Swiftwing57

Fisherman, Sail sometimes when no pandemic.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

This is economic illiteracy of a high order.
After separation Scotland would still use sterling. So it would have to borrow in £s to cover its massive budget deficit and promise lenders it would pay back in £s (or they won’t lend).
But after an unspecified transition it would move to a Scottish currency. But all the borrowing done during the transition would have to be paid back in sterling.
If the Scottish currency plummeted v sterling (likely given the size of the deficit, lack of credit track record etc) that could become an unmanageable burden given the likely poor exchange rate.
Scotland would have to borrow billions in its own currency just to convert to sterling to pay back lenders. Devaluing the Scottish currency further.
What a shambles that would be.
He has no idea what he’s talking about.

[Colin Smith @NoteTaker_X]

Boasting about your “ambition” on the exact same morning the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a devastating report confirming that 21% of Scottish children are trapped in poverty on your watch is breathtakingly shameless. The Scottish Parliament passed legally binding statutory targets to reduce child poverty below 10% by 2030. The JRF confirmed today that your government has already missed its interim targets and is set to miss the final target “by miles”. Tweeting out slick PR graphics demanding Westminster copy you while you fail your own legal benchmarks is utter delusion. Furthermore, claiming “independence” is the answer would be economically illiterate. The Scottish Child Payment is only affordable because Scotland receives over £2,500 more per head in public spending underwritten by the UK Treasury. If Scotland became independent tomorrow carrying an 11% structural deficit, you wouldn't be expanding welfare, you'd be forced into immediate, austerity that would wipe this payment out on Day 1.

[Jonah Goldberg @JonahDispatch]

I hear Carlson a bit differently here. Yes, he's definitely suggesting he'd be fine with the Nazis winning. the war and defeating Britain. But what comes through for me is the profound intellectual and moral unseriousness. It's a kind of debater's nihilism that thinks any good sounding talking point is a good point.

For instance, he says at least if Germany won, Britain would be speaking a "European language."

That sounds clever to un-clever people. But it's moronic on its own terms (Would Tucker be okay with Americans speaking Spanish? That's a European language, too). It reduces the interests and issues involved in WWII down to a ridiculous single metric. It's childish bullshit, but it sounds sophisticated to the insipid and the ignorant and it thrills those who understand the trolling of it.

And that's why this interview is representative of Tucker more broadly these days. He's at sea. Nothing really matters except "winning" the conversation, the moment, the clicks. He's embraced a kind of Nietzschean amoralism that thinks sowing doubt in any notions of right v wrong, good v evil, traditional patriotism v transgressive iconoclasm is self-rewarding.
"Neocons" and their ilk think Putin is bad? I'll claim he's awesome with the dumbest arguments imaginable packaged like they're smart.
Similarly, Tucker likes to traffic in the idea that Hitler should have won, not because Tucker's a big believer in Nazism.
He's not a big believer in *anything* other than the bit itself.

He likes the idea that the Nazis should have won, because he likes turning over turtles and being a dick for the amusement of people who celebrate dickishness. More specifically, he also likes it because the argument that it was a good thing we defeated the Nazis is inconvenient to him and his pet causes. That America and the UK were the good guys still has heft, substance, and authority, and Tucker's whole transvaluative approach is to burn down good things with weight and substance by elevating evil bullshit into seriousness to prove his own transgressive courage.

Every argument is permitted and equally valid because all truths are equally just matters of opinion. The superior opinion isn't the one with the better facts or the better reasoning, it's just the one more confidently or sneeringly expressed.

That's why this interview went badly for Tucker, because he ran into someone who actually knows true things and is confident in what he knows. This is also why Tucker spends most of his time talking to cranks, bigots, weirdoes, and hacks who are good at sounding like experts so long as their bullshit goes unchallenged. Tucker doesn't give a rat's ass about ideas or history. He cares about vibes and sowing moral doubt about what is good by hawking moral support for what is bad. The Holocaust becomes a triviality in that project, which in a very real way, is worse than denying it happened. He's denying it didn't really matter much if it did.

[Swiftwing57 @Swiftwing0]

@horton_official He made you look uncharacteristically unprepared, or a right tit if you like.

[the original Grumpy Git @GitGrumpygit]

Well said @jackiebmsp … but dishonest John thinks he’s untouchable

[Swiftwing57 @Swiftwing0]

@Neilsocialist Can we get a humanoid minister yet?

[Woody McGee @rooba63]

@GarethBurns18 @afneil Now substitute the word 'English' for any other group, race or ethnicity. Police Scotland would be at your door.

Pathetic wee anglophobes like Gareth shame Scotland. Unfortunately there are just enough of them to keep the corrupt, incompetent, lying, toxic SNP in power.

[Swiftwing57 @Swiftwing0]

@afneil It’s a thing we shall have to put up with I think. No matter how bad they govern there’s enough of a nationalist vote that will keep getting them over the line. Regardless of their own failings it’s so easy to convince some people that it’s Westminster’s fault.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

In summary: ‘I am unable even to make even a stab at answering any of your questions.’
Can’t say I’m surprised.
Nor that you don’t grasp that, as part of the UK, Scotland doesn’t have to worry about deficits because they’re covered by the economic strength of the Union.
Separation makes deficits very much Scotland’s responsibility. Hence my questions — fundamental to the future course iScot would take.
And to which you have no answer.
You are not serious people.

[Venom Spicy @atvenomspicy]

@H1TWOM4N How fast progressive "refugees welcome" progressives turn into blood-and-soil nationalists when they don't like what the foreigner has to say.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

It has come to my notice (I'm a continent away) that Nicola Sturgeon has again claimed I'm obsessed with her. This is, of course, true. I hereby repost my adoring review of her magnum opus, in which I attempted to convey the full magnificence of La Sturge.
https://t.co/ztLqUqYPZY

[Swiftwing57 @Swiftwing0]

@afneil Well said that man👏👏👏

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

@eNeecie Every other day a new motorhome appears in my mother-in-law's drive and Neil hands me another bucket full of jewellery and cosmetics. I can only assume he's got himself a part time job I'm too busy to ask about.

[Swiftwing57 @Swiftwing0]

@ZiaYusufUK Is this a joke?

[Swiftwing57 @Swiftwing0]

@MerrynSW Tess of the durbervilles

[Swiftwing57 @Swiftwing0]

@BBCScotlandNews @GillianMacMSP Free

[Macer Gifford @macergifford]

@LindseyGrahamSC @POTUS Your administration of shame has attacked America's traditional allies. You've sanctioned them and threatened them with invasion. Where is your anger when it comes to Putin?
You reap what you sow, Senator. You wanted America alone and now you've got it.

[Swiftwing57 @Swiftwing0]

@hippyygoat Hey @grok is this clip real?

[Swiftwing57 @Swiftwing0]

@anaswajid @DXW_KC True