James105

So 1,018,322 people in Scotland voted to leave. Then (in your words) another 1.3 million "just couldn't be bothered or they didn't care enough". So the MAJORITY in Scotland are not being dragged out of the EU against their will, are they? It's only 1.6 million. The rest either explicitly voted to leave or "didn't care enough". You might want to look up how referendums work as it's based on individual voters, not councils.

Out of the 3,987,112 people in Scotland who were eligible to vote in the EU ref, only 1,661,191 voted to remain in the EU. The reason Scotland is no longer in the EU is because not enough Scots wanted to vote to remain in the EU. Only 41% of eligible Scottish voters explicitly stated they wished to remain in the EU. The rest either explicitly stated (or implicitly stated by not voting) that they did not wish to remain in the EU. Nobody dragged them out of anything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum

... and if enough Scots had voted to stay in the EU, then that is where they would be right now. If it was really about the EU then the SNP would be campaigning on a platform to re-join the EU along with literally every single other party in the UK (including most Tories I would think) who also would want to rejoin the EU. After the mess of it that the Tories have made there may even be public support for it now. But it isn't, it's about one narcissist's fantasy to have an independent Scotland no matter what the cost is to the people that live there, knowing full well that she is wealthy enough to weather the storm.

Doesn't matter about the English as they are not the ones moaning and using it as reasoning to have another expensive, divisive time wasting referendum when the Scots already had their chance just 8 years ago. The Scots are claiming that they are being "dragged out of the EU against their will" but if their will was to stay in the EU then more than half of eligible Scottish voters would have voted to do just that. The SNP and supporters are no different to Trump when it comes to accepting the results of elections. Just because they make lots of noise does not mean that they should get another go.

Perhaps you overlooked point 2 I made above, repeated here for your convenience: 2. Out of the 3,987,112 people in Scotland who were eligible to vote in the EU ref, only 1,661,191 voted to remain in the EU. The reason Scotland is no longer in the EU is because not enough Scots wanted to vote to remain in the EU. They had a vote 8 years ago to leave the UK with the full awareness that the EU referendum would be coming afterwards. Not even half of Scotlands eligible voters voted to remain in the EU. They need to grow up and stop behaving like Trump does after a vote not going their way.

I see this comment a lot and do not understand why it is made. Imagine, if you would, that every death of someone over 60 was reported as "news". Is that what you want? Or if not, are you suggesting that if someone dies of something other than covid, it is unimportant and can somehow be disregarded?

He's too late to the phone party so that idea is a non starter. Microsoft tried and failed. Facebook tried and failed. Blackberry are history. Some crypto bitcoin guy tried and failed. It's not the complication of building a phone OS - it could be argued that the mobile version of Windows was better than Android and Apple at the time - but Microsoft found getting devs to build and port versions of their apps over to yet another OS with such a small user base in comparison to apple/android nigh on impossible. If Microsoft couldn't break into that market (and they invested a ton of money into trying) I doubt anyone could now.

Common sense will tell you what a companies biggest outgoing is, but since this is lacking around these parts this is obviously a mystery to you.

No. I know this because Twitter was a publicly traded company and they have to report it. https://www.statista.com/statistics/274563/annual-net-income-of-twitter/

You are not the first "oracle" to predict Musks failure about a business venture and was proven wrong. https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/13-years-ago-elon-musk-knew-all-of-reasons-tesla-could-fail-so-why-did-he-try-anyway.html The previous leadership somehow managed to run Twitter at a loss by employing too many people that contributed little to nothing. Did you flag your concerns to the previous leadership with their approach to running Twitter so badly?

I repeat. Nobody gets to make $200bn by making bad hiring choices. Why are you worrying your little head about Elon Musk and what he chooses to spend his money on? He will never be able to spend his existing wealth in 100 lifetimes anyway. Also, Twitter was losing money almost every single year over the previous decade. In 2019 under previous leadership they actually lost $1.14bn. Did you flag your concerns with the previous leadership about how they were doing a terrible job in the same way you feel obliged to do now that Musk has taken over?

You think Musk got to be as wealthy as he is without being able to hire the right people? So your advice to Musk (for a company that is losing money every year) would be to keep the same staff responsible for that deficit and not change anything. Brilliant. Do you charge for these pearls of wisdom or do you just give them away for free?

