Thursday 1st February 2024

[refitman]

Morning all.

[refitman]

[Sky'sGoneOut]

QT is up in bonnie Scotland tonight and oh look it's Fraser Nelson again, the only Scottish political journalist in the entire universe apparently.

[AnatolyKasparov]

That's a pretty dreadful panel all round, are you going to dare to watch it?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

A mea culpa from the IEA?

Why Brexit was a mistake, from a libertarian perspective

https://iea.org.uk/why-brexit-was-a-mis ... rspective/

Many libertarians supported Brexit, believing it would reduce governmental layers and bring power closer to the British people. They saw it as an opportunity to escape the control of Brussels’ technocracy, expecting increased autonomy and economic freedom. However, this article argues that Brexit, rather than decreasing government control, intensified it in the UK. Some libertarians supported Brexit due to a misunderstanding of the European Union’s essential nature and role.

Blah blah oops we got it all wrong blah...

In retrospect, the libertarian argument supporting Brexit appears to have been fundamentally flawed in its understanding of the European Union’s nature and functions. This misunderstanding has contributed to an increased centralisation of power within the UK and to policies that contradict libertarian principles. These developments highlight the need for a re-evaluation of libertarian views on national sovereignty and international economic cooperation, particularly in a context where state regulation is almost without limits.

Slow hand clap.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

That's a pretty dreadful panel all round, are you going to dare to watch it?

It's either that or watch Man Utd so yes.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Brexit won the referendum in large part due to being all things to all people.

A strength in the short term, but it has meant almost everybody being unsatisfied as the reality becomes ever clearer.

[frog222]

[frog222]

[frog222]

[gilsey]

A mea culpa from the IEA?

Why Brexit was a mistake, from a libertarian perspective

https://iea.org.uk/why-brexit-was-a-mis ... rspective/

Slow hand clap.

I read that the other day and was rather baffled by this bit

Brexit, contrary to being a move towards greater liberty, was primarily driven by the desire to protect the British welfare state. This goal conflicts with libertarian ideals, which favour minimal government intervention. In the context of the EU – an open economic space – maintaining a universal welfare system presented challenges. The withdrawal from the EU thus reflected a preference for state-driven solutions, diverging from a libertarian vision of a deregulated Britain with limited state duties.

What?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Question Time came tonight from Glasgow where despite what you may have heard about the collapse of support for the SNP, had the most SNP supportive audience we've probably ever had on QT. Make of that what you will.

For the SNP we had Kate Forbes. As you may well know there's not a lot of love lost between Kate and the former leader of her party (or indeed the present one) so her defence of Sturgeon's Covid WhatsApp shenanigans was half hearted at best. She made a solid case for calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, and defended Scotland's more progressive tax system, especially in regards to how it allowed them to provide public services in Scotland that simply don't exist in England (free prescriptions, free bus travel for youngsters, etc). Given the foaming at the mouth in the English press about the SNP's demise I was expecting her to have a tough time of things, but besides the obvious disquiet about the deleted WhatsApp messages she sailed through the evening.

For Labour we had Ian Murray. This evening Ian probably had the easiest of evenings for a Labour MP, with both the SNP and the Conservatives to have a go at yet somehow he contrived to make a bit of an arse of himself. He either ended up sidelined, sounding like a sanctimonious hypocrite, or making a fool of himself trying to pretend the positions of the Westminster Labour Party and Scottish Labour were the same when it came to a ceasefire in Gaza.

For the Scottish Greens we had Patrick Harvie. The Greens have been massively under-represented on QT for years and this evening Patrick went some way to making up for that by being head and shoulders above every other member of the panel (not literally he's actually quite small). Not only did he defend the call for a ceasefire in Gaza but he went further and essentially made the point that if you treat people like animals in the end you're going to get bitten. Imagine any politician in England saying Israel was at least partially to blame for Hamas and their actions, they'd be crucified, whereas tonight in Scotland Patrick received a round of applause. He also unashamedly made the case for progressive taxation funding public services for the common good, and guess what? It went down like a storm.

For the Tories we had Malcolm Offord. For those who don't know Malcolm is a failed parliamentary candidate who got himself a seat in the Lords after giving Boris Johnson and the Conservatives lots of money. This evening Malcolm rather hilariously tried to criticise the SNP for Sturgeon's deleted WhatsApp messages despite Johnson and Sunak having done much worse, he said it was pointless calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, and had the gall to say taxes in Scotland were so high everyone would leave when his own government in Westminster has imposed the highest tax burden since the Napoleonic wars.

For the Spectator we had Fraser Nelson. Never let it be said that Fraser is above a bit of hyperbolic hypocrisy. He claimed the SNP were running a corrupt mafia government because of the Sturgeon WhatsApp thing. Look I'm not defending her actions but for fuck's sake during that period she wasn't handing out contracts worth millions to her mates while having piss ups in Holyrood. Has Fraser, or the Spectator, criticised any of that behaviour by Johnson or Sunak? Have they applied their journalistic focus on, for example, how the health secretary gave a multi million pound contract for PPE to the landlord of his local pub? Of course not, yet there he was this evening trying to claim the Scottish government were akin to the Cosa Nostra. Sadly it worked, he got a ripple of applause for his efforts, probably from the kind of people Labour are trying to attract at the next GE.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

[refitman]

Cheers Sky.