Best Of

I ddon't know why Tesco's are wasting their money on "security"...they might as well ordered the thieves an Uber while they were there.

Happened in Kilburn tescos yesterday.
https://x.com/CrimeLdn/status/1936680557062001151

Even my local tesco express was apparently doing an all items free offer this week, the cashier serving me was unimpressed (and ill put her down as 'Reform')

The ne'er-do-wells know that no one will stop them, the police won't show up, there's very little chance they'll get caught and if they're unlucky enough to actually get caught, they'll get told not to be naughty again and be on their merry way.
Forget Iran getting nukes, if Starmer could stop this sort of thing, I'd vote Labour in the next election.

I have never experienced or seen this, fortunate to live in a part of the country where at the moment it is not accepted by anyone as a way of acting. But what would be, beyond hand waving and unicorns, Reform's way of tackling it which seriously distinguishes them from the status quo and is affordable?

TASER THEM

I bought a rib eye steak last night in the local Sainsbury's and paid at the self checkout. It was security tagged. There was a label saying so, which I missed. I have no idea how they do that. Anyway on leaving I set off the alarm. I returned. Deserving of a taser blast do you think? Admittedly it is not like I was clearing the shelves, but I suspect they would be in big trouble if they inadvertently taser innocent shoppers.

How do you think you should have been treated for all your illegal activities over the years? It is doubtful you would have ever been out of prison if you were treated like you want to treat others.

Having said all of that I do have sympathy for your reaction. I feel the same sometimes, then sense prevails.

No, you catch them, prosecute them, convict them - THEN taser them. Every day for a week. Don’t bother with prisons - they’re horribly expensive, cruel, and actively harmful

New methods of brisk painful corporal punishment

You call people Centrist Dad often, but really you are a Centrist Grandad. You want to go back to the 1950s all the time. Latest being corporal punishment? Really? What with your other views you really are like the 90+ year old one meets who talk about the good old days.

The thing about my suggestion is: it will work. It’s cheap, powerful, effective. And anyway, why is inflicting mental and social pain - prison - deemed acceptable, but inflicting physical pain is not?

It’s ludicrous. Prison is also expensive and breeds even harder criminals. So taser them. We’d sort this out in a weak

While bleating midwits like you just sigh and wring your hands about this, offer no solution, and nothing happens

It will work? Ever heard of the birch? Did that work?

Probably

Then I suggest you read the research.

Singapore has capital and corporal punishment and zero crime

Never been there but it sounds a super place. Yet it doesn't please everyone.

Number One Son has a beautiful Singaporean partner. She prefers to live in Manchester.

How do you figure that?

Fewer immigrants in Manchester. Singapore is absolutely full of them.

Manchester has rather a lot of immigrants too.

But, OTTOMH, ten reasons why Manchester is better than Singapore:

1) The weather. Singapore is hot and humid. It doesn't ALWAYS drizzle in Manchester.
2) The beer is better.
3) Manchester is a better night out than Singapore.
4) Our surrounding countryside is better, even taking into account Singapore's beach options.
5) British suburbia, while unfashionable, is an agreeable and convenient way to live.
6) While I only have the haziest idea of Asianwork culture, it sounds a tad demanding. By comparison, your work/life balance in Manchester is almost Scandinavian.
7) All of the hundreds of little things which make life in Britain so appealing: pubs, strawberry jam, good quality crisps, 6 music, the font on our road signs, garden centres, etc.
8) Living in Lancashire is like living in a Peter Kay sketch. Always funny, sometimes deliberately.
9) Cricket
10) I reckon British schools offer a more enjoyable and well-rounded experience than Singaporean ones.

There is much about Britain which is frustrating - 75% of which I would characterise as *grot*. But there's a lot about living in Britain which is agreeable.

(Cookie has never been to Asia)

Tice:

https://x.com/TiceRichard/status/1936403403116077166

My concern here is the rush to a precooked judgement, rather than a desire to know what happened and why.