1. I don't think you get to the stage where you are worth $282bn without being quite good at hiring the right people. 2. I don't think someone who just bought a company for $44bn will be reading a single one of those performance reports himself. Which brings us right back to point number 1.

Yes, my words that you are attempting to do a Cathy Newman on. I made no reference to the EU, and was merely talking about Scotland/UK.

Elon Musk is worth $262bn. That's an impossible amount of money to be able to spend in a hundred lifetimes. Why are you so concerned about what he spends money on? Maybe his goal is one of altruism rather than profit after witnessing a woke, censorious mob with their itchy fingers on the ban buttons going to town on what has become a de-facto method of sharing news/opinions, so much so they were even influencing elections. Bankruptcy of Twitter will affect Musk no more than myself losing a single baht would, but as far as I can tell it is not about to go bankrupt anytime soon. Twitter has been losing money for the best part of a decade (1.14 billion in 2019, 214 million in 2021). How long do you think it would take you to turn around that kind of deficit to be profitable? Would you have kept on all the staff that were not making any meaningful contribution or would you maybe trim off some of the fat? Would you continue to spend $400m a year on food in the office that no-one turned up to? Any other tips you can share with Musk to make it turn a profit more quickly?

I find it quite amazing that those who have no idea how to run a business of the scale that Elon Musk has done are chipping in with advice for arguably the most successful businessman on the planet. Yet these very same people did not feel the need to offer these pearls of wisdom to the previous CEOs who were losing money every year with their shambolic running of Twitter.

You could at least try to be grammatically correct before having the temerity to criticise others for spelling mistakes.

Catelonia?

1. The Empire was British, not English. 2. Out of the 3,987,112 people in Scotland who were eligible to vote in the EU ref, only 1,661,191 voted to remain in the EU. The reason Scotland is no longer in the EU is because not enough Scots wanted to vote to remain in the EU. 3. You had your chance to leave the UK. Your fellow Scots wanted to stay. Don't be like Trump, take the loss like a grown up.

Yes, and the Scottish participated in the vote as part of the UK to make that change. If all the Scots had all voted to Remain, or at least of those who did not vote at all voted to remain then the UK would still be in the EU. I don't see any good reason at all why such an expensive and divisive exercise should be repeated so soon after the last one. Besides, it's Englands turn to have a vote on whether England wants to be part of a union with such miserable and complaining neighbours next anyway, so how about you try again after we have had our turn?

Where exactly do you think the refugees from Scotland would head if it became a failed state? I'd say the English have plenty to be concerned about here. But anyway, since they have already had a referendum and sensibly chose to remain in the union this is not even a debate anymore. The only reason the anti-English zealots in the SNP keep this going is to distract from their failures running Scotland's education system, ferries and all the drugs issues.

1. The NHS is enjoying significantly more than the promised £350m per week, they are just too wasteful to make it count. 2. If everyone in Scotland who was eligible to vote actually did vote in the EU ref, and those who did not vote voted to remain, that would have been enough for the UK vote to be Remain. Blame your fellow Scots for the outcome, not the English. It's Scotland's fault they are being dragged out of the EU supported explicitly by those who voted to leave in Scotland, and implicitly by those who did not vote at all.

Yes fantasy indeed. This of course will never come to pass as Scotland will not have another referendum for quite some time, and if in 30-40 years time they did try again then they would vote against independence... again. The majority of Scottish people do not want to become significantly poorer just to fulfil someones ridiculous and misguided fantasy so would of course vote against it.

I think the UK leaving the EU is a better template. You take your share of the burdens and have no claim on any assets, the same kind of arrangement the UK had with the EU. Why would you think you would get a better deal than that? If we are as nasty as you say we are then surely you must be expecting a terrible deal from leaving the UK? Your Nicola should really be honest with you and set expectations accordingly and tell you how much this is going to cost you. She won't of course because apart from the extremists no-one would ever consider this if she was honest about this.

So you want Scotland to renege on it's share of the national debt that Scotland played it's part in accumulating (free universities, free prescriptions etc), and you want the UK to grant another referendum so the rest of the UK can take on your burden? Yet at the same time wonder why another referendum isn't forthcoming? Fascinating. Wonder how you would feel if England was to secede and started pointing at UN Conventions stating that Englands share of the national debt now belongs to rest of UK? Since it's Englands turn next to vote for independence this could be quite the selling point I think if England were able to remove such a large debt burden form the English and put it on the shoulders of the Scots, Welsh and N.Irish.