Kamis, 12 Desember 2019

Live Updates: U.K. Votes in General Election - The New York Times

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Credit...Lisi Niesner/Reuters

Britain’s voters head to the polls in their local areas on Thursday to cast ballots for members of Parliament in the second general election to be held since the country voted to leave the European Union.

And while Brexit has dominated the agenda — with the Conservative Party of Prime Minister Boris Johnson putting the issue at the center of its campaign, vowing to “get Brexit done” — other key issues may determine the outcome. The opposition Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, has put health care at the center of its pitch, framing itself as the defender of Britain’s revered National Health Service.

Several smaller parties — including the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Brexit Party, and pro-independence parties in Scotland and Wales — are also running and could play a decisive role.

Voters will be choosing who will represent their local district, or constituency, in Parliament: 650 lawmakers in total will be chosen as members of the House of Commons, which decides the country’s laws and policies. Polls are open from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m., and the results of exit polls will begin to emerge almost immediately after the end of the vote, with the official results coming in overnight.

Once polls are open on Election Day, the British broadcasters that were reporting feverishly in the lead-up to the vote will suddenly have a noticeable lack of coverage.

It’s illegal for anyone in Britain to publish information on how people say they have voted — exit polling, or forecasts based on it — until after polls close at 10 p.m. local time.

The rules for broadcasters go further, however. A code of conduct laid out by Britain’s communications regulator, Ofcom, specifies that all discussion and analysis of election issues on television and radio must cease once polls open, that no opinion polls can be published and that no coverage of opinion polls is allowed while people are voting.

“When people are going to the polls on Election Day, it’s important that everyone can vote on the same information,” the regulator explained.

The Guardian has an item on its live briefing urging readers to comment, but to avoid saying how they voted.

“Please keep posting your comments below, but don’t say how you voted,” the note reads. “The Representation of the People Act outlaws the reporting of how people voted.”

Broadcasters’ websites generally follow suit. “There will be no coverage of any issues directly pertinent to the election campaigns on any BBC outlet,” according to the public broadcaster’s internal election guidelines.

But the broadcaster found itself in hot water almost immediately when Laura Kuenssberg, a political editor, offered a short assessment of the postal vote on Wednesday night. The BBC denied that her comment broke any laws.

While broadcasters must keep quite on substantive issues while polls are open, when they close it’s another story. The BBC pioneered televised election night coverage in 1950, when the main concern was whether keeping the transmitter going throughout the night might make it explode.

Now, rolling coverage is standard and the offerings from British broadcasters are a far cry from the radio reports in the first half of the 20th century, when “listeners simply tuned in to the radio to hear the election results read by an announcer.”

The BBC will, as always, be there to broadcast and analyze the results as they are announced. But it faces stiff competition for eyeballs from other broadcasters.

John Bercow, the former speaker of the House of Commons who burnished his reputation during endless Brexit debates, will be taking his shouts for “Order!” to Sky News for election night.

“John will bring his own authority, and no little wit to a night of high drama,” said John Ryley, the head of Sky News. The broadcaster will also try to entice younger views by partnering with BuzzFeed and streaming on platforms like Twitch and YouTube.

Channel 4 has brought on board political heavyweights like Amber Rudd, the former home secretary, and Tom Watson, the former deputy Labour leader, as well as comedians like Katherine Ryan. They will also be joined by Rylan Clark-Neal, a former contestant on the talent show “The X Factor” and on the British “Celebrity Big Brother” who will be talking through results with the studio audience. On his role, Mr. Clark-Neal said, “Who would have thought that as an ‘X-Factor’ reject I would be hosting election night?”

#Dogsatpollingstations has become something of an Election Day tradition in Britain, with voters sharing photographs of their pups outside their local polling stations. And with three general elections and the Brexit referendum held since 2015, people have had plenty of chances to participate.

Several high-profile voters got in on the action on Thursday, with Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, accompanied by his dog, Luna, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson arriving with his dog, Dilyn.

In much of Britain, the dogs and their owners had to brave a cold, wet morning at the polls, but few seemed to mind.

Mark Landler, Adam Satariano, Amie Tsang, Megan Specia, Benjamin Mueller and Patrick Kingsley contributed reporting.

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2019-12-12 09:46:00Z
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U.K. election: Polls open in crucial vote as Brexit hangs in the balance - NBC News

LONDON — Millions of voters headed to the polls across the United Kingdom on Thursday for the country's third nationwide general election in less than five years.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Party is facing off against the opposition Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, for the keys to 10 Downing St.

Smaller parties include the Liberal Democrats, the Brexit Party, the Scottish National Party, Wales' Plaid Cymru, and the Green Party — any of whom might be asked to form a coalition if no clear winner emerges from the big two.

