andrewducker | Interesting Links for 09-05-2024

1. Labour welcomes Tory MP who attempted to interfere with the judge in her husband's sexual assault case: (tags:Labour OhForFucksSake politics UK )
2. SNP appoint forced-birth anti-LGBT politician funded by the religious-right to deputy first minister: (tags:lgbt abortion snp OhForFucksSake )
3. New Strategy Could Lead to Universal, Long-Lasting Flu Shot: (tags:disease vaccine research )
4. The Problems with the 'Live Action' Disney Remakes: (tags:Disney movies OhForFucksSake )
5. Keir Starmer refuses to comment on Natalie Elphicke's remarks about ex-husband's victims: (tags:Labour women OhForFucksSake )
6. The Billion Dollar War for "Bluey" (the most successful TV show that most people have never seen): (tags:TV Disney children video viaSwampers )
7. I hadn't realised that the Eurovision backlash over Israel/Palestine was getting pubs to pull their showings: (tags:eurovision Gaza Israel genocide )
8. Major cities and towns in North America replaced by major cities across the Atlantic by latitude.: (tags:maps Europe USA )
9. A desire for a loud car with a modified muffler is predicted by being a man and higher scores on psychopathy and sadism: (tags:psychology cars noise )
10. Biden warns Israel US will halt weapons supplies if it invades Rafah: (tags:USA Israel Palestine )
11. Five babies have died with whooping cough in England this year as cases soar.: (tags:disease children )

It would be a good thing for the country I think if Forbes were successful at this. She's one of the few Scottish politicians who has a focus on growing the economy rather than spending devolved budgets and both the country and the independence movement would benefit from the Scottish economy growing faster over the long term.

I also think that the political plan of trying to persuade Scots to vote for independence so that the economy will grow faster and / or in a more equitable way has probably run its course. Gut feel is that to move from 45%+ support to 55%+ support for independence people will need to see Scotland's growth rate at least equal England's or if not the growth rate some of the leading indicators like new business creation rates, inward investment and so on.

I think Forbes position of personally disagreeing with aspects of social policy that are settled but not making any moves to change those policy areas is one folks should be able to live with.

People are obviously entitled to decide which policy areas are priorities for them and what and who they are prepared to trade to advance their own policy interests or rights-based activism but for me a focus on economic growth to the benefit of the the one in ten people who are still living in significant poverty in Scotland is a bit overdue.

I also think it would be a mistake for the more progressive end of the policy debate to take an ultra-purist approach on this. There is a risk that they discover that positions that they believe are settled turn out not to be that settled or that enough people have different top priorities to them and are prepared to make different compromises and trades. If people who disagree with social progressives are unable to play any meaningful role in politics alongside social progressives whilst holding but not acting on socially conservative views those people may as well make different friends and try and test the nation to see if the nation is prepared to make social progressiveness a priority issue or would pick social conservativism. I gi e you the modern Republican Party in the USA as an example And I think that Scotland, some parts of it in particular, might turn out to be more socially conservative than we appreciate.

"I think Forbes position of personally disagreeing with aspects of social policy that are settled but not making any moves to change those policy areas is one folks should be able to live with."

I'd be nervous about this, but prepared to give her a chance. The next couple of years should give us space to see how that goes.

The lovely thing about PR, of course, is that there's space for multiple parties that can then work together on some issues and not on others. And if the progressive end head off for the Green Party that wouldn't hurt anyone too badly.

(I do agree that there's space for people to work together on some things while disagreeing loudly on others. And I'm fine with that.)

The lovely thing about PR, of course, is that there's space for multiple parties that can then work together on some issues and not on others.

Yes, but I sometimes think the way the independence issue shapes party politics in Scotland interacts with the MMP system we use to elect MSPs limits the scope for political parties to differentiate themselves enough along other axis.

I'd rather we used STV in large constituencies so we could favour or not individual candidates more easily,

Open lists would, of course, solve similar issues.

They would - al though I think Australia has had some unhappy experiences with them becoming too unwieldy for practical use.

Definitely an issue where if you're electing 10 people and you've got 10 parties, you might well have 40-50 people to think about.

(Although I doubt I'd care that much about that many of them.)

Oh, and it feels very much that being attached to the political system in England, and thus to FPTP is affecting things badly. Scottish Labour suddenly ruling out working with the SNP at the orders of the English party has not been a positive step.

Interesting Links for 09-05-2024

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