Last of my "4 Favs" is gone, shame. May, Merkel, Ardern and Sturgeon.
The list makes no sense - revealing your motives.
If the list makes no sense or follow a pattern, how does it reveal a motive?
Nicola Sturgeon to resign as Scotland's first minister
31–40 of 45 posts
Re: Nicola Sturgeon to resign as Scotland's first minister
#32Re: Nicola Sturgeon to resign as Scotland's first minister
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're having a discussion with people who like Sturgeon & Ardern, who have some issues with Merkel & May, raising one of the most hated women in recent history seems an unusual take. Thatcher (& Reagan) are rightly recognised today as being responsible for untold suffering. Even the UK Conservative party (Hague) have since spoken out against her approach. She didn't "rescue" the UK from anything, unless when you…
That's nonsense, there are lots of people in the UK who rate Thatcher as one of the best PMs ever. The UK finished the 80s in a drastically better position than at the start in terms of poverty and employment, the latter of which only skyrocketed at the start of her first term because the previous government was socialist, and had been manipulating the economy to prioritize people putting in jobs even if those jobs w…
> there are lots of people in the UK who rate Thatcher
Very true. Too many. I did say "most", which doesn't mean "universally". Thankfully the (far too large) set of fans in the UK don't represent any kind of global majority.
> The UK finished the 80s in a drastically better position than at the start in terms of poverty and employment
This... isn't remotely true.
Poverty went from 13% before Thatcher to over 22% after. You acknowledge unemployment skyrocketed, but the reduction at the end of her term was minor - overall rate finished much higher than before she was in office.
> The USSR also had low unemployment, but that doesn't mean they had a good economy.
Bringing the USSR in here is a strawman because any rebuttal from me can come across as being in support of the USSR, of I'm not - I strongly believe the stats here are not representative of reality. But Soviets aside, the fact you don't think people having income is inherently "good" but instead prioritise something abstract called "the economy" says a lot about your priorities.
Can I ask what exactly is "good" about a "good economy" if more people are in poverty?
Re: Nicola Sturgeon to resign as Scotland's first minister
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
With regards to Scottish politics and its politicians, I suspect you are allowing yourself to bathe in the rays of your own ignorance.
Ha, well I did have the misfortune the other day to stumble on to a piece in The National and was depressed at the blatant anti-Englishness, especially in the toxic comments, which would have been condemned as racism with any other target or in any other mainstream publication.
As an occassional reader of Scottish discussions as well, the double standards are striking.
Compared to those discussions and their anti-English tenor, "the unmentionable" Tommy Robinson was a positively mild and mellow-tempered critic of Islam.
I get why Ukrainians hate Russians; but there is nowhere near as much real blood between the English and the Scots. There shouldn't be that much hate, unless deliberately stoked.
Re: Nicola Sturgeon to resign as Scotland's first minister
#35As an Englishman, I've been impressed with how mature and competent the Scottish leaders have seemed in comparison with their English counterparts; I don't know if it's a systemic or cultural thing (or just my imagination), but as a representative of that tendency I'm sad to see her go.
It's mostly just good PR. Overall the SNP have pushed Scotland down the rankings in pretty much every measurable metric that matters.
Re: Nicola Sturgeon to resign as Scotland's first minister
#36The prison issue wasn't the only straw but I believe it was the last one.
It wasn't just that her government tried to put a male rapist in a female prison, after ignoring years of warnings that self-id would cause this to happen.
It was that when questioned, she repeatedly demonstrated that she was either unable or unwilling to grasp the logic of the situation and address the mistake with integrity. Instead she continued trying to square the circle.
Re: Nicola Sturgeon to resign as Scotland's first minister
#37As an Englishman, I've been impressed with how mature and competent the Scottish leaders have seemed in comparison with their English counterparts; I don't know if it's a systemic or cultural thing (or just my imagination), but as a representative of that tendency I'm sad to see her go.
Sturgeon was competent at enforcing party unity and winning Scottish elections. But in terms of actually achieving things for Scotland, both her and the SNP have failed. It's a one issue party so in terms of independence: - Support for independence is now lower than when she took the reigns. That by itself must count as failure on the SNP's own terms. - Lost the "once in a generation" referendum and then refused to a…
Do you have any examples of the grotesquely racist anti-English rhetoric encouraged by Sturgeon?
Re: Nicola Sturgeon to resign as Scotland's first minister
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> - Lost the "once in a generation" referendum and then refused to accept the result, campaigning for years for a second referendum she had already agreed wouldn't happen. Many voted no to remain in the EU, only to have the rug pulled out from under them anyway. That surely justifies a redo.
It's not relevant to the point I made though is it? She promised to respect the result for the long term and that was a bald-faced lie made for pure political advantage. But to address your point: why? They knew when voting that there was likely to be a referendum on the EU in the future, the pressure for that had been building for years, and Scotland has its own eurosceptics that wanted to remain in the UK and also…
It's like making a deal with someone that gives you promises (or in this case "vows") then afterwards turns around and negates then all and then completely changes the rules of the game (in this case Brexit).
Remember one big reason that people voted no for independence is that there wasn't full clarity whether Scotland could remain in the EU if they left Britain. They'd have to start a whole ascension process.
I've never been to Scotland but some friends live there and they really should have a second chance to escape.
Re: Nicola Sturgeon to resign as Scotland's first minister
#39As an Englishman, I've been impressed with how mature and competent the Scottish leaders have seemed in comparison with their English counterparts; I don't know if it's a systemic or cultural thing (or just my imagination), but as a representative of that tendency I'm sad to see her go.
Sturgeon was competent at enforcing party unity and winning Scottish elections. But in terms of actually achieving things for Scotland, both her and the SNP have failed. It's a one issue party so in terms of independence: - Support for independence is now lower than when she took the reigns. That by itself must count as failure on the SNP's own terms. - Lost the "once in a generation" referendum and then refused to a…
It seems since she is been in power she's conflated the SNP with the Scottish state.
Re: Nicola Sturgeon to resign as Scotland's first minister
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Margaret Thatcher? I personally don't agree with all her ideas, but she has rescued the UK out of the mess they were in in the early '80s, and she managed to do it in an extremely hostile environment.
I personally think that she laid the groundwork for some of the problems we're seeing today. She 'sold the family silver' which creates short-term gains, but in the end you've damaged long-term foundations of the economy: housing, industrial capability, investment in infrastructure etc.
Despite the conservative party publicly acknowledging the errors of her ways in the late 90s, she had already moved the UK overton window far enough to pave the way for New Labour. I doubt Brexit would've been possible without two right-wing parties dominating the political sphere. Even Old-Labour-Corbyn's resistance to "take sides" post-referendum says so much about how much public perception of the political spectrum had shifted in the UK.