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UK - Election 2015

NWO Sentryman said:
China lacks the power projection to supplant the US, which in turn was acquired from the crumbling British Empire after WW2. But still, there's a Superpower, then there's Great Powers (India, China, Russia, France and Great Britain - Guess what they have in common)
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China now? How about China in 30 years? The blink of an eye. About the lifetime of our next generation of nuclear weapons I guess.

Germany, Japan, Brazil. Guess what they have in common?
 
NWO Sentryman said:
The thing about nuclear weapons, as I mentioned before, is that they are meant to deter wars between Great Powers +, and within almost a lifetime, there has only been one major war between Great Powers, and that is thanks to nothing other than nuclear weapons.
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How on Earth can you possibly know that?

WHY? Because it instantly escalated the chances of an aggressor suffering grave consequences if they tried to go down the warpath with another great power.
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For grave consequences look at WWI and WW2. Industrialised war is not a stroll in the park. What profit could any power expect to gain by starting one?


The threat of nuclear war deterred further British/French/Israeli Aggression in Suez.
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No it didn't. The US turned off the money-tap and demanded repayments forthwith unless they stopped acting like they were still independent agents. Moves like that had to be cleared with the US and they hadn't been.

And nice try with Hong Kong, because that was a 99 year lease from China, which the British honoured in 1997, in a manner similar to the Panama Canal Treaty.
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Hong Kong wasn't leased. The New Territories on the mainland were leased. Hong Kong was the Queen's own, bless 'er.

There were extended negotiations with no hint of nuclear threats. Not even the shadow of a hint. No extra leverage, squat. Loads of pomp and ceremony come the time, though. Feathered hats and everything. Even down to the chests of opium, by all accounts.
 
Agatha said:
Plenty of cricket played in Scotland; two of my brothers live in Edinburgh and both play local cricket every week in the cricket season.
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Yes that is true, and I'm sure your brothers find many other enthusiasts to join them. But we are dealing here with symbolic stereotypes, and cricket is an English one rather than a Scottish one. Scotland is not one of the main cricketing countries. I stress that I am not writing in hostility to this imagery evoked by Major. It's simply English, rather than "British".

Nor am I discussing the attitude of English people in general to Scotland. I am referring to the UK political establishment that looks with horror on constitutional change, as disturbing the order of things it knows and depends upon.

Here are Major's remarks on that issue.
Separation would not only be a leap in the dark for Scotland – it would diminish the UK. If chunks of your country fall off, you lose prestige and power ...

I warned again and again – in 1992 and in 1997 – that devolution would lead towards the break-up of the UK. For their own partisan electoral advantage, Labour ignored all the risks. No, they said, devolution would kill independence stone dead. It didn’t. All it did was to fan the flame.
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Thus he takes for granted that devolution was considered by Labour as the lesser of two evils, not anything meritorious in itself. I think he's probably right. And his main aim, to which I think he is willing to sacrifice many things, is the maintenance of the "prestige and power" of the UK.
 
anglolawyer said:
China now? How about China in 30 years? The blink of an eye. About the lifetime of our next generation of nuclear weapons I guess.

Germany, Japan, Brazil. Guess what they have in common?
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If it wasn't for Japan being there it would be World Cup winners... ;)
 
CapelDodger said:
How on Earth can you possibly know that?
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Two Industrialised World Wars within 30 years before Nukes, none since.

For grave consequences look at WWI and WW2. Industrialised war is not a stroll in the park. What profit could any power expect to gain by starting one?
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It's a guarantee for a defending power that they can make the aggressor incur a heavy power.

No it didn't. The US turned off the money-tap and demanded repayments forthwith unless they stopped acting like they were still independent agents. Moves like that had to be cleared with the US and they hadn't been.
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Only because there was a nonzero risk of WW3 starting.

Hong Kong wasn't leased. The New Territories on the mainland were leased. Hong Kong was the Queen's own, bless 'er.

There were extended negotiations with no hint of nuclear threats. Not even the shadow of a hint. No extra leverage, squat. Loads of pomp and ceremony come the time, though. Feathered hats and everything. Even down to the chests of opium, by all accounts.
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Hong Kong was leased before the first world war, and Clay Grabbing had largely been on the way out.
 
anglolawyer said:
China now? How about China in 30 years? The blink of an eye. About the lifetime of our next generation of nuclear weapons I guess.