Boris Johnson speaks to supporters at a factory in Manchester, England, on Tuesday.Christopher Furlong / Getty Images

The vote has been billed as potentially the most pivotal for the country in years. It has been a campaign dominated by Brexit — Britain's ongoing debate around its departure from the European Union — as well as the future of its publicly run National Health Service.

Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.

British broadcasting rules prevent discussion or analysis of election issues after the polls open at 7 a.m. local (2 a.m. ET). An exit poll produced by three broadcasters is published when voting closes at 10 p.m. local time, and has in recent years provided an accurate prediction of how the parties have fared.

Most results won't be confirmed until the early hours of Friday morning, with results from some tight races and votes in remote parts of the country delayed until much later that day.

How does the election work?

In the U.K. there are no separate races to choose the government and the legislature (like the presidential and congressional elections in the U.S). Here in the U.K. they are combined into one.

The country is split into 650 areas, known as constituencies. People in every constituency vote for one lawmaker they want to send to the House of Commons.

Any party that wins 326 seats or more would have a majority in the Commons and therefore becomes the new government. The victorious party leader usually becomes prime minister and selects his or her Cabinet members from their party's newly elected lawmakers.

Jeremy Corbyn at a campaign event in Stainton Village, England, on Wednesday.Oli Scarff / AFP - Getty Images

Things get complicated when no party achieves more than 50 percent of these parliamentary seats. That happened at the last election in 2017. Although Theresa May's Conservative Party won more seats than anyone else, it did not get more than half of the total.

That forced it to enter into an informal coalition with the Democratic Unionist Party.

The DUP, as its known, is one of the smaller parties that dominate the 18 seats in Northern Ireland, alongside Sinn Fein, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Alliance, and the Ulster Unionist Party.

In Northern Ireland the mainstream British parties don't have much of a presence.

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2019-12-12 07:19:00Z
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Rabu, 11 Desember 2019

Pound shaken as UK election poll puts Johnson outright win in doubt - CNBC

Sterling took a dip on Wednesday as a respected voter poll raised the prospect of a hung parliament – in which no one party has a governing majority – arising from Thursday's general election in the U.K.

The pound weakened against the dollar, weakening to $1.3107 earlier on Wednesday before rebounding to $1.3151, after a new YouGov MRP poll showed that the number of seats the ruling Conservative Party are expected to win had declined from two weeks ago.

The YouGov MRP poll of the election were held now the Tories could win 339 seats (22 more than they took in 2017) and a vote share of 43%. The MRP poll is one of very few surveys that roughly predicted the result of the 2017 election.

Its latest findings estimate that the Conservative's predicted majority has been cut down to 28 seats from 68 seats two weeks ago, with Labour closing the gap on the Tories.

Meanwhile, the poll showed that Labour are set to lose 31 seats – falling from 262 in 2017, to 231 – and take 34% of the vote (a six percentage point decrease).

The poll points to the Conservatives seeing their best performance since 1987 and Labour seeing it's worst performance since 1983, if the poll is borne out in the vote.

The Conservatives led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson are relying on achieving a majority in the 650-seat parliament in order for him to get his Brexit deal, the Withdrawal Agreement, through Parliament and for the U.K. to leave the EU by January 31, 2020. Johnson's mantra throughout the election campaign has been to "get Brexit done."

His main political rival, Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, has said his party will offer a second referendum on the Brexit deal on offer. The anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats want to stop Brexit altogether. The Brexit Party under Nigel Farage says Johnson's Brexit deal "is not Brexit" and is level-pegging with the Green Party.

Polling guru John Curtice told CNBC Wednesday that "the poll is confirming what we've long suspected, which is that the Conservative lead over Labour has narrowed a bit, compared with a fortnight ago," he said.

"This poll emphasizes two things that we've long known from all of the polling. The first thing is that we have to remember is that what the Conservatives have to do, if they're going to get the withdrawal treaty that will secure the U.K.'s exit from the EU by the 31st January, they have to get an overall majority."

"It isn't enough just to get more seats than everybody else. they have to get past the 326 (seat) mark because no other party is willing to vote for the government's withdrawal treaty ... and to get to 326, therefore the Tories have to do rather well," he said.

Voter polls have been proved wrong in the recent past in the U.K. - they generally did not predict a win for the Leave vote in the Brexit referendum of June 2016, or that the Conservative Party's drubbing in the 2017 snap election in which then-Prime Minister Theresa May lost her party's majority.

The YouGov/MRP poll noted that "like all predictions our model comes with some uncertainty, and the margin of error here could put the final number of Conservative seats from 311 to 367. This means that we absolutely cannot rule out the 2019 election producing a hung Parliament — nor can we rule out a larger Conservative majority."

Curtice told CNBC's Willem Marx that while the Tories could end up with fewer than 326 Tory seats, it "is clearly still by far the less likely option of the two (outcomes) of a hung parliament versus Boris Johnson having a majority."

