Best Of

Great X post by a Gulf Arab. I get the sense this isn't the kind of view on the Middle East conflict you'd see very often on the BBC or Sky (Humanitarian porn) News.

https://x.com/AimenDean/status/1939278518979821890

Let me make something absolutely clear.

I am not a Zionist - not in any way, shape, or form. I am an Arab. My roots are in Bahrain, I was born in Saudi Arabia, and I live in the UAE. My family spans generations across all three countries. On top of that, I am also a British citizen - a nationality I hold with honor, especially given my years working alongside UK security forces. It was a privilege, and an eye-opening chapter of my life.

So no, I don’t carry any Zionist affiliation.

But let me now ask the question I rarely hear answered honestly:
Why should I support groups like Hamas, the PFLP, or other Palestinian factions that have long embraced terrorism - even when their targets have been us, the Gulf Arabs?

Let’s look at reality:
•Israel has never fired a single bullet at any GCC country — not at Saudi Arabia, not at Bahrain, not at Kuwait, not at the UAE, not even at Qatar or Oman. Not even a BB gun.
•Meanwhile, Palestinian terrorist groups have assassinated our diplomats, hijacked our planes, bombed our embassies, and worked hand-in-hand with our enemies — even as we offered them political, financial, and moral support for decades.
•And now? Hamas and its allies have fully aligned with the Ayatollahs of Iran, our true existential enemy - the same regime that has plotted coups in Bahrain, that has flooded the region with missiles and militias, and that has openly declared its intent to topple our governments and destroy our societies.

Let’s remember - it wasn’t Israel that launched thousands of drones and ballistic missiles on Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
It was Iran.
Through the Houthis.
With Hezbollah operatives.
With Hamas blessings.
And with Iranian weapons.

So why should I betray my own people, my own security, my own dignity - to support a group that would see us fall, just to serve Tehran’s ambitions?

No, I am not a Zionist.
But the Zionists are NOT my enemy.
My enemies are in Tehran, in Beirut, in Sana’a, and - yes - among those Palestinian factions who turned against the very hands that once fed them.

This is not about being trendy or emotional. This is about loyalty, logic, and survival.

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Best,

Kirstie

Oh.

God.

No.

I don't normally watch PMQs. It's a bit of a pointless circus. Taking a look now.
1) I'd forgotten how much I enjoy Lindsay Hoyle. He's the best speaker we've had since Betty. He also has the best voice ever.
2) I'd forgotten how asinine the whole process is. Stop cheering, everyone.
3) Shut up about football, Keir. You can get away with a single mention of the NHS.
4) Kemi's being a bit oily. And that first question should just have been the last sentence. I actually used to quite like Corbyn's relatively simple approach to PMQs, albeit that his questions were a bit scattergun.
5) Kemi's clearly winning now. She has an odd way of pronouncing the word 'alone'.
6) SKS looking a bit rattled now. Rayner looking furious all the time.
7) Actually, this is really good by Kemi. Starmer not putting up a bad fight though - the Lab approach of Lab-does-x-repeat sounds more convincing and less robotic coming out of his mouth than it does out of Rachel Reeves.

... that was quite good actually I take back some of point 2. Reeves looking a bit hangdog but no tears yet. Let's scan forward a bit...

8) Here's some fella from Glasgow asking a very bland question about rail staff which SKS answers earnestly. The Reeves bottom lip is definitely quivering now. Why now? Scanning back and forwards she seemed ok before this?
9) Harriet Cross, Gordon and Buchan. I hadn't heard of her before. She's quite good, albeit on a subject I am unconvinced by. Reeves cheered herself up a little now, though her face is still at no happier than 2/10. What's she doing with her tongue?
10) Clearly wiping away tears now.


...but not really clear why? It didn't appear to be in response to anything in particular that happened in the chamber.

.

Thoughts and prayers for the Letby truthers.

CPS considering further criminal charges against Lucy Letby

Detectives have handed over evidence related to the death and collapse of other babies at hospitals where she worked

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/lucy-letby-charges-cps-n6n7g2z5c

What a complete waste of taxpayers money and CPS time, Letby is serving several whole life terms, what do the CPS want a judge to do, sentence a reinacarnated Letby to a new term after her death? That is assuming she is guilty of course whatever the Letby truthers say

The purpose of criminal convictions, in general include

- Closure for the victims and then family of victims
- Public statement of what happened
- Publicly assigning responsibility to the criminal
- Recognition that a crime was committed and could possibly have been stopped.

In addition, here, sorting out deaths caused by ill intent from those caused by negligence has value.

Which has already been done given Letby has been convicted and got a whole life order (assuming the verdict was correct and truthers wrong).

The CPS are just wasting taxpayers money trying to bring more charges against her which could go on convicting criminals who are not already in jail for the rest of their lives

What about the parents of other children who may have been murdered?

Justice isnt just locking up the guilty.

Fully agree- and even if it isn't be most cost-efficient thing to do, providing clear closure to grieving relatives is the sort of thing that civilised places do.

But maximising the function "bad guys locked up per taxpayer dollar" is one of those ghastly Americanisms that the British right are increasingly thirsty for.

If you want true cost efficiency, end all treatment for premature babies.

Aside from the medical and lifetime costs, think of the savings on trials and negligence cases.

#Aktion4U

No but sadly I think the Letby case means fewer nurses will want to work in premature baby units even if they would want to do so for the best of motives

You would think that people wouldn't want to work with people who go around killing patients.

Yet hospitals seem to have no problems getting people to work with anaesthatists.

My anaesthetist was a bit mad. "You're young and fit so I'll be extra disappointed if you die", as he hands me a leaflet explaining that they don't really know why the drugs work in the first place.

I think dying will be just like going under anaesthetic. I've been under a couple of times and you don't remember much about the before, and wake up with a blank mind after, with no remembered dreams or thoughts. So I reckon death is just a lights out moment. The switch gets flicked and you're done and dusted. No after life, no soul drifting up to see the bearded old white fella or being dragged down for a rave in Satan's gaff.
Cancel all religions, I've solved it, and it ain't 42.

I was once kept under for more than a week in ICU when I had an awful bug that had thrown my diabetic control off, and they could not find out what it was for some time. When I resurfaced I had a very bizarre collection of memories some of which I could not tell apart from actual events for some time.

For some I had to sit down with a counsellor and work out "did this happen?" to avoid letting them persist, as it would have made some personal and family relationships difficult.

We ended up with "assume these things did not happen" until or unless there is evidence to the contrary.

A strange experience.

Alex Wickham
@alexwickham
Senior govt sources saying this morning that by forcing the govt to abandon its welfare reforms Labour MPs have likely killed off any hope of lifting the two child benefit cap

One says that’s a great shame for the govt’s child poverty ambitions. Starmer had wanted to lift it

https://x.com/alexwickham/status/1940331679102706001

LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!

LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME NOT DO! Shurely

Isn’t this Bullseye’s /Jim Bowen’s “Look at what you could have won” - as they reveal this week it was the once a month car prize rather than the speedboat

“You’ve got your assisted death. That’s safe.”