Germany, Japan, Brazil. Guess what they have in common?
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The thing with Germany and Japan is that the USA/UK/France/Russia explicity forced them to put their signatures on "NO NUKES FOR YOU!" clauses, and as for Brazil, they will inevitably get nuclear weapons. There just isn't the impetus right now for them. If Venezuela starts getting jumpy, thinking a war will stimulate their ailing economy OTOH...
 
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Some of this has got something to do with the UK election, has it?
 
Back to humour:

Grant Schapps and his anonomous editing of his wikipedia entry

Note the date of *this* story

Further details have emerged of how the constituency office of the new Conservative chairman Grant Shapps altered his Wikipedia biography to remove references to embarrassing political gaffes, the marketing website he founded and his personal fortune.

Using a series of anonymous accounts which can be traced to the Tory chairman's computers, references were deleted about his role in a 2007 byelection in west London where he impersonated Liberal Democrats online in an attempt to discredit his rivals – but forgot that he had logged on as himself.
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Continuing the humour theme, this is what he did then:

http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2007/07/grant_shapps/
Basically, he planned to deceive the electorate, undermine his opponents and blow his own horn at the same time.

5. Grant identified his target – this video of Ming Campbell opening the Lib Dem by-election HQ – and posted the following comment, the intent of which should be crystal-clear:
“
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And here is the comment:

https://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=jJ67wndcOVE&lc=NxeKDvRsTYHX5mssmJAMUVknX1U370q-h0PQmPJB1QI

Grant Shapps 7 years ago ·
LINKED COMMENT
Okay, realistically we're not going to win though. Especially since the Tories have just received 5 defecting Councillors from Labour. Don't quite know how they've done it, but the Tories have stolen a march on us this time.
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NWO Sentryman said:
Two Industrialised World Wars within 30 years before Nukes, none since.
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That's it? History is not a statistical exercise. These were arguably one war in two parts, and the first industrialised wars apart from the Franco-Prussian War which was so badly handled by the French it really doesn't count. They conclusively demonstrated that nobody comes out ahead in these things - unless they can come in late and from a distance.

It's a guarantee for a defending power that they can make the aggressor incur a heavy power.
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It's guaranteed that everybody loses out, nukes or not.

Only because there was a nonzero risk of WW3 starting.
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That makes absolutely no sense. The US wanted a quiet Middle East with French and British resources deployed in South-East Asia. They had a financial hand on their (and Israel's) throats and were prepared to squeeze.

Hong Kong was leased before the first world war, and Clay Grabbing had largely been on the way out.
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Hong Kong island was ceded to Britain as part of the First Opium War settlement, as I vaguely recall. Frankly, if you can remember those days in any sort of detail you really weren't there.
 
MikeG said:
Neither of whom are going to be in a position to decide what happens to the UK armed forces.
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The SNP has presented the Trident question as a deal-breaker so they potentially could. Of course this doesn't necessarily dictate how things go after the votes are cast but it could mean they get their way on Trident in exchange for something else.
 
CapelDodger said:
He's the gift which keeps on giving, isn't he? Best of all, you can make up anything you like about him and it'll fly.
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http://www.theguardian.com/politics...ikipedia-page-edited-calls-for-shapps-inquiry

A Labour candidate has written to the director of public prosecutions calling for an investigation over edits made to his Wikipedia article by an account purportedly linked to the Tory party chairman, Grant Shapps.

Karl Turner, the party’s candidate for Hull East, said the edits made by a Wikipedia user called Contribsx created a “false impression as to my character and conduct”. Contribsx was blocked by the online encyclopedia earlier this week because of suspicions it was being operated by Shapps or “someone close to him”. Shapps denies the allegation.
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I did like Schapps's claim that he couldn't have been Contribsx becasue he wasn't in his constituency office when some of the edits occurred. Whether it was him or a close ally, I somehow doubt he's important enough to other people to have warranted a two-year false-flag operation and using techniques that Schapps has been caught at before.

wiki edits by Contribsx

The alternative is that he is a fundamentally dishonest but smug git who is not as clever as he thinks.
 
jimbob said:
They are generally pastoral images, the cricket is probably the closest to a specifically English stereotype, although there are parts of Wales where that might be as appropriate as parts of England.
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Many of the Scottish independence folk often forget that the UK does not just consist of England and Scotland.
 
NWO Sentryman said:
So, one question I have for the Greens/SNP. Without Trident, what leverage would the UK have when it comes to negotiation with China or Russia in political crises? A strongly worded letter?
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The same leverage that Germany or Japan would have, economic leverage which is something that can actually be used as opposed to nuclear weapons which are (expensive) weapons of last resort,
 
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