Party leaders are on the campaign trail Wednesday for a last frenetic day on the campaign trail before the general election is held on Thursday. Both main parties have experienced mixed fortunes during the election race with question marks raised over the trustworthiness of all parties and their spending pledges. The vote is widely being pushed as a vote on Brexit by the Conservative Party although Labour has had some success in raising the future of the National Health Service as a rival issue.

Alastair Campbell, former Chief Strategist to Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair told CNBC's Street Signs on Tuesday that he "wouldn't put too much straw on any polls right now" and says tactical voting (in which voters support a candidate and party they would not usually support in order to try to prevent a win for a more undesirable candidate) could upset the result.

"My own view is that (the poll) understates where the race is right now ... People realize that the chance of Labour getting a majority are pretty much zero so the choice is between Johnson having a lot of power or a bit of power. And I think the country are getting pretty sickened at the thought that it might be a lot of power, and therefore a lot of tactical voting is going on."

"That means that people like me who are historically Labour might in some circumstances look to vote for a Liberal Democrat candidate if they're best placed to win, and vice versa, so that is definitely happening," he told CNBC's Street Signs.

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2019-12-11 12:04:00Z
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'Not for sale': Why the UK is so touchy about its health service being part of a US trade deal - CNBC

Protesters call for an end to austerity policies which lead to underfunding and staff shortages in the NHS, and demand that it remains publicly owned and accessible to everyone. June 30, 2018 in London, England.

Barcroft Media | Barcroft Media | Getty Images

When President Donald Trump said that the U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS) would be part of a "magnificent" trade deal with the U.K. that he promised earlier this year, most Brits recoiled in horror at the idea of their precious institution being offered up to U.S. business interests.

With the U.K.'s Conservative government looking increasingly likely to win a majority in a snap election on Thursday, and if so, likely to pass a Brexit deal, it will then be looking to negotiate a trade deal with the U.S.

This is when questions over whether the NHS is part of a deal — and whether that will lead to full access for U.S. pharmaceutical companies to the U.K. health service market — will be in sharp focus. The Conservative Party's main political rival, Labour, has focused on the NHS as a key election priority.

In fact, the NHS is the most important issue for voters (even more so than Brexit) ahead of the December election, according to an Ipsos Mori poll.

Trump tried to row back on his previous comments on the NHS last week when, during a visit to London, he said he wasn't interested in the NHS being part of a post-Brexit U.S.-U.K. trade deal even if it was "handed to us on a silver platter."

But veteran U.K. politicians and economists say the U.K. will have to accept that it will have a weaker position negotiating a trade deal with the U.S. when outside the EU, and that it's likely the U.K. will have to accept more U.S. access to its health-care system as part of a potential deal.

"Everything is on the table according to Mr Trump," Vince Cable, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, told CNBC Tuesday. "And I suspect it's one of those issues where the weakness of the British negotiating position is crucial."

"The Americans don't need a trade deal with us, they hold all the cards. Our negotiating position is very weak and one of the things the Americans will want is full access for their companies (to the NHS). That doesn't mean privatization in terms of buying up all the assets of the NHS, but things like the drug pricing regime will be open to being weakened," he said.

"The way the drug pricing regime works in Britain is that it keeps drug prices low which the Americans think is a theft of their intellectual property and that's where the arguments will be."

'The NHS is not for sale'

The National Health Service, or "NHS" as it's widely known, is a cherished institution in the U.K. providing free public health care at the point of use. The NHS is seen as a bastion of the welfare state that was established in a post-war era (in the case of the NHS in 1948) of social reforms under a left-wing Labour government.

The first line of the NHS Constitution states that "the NHS belongs to the people" and many Brits feel protective over a service they have relied on for at least at one point in their lives. The service has been under severe pressure in recent years from funding restraints, increasing demand for services and staff shortages — which have been exacerbated by the Brexit vote.

This is why the concept of U.S. pharmaceutical businesses gaining greater commercial access to the NHS is an unpalatable proposition for many among the British public and politicians — even though U.S. companies can already bid for NHS contracts.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly insisted that the NHS "is not for sale," although the opposition Labour party has insisted that the health service would be under threat if the Tories oversee a future trade deal with the U.S.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson (L) and Britain's Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock (C) walk with nursing staff during a Conservative Party general election campaign visit to Bassetlaw District General Hospital in Worksop, central England on November 22, 2019.

CHRISTOPHER FURLONG | AFP | Getty Images

Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said in summer that "if our NHS is taken over by U.S. corporations, it will undermine it as a free, universal public service."

But one health-focused think tank, the Nuffield Trust, has tried to calm concerns that the NHS could cease to be a free, universal public service.

"A trade deal would not have the power to stop the NHS being a free, universal service. Trade deals focus on removing barriers to companies accessing markets already available in other countries, and protecting the interests of investors in other countries. They do not redesign the funding of public services," Mark Dayan, policy analyst and head of public affairs at the Nuffield Trust, wrote in a response to Ashworth.

