Best Of

I'll say it again, if you disagree with Cyclefree's headers or indeed any other headers including mine. I am happy to publish threads by you that disagree with a header, send me a Vanilla message with your pieces.

I'd be happy to contribute, but is PB really the best forum for it?

Things that interest me: Digital ID, the Online "Safety" Act, trial by jury (as noted above) leasehold reform, income tax, UBI.

I reply to Cyclefree's guff simply because nobody else on this forum bothers to point out that other views, and lived experiences, are available. It's not a topic I'd care to drone on about while literal drones are blowing up oil fields. It's almost like there are more important things going on.

It genuinely mortifies me that my partner's mere existence was something to be debated or argued about. Something that Max the Fash and Richard "Libertarian" Tindall might pontificate on.

I have never said that their 'existence' is something to be debated or argued about. As usual when you find your rather extremist views challenged you fall back on simple smears and lies. The argument, as it has always been in Cyclefree's pieces, is about the where the competing boundaries between rights should be set. Should Trans rights trump Women's rights? Should the laws we have governing the way we treat children be modified simply to satisfy an extremist Trans lobby? You continue to make clear with your TERF references that you oppose anyone who might suggest that the Trans lived experience and rights have to balanced with the the lived experience and rights of other groups. That is extremism and it serves both your arguments and the Trans community very badly.

Calm down mate, don't get the stockings and suspenders you're wearing while you wrote that in a twist...

You seem to regard it as "competing" rights but the vast majority of women don't agree with you. Cf Kelly v Leonardo, or the numerous WI branches (including the substantial Manchester branch) that have shut their doors rather than obey a lawfare-imposed diktat that excludes trans women. Perhaps we could try listening to women for once?

A reminder: Cyclefree may be the only woman who posts here (not quite, honorable mentions must go to Moonrabbit's excellent work on Chagos and others who clearly provide great value to the site!), but Cyclefree's opinions no more represent mainstream female opinion than Max or Leon represent all male opinion.

Well you do like to drone on about lived experience and my lived experience is that the women around me are far more aligned with Cyclefree's views than with yours.

Which is actually interesting, because it's "lived experience" of what we can see in the polls - a divergence between the views of younger and older women. As a friend said pithily a few months ago - "can't wait for the same stringent standards applied to Dr Upton to be used for the umpteen examples of white straight men sexually assaullting or harassing NHS staff".

I think the uneven standard is obvious to young, Green-voting women who are living through this stuff on a daily basis.

Agree on your second point about white straight men not being held to the same standards. But on your first that doesn't fit as my gay daughter and her partner are also of the same opinion due to their own experiences at University a few years ago.

"Those Know Your Customer, Anti-Money Laundering and Politically Exposed Persons rules don’t seem to be working as they ought."

Nobody who knows anything about business ever thought they would.

It was completely obvious that the motivated and wealthy will always find ways around such rules, while ordinary people and businesses are hugely inconvenienced.

But governments need to be seen to be "doing something", no matter how pointless, badly thought through and counter-productive, to control the "narrative". Their ministers get to preen at international conferences. And their lawyers think that, whatever the problem, more law or regulation is always the solution.

And the public, or the few who actually find work worthwhile, get to pick up the ever higher bills for the ever-growing and ever-more-failing state.

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Fishing, this is starting to come in with the joys of ID verification to 'protect the kids'.

"The Trump Administration was dismayed by the scale and wide-spread destruction caused by Saturday’s strike campaign by Israel against oil infrastructure in and around the Iranian capital of Tehran, which reportedly targeting 30 oil and fuel depots sparking massive fires across the city that continue to burn into Sunday, according to a U.S. official, Israeli official and a source with knowledge who spoke to Axios.

U.S. officials state that Saturday’s strikes went far beyond what the United States expected when Israel notified it in advance, created large fires in Tehran, igniting flames visible for miles and blanketing the capital in heavy smoke. Senior officials in the Trump Administration are concerned Israeli strikes on infrastructure that serves ordