So, a few days ago, I got a communication from the Conservative candidate in Dundee East. Kind of her to get in touch, I thought. Dundee East’s a relatively safe SNP seat these days. Previously it was a relatively safe Labour seat. So it’s a fair guess that she’s not going to be elected. But Munguin and I had a look at it, just out of interest. We were a quite a bit surprised.
Here is the leaflet:
Now I don’t remember ever getting a Tory leaflet through my door before, so I’m wondering if they have always been in the habit of calling themselves the Conservative and Unionist Party. Of course, I know it’s their full name, but I didn’t think they used it.
Next, I note that we have a small picture of Eleanor Price, so we know who she is. Under that is a bar chart with the percentage vote taken from a Sunday Times Poll from back in April. Clearly though, that was the picture in the whole of Scotland at that time, and not in Dundee, and there is no real guarantee that the vote in YES city would reflect these figures. (Since the seat was established in the 1950s it has been either Labour or SNP. Never Tory.)
Thirdly, we see a large photograph of Ruth Davidson. Why? This is a Westminster Election. Ruth Davidson isn’t standing; she’s not going to be an MP. What has she got to do with it? The UK’s man in Scotland is supposed to be the Secretary of State, David Mundell. We pay him an exceedingly generous salary to do that job… he and some aristocrat who is allegedly his deputy. So why Ruth, who is only the leader of the Scottish Branch of the Conservative and Unionist Party.? (Is there even such a legal party as the Scottish Conservatives? I can’t find it registered with the Electoral Commission.)
Lastly, we note that Ruth has adopted the William Bain Principle. In short, regardless of what the SNP proposes, she will oppose it. So that’s a nice, grown up, constructive attitude to take, huh?
Ms Price’s priorities, if returned to Westminster would be, first and foremost to oppose the SNP’s plans (do they actually have any yet) for a referendum.
She quite reasonably wishes to support local business. To be honest, which party, save maybe the Communist Party, would not? She spoils that noble idea by bringing in the somewhat discredited and incredibly overplayed “strong and stable” catch phrase.
If she spent her time in Westminster campaigning, as she proposes here, for better educational attainment, she might find that the Speaker would ask her to be seated, and her Scottish Parliament opposite number might ask her to butt out of HER job. It’s outwith Westminster’s remit (unless she knows something more than we do about Mayhem’s intention to take back powers).
The the best of my knowledge roads and all but cross-border transport (so that wouldn’t be local) are also outwith her job description…again with the proviso that she may be privy to London’s plans to reduce Edinburgh’s remit.
Of course, she’d kinda have to promise to be a strong voice for Dundee… so that’s a given.
And finally, we get a couple of photographs of her in Broughty Ferry, on her own with the castle and then with two brothers who are Tory councillors for the Broughty Ferry Ward.
I hope she knows that there is a good deal more to the constituency than that.
MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
Have you tried folding it to make a little hat for Munguin? It is strong and stable so it won’t blow away in the wind or anything like that.
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I think that’s an excellent idea…
He needs a strong and stable hat to withstand the chill that is surely coming our way as a result of the weak and wobbly policies of Tess the Terrible Tory Twit.
I shall set about it tomorrow with my Blue Peter hat-making kit.
Munguin is scowling… Not sure if that is at you for proposing or me for agreeing…
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A little hat seems like putting an otherwise useless item to good use. I think they call it up-cycling nowadays.
It certainly looks too shiny to be effective for another use that comes to mind.
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As you will see, Munguin, never one to turn down a fashion tip from a trendy Continental, has already had the job done.
We wonder how “strong and stable” it will turn out to be in the fullness of time!
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Well now, purely coincidentally, a similar missive has arrived at Schloß Freeman-am-Tay, which happens to be in the Dundee West constituency. The front is the same except for the different candidate, the text on the back is very similar. Here’s what they each say (I reordered them a bit for purposes of comparison).
Dundee East: Oppose SNP plans for another divisive and unwanted independence referendum.
Dundee West: Ensuring that Scotland is not plunged into a second divisive independence referendum.
Dundee East: Support local business and industry across the constituency to ensure a strong and stable economy.
Dundee West: Ensuring a strong and stable economy that is safeguarded for our children’s future and for generations to come.
Dundee East: Campaign for the improvement of educational achievement.
Dundee West: – nuffink abaht eddycation. Maybe the candidate for Dundee West has a better idea of who runs what than his colleague in Dundee East.
Dundee East: Be a stronger voice for Dundee and South Angus in Westminster and beyond.
Dundee West: Ensuring that the people of Dundee West have a strong voice at Westminster that will stand up for their interests.
Dundee East: Secure more investment in local roads and transport links.
Dundee West: Ensuring delivery of the Tay Cities Deal and other forms of investment that will bring jobs to the area and improve infrastructure.
To my shame, I had never heard of the “Tay Cities Deal” and had to look it up. Here’s a snippet from their web page: “… the local authorities that make up the Tay Cities zone will negotiate with the UK and Scottish Governments to secure investment and greater local powers.” I wouldn’t fancy Mr. Cormack’s chances of screwing either of those things out of the May regime, I have to say, even if he did manage to get them to pay any attention whatsoever.
Darren Cormack does seem to have a somewhat better grasp of the situation than his Dundee East colleague. Also, in answer to an e-mail that I sent him, he told me that he had signed the Refugee Council’s “Refugees Welcome” pledge (see http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/refugees_welcome_pledge), which I find rather encouraging. Not that there’s any real prospect of his being elected – Chris Law got almost 62% of the votes in 2015.
Like the Dundee East card, the one I received also says “Tory revival on course to foil independence”. To which I respond “Dream on”, and “Yah boo sucks”.
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Thanks for doing that comparison, Ed.
No wonder they are both in the Conservative Party. They seem to think almost exactly the same things. Amazing!
I wonder if they were both, like the Tank Woman, Fluffy, and indeed, Mayhem herself, absolutely convinced that it would be a disaster for Scotland and the UK to leave the European Union, and are now equally certain that it is the most excellent and wonderful thing since the discovery of fire!
Happy to see they got “strong and stable” (snigger) in!
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Got a similar piece of mince here in West Dunbartonshire. Check the proportions on the bar chart – they’re totally skewed in favour of the ever-honest Tories.
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Hi Laura…
The question is…would you buy a second hand car from them?
The answer is, ask Jackson Carlot!!
🙂
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“Jackson Carlot”, forsooth, that well-known nincompoop and varlet… Tris, you are in grave danger of winning today’s Freeman Golden Groan Award for outstandingly awful punnery. This attractive item will grace your mantelpi[Enough with the porky pies already. Just because the Mainstream Meeja do it all the time is no excuse! – Ed.]
I shall go now, before people start to throw things.
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Munguin wants to know if he can wear his new hat to the presentation… 🙂
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The Tory Branch Office is obviously stuck in a time warp. Always Ruth the Mooth front and centre, talk about Independence, always the same irrelevant statements for the election being fought. Oh, nearly forgot the candidate might be in there somewhere.
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Yep. Still it means they can avoid talking about social security, pensions, wars, the spending of billions on railway projects witch won’t come within a hundred miles of Scotland, nukes, troops on the streets.
Their blind hatred of the SNP is what REALLY counts for them.
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The Tories and their media lackeys are rubbishing Scotland’s NHS and Education so that post-election they have an excuse for assuming direct rule over these.
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But surely that flyer is itself a damning indictment of poor education? If you add the Blue Tory bar to the Red Tory bar it clearly does not equal the Yellow SNP bar in size, yet at my school 13 plus 33 was a bigger number than 44. I blame John Swinney. Although obviously, it may be a graphic statement of fact. The sum of the two Tory parts does not even equal the whole of the SNP.
Not all Red Tories – especially if Jezza keeps climbing in the South – will ever vote for the Mooth, so the whole premise of their only argument is flawed. And of course as the campaign goes on Mayhem is increasingly being found out. How long will it be until they resort to the “Scottish threat” again in the rUK? I think this might turn out to be a closer contest than we expected. The SNP will still be the largest party in Scotland on June the 9th.
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Damn. I should have included that, David. And you’re right. John should resign. It makes a nice change from Humza!
Mayhem’s lot are falling apart at the seams.
Did you see that idiot Fallon being gutted on Channel Four? He attributed some statement to Corbyn, and turned up his nose in disgust at it, and it turned out to have been said by Boris the Liability.
Another muddle headed idiot, he really is scary as a defence secretary. Mind he’d be scary as the tea boy.
I desperately hope they either lose (perfect) or get such a small majority that she is less”strong and stable” than before.
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Despite the fact that the equivalent services that the Tories run in England are worse. Come to that the ones that are run by Labour in Wales are worse too.