"A less drastic interpretation of this concern is that a trade deal would allow U.S. companies to bid to provide clinical services funded by the NHS, competing with NHS trusts. This looks more plausible because government procurement of services is frequently covered by trade deals. But U.S. companies already have these rights," Dayan added.

Dayan noted, however, that the U.K. could potentially be "locked in to contracting out" and that potential legal challenges could arise if the level of legal rights companies might have to access contracts was reduced, under a Labour government, for example. He also said that the cost of medicines was more likely to be the real issue for the NHS in any future deal.

"There is a danger that in our search for hidden dangers to the NHS, we are missing the one that could hardly be more obvious. Trump and his government have repeatedly complained that the USA pays too much for medicines in part because European countries pay too little," he noted, saying the U.S. would likely push for the U.K. to pay higher prices for drugs.

Britain's Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn (L) greets NHS staff as he arrives to visit Crawley Hospital in Crawley, south of London, on October 30, 2019 ahead of the launch of a general election campaign.

TOLGA AKMEN | AFP | Getty Images

Roger Bootle, founder and chairman of Capital Economics, told CNBC Tuesday that he believed arguments over the NHS, and fears over it being "sold off" to the U.S. had been "grossly overdone."

"The expression that the U.S. will want to 'buy the NHS' — you can't buy the NHS, it doesn't make any sense. I think the relevant issues are about the access of U.S. companies to the U.K. health market — of course, they do already have access but perhaps they'd have better access," he said.

"There's the issue of the power of the NHS with regard to the prices it pays for drugs. I guess it's possible, it's conceivable, that as part of a trade deal it could be agreed that the NHS will pay higher prices for American drugs but I don't think that's very likely, frankly. And I think the end result is that if American firms are able to compete in our health market, the eventual effect of that and increasing competition, is likely to be beneficial for the U.K. as an efficient health care provider."

Politicking

As pressure has risen on Johnson to deny accusations that the NHS is up for sale, he has insisted that the NHS is "off the table" in any trade negotiations. U.K. Health Minister Matt Hancock has also tweeted that "the NHS is not for sale" — though he somewhat ambiguously added "yes we'd love to make it cheaper to buy your life-saving pharmaceuticals — but the NHS will not be on the table in any future trade talks."

The public is wary of what the government could do in a post-Brexit trade deal. A poll of 2,000 people by Survation in October showed that more than 70% of respondents think the NHS should be safeguarded, while 45% said the statement "Boris Johnson is not telling the truth" when it comes to the NHS was closest to their view.

The NHS is a key concern for voters ahead of Thursday's election and both the Conservatives and Labour have pledged additional funding for the NHS, more hospitals and more doctors.

Despite government reassurances to the contrary, there were reports in October that senior civil servants had had "secret" meetings with representatives from U.S. companies to discuss the NHS in post-Brexit trade talks.

Then Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn dropped a bombshell in late November when he produced leaked, un-redacted documents purportedly from the Department for International Trade detailing discussions between U.K. and U.S. officials over a potential post-Brexit trade deal.

The 451-page dossier, not seen or verified by CNBC, purportedly contains references of U.S. negotiators mentioning concerns over drug prices and discussions over extending patents (once these expire the NHS is able to buy cheaper, generic versions of branded drugs) and modifying the U.K.'s patent regime, which could affect its relationship with similar regimes in Europe, the BBC noted.

Corbyn said the documents were "proof" that the NHS would be up for grabs in any future deal. The Conservatives rubbished Labour's claims over the documents, calling them "nonsense." It has also called for an inquiry into how the documents were leaked.

In the final day of campaigning before Thursday's election, the NHS still remains a focal point with both Labour's Corbyn and the Conservative's Johnson expected to reiterate funding pledges for the health service.

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2019-12-11 09:37:00Z
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Dirty tricks cloud UK's 'nightmare before Christmas' vote - USA TODAY

LONDON – Britain, a nation of tea drinkers, will decide this week on one of the most divisive and important issues it has faced in a generation or more: Which variety of tea bag does it want in its mug? "The Boris blend" or "Cuppa Corbyn"?

The tongue-in-cheek, special edition teas are only available to order until Dec. 12, when the country holds its fourth national vote in as many years, including 2016's politically paralyzing referendum on European Union membership – Brexit.

While polls predict an uncertain outcome, if New York-born Boris Johnson's incumbent Conservative Party retains power with a comfortable majority in Parliament it will effectively clear a path for him to push through Britain's EU departure on Jan. 31. If Johnson loses, or doesn't prevail with a large enough majority, then Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn may attempt to form a minority government by partnering with other opposition groups such as the Liberal Democrats, a party with a long track record of campaigning for social justice issues and whose manifesto is dominated by one message: "Stop Brexit." 

A Corbyn win could lead to a new Brexit referendum, potentially prolonging Britain's three-year divorce battle with its most important trading partner.

