Off Topic The Politics Thread

Shouting at dinghies probably.

 

Brexit: 1,000 EU finance firms 'set to open UK offices'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56155531
Ah bless.

 

It’s already been posted. I’d probably dig a bit more into it if you’re that arsed.

 

It needed posting twice as it's another myth busted. Next

 

What was the myth?

 

Remoaners insisted we’d have 99% unemployment and be living in mud huts by now.

 

All going off north of the border...

 

The SNP are ripping themselves to bits - a pity there's no credible alternative up here to fight them in the upcoming elections, they'll still sail through with a majority and will see that as their mandate for pursuing IndyRef2 instead of concentrating on the issues up here....drug deaths, health, education, roads.

 

Dont get me started on the roads Steels. I seem to have a magnetic draw to potholes!

 

The skullduggery they're employing against Salmond is really dark arts, she's determined to nail him by any means...

 

The M8 is like driving on the moon at the moment, the potholes are like craters!

 

Betrayal of the children: A devastating assault on unions fighting return to classrooms...by former Labour Education Secretary DAVID BLUNKETT
By David Blunkett For The Daily Mail

Published: 10:07 AEDT, 23 February 2021 | Updated: 19:32 AEDT, 23 February 2021



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• NHS. Save Lives!’
  
  Today it is time to protect our children — and, most of all, the children from the poorest and most disadvantaged families in Britain.
  
  Protecting their future, their education and their physical and mental health is paramount.
  
  Our brilliant care workers have been on the front line for 12 months. Now it is the turn of the teachers to step forward and save the children, by embarking on a full return to teaching in schools on March 8.
  
  There is no disagreement between the political parties on this issue. Practically the only thing that unites Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Labour leader Keir Starmer right now is their determination to see the school gates reopen as soon as possible.
  
  
  They both know, as we all do, that nothing is more crucial for this country.
  
  That is what makes the teaching unions’ decision to fight to block this return and to keep the classrooms closed for longer so inexplicable: it will cause untold potential damage to millions of young lives.
  
  And it will not be the well-off, well-educated families who will lose out if we fail to act. Their children are often in well-funded schools offering something close to a full-time curriculum online. Preventing children from getting an education by refusing to return to the classroom will punish some of the most vulnerable children in the country and have a deeply damaging effect on social mobility. That is why the continued opposition of the teaching unions to the reopening of schools is both destructive and wrong.
  
  I know the vast majority of teachers are desperate to get back into the classroom. For their unions to attempt to prevent that is a betrayal of the teachers as much as the children.
  
  There are few of us who did not experience or at least hear about inspirational teachers when we were growing up. Their importance to the lives of individuals and the lifeblood of our country cannot be overstated.
  
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  Today it is time to protect our children — and, most of all, the children from the poorest and most disadvantaged families in Britain (stock image)
  
  'Why no phased approach?': Education union leader on schools reopening
  
  
  
  
  
  Anyone who doubts that had only to watch Britain’s biggest entertainment show, Ant And Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, as it returned at the weekend.
  
  A large segment was devoted to celebrating the work of one Wigan teacher, Mrs Kath Crawley, from St Thomas’ Primary School in Ashton-in-Makerfield, who is retiring after 30 years. Hundreds of her former pupils got together to organise anonymous treats and surprises for their beloved ‘Miss’.
  
  Education now really does have to be the nation’s top priority — and it’s clear that Mail readers agree.
  
  Your support for efforts to sustain some form of learning and lessen the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ has been demonstrated by your magnificent response to the Mail Force campaign to provide laptops and improved connectivity for children working from home. Without that generosity, lessons during the past few weeks would have been practically impossible for many pupils, especially those whose families have been hardest hit financially by the coronavirus pandemic.
  
  The computers and software made available by your donations will continue to be invaluable. But there is never any real substitute for face-to-face learning. Technology can only do so much: it’s the human presence that makes the difference.
  
  Most teachers are currently juggling two or even three teaching methods. The children of key workers and others who are especially vulnerable are still going to school. They have to be taught in the classroom.
  
  
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  There is no disagreement between the political parties on this issue. Practically the only thing that unites Prime Minister Boris Johnson (pictured) and Labour leader Keir Starmer right now is their determination to see the school gates reopen as soon as possible
  
  Simultaneously, lessons have to be devised and delivered to all the millions of youngsters learning remotely at home. That poses enormous logistical and emotional challenges, and is clearly exhausting.
  
  And don’t forget that teachers are often parents themselves, and many are trying to educate their own children at home. It’s an impossible situation that must not be allowed to continue for a moment longer than is absolutely necessary.
  
  And so I was deeply saddened to read the statement by a trade union leader called Richard Bettsworth, of the Association Of School And College Leaders, who claimed to be ‘committed to bringing all children and young people back into the classroom as soon as possible’ — and then, almost in the next breath, added: ‘This would seem a reckless course of action. It could trigger another spike in Covid infections . . . and risk throwing away the hard-won progress.’
  
  He went on to suggest that reopening schools should not even be contemplated in the foreseeable future: ‘This is not a small easing of lockdown restrictions. It is a massive step.’
  
  Anyone who takes this view has failed to understand that the very purpose of mass vaccination was to enable a return to some form of normality as quickly and safely as possible, starting with our children returning to their classrooms.
  
  Last year, when leaders of the National Education Union were taking every step — including the threat of strike action — to delay the reopening of schools, I was deeply concerned that education was becoming a political issue, and that children would be caught in the middle.
  