That tells me something…
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Irvine, that’s what I think the plan is: bang on constantly, in defiance of fact and reality, about Scottish education and Scottish NHS being in crisis and a state of collapse; portray the Scottish Government as willfully ignoring the “day job” because the ESSENPEE is “obsessed” with independence (as well as being just plain BAD); the ESSENPEE being hell-bent on “plunging” us into a second “unwanted and divisive” independence referendum, for which, by the way, they claim there is “no mandate”…
Although we’ve had some success in debunking that last little bit of nonsense, it hasn’t really stopped them, has it? It’s the Big Lie propaganda technique, for which we can thank one A. Hitler: an alternate reality has been created, far too many people are taken in by it, and it is all extremely dangerous. It is dangerous because the democratic will of the Scottish people will have been thwarted, our democratic institutions trampled on and rendered powerless, and back into your shortbread tin with you, you uppity Jockanese!
In short, I fear you’re right: if you believe the false narrative that is being spun, which is the same regardless of which Unionist party is doing the spinning, having Westminster send in the army and putting Scotland under direct rule – under martial law, even – will seem to you to be not only acceptable but necessary, and self-evidently the Right Thing To Do.
Please, somebody, prove to me that I’m wrong.
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And yet, I just read on Twitter that statistics from the UK show that our NHS and Education is better than anywhere on the islands. And our crime rate is better.
I see Paul Nut-Tall is demanding (snigger) that Mrs May stop giving English tax payers’ money to Scotland. (Clearly he’s given up trying to get any seats in Scotland.)
I’m happy that we don’t get any of their tax money…god knows the state everything’s in down there tyehy need it.
But I don;t want OUR taxes paying for their Cross rail, HS2, Hinkley Point, Brexit Ballsup, Nukes, etc etc.
So let’s just be independent and they can keep Paul Nut-Tall.
Incidentally I read that in the Express (so it must be true).
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You mention “some aristocrat” who is supposed to be Fluffy’s deputy…… It’s a lot more sinister than that. Lord Dunlop is actually an ex (or possibly not ex) senior spook, MI6 I think, and is much more Mundell’s minder than Deputy. He is a representative of the deep state charged with foiling Scottish Independence and keeping an eye on the place. He also holds a brief in the NI office.
Mundell is not allowed to decide anything important.
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Indeed.
They were left with no choice but Mundell when they scraped in a majority.
Clearly he isn’t Cabinet material, but what else could they do?
The esteemed titled one had to be put into the Scotland Office to oversee his blunderings, and Ruth was made a privy counsellor so that she could sit in Cabinet and do the day to day stuff in public. (I think even the Tories managed to work out we wouldn’t much care for some Count or Duke as our SoS!)
Meanwhile Muddle gets a Cabinet salary of around £150,000. I mean, seriously!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Given the state of England’s schools (we had a part in getting an entire secondary school’s staff declared unfit to teach in 2014 – its now closed permanently & the head is barred from ever teaching again) I find the claims made by Scots tories totally risible.
The local primary school here has class sizes of 37. Yes you read that right. The infant classes apparently have 42 pupils/class. Those children are completely fucked unless their parents teach them or pay for extra tuition. The vast majority of year 1 pupils will exit that school barely able to read or write and NONE of them will be able to multiply numbers without a calculator.
I’m not joking – I forced both our kids to learn their times tables & as a result one of them got taken on a “special & gifted” weekend course which was based around maths/encryption – I reckon GCHQ were involved along the lines.
Both children were classed as “exceptional” in maths in primary which is complete bollox. One of them is well above average at GSCE/A Level but the other wouldn’t know what a fourier transform is if it hit her in the face. What they meant by “exceptional” was being able to multiply in your head.
That was more than a decade ago & educational standards in English schools continue to fall. Its rare (impossible?) to find a primary teacher who has any idea about grammar or spelling – most of them vomit apostrophes all over the page too.
Secondary teachers (especially maths) have to run remedial classes to deal with deficiencies in primary education and EVERY English uni bar the Russell Group/Oxbridge ones have to run remedial maths for ALL engineering students. All of them. Think about that for a bit – mainly worthless 3 year degree to start with (3 years isn’t long enough for any engineering discipline) and they start their 3 years being completely incapable of dealing with first-year undergrad maths. Its hardly surprising that the average English engineering grad requires 12-18 months of training/mentoring before they’re capable of doing any real work without minute supervision. Its also the reason why Scots electrical/electronic grads get snapped up immediately in England – dunno about other eng disciplines.
