out if you're interested.

As this is the first year; there aren't too many teams; but Seattle, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Glendale, Austin, Houston and New Orleans all competing this year; whilst New York, Ontario and Vancouver all looking to join next year; with Chicago, Dallas also rumoured; and a few others looking to maybe join if it's sustainable..

I've only caught 1 pre-season match, but it looks around the level of the English Championship or ND1 (2nd and 3rd divisions); but will only improve as they practice - crowds have apparently been reasonable, but we'll see how much of that is novelty value.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAOHceWQIxE

 

ETA: Some links for you:

https://www.usmlr.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Rugby

https://www.earfulofdirt.com/2018/04/earful-of-dirt-ep31-preseason-crazy.html

 

[/derail] - If you want, there's a Rugby thread in the Entertainment forum to follow this conversation

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Any thoughts on the consequences of May ordering British forces to join military action in Syria without Parliamentary approval? Cameron's actions in 2012 seemed to set a precedent and May going back on that would look bad, but possibly not as bad as her asking Parliament and getting turned down.

The next issue is that she could have taken cover under the idea  a swift response was necessary so there was no time to recall Parliament and she had to take a decision in the national interest, but with France and the USA backing off quickly (yesterday saying missiles could be flying in hours, today Mattis suggesting that they would wait for reports from the inspections, which may take a week or more) action could be delayed until after Parliament resumes, which removes that excuse.

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Really should have gotten Parliamentary approval.
It's already too late for swift action, and there's not really any way of spinning to be self-defence; so she should need a vote in the commons.

If she felt it was that urgent, then call Parliament back; but I don't see how it could be.

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To be exact, Parliament has confirmed no such thing. A parliamentary committee has published a report by a private legal firm making allegations. It is now down to the Electoral Commission to investigate and decide whether to refer the matter to the police. Looks like a strong case though. 

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On 10/04/2018 at 11:06 PM, Werthead said:

Interesting thoughts on how Brexit may accelerate the process of a united Ireland and Northern Ireland leaving the rest of the UK.

I don't see it happening anytime soon, polling indicates Northern Ireland is firmly pro union overall, and support for unification in the south is far from overwhelming- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Ireland

But if it was the best thing for future peace, I'd certainly support unification, I don't think many British people are under the illusion that Northern Ireland gives us any great benefit. I feel the great reduction in the power of the Catholic Church on the island means progress on this is a lot more feasible. 

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1 hour ago, mankytoes said:

I don't see it happening anytime soon, polling indicates Northern Ireland is firmly pro union overall, and support for unification in the south is far from overwhelming- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Ireland

But if it was the best thing for future peace, I'd certainly support unification, I don't think many British people are under the illusion that Northern Ireland gives us any great benefit. I feel the great reduction in the power of the Catholic Church on the island means progress on this is a lot more feasible. 

It's not really "firmly" pro-union, having moved from two of the six NI counties being majority Catholic to four of them in just twenty years. From 2001 to 2011 the Catholic population also rose from 43.8 to 45% whilst the Protestant population fell from 53.1% to 48.4% and that trend is continuing towards parity, probably in less than a decade.

That doesn't automatically mean they'd all move towards being favour of Irish reunification, as there is a sizeable mostly-silent minority on both sides of the sectarian divide and among secularists who tend to favour the status quo when it benefits them (so they were in favour of reunification during the Celtic Tiger years, were against it after the global economic turndown and now are reassessing in light of Brexit and Ireland's current strong economic performance). But that combination means that an Unionist victory in a referendum is certainly not a given at present and becomes significantly less likely as we move forwards, which is unlikely to be reversed unless Brexit is an unexpected major economic success story or Ireland undergoes a further economic downturn.

I would anticipate a reunification movement in Northern Ireland to start gaining credible ground in the next few years and would be quite difficult to resist by around 2030. Certainly not an unimaginable distant time in the future.

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Support for unification won’t necessarily grow if, as seems likely, Brexit damages the U.K. economy. After all, Ireland’s economy is heavily dependent on the U.K., so they are likely to suffer even more. 