Under Britain's centuries-old political system the nation elects a party, not a leader, meaning the ruling party can make changes at the top and still remain the government of the day.

Political scientists say Thursday's vote is as significant as other momentous events in British political history: the 1945 vote that ushered in the first ever Labour Party majority government; the 1979 election that brought Margaret Thatcher to power and started the slow dismantling of Britain's welfare state in favor of the privatization and deregulation more commonplace in the United States; and former prime minister Tony Blair's 1997 election that put an end to 18 consecutive years of Conservative Party rule and swapped it for something that approximated former U.S. President Bill Clinton's "Third Way" policies – leadership more in tune with globalization.  

Still, surveys show as many as one-in-five voters are undecided about who to vote for, largely because of uncertainties and confusion surrounding the possible impact of Brexit on Britain's economy and social welfare system, especially its taxpayer-funded National Health Service (NHS). Corbyn's Labour Party has repeatedly raised the specter of Johnson agreeing to allow American pharmaceutical companies and medical contractors more direct access to the NHS in return for a post-Brexit trade deal with Washington.

'If you’re poor, you’re dead': Video shows British astonished at U.S. health care costs

And in moves likely watched closely by U.S. political activists and 2020 presidential campaign managers, Britain's political parties have also stretched the limits of truth in ways that have made it difficult to separate fact from fantasy.

The Conservatives last month published a deceiving video aggressively edited to show a Labour Brexit spokesman unable to answer a question about the party's position on Britain's EU exit. It has been viewed more than a million times. Then, during a leaders' debate, the Conservative Party's press office temporarily rebranded its Twitter account "factcheckUK" and used it to attack Corbyn’s comments, potentially confusing voters following the debate on social media as to the veracity of its claims. 

One study, by First Draft, a media watchdog, found nearly 90% of Facebook ads paid for by the Conservative Party in the first few days of December contained misleading claims. Over the period, the party created over 6,000 ads. 

But competing assertions about the NHS, an organization that's been a point of pride for Britons since its inception after World War II as a service that is "free at the point of delivery," have been particularly galling for voters such as Jim Hall, 28, a student in London. "The NHS is not something that should be politicized," he said, noting that like many people he knows he is underwhelmed by Johnson and Corbyn, finding the former untrustworthy and the latter politically ineffective.  

Yet that's exactly what's happened. 

"There are no circumstances in which this government or any Conservative government will put the NHS on the table in any trade negotiation," Johnson said Friday during a televised debate with Corbyn, who claimed he had a large dossier of documents that amounted to "proof" that the NHS would be up "for sale" if Johnson emerges victorious.

Meanwhile, Reddit, the social news aggregator, said that Corbyn's leaked papers were linked to a Russian disinformation campaign, a reminder that a media committee in Britain's Parliament last year called for widespread changes to Britain's electoral laws because voters were being inundated with deceptive social media messages. 

Brexit diaries: UK Parliament acts to avert 'absolute catastrophe' EU exit 

The report followed a lengthy investigation into fake news and misappropriation of data and digital assets by political campaigns. It was triggered by concerns about Russian interference in western elections. The probe helped fuel a scandal about how consultancy Cambridge Analytica used Facebook data to target voters during Trump's 2016 run for the White House. Cambridge Analytica shut down its operations in 2018. 

"We have seen the erosion of the standards we're used to," said Timothy Bale, a political scientist at Queen Mary University of London, referring to the perceived influence of Trump's propensity for stating and tweeting apparent falsehoods on British political behavior. 

"Particularly with the Conservative Party playing fast and loose with the truth," he said.

Johnson has tried to downplay the at-times acerbic tone of his campaign with humor. 

Asked recently in a British TV interview how he relaxes in the evening, Johnson, a former journalist who was once fired for making up a quote and who has consistently proved himself to be a worthy competitor to Trump when it comes to avoiding telling the truth, said that he "does a few quadratic equations and reads Pre-Socratic philosophy."

Yet as the campaign wound down he has also found himself in the firing line for an awkward exchange with a reporter who was trying to show him a photo on his phone of a young sick child suffering at a hospital. Johnson repeatedly refused to look at the photo and appeared uncomfortable while sticking to his talking points. Flustered, he eventually snatched the phone away from the reporter and stuck it in his pocket before realizing what he had done and expressing sympathy for the child and his family.  

The Conservative Party has also been criticized for falsely claiming that a Labour Party activist punched Johnson's health secretary, Matthew Hancock. Hancock had been dispatched to the hospital where the sick child was being cared for to try to stem the crisis over the photo that went viral.

Instead, the punch that never happened itself went viral.

When Trump visited Britain last week for NATO meetings he said he could "work with anybody" who occupies No. 10 Downing Street, the prime minister's office and residence, but Johnson and Corbyn offer radically different visions for Britain. 

