Best Of

I’m just hoping Trump can find someone involved in the property game who would kindly take all the prime beachfront land in Gaza off the hands of its new US overlords and develop it for free as hotels and resorts.

On other matters are the Democrats currently sitting on their arses thinking that the way to win the next (maybe) election is for more and harder what they offered before or is there any chance they can get real?

Maybe they should change up and change the Us politics game - select their 2028 candidate now allow them to build a shadow team who have briefs to dig into and attack each crazy policy change/idea.

Show them as a sensible President and gov in waiting and highlight the dangerous clown show in power.

Some criticised the Dem campaign for focusing too much on the evils of Trump and not enough on offering a positive vision for the future. Now, it appears their predictions of how crazy Trump would be didn’t go far enough!

Err.. so I’ve just read the Chagos “deal”

Isn’t this so utterly stupid that there must be something more to it? Is Starmer that bad at politics?

I need to hunt down some 'pro' articles about it as doesn't seem like a very good deal. The anti side portray the only supposed benefit being that we will get reputational improvements from following 'international law' on the matter, which frankly doesn't sound enough in a matter which seems pretty clearly transactional for all three parties, so there surely has to be more to it than that.

Surely the opposite is true? We will get a reputation for giving away territory for no reason with a healthy stipend to boot. How is that an improvement in our reputation? On the contrary, it is a reputation that any country would be fearful of acquiring. Negotiating anything worldwide just got near impossible.

I'm mainly confused why the Mauritians seem to be able to get extra concessions from us at this point - I cannot see how we would look worse for sticking with previous terms, for those that already look on us negatively about the whole affair. The government has denied that it is desperate to get a deal over the line, but it sure looks like it, given any cost would in any case be over a long period presumably, so there's no rush to sign from either side.

Once the Mauritians rejected what was on offer ( and which was agreed by the previous government), what downside was there to walking away from negotiations? Criticism from nations that are hostile towards in any case?

Starmer craves redemption from those nations.

It's all part of his worldview and he probably thinks the greater the payment the greater the redemption.

Lefties have inherited the self-flagellation gene from their puritan forefathers. A bit like @Kinabulu voicing that it is always men that are murderers. No doubt he is one that thinks men should take collective responsibility for the sins of men and be apologetic for psychos and rapists that are men as though all of us who have todgers share blame. And as for us being British, well we should all (women possibly accepted) prostrate ourselves in front of the world in apology for the British Empire that none of us alive had anything to do with.

What percentage of mass murderers are female?

Hang on: surely you mean what proportion of the caught mass murderers are female?

People up and down the country are absolutely furious about the betrayal of the Chagos deal. The voters have never been so angry.
A stunning 5% know where the Chagos Islands are, and nearly the same proportion know the details of the deal. At a guess.

Last polling had 40% against and 18% in favour. That was under old terms.

The proposed “deal” is so mind numbingly stupid and wrong and self harming and treacherous I wonder if it has been deliberately “leaked” to the Times to

1. Damage Starmer and

2. Scupper the deal before they can sign it

oh I hope so. Or hopefully Trump can save us on this

Sky reporting that Number 10 is not denying the £18bm figure

Stupefying. I hope it costs Keir his job, the fucking traitorous rat

Chagos latest..

Steven Swinford
@Steven_Swinford

Exclusive from
@georgegrylls


Sir Keir Starmer intends to 'push ahead' with deal to cede sovereignty to Chagos Islands and has offered significant concessions

Navin Ramgoolam, Mauritius's new prime minister, said his country has been offered 'complete sovereignty' of Diego Garcia, home to a critical US military base

He claimed that Starmer has effectively doubled the £9bn originally offered to Mauritius and weakened the British lease for Diego Garcia

He said the new deal will frontload instalments and link them to inflation. He also said that Mauritius will now have a right to veto extending the lease

He also revealed that Lord Hermer, the attorney-general, was involved in the latest round of face-to-face negotiations

https://x.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1886773307443388559

If he has £9bn to spare, please send it to whomever is making the drones the Ukranians are using to go 1,000km into Russia in the last few days.