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5 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Support for unification won’t necessarily grow if, as seems likely, Brexit damages the U.K. economy. After all, Ireland’s economy is heavily dependent on the U.K., so they are likely to suffer even more. 

Worst case scenario for the Irish economy still has Irish growth at 1% a year until 2030, barring any kind of major global downturn again. Which isn't great but it's not the country plunging into an economic abyss. Other predictors suggest that it could be higher (although still falling far short of its potential without Brexit at all). In the short-term the Republic's growth is estimated at three times that of Northern Ireland. All of this can turn on a dime, of course, but the general outlook for the Republic is okay-to-good. The UK (and NI) outlook is much more muddled until a sense of the post-Brexit deal manages.

Britain is an important export market for Ireland, no argument, but the EU is a far more important one. Intriguingly, the Irish are also developing new sea transport links from Ireland which bypass the UK altogether (including new routes from Ireland to Spain, France and the Netherlands) to avoid the problems that will be incurred by goods having to transit through the UK with some kind of customs checking, which would be expensive and impractical. If they can make that work economically, one of the bigger predicted hits to the Republic is lessened.

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4 minutes ago, Werthead said:

It's not really "firmly" pro-union, having moved from two of the NI counties being majority Catholic to four in just twenty years. That doesn't automatically mean they'd all move towards being favour of Irish reunification, as there is a sizeable mostly-silent minority on both sides of the sectarian divide and among secularists who tend to favour the status quo when it benefits them (so they were in favour of reunification during the Celtic Tiger years, were against it after the global economic turndown and now are reassessing in light of Brexit and Ireland's current strong economic performance). But that combination means that an Unionist victory in a referendum is certainly not a given at present and becomes significantly less likely as we move forwards, which is unlikely to be reversed unless Brexit is an unexpected major economic success story or Ireland undergoes a further economic downturn.

I was basing that on the last poll in my link- only 18% said they were pro union in the university survey, that's pretty weak. And there is still the assumption that the Republic would even agree to this, considering most polls indicate they would not if it was immediate, only if it was long term. The stronger the southern Irish economy relative to the British one, the less incentive there is for them to accept the North. 

44% of Northern Irish voted Brexit, and pretty much all of them would qualify for an EU passport, I think when the border issue is resolved they might find they aren't in a bad position. 

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British Government Farcical Lunacy Lesson #13,207

Back in 2013 a company fraud expert registered a fake company in the name of Vince Cable, then business secretary in the Coalition, to show how easy it was to screw over Company House (as someone who used Company House on a daily basis for fact-checking, the amount of clear bullshit that goes on with that service is quite staggering) and set up fake shell companies and commit other fraud acts. He reported what he'd done to Company House and the government, as well as the press, everyone was very embarrassed and agreed to fix the problems (naturally, they have done nothing).

A couple of weeks ago the same guy was abruptly - five years after the fact - pulled in and fined £12,000 for falsifying company information in this instance.

Now, whistleblowers frequently face reprisals and this kind of thing is not completely unexpected. He also did very technically break the law in letter if not in spirit. What is truly ridiculous is that the government posted a fucking press release crowing about how awesome they are for catching this guy. The context is left completely missing. He told them he did it, otherwise they'd have never noticed and never have caught him!

I don't know what drone wrote this press release but they should be ashamed of themselves. Unbelievable.

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44% of Northern Irish voted Brexit, and pretty much all of them would qualify for an EU passport, I think when the border issue is resolved they might find they aren't in a bad position. 

 

"When?"

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On 4/14/2018 at 8:55 PM, mankytoes said:

44% of Northern Irish voted Brexit, and pretty much all of them would qualify for an EU passport, I think when the border issue is resolved they might find they aren't in a bad position. 

Why would Northern Irish people qualify? I thought there was a flood of people to get passports from the Republic before the rules changed due to uncertainty surrounding what happens next.

Also the "border issue" is no small thing. I think that the EU was the resolution in most ways. It doesn't please everyone, especially those wanting unification, but it has been a long time since it was militarised. Hopefully nothing comes of it, but it's not unreasonable to think of a resurgent IRA if Brexit means no easy passage between the North and the Republic.

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