In addition to getting "Brexit done" – his signature campaign promise – Johnson, 55, would seek to cut taxes and red tape to stimulate economic growth while opening Britain's coffers to spend more on policing. health and ambitious infrastructure-development projects.

Johnson gets on well with Trump, not least because both men have populist instincts and Trump has openly supported Brexit. In an echo of Trump's divisive comments about immigration, Johnson said Monday that EU migrants have for too long been able to "treat the UK as if it's part of their own country."  

USA TODAY interview with Boris Johnson: Most Americans may not recognize Johnson's name, although they may know about his unruly mop of blond hair

Corbyn, 70, would raise taxes, attempt to nationalize some infrastructure, such as railways and utilities, and offer free Internet access. A lifelong left-wing activist who has sympathized with revolutionary movements from Cuba to Iran and vowed to unwind the sharp end of Britain's capitalist system, Corbyn would grow the size of Britain's government and social programs.

Corbyn would also be an awkward fit for Trump, who he has repeatedly criticized and accused of trying to interfere in Britain's election. A Corbyn victory could inspire American progressives in the Democratic Party preparing for 2020.

"It is very clear to me that trade deal with the United States would put all of our public services at risk, into the hands of global corporations and they would open up what they gently call our health market," Corbyn said during a recent Labour campaign rally. 

"Well, I have got news for them. There is no health market. We shut that down in 1948 when we established the National Health Service," he said.

Still, whoever wins Thursday, it's not the end of Brexit.

The country remains bitterly divided over its relationship with the EU and even if Johnson succeeds in formally dragging Britain out of the allia on Jan. 31 it's just the start of a deeper separation process that will kick-start negotiations over trade, borders, agriculture, security and more that are expected to last for several years.

"Britain’s nightmare before Christmas: A divided country faces an election that will tear it still further apart," The Economist said in its election endorsement editorial published last week. The magazine reluctantly backed the Liberal Democrats. "British voters keep being called to the polls – and each time the options before them are worse," it said. 

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2019-12-11 08:06:39Z
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Selasa, 10 Desember 2019

Travel - Unst: A real life Treasure Island - BBC News

From the northern tip of Unst, Shetland – the UK’s most northerly inhabited island – a dramatic view comes into sight. Encircled by gannets, the tiny isle of Muckle Flugga rises sheer out of the North Sea. Perched atop its serrated rocks, pointing upwards like a single candle stuck into a birthday cake and marking the end of the UK like an exclamation mark, is the most northerly of Scotland’s lighthouses. It wears the colours – creamy white with a ring of pale yellow – that identifies it as a Stevenson lighthouse. 

The Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson would have been familiar with this view. As a young man in 1869, he accompanied his father, the pioneering lighthouse engineer Thomas Stevenson, on a visit to Unst and Muckle Flugga to inspect the lighthouse that Thomas and his brother David had started building in 1854. The brothers each designed more than 30 lighthouses around Scotland’s coasts; Robert Louis was expected to follow his family into lighthouse engineering, and this trip was part of his preliminary education. 

“They sailed around the east coast lights,” writes Bella Bathurst in The Lighthouse Stevensons, her biography of three generations of the Stevenson family, who all built beacons, “up to Scapa Flow and then to Muckle Flugga.” She continued, “But [Robert] Louis seemed far more interested in the scenery than he was in the lights.”

Robert Louis never did become a lighthouse engineer, but legend has it that his visit to the area inspired his classic tale of adventure, Treasure Island, published in 1883.

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Few records remain of Stevenson’s visit, besides his brief entry in the visitor’s book for North Unst Lighthouse (as it was then known), which states simply: "R L Stevenson, Edinburgh, 19 June 1869”. But the association is a plausible story: look at the fictional map of Treasure Island – described in the book as “like a fat dragon standing up” – and you’d be unable to miss its resemblance to that of Unst, an outline Stevenson would have seen on the maps used by the lighthouse engineers while sailing around Unst’s coast to the rocks of Muckle Flugga. 

[Robert] Louis seemed far more interested in the scenery than he was in the lights

I’d heard of the Treasure Island association before I came to Unst, and sitting there at what felt like the wind-battered edge of the world, it was easy to understand how Unst could so inspire the imagination. It’s a place that lies at the furthest edge of the UK, closer to Tórshavn, Oslo, and the Arctic Circle than to London. Unst’s association with the book wasn’t why I’d come – I’ve long been drawn to far northern islands – but it intrigued me enough to pick up a copy of Treasure Island before I set out. Re-reading the book, I wondered if, when I’d first read it as a young girl, it was where I had found my love of the remote edges of the world.

Early on, waiting to begin his voyage to Treasure Island, Stevenson’s protagonist tells of “brooding” over the map he’d discovered in an old sea captain’s chest, “full of sea dreams and the most charming anticipations of strange islands and adventures”. These are words that could surely inspire even a committed landlubber to set sail for far-flung shores. 

