The great Scottish comedian Hector Nicol used to tell a joke about a signalman in the Highlands who applied for a promotion and had to sit a test. This consisted of ever more outlandish scenarios about what he would do if two trains were running towards each other on the same line of track while a series of disasters befell his signalling equipment. The punchline of the joke, after his signal box had caught fire, the points had been jammed…
A special report from Gerry Hassan The UK Supreme Court judgement that the Scottish Parliament does not have the right tohold a referendum on independence because it is a ‘reserved matter’ to Westminster maynot have been a surprise, but this was still a landmark day for Scotland, independence andthe UK. Take some of the personalised partisan coverage. ‘End of the Road for Sturgeon’ declaredthe Scottish edition of the Daily Mail with more pejorative commentary inside along suchlines as ‘Sturgeon the…
One of the striking features of the national grief is how personally affiliated people felt towards the late Queen. A frequent comment from mourners in The Queue and similar vox pops was “it was like losing my granny”. Queen Elizabeth certainly had life well lived, and died peacefully aged 96 surrounded by her family, at home and having kept maintained good health until the last year of her life, and her mental sharpness to the very end. Barring immortality, that…
Political maps of England, whether parliamentary or council, often resemble multi-coloured archipelagos in a sea of blue. While urban areas are battlegrounds contested by all the larger parties, rural areas tilt strongly towards the Conservatives. This reservoir of seats on which the Cons have been able to rely for multiple electoral cycles gives them a solid base from which to reach for a majority, and leaves the opposing parties – Labour, LibDems and Greens – hoping for an occasional edge….
From ex-LAB MP Nick Palmer The style of the cartoon here will be nostalgic for longer-standing PBers – it comes from Marf, whose work often used to adorn PB columns. She’s flourishing and pursuing other careers, but I asked her to do one for my local CLP for old times’ sake. We’re using it to recruit new members from among “things are awful but what can one do?” people, who are really rather a large slice of the electorate these…
1) MACKINDER AND THE HEARTLAND Between 1909 and 1943 geographer Halford John Mackinder outlined the Heartland theory which goes like this. You can split the world into three parts: The World-Island (Europe, Asia, and Africa combined), the Offshore Islands (British Isles, Japan, etc) and the Outlying Islands (North America, South America, and Oceania). The World-Island can in turn be split into three: the Heartland (approx the Soviet Union), the Southern Heartland (basically Africa), and the Rimlands (the bits between the…
With just over a week to go until the Northern Irish Assembly Election [2022] commences, The chips are down, the heat is on and the pressure is truly immense! With Sinn Féin [SF] making significant gains within the 2017 Assembly Election, The polls since October 2020 have SF as the largest party. As we are all aware [Needless to mention], anything can happen in an Election (Specifically within Northern Ireland). I will be doing separate predictions within this topic. I…
From PBer Cicero close to the Russian border (This was posted on the previous thread from a longstanding PBer) Greetings from a weary but determined Estonia. The official outlook is that we are likely to have a pretty “challenging” summer, and the latest expulsion of all Baltic diplomats in St. Petersburg and Pskov underlines the total collapse of relations with Russia. It is quite probable that the border will be closed soon. The entry of Finland into NATO before the…