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Starmer might have to avoid Brighton hotels for the next few years.

Palestine Action hunger strikers ‘set to die unless minister acts’

David Lammy, the justice secretary, has refused to meet lawyers for eight protesters refusing food while they await trials scheduled for months away

Palestine Action activists on hunger strike are likely to die in prison if the justice secretary does not intervene, lawyers for the eight protesters have claimed.

On Wednesday two of the group reached day 46 of their protest — the point at which Martin Hurson, 24, became the sixth of ten IRA hunger strikers to die in 1981. A third is on day 45.

In a letter sent to David Lammy, the justice secretary and deputy prime minister, on Tuesday the activists’ lawyers said that without intervention their deaths were “increasingly more than a mere possibility. It is a likelihood.”

Qesser Zuhrah, 20, who is on remand in HMP Bronzefield in Surrey, has been refusing food since November 2. She collapsed “a few nights ago” with her legs shaking uncontrollably, her lawyers said.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/palestine-action-hunger-strikers-set-to-die-unless-minister-acts-qcjttqg8t

The callous comments some have made under this disgust me, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Why?

Why should we care about the self harm of a bunch of lunatics who want to support a terrorist organisation and change policies which we have no control or influence over?

No man is an island etc, fair enough, but these people are frankly ludicrous as are their beliefs, and I say that as someone who holds the recent actions of the IDF and Netanyahu in complete contempt. They really seem to believe what we say or do in relation to this conflict matters a damn. They are wrong.

Harris lost the popular vote by a mere 1.5%. She got a higher share of the popular vote than Trump did in 2016, than Dubya did in 2000, or than Bill Clinton did in 1992.

That’s copium on a par with ‘Corbyn got a higher popular vote than Starmer’

It doesn’t change the fact she lost and that she was a poor candidate.

I suggest it is evidence that she was not as poor a candidate as some believe.

Harris lost the popular vote by a mere 1.5%. She got a higher share of the popular vote than Trump did in 2016, than Dubya did in 2000, or than Bill Clinton did in 1992.

That’s copium on a par with ‘Corbyn got a higher popular vote than Starmer’

It doesn’t change the fact she lost and that she was a poor candidate.

I suggest it is evidence that she was not as poor a candidate as some believe.

She was a far superior candidate to Trump. As would almost anyone have beenn.

What seems odd to me is that a candidate from the left has to be both moderate and personally perfect in every way to stand a chance of winning, yet a candidate from the right can be any raving lunatic with no principles whatsoever and that's perfectly fine. And I say that as a centrist with no axe to grind for either side.

Our University sector is very strong but in a serious financial situation having over expanded and having become too reliant on overseas students. Right now we are seeing waves of redundancies and possible closures. Is Erasmus really the best use for £570m? How many people in the UK will be denied a University education from that choice?

My daughter did a year in the Netherlands with Erasmus. She enjoyed it immensely but the longer term benefits are a lot less clear. It was also interesting to see her cohort. I think she was definitely one of the poorer participants and the weighting to privileged private school kids was very high.

Interesting, that latter point.

The Scottish universities' admissions policies is weighted to favour applicants from less successful schools in Scotland. So you can get in with lower grades.

Sounds like it might help kids from poorer or less supportive backgrounds?

In fact, in the town I know well, it works in favour of the kids who have parents who pay for private tuition. Pretty well all the kids who have been offered places at the "ancients" (St Andrews, Edinburgh etc) have been tutored to pass the exams they need for medicine, law, etc.

The law of unintended consequences.

And, of course, the free tuition fees, which are supposed to help disadvantaged kinds is, actually, overwhelmingly trousered by well-to-do middle-class families.

We offer lower grade entry to kids from poor backgrounds (essentially based on the postcode being in a deprived area).

We have an "Access to Medicine" course for such applicants as a 6th year of Med School. They have to meet the same academic standards when on the course.

I am mid-interview cycle for our applicants and recently I have been thinking on Bourdieu's concept of Social Reproduction in terms of our Medical School entry, and I think it remains presemt despite our efforts. I am not quite sure where we should go next.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_reproduction#:~:text=All four of Pierre Bourdieu,the system of social stratification.

I once watched a documentary on candidates applying for officer training at Sandhurst. Interviews conducted by 'chaps' - mostly well off background, usually private school, played rugby not football but may have called it football etc. Tended to think that applicants from that kind of background did best at interview...

The first question at my Admiralty Board interview in 1988 was "What does your father do?" An inquiry obviously freighted with the subliminal prejudices and expectations of the British class system. I languidly replied, "Mainly annoy my mother but he also seems to have some role as a minor functionary in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office." They fucking loved this response. If I'd said "E's a fuckin brickie, like." I'd have been out on my arse.

Harris lost the popular vote by a mere 1.5%. She got a higher share of the popular vote than Trump did in 2016, than Dubya did in 2000, or than Bill Clinton did in 1992.

If they’d actually had primaries and nominated a candidate who wasn’t terrible, they might even have beaten Trump.

Biden hanging on till the last moment didn't help

With the support of his cabinet and the Dem establishment.

Compare how the cabinet and MPs forced Boris out here to the lickspittle loyalty Buttigieg and the others showed to Biden.

Yes and forcing Boris out led to a landslide Labour victory and loss of the all the Conservative redwall seats, Biden I suspect would still have done better in the rustbelt than Harris did as he did in 2020

Boris was on a bizarre journey of self-destruction, he would never had lasted to 2024.

What you Conservatives need to ask yourselves is why you never made any attempt to control Boris's behaviour as PM.

Had Boris remained Conservative leader, Reform would not have got 14% at the last GE and Reform would not now be leading the polls.

Indeed Sunak might now be leading the polls as the new LOTO, Rishi made a stupid political move resigning to remove Boris

Boris had driven too many of his colleagues away with his own behaviour.

And would have driven even more away if he had remained PM for a few more months.

Say what you like but the fundamental problem was Boris's journey of self-destruction and the unwillingness of the Conservative establishment to do anything about it.

Boris could have been prime minister for ten years if he had been willing to have some self-control.

But he preferred to go to lockdown parties, grift money for redecorating and continually lie to his colleagues about trivial things.