Actually it now appears the 2-3% pay rise won't apply to local government employees.

I know it's probably tedious for most on here but should I do a top ten list of reasons why people should never support the SNP (mainly for those outwith Scotland who have no real idea of their many failures etc). Or for Tom who who doesn't believe anything if he hasn't read about it in the Liverpool Echo

Yeah why not and lets also add to the tedium with a discussion of the rise of the SNP - and fall, due mainly to huskers 1 man propaganda campaign but also some particular historic circumstances. Namely the collapse of centre left social democracy, which had 2 answers, one was the SNP rise accompanying Labour's decimation in scotland, the other was Corbyn. The sharpness of their success, and more gradual but still rather steep fall is consistent with a party capitalising on the deep hole left by labour (and lib dems) while lacking a principled progressive alternative that is actually sustainable. 'Anti - austerity' politics is well meaning and a refreshing alternative narrative to shades of tory lite, but without a broad base of support that mobilises beyond a narrow independence vote, time is the only determining factor as to SNP decline. Its another SNP contradiction - mass mobilisation for independence but defer all other political questions to the leadership.

I'd much prefer a top 10 list of reasons why people should vote not SNP and some names of who you think people should vote for.

No.1....Ruth and the orangemen?

Nice score for BAE. So that's why May was kissing the dictator's backside actually citing "women can drive there now". Wouldn't like to be a Yemeni with these raining bombs.

https://www.theguardian.com/business...ia-bae-systems

Interview with Paul Johnson of the IFS is a good read:

Nowhere near out of austerity

In before carillion bailout?
I don't think the 2 party narrowing of politics has anything to do with first past the post, at least not in the way that centrism has been squeezed. It affects smaller more radical parties ofc. The polarisation has manifested as labour moving to the left, the lib dems naturally disappearing since they lack any other home, the tories splitting over brexit with the right dominating over the leave vote/narrative. And as the author accepts in Europe the same issues are being had eg. Italy radical right coalition.
The author is correct in that taxes need to be raised, didn't fare too well for lib dems arguing for increasing tax across the board, labour much more popular with a graduated increase. Yes I know this economist says that won't raise enough yada yada but that's the problem with liberals, no imagination.

Rather interesting anti-eu statement from Corbyn today. Labour really need to nail their colours to the mast as anti Brexit. Not gonna happen though

No it isn't, but the content of a labour brexit is about the best position remainers are going to get unless they want a really serious constitutional crisis ie. ignoring a referendum decision. The position seems to be tariff free access to the single market and a bespoke customs union. All the things Brexiters hate and will obv go full steam ahead to propagandise this as a betrayal. All Corbyn needs to do is repeat "we are leaving the European union, free movement is ending, long live free movement" which is obv necessary as single market members. In terms of EU law I believe for example in the case of Norway they translate it all into Norwegian. And the Norway model is along the lines of a labour one as far as I can tell. So it is possible, the Greek economist/politician/celebrity Yanus Varoufakis advocates a Norway style model for the UK pretty convincingly.

But his main point wasn't about accepting the referendum, it was about his own euro scepticism

He said "But we are also clear that the option of a new UK customs union with the EU would need to ensure the UK has a say in future trade deals.
Labour would not countenance a deal that left Britain as a passive recipient of rules decided elsewhere by others....."

"...That’s why we would want to negotiate protections or exemptions where necessary from current rules and directives that push privatisation and public service competition or restrict our ability to intervene to support domestic and local industry and business or undermine attempts to protect rights at work.
We cannot be held back inside or outside the EU from taking the steps we need to develop and invest in cutting edge industries and local business to stop the tide of privatisation and outsourcing, or from preventing employers being able to import cheap agency labour to undercut existing pay and conditions in the name of free market orthodoxy.
It’s striking that Theresa May’s only clear priority when she laid out her new Brexit negotiating position last week seemed to be to tie the UK permanently to EU rules, which are used to drive privatisation and block support for British industry."