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Thank you for that insight into the English education failings.
Of course I’ve heard about schools that had to send begging letters to parents. I’ve heard that some subjects aren’t taught any more, because they can’t afford the staff… but I didn’t realise just how bad it was.
Of course, all over the UK standards are falling, because as a “unit” we spend less on everything than comparative countries. Everything except defence and foreign affairs, that is.
And as we know, a vast chunk of the “punching above our weight, that Cameron was so keen on, is spent on nuclear submarines, which are, more or less, under the control of the Americans.
If people just realised what life was really like in other countries, they’d ditch this lot of head bangers in a second.
I never cease to be amused by errant apostrophe’s!!! And I’ve always thought that 3 years is insufficient time to do a science degree.
I see no merit in better A level results every year if they are achieved by lowering the standard of A levels to multiple choice.
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English primary/secondary education was pretty appalling pre-2010 – its got MUCH worse in the last 6 years.
The last school my youngest attended (leaving summer 2016) has a straight choice between making eight teachers redundant (16% of the total teaching staff) or ceasing all maintenance on the school AND turn off the heating year round.
Obviously the latter option is illegal as H&S specifies minimum working temps so the school will be closing the art and history depts permanently. That is also illegal (for history anyway) but they won’t get actively prosecuted for it, unlike turning the heating off in winter.
Welcome to England 2017. Its beyond me why anyone from Europe wants to come to this shithole, never mind raise a family here – even rural areas of Romania have better educational standards.
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…And yet we hear about the poor standards of Scottish schools and how deprived they are. All over the press. SNP lets Scottish children down.
I wonder if Ruth Davidson (or Kezia) have any thoughts in their heads about anything other than SNP BAAAAAAD.
Coming to Britain for those in, at least Eastern Europe, is, I think, mainly about getting work. There is, as far as I can see, a lot of unemployment in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, etc.
Although the Uk has 1.5 million unemployed, many of that number are pretty much unemployable.
People who have been forced into unemployment by ill heath, and no one wants to employ, people with prison records (prison works!!!), people with mental health issues, including drugs and drink related problems, people with sub standard educational attainment, and in what has become a very service industry oriented society, people who don’t look the part. (Seriously, I recruited once for a nightclub/pub/entertainment complex and was warned by the management that they didn’t want any Godzillas, and to be fair, why would they?).
There are, then, vacancies here for hard working, good looking, young, people from Europe. And in the case of Eastern Europe, the wages, terrible though they are here, are better than they can get back home.
I’ve several Eastern European friends, so this I get this first hand from them.
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Poles are leaving Leicester in droves now partly because of the increase in racism in England (which is massive since Brexit vote) but mainly because the money they earn is now worth 20% less.
Lithuanians/Latvians are still coming but that’s mainly because anywhere looks better than there when Putin’s in power a few hundred miles away.
Daughter is going to be flat-sharing with a Lithuanian girl in a couple of months. Poor girl came over here, did a degree (has the debt to prove it) & now she has no idea whether the degree will be valid anywhere other than E&W. For now she has a job at Leics Uni but who knows about next year 😦
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Oh a bit of trivia here – no idea how many places TRG (The Restaurant Group) have in Scotland but in England the kitchen staff figures for TRG are 87% Polish, no native English speakers at all. Daughter does some work in one of their places & apparently nobody in the kitchen has been there for more than 3 months now. That’s after some of the staff being there 4 years pre-Brexit vote.
TRG runs places like Frankie & Bennies (avoid like the plague), Chiquitos (avoid), Coast to Coast (avoid on bank hols, OKish otherwise but too pricey for what you get) & some others I can’t remember.
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I haven’t heard of any of these (although I don;t get out much!!! well, have you seen what Munguin pays?)
But yes. I suspect that the health service will collapse; the care homes; cafés, bars, restaurants, not to mention agriculture…
Strong and stable collapse though…
Anyone: Do we have those restaurants?
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We have F & B’s & Chiquitos in Hamilton. I haven’t been in either, but I have been to F & B’s at the Quay in Glasgow, and seem to have no good or bad memory, but it couldn’t have impressed me or I’d have been back.
My teacher friends tell me that there is a risk of teaching to the inspection report in Scotland too. Its possible our standards will decline because teachers are being micromanaged. Those of us in the Party will be aware that there is a degree of that going on in the Party too.
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I’ve probably missed them in Dundee. I’m not much into eating out. I reckon I can do just as well at home for a tenth the price, and I had a mate who was a chef… and told me the kind of things that go on in kitchens!!!
Thankfully, I’m not involved in any way in the party, so, to be honest, I wouldn’t know.
But I loathe micromanagement. It’s ridiculous thing to do, as anyone with a brain cell would know. Individual situations require individual treatment.
The people on the ground are best to deal with that!
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Yes, I agree.
There’s not so much of the overt racism here (although there is some…we get the Daily Mail too!), but obviously the £ tumble has affected us all. Yes. They are leaving.
And after Hunt said that doctors and nurses would be sacked and replaced with English people just as soon as they trained people, I imagine that our NHS will be similarly affected.
Given the education standards here, I wonder how they are going to get enough people trained…
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They won’t.
I took my daughter to hospital last year (no ambulance available for 3 HOURS) and apart from the reception staff & ancilliary workers I didn’t see a single English doctor or nurse over the course of 16 hours.
That was in fact two hospitals as the LRI had no beds so we had to go to the General (you NEVER want to be in Leics General!) and the majority of foreign nurses I saw were Spanish/Portuguese.
Doctor #1 was probably Polish, maybe Czech; Doc #2 was Scots (although a right prick who misdiagnosed big time) & Doc #3 was French. Consultant doing his (majestic) tour of wards was of course English and didn’t even deign to talk to patients, just junior docs 🙂
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Oh & when I asked the French doc why he’d subjected himself to the English NHS he said :
“Its a good way of gaining experience as I would have to wait three years longer to be in this role in France. I can go back after five years here and I will be a decade ahead of my cohort” He didn’t actually say “cohort” but its the only word which works really.
Make of that what you will.
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I think most doctors here get paid more than French doctors…at least after they get past the “junior doctor” stage. But then they have twice as many doctors per capita than in the UK.
The pay deal for doctors was agreed when Blair was in charge in England and McConnel, I think, in Scotland.
We are short of doctors, and so the promotion rate is quicker, I guess.
Incidentally, ‘cohorte’ is a word in French!!! 🙂
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As an example of postcode lottery….
My daughter, after being misdiagnosed by Leics finest went to her (soon to be ex) Uni doctors practice in Derby and within 8 weeks was being operated on in a private hospital in…. yes you guessed it, Leicestershire.
The Scots doc should hang his head in shame – how the hell can a woman suffer “mid-term pain” which requires oral morphine to relieve the pain when she’s on the pill? Its not physically possible. I even said to him “she’s been on the pill for years” and he shrugged & walked off. Wanker – accent was Ayrshire so meh.
Turned out to be a variant of endometriosis (google it) which apparently is as painful as childbirth contractions and is misdiagnosed more often than not. Keyhole surgery seems to have sorted it but it’d never ever have happened if Leics hospitals were in charge – and it didn’t, she got a brief course of physio which involved sitting on a large ball and that was it.
Did anyone mention May’s husband is a big cog in the insurance market yet?
The NHS in England legally died 5 years ago and the people down here are clueless that the state no longer has any responsibility to provide an individual health care.
Run away. Run away VERY fast.
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Sorry to hear about your daughter. Very distressing when they get it wrong.
I did read that there is no longer an obligation to provide healthcare in England…BY LAW.
I wonder what the English pay their NI for. Little in the way of social security, no guarantee of health care, and they have to sell their houses.
Rumour has it it won’t be too long before pensions are means tested.
I’d be on a plane out of here tonight if I had somewhere to go that wouldn’t chuck me out in a couple of years.
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What I like best about the Conservative & Unionist National Team’s leaflets is the soft focus picture of #RapeClauseRuth, looking like a postulant in the Sound of Music. The lens must have been smeared in vaseline to give that bitter wee face such an appearance of serenity.
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Aye, soft focus or what!¬
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“How can wealth persuade poverty to use its political freedom power to keep wealth in power? Here lies the whole art of Conservative politics.”
Nye Bevan
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They seem to be getting a bit better at it too.
It’s scary. Working people voting for the crap this lot churn out, believing that the only way to make Britain great is to work for next to nothing, be ready to bomb anyone America tells them to, and keep the Queen in her castles.
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Oops, should read: ‘political freedom to keep…..’ Sorry!
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