My own journey to Unst was easy. In the Shetlandic capital of Lerwick, where I’d disembarked after an overnight ferry from Aberdeen, I boarded a bus and was delivered to my destination two and a half hours later. Shetland may be sparsely populated, but it has an extensive bus network that efficiently links up with its ferries. After leaving my bag at a youth hostel that occupies an old Royal Air Force station, I set out on foot for Hermaness National Nature Reserve.  Scottish Natural Heritage, the public body that manages the reserve, describes Hermaness in summer as “the New York of the seabird world: a noisy, bustling and often smelly metropolis that is home to more than 100,000 breeding seabirds”.

Past the visitors centre inside the old Muckle Flugga Lighthouse Shore Station – where lighthouse keepers slept when not on duty – I walked through steep, grassy and boggy terrain, along a path clearly marked so as not to disturb nesting great skuas, the aggressive seabirds known in Shetland as “bonxies”. I reached the cliff edges around an hour later, turned south and could smell the guano before I arrived at the high gannetry on the cliffs, below woolly sheep clinging absurdly to the unprotected edges. Thousands of gannets, known in Shetland as “solans”, occupied each and every surface of the cliffs, while others, coming into land from a day spent fishing, glided above them, looking for a vacant patch of rock. On top of the cliffs, puffins (or, “tammie norries”) waddled in and out of their burrows. It was a place utterly humming with life, the noise, smell, sound and sight of it. 

A treasure of an island, then, but is Unst really Treasure Island?

I turned and headed north along the cliffs, down emerald-green grassy slopes. More gannets occupied the rocks and sea arch offshore. Their racket competed with the din of the wind-whipped sea. Rounding a bend, a small chain of skerries, like stones skimmed across the water, came into view: Vesta Skerry, Rumblings, Tipta Skerry, Muckle Flugga and finally Out Stack, which officially marks the very end of the UK. 

The fantastic names added to my delight in being there; a feeling that seemed to be shared by the other few visitors I came across. “It’s glorious!” one woman sang, near giddy with joy, as I passed her returning along the cliffs. Another who had leaned on her walker all the way to the cliffs told me that she just wanted to sit there and wait for the sun to set – never mind that the Shetlandic high summer is the time of “simmer dim”, as it is known locally, when the sun only dips briefly below the horizon.

If its coastline is the setting for high drama, Unst’s interior is captivating in a different way. The following day, I visited the large expanse of serpentine rock that is the Keen of Hamar Nature Reserve, east of the island’s largest settlement of Baltasound. A rocky, almost lunar-like landscape, the Keen of Hamar may appear barren but is home to an extraordinary array of plant life. On the cliffs, the elements had been a force that surrounded me, but here I had to crouch forward, leaning into the rocks to identify the area’s often minuscule plants: the bubblegum-pink flowers of moss campion; delicate Norwegian sandwort; and the mouse-eared Edmonston’s chickweed, Britain’s rarest plant, which flowers here (and nowhere else) in June and July.

Some of the most idiosyncratic attractions I have ever visited revealed themselves in similarly subtle ways. I stopped into the Unst Boat Haven for a quick look and wound up staying well over an hour in the small museum, admiring its extensive collection of lovingly cared for small wooden fishing boats and learning about the resilient fishermen who went out in them, sometimes as far as 30 miles offshore. The reputation of the elaborately furnished Bobby’s Bus Shelter – a bus stop-turned-tourist attraction, which locals decorate every year to reflect a different theme – precedes it, but it was even more cosy and charming in real life. Wandering around small settlements, I’d see Shetland ponies grazing in gardens.

Everywhere I went on Unst, various businesses proclaimed themselves “Britain’s most northerly”: tea rooms, post office, distillery. But I began to feel that nowhere needed these qualifications. The island, I thought, is full of treasures in its own right, all packed into an area of just 12 miles long and five miles wide – not far off Treasure Island’s “nine miles long and five across”.

A treasure of an island, then, but is Unst really Treasure Island?

While Robert Louis never followed his family into lighthouse engineering, it’s likely that their work lighting up the Scottish coast, surrounded by maps, nurtured a love of cartography in him. “I am told there are people who do not care for maps”, he wrote in his 1893 essay My First Book, “and I find it hard to believe.”

I asked Paula Williams, curator of the Maps, Mountaineering and Polar Collections at the National Library of Scotland, to compare the two maps. The outline of Stevenson’s Treasure Island from the novel does resemble that of Unst, she agreed, “as if viewed from the south, complete with corresponding inlets and [the] small islet Skeleton Island, [as it is called in the novel], or Uya [its real name]”. The outline, Williams told me, is “no less accurate than on some early sea charts”, such as this map from 1787. She added that Unst also has small hills on its headlands that could easily translate into the book’s Mizzen-mast and Foremast Hills, notable features of Treasure Island that Captain Smollett points out as the expedition schooner, the Hispianola, approaches in search of treasure.