"...It would therefore be wrong to sign up to a single market deal without agreement that our final relationship with the EU would be fully compatible with our radical plans to change Britain’s economy."

Outwith all that there is talk of 'Control Feakery' at the conference

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...itics-43343196

Seems to be more common these days.

It's a fine statement, these arguments were practically unheard during the actual debate, yet this is precisely what the issues are about for ordinary people, it's refreshing to see this being discussed. The point about the referendum is that anti-brexit politicians lack.. and here's that word so often used against Corbyn himself - credibility.

Re control freaks they will always try to shut down debate and push their own agenda at conferences regardless of their particular politics, 'they' being whichever faction is dominant at that time. But to say it's more common 'these days' is false.

Not sure how you can claim Corby's statement isn't anti-EU given it claims EU rules are used to drive privatisation and block support for British industry. That's about as clear cut as it gets.

It's anti-eu for sure. There are also European Commission led moves to wreck collective bargaining agreements across all member states. It would be wrong for the labour left to take any other position, as I argued all along this should have been the position from day 1. The labour right can bleat on about staying in the EU if they want (and aren't blocked from doing so lol) and they will cement themselves into oblivion with dugdale leading the charge, the one responsible for Scottish meltdown, good luck with that.
But there is a fair amount of pragmatism here also. The UK needs tariff free access to the single market which means free movement in the EU. The tories can't / won't deliver this because they are politically tied to their extreme right ie UKIP-tory alliance. So the closest position to remain is obv labour. It just means accepting a dose of socialism. If they can't accept it then cross the floor imo.

Yep, that's what we want. Anything else will destroy the country. That will mean that violence is justified. Corbyn's Labour are traitors to the national interest, since they are merely Brexitards.

you said 'not gonna happen though', I said 'no it isnt', ie. I agree.

mcdonnell pledge Scotland funding
https://inews.co.uk/news/scotland/jo...ur-wins-power/

Right, well shoot David Cameron as well then since he allowed this to happen. I mean I'd shoot him anyway for other reasons.

What exactly is May's plan for her 'strong' reaction to the poisoning? No matter how clearly some Russians were behind it it's surely the case that the evidence they can call on so soon afterwards will be weak and circumstantial, and most of the UKs 'allies' are slightly predisposed to not go further against Russia at the moment - Merkel's talking up the chances of progress after Putain's re-election and Macron spent the last few days defending dealing with Russia more about Syria.

Surely mouthing off in speeches without any sensible options to back it up is about as stupid as it gets, and if, as a result, the UK then feels the need to act unilaterally it will just further isolate itself. Am I missing something, or is it just a case of a weak prime minister reacting badly? Maybe she just bans the referees from going to the World Cup and somehow thinks that satisfies her sabre-rattling.

The russian government almost murdered a british police officer on UK soil. I'm not super patriotism guy but if as a country you have no response to something like that you don't have much of a country.

Of course the UK should react. The question is is creating made up deadlines backed by empty threats, and without taking the time to investigate or gather allies, the only possible reaction? Given the UK's standing in the international community and the competency of the government I guess I can believe that it is.

The UK is fairly strong and has loads of options. Theu can arrest a bunch of spys. Kick people out of the country, freeze russian assets.

Theres a huge range of options in play between do nothing and try to start a real fight.

guessing the reaction will centre around the one thing which never seems to fail to piss them off: sanctions on individuals associated w putin

the fact that they all own property in london is useful in this situation imo

We can solve our russia problem, our housing problem and our deficit problem all at once. Seize those assets! I'd feel a bit more confident if the tories hadn't taken dirty sackfuls of cash from russian gangsters but they might still be shamed into action by the egregiousness of this attack.

I still don't really see why the UK has to take this opportunity to go it alone when I would think it could mobilise international support far more effectively if it made an effort, but am sure economic sanctions and diplomatic expulsions piss off Putain, so if that's the end game fair play.

The UK does and says zip re foreign policy/international relations without checking with the Whitehouse first so they are never going it alone.