  
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  They both know, as we all do, that nothing is more crucial for this country. That is what makes the teaching unions’ decision to fight to block this return and to keep the classrooms closed for longer so inexplicable: it will cause untold potential damage to millions of young lives
  
  It seemed by the end of the year that we had resolved that tension, and at the start of 2021 everyone was excited at the prospect of getting the schools back to normal.
  
  And then came the sudden third wave of Covid, and the reimposition of lockdown on Tuesday, January 5 — one day after schools had reopened. If we were prepared to open schools in January, there is no reason to delay their reopening beyond March 8, given that upwards of 20 million people will have been vaccinated by then.
  
  The pandemic has been a dire experience, and I honestly believe it has affected our children worst of all. Many feel that their future dreams are evaporating before their eyes.
  
  According to disturbing figures released by the British Journal of Psychiatry, about one in four children has self-harmed in the past year. The Millennium Cohort Study also found that 7 per cent of children have attempted suicide by the age of 17.
  
  The impact of lockdown and loneliness, the stress of learning from home, uncertainty over education and future jobs and the forced separation from friends all play a major role in these terrible statistics.
  
  Schools are the greatest lifeline that we can offer our children. We’ve thrown everything we have at defeating the virus. Now we need a new slogan: ‘Save lives. Save futures. Open the schools.’
  
  Lord Blunkett was Education Secretary from 1997 to 2001.

 

wont be long before you need one to shop at tescos

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Politics For All

@PoliticsForAlI

Boris Johnson has announced that Michael Gove will lead the review into whether the UK should have a domestic covid vaccine passport system

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Andrew Neil
@afneil

Let us step back and appreciate the enormity of events in Scotland today.
Former First Minister Alex Salmond is accusing First Minister Nicola Sturgeon of lying to/misleading Parliament and part of a ScotGov/SNP move to jail him.

 

Extremists have slower brains, study finds
Dan Satherley 53 mins ago











People who gravitate towards extremism and simplistic worldviews do so because they literally don't have the cognitive ability to process complex information, a new study has found.

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© Video - Newshub Nation; Images - Getty Watch: Fake news a 'public health emergency' - author.
Researchers in the UK surveyed hundreds of Americans, asking them about their views on political matters - such as religion, authority, patriotism, economics, abortion, equality and so on - as well as testing their cognition.

They found strong links between how a person interprets information, and how they see the world.

Conservatives, for example, when asked to answer quickly and accurately, took longer than liberals to respond - but tended to have more accuracy.

"It’s fascinating, because conservatism is almost a synonym for caution,” lead author Leor Zmigrod of the University of Cambridge told The Guardian.

"We're seeing that - at the very basic neuropsychological level - individuals who are politically conservative… simply treat every stimuli that they encounter with caution."


Those whom the surveys outed as 'dogmatic' - stuck in their ways, regardless of the evidence - also took longer to process information.

"Conservatism and nationalism were related to greater caution in perceptual decision-making tasks and to reduced strategic information processing, while dogmatism was associated with slower evidence accumulation and impulsive tendencies," the study said - in other words, they're slower than others to figure out what's happening, but unfortunately quicker to act.

"Dogmatic individuals may possess reduced inhibition that could be compounded by slower information uptake, leading to impulsive decisions based on imperfectly processed evidence."

Conservatism and nationalism were also linked psychologically with 'extreme pro-group attitudes' - agreeing with statements like 'I would fight someone insulting or making fun of America as a whole’ and ‘I would sacrifice my life if it saved another American's life’. When combined with dogmatic personality traits, extremism surfaces.

"The extremist mind - a mixture of conservative and dogmatic psychological signatures - is cognitively cautious, slower at perceptual processing and has a weaker working memory," the researchers said. "This is combined with impulsive personality traits that seek sensation and risky experiences."

Dr Zmigrod said their methods of analysis were 15 times more accurate at picking out who might be an extremist than demographics alone.

"Many people will know those in their communities who have become radicalised or adopted increasingly extreme political views, whether on the left or right. We want to know why particular individuals are more susceptible.

"By examining 'hot' emotional cognition alongside the 'cold' unconscious cognition of basic information processing we can see a psychological signature for those at risk of engaging with an ideology in an extreme way.

"Subtle difficulties with complex mental processing may subconsciously push people towards extreme doctrines that provide clearer, more defined explanations of the world, making them susceptible to toxic forms of dogmatic and authoritarian ideologies."

The researchers said there was more to learn - particularly in the differences they found amongst conservatives, with social conservatives scoring high on agreeableness and perceiving risk, but economic conservatives not.

 

Of course there should be a vaccine passport system. It will go a long way to open up society again and help business. If I was going on a cruise (not my thing) and had a choice between a ship that insisted on a vaccine passport, and one that let all comers in, there's only one choice

 

I’m ok with it if it differentiates between people who have refused the vaccine and people who just haven’t had it yet as they’re lower priority. Can’t be having you old ****s going to football and the like before me. Not sure what you do with people who can’t have a vaccine for whatever reason.

Even if we don’t have one here, chances are you’re going to need a stamp to enter most other places.

 

There are a significant number of people who cannot have the vaccine for various reasons...allergies for examplen...
and my daughter who is pregnant, I know that will change eventually...but all who can need to have the vaccine so we can protect those who cannot