Being Staish of a mega station like Brize is essentially running a vast bureaucracy so she's probably better qualified than most her peers.

The RAF 'management structure' for officers is weird and quite poor for developing senior leaders. They go from having no direct subordinates (they might take operational lead of a 4 a/c flight on a mission) to commanding a squadron where they might have to supervise 100+ people.

Tice, as might be expected, is being a c-nt over this. But being a Fukker is all about presenting simplistic causes of complex problems for the eager consumption of chubby morons so, in that sense, mission accomplished.

Good morning all.
It is, weather-wise, if not in global politics.

I've been a bit of a political nerd nearly all my life, from adolescence onwards, and all that time it has seemed to me that whatever the Iranian government, and sometimes the people, have wanted to do has been deemed a Bad Idea by the people at the top of the US and UK. And frequently Action Has Had To Be Taken to prevent or discourage whatever it was that the Iranians wanted to do.

Generally speaking, whatever Action has been taken has not turned out well for anyone, especially the poor souls who actually live in Iran, who are now living in a country where the major decisions, especially about lifestyle, are taken by elderly men with social views which would have made Cromwell's more extreme followers shake their heads with concern.

It would therefore, I suggest, be a good idea if we could create a situation where the Iranian people could elect the government that want, free from religious control. However, I could understand it if the Iranians, generally, felt that the way the current Israeli government is treating the native Palestinians, frequently but not always their co-religionists, fell well below any normally accepted standards of fairness.

As I said when I started, I've watched this scene develop for some seventy years and while it seems to me there is wrong and right on both sides in the region, I'm firmly off the opinion that the UK should keeps it's nose, and especially it's weapons, as far away as possible.
And confine ourselves to giving humanitarian aid as necessary.

Morning all

Not terribly surprised by the morning's news. One can argue it's a good argument for non-proliferation but I don't recall American planes bombing Indian, Pakistani and North Korean let alone Israeli nuclear production facilities.

I suppose it comes down to the truth you have to be a particular class of lunatic to be afforded the privilege of being denied nuclear weapons by force.

I'm musing more on the domestic political impact. While the pro-Palestine groups continue to agitate in parts of the country (my part of London as an example), I've not yet seen a big upswing in activity directly resulting from the conflict between Israel and Iran - that might change with the overt US intervention.

It will continue to perpetuate the other current schism in UK politics - not the one on the so-called "Right" but the one on the so-called "Left" between Labour and a coalition of young Muslim voters and former pro-Corbyn supporters. The latter are more interesting at a local level as they have been campaigning strongly and effectively on the failings of London Labour Councils and may well capture a number of seats at the next London locals next year.

Over time, this is far more likely to be a driver of nuclear proliferation.
The lesson here is that signing up to the non proliferation treaty opens you up to being bombed.
Nations are much more likely now to do deals with (eg) Pakistan on the QT.

Ukraine giving up a giant nuclear arsenal on the basis of "assurances" - then suffering a decade of war from a still nuclear armed neighbour - will prove a bigger driver to nuclear proliferaton.

There are few commentators on here more visceral in their dislike of Trump than me. But you have to wonder if the world would be a better place if it had been Obama undertaking this raid, back when he had the chance.

All tyrannical regimes will do what they can to push their boundaries when they can - literally in Russia's case - unless put back in ther box with a painful smackdown. Opportunities have been missed to do this to RUssia, North Korea and Iran.

The UN is clearly now pointless. It is certainly time for a new format - without veto rights - that the democratic world can sign up to. We must rob these deeply unpleasant regimes of the get out "well, the UN didn't stop us...".

Obama negotiated a nuclear treaty with Iran that Trump abandoned

But get real - the Iranians weren't even paying lip service. How long do you think it takes to create hollowed-out mountains for your enrichment facilities?

On nuclear matters, the Iranians have been lying scumbags. Anyone who thought they were going to honour it was a dupe. There is no good nature to appeal to when a theocracy states its intention on a daily basis to wipe a nation off the face of the earth.