Jesus wept.

Where exactly are we supposed to be getting this £9billion from?

To pay for a transfer of sovereignty that the Chagossians themselves don’t even want & pisses off our most important military allay at a time when we can least afford to do so.

Starmer has lawyer brain: the pronouncements of a court with no power staffed by judges with no interest are more important than actual on the ground realpolitik.

It just has me scratching my head. There is no pressing need to do this; a very generous offer has been made and rejected; why can the government not just shrug and walk away?

There has to be *something* behind it, other than sheer ineptitude.

You’d think so, but I honestly think it’s lawyer brain in action. You can’t possibly refuse to implement a legal ruling: what would the world come to if every country did that?! (Spoiler: we are in a world where every country does precisely that & they’re all laughing at us as we tie ourselves in knots over these islands.)

'Angela Rayner is set to appoint a pro-Remain former Tory MP to lead a new body to advise on Islamophobia.

Dominic Grieve, who previously served as Attorney General, has been recommended to chair a committee of 16 people set up to define anti-Muslim prejudice.

Mr Grieve wrote the foreword to a 2018 report on Islamophobia by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims co-chaired by Health Secretary Wes Streeting.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14357221/Angela-Rayner-lines-pro-Remain-ex-Tory-MP-head-new-body-advising-Islamophobia-critics-raise-free-speech-blasphemy-law-fears.html

We already have a definition of discrimination on grounds of any religion in the Equality Act 2010. What do we need another - and likely wider - definition for?

An Islamic blasphemy law - any sort of blasphemy law - has no place in this country in the 21st century.

I know that Adam Smith said there was a great deal of ruin in a nation. But do our governments have to test this proposition to destruction every single sodding day? FFS!

We do have a definition for anti-semitism, so why not one for Islamophobia too?
The only one speaking of a new Blasphemy law is Jenrick, and he is against.

No. We do not need one at all. What about "phobias" against Christians (all varieties) or Sikhs or Hindus or Buddhists or the many other religions there are?

No: Rayner and Grieve can both fuck off. We are entitled to criticise Islam as much as we damn well like just like any other set of ideas. Discrimination against Muslims is already covered in law.

Why then do we have one for anti-semitism?

I hope that you are not suggesting that there is no Islamophobia in our society.

I have no problem with definitions and clarifications on other forms of discrimination too, such as misogyny.

I do not know what you mean by the term "Islamophobia" which I consider to be a weaselly term designed to obscure the difference between criticism of a religion (necessary, desirable and not to be constrained) and discrimination against individual Muslims because of their religion. The latter exists, is undesirable and is dealt with by the existing law. Criminal offences against Muslims which are religiously aggravated are also adequately dealt with by the law.

Criticising a religion should not be prevented as the ECHR and other courts have repeatedly ruled.

Freedom of thought and expression are essential in a free democratic society and no-one should be obliged to respect or think well of any set of ideas or religious beliefs. More they are - and should be - free to ridicule, dislike or criticise any religion, no matter whether this offends its adherents or not. (The law should not concern itself with politeness.) I think certain aspects of Orthodox Judaism in relation to its treatment of women are abominable; ditto Islam's view of women and gay people and sharia law. I don't think much of the Plymouth Brethren either and my own church has behaved atrociously over child abuse and the treatment of single mothers and their babies in Ireland.

What this will, I fear, be used for is to stop criticism of anything which upsets some Muslims. Well, boo - fucking - hoo. If upset is going to be the measure, we'd have stopped all those pro-Palestinian marches for the last year and a half with people cheering on what happened on Oct 7 and praising Hamas et which upset a lot of Jews in this country. And all the people on here who talk about sky fairies would need to be hauled off to the gulag. And most religions' holy books would have to be banned too.

So no.