 

"It is easy to imagine how something similar could have been sketched, perhaps, from memory,’ she said. 

Later charts, such as this 1833 map of the Shetland Islands, however, tell a different story, showing that the sea around Unst is significantly deeper than that of Treasure Island. Stevenson had taken the care to detail the depth of water around Treasure Island, Williams said, describing it to me as "less than five fathoms until further out from the island where it deepens to 12 or so”. But on Unst charts, “it can be as deep as 26 in the bays and more than 40 fathoms deep off shore”. Finally, Williams added that “Unst is also narrower on the east-west axis than Treasure Island and longer north-south.”

Nevertheless, the legend persists. Much like the local businesses making the most of their “most northerly” selling point, the island seems keen to emphasise Unst’s resemblance to Treasure Island and the Stevenson connection, with it mentioned everywhere from the official Unst website to the National Trust for Scotland.

As for the island's setting in the book, the author in 1893 told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper: “I only wish myself that I knew where it was”. Possibly anticipating the coming challenge of global “overtourism”, he said that he was “careful to give no indication as to its whereabouts for fear that there might be an undue rush towards it”, before adding that “it is generally supposed to be in the West Indies”.

After leaving Unst, I realised that I’d neglected to make the most important Stevenson connection: to visit Unst’s equivalent spot marked by an “X” on the map of Treasure Island to indicate the buried treasure hidden by the infamous pirate Captain Flint. I made a rough approximation on Google Maps – taking Unst's Clay Burn as the stream marked running inland from the bay containing Skeleton Island on the Stevenson map – and asked Williams if this seemed a likely place to stash treasure.

This spot’s lack of notable features, she said, deems it unlikely. “You would imagine that a pirate would use some form of triangulation or dead-reckoning to remember the spot”. But, she added, “if it’s just daubed on an imaginary landscape that wouldn’t matter.”

My question, of course, was absurd. An attempt to force an association onto something Stevenson had left deliberately opaque. Better, instead, to let treasures reveal themselves on their own terms. Like a mysterious map, by chance, falling out of an old sea captain’s chest, or the idiosyncratic attractions of the island of Unst.

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2019-12-09 21:24:07Z
CBMiSWh0dHA6Ly93d3cuYmJjLmNvbS90cmF2ZWwvc3RvcnkvMjAxOTEyMDktdW5zdC1hLXJlYWwtbGlmZS10cmVhc3VyZS1pc2xhbmTSAQA

Minggu, 08 Desember 2019

Archeology news: Ancient Celtic shield discovery hailed ‘most important find of millennium - Express.co.uk

A Celtic warrior’s grave containing weapons and upright pony skeletons has been described by archeologists as a unique and significant discovery for the UK. Dr Melanie Giles, of the University of Manchester believes the 2,000-year-old shield, found next to the ancient Briton’s remains, is “the most important British Celtic art object of the millennium.”

Archaeologists revealed the burial site in Pocklington, east Yorkshire, is the only one in the UK where modern archaeologists have found horses buried in a “chariot grave”.

Approximately 20 humans buried inside chariots have been found in the past 100 years or so, mostly in Yorkshire – but without horses.

Paula Ware, the director of Map Archaeological Practice, which excavated the grave, said: “The magnitude and preservation of the Pocklington chariot burial has no British parallel, providing a greater insight into the Iron Age epoch.”

The archaeologist called the shield an “incomparable” Iron Age find due to its “previously unknown design feature”.

READ MORE: Life discovered deep underground point to ‘subterranean Galapagos'

The ancient Briton’s body was placed in the chariot behind the horses, which were placed to look as if they were leaping out of the grave.

Dr Giles, a leading chariot-burial expert and archaeologist, said at the time: “This discovery provides valuable additional evidence demonstrating how the ancient Britons loved their chariots.

“It is conceivable that the dead man’s family and his community believed that the chariot would help him to reach the next world or would be useful to him when he got there.”

Persimmon Homes Yorkshire, who own the find, has announced it will donate the discovery to a museum.

Scott Waters, director at the housebuilding firm, said: “The excavation at The Mile development is a truly magnificent discovery for British history and we feel this recognition and find should remain in the local area.”

The only missing element, almost certainly destroyed by mediaeval ploughing, is the second wheel.

The Ancient Brits were unusually attached to their chariots.

While in continental Europe, chariots had largely gone out of fashion by the mid first century BC, in Britain they persisted until at least the seventh decade of the first century AD - a generation or so after the Roman conquest.

The first chariots seem to have been invented in south-western Siberia and in northern Kazakhstan in around 2000 BC.

By 1500 BC they had spread to Anatolia (what is now Turkey), Egypt, India and China.

By 1300 BC they were being used in Europe – and by 500 BC they had been introduced into Britain.

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2019-12-08 07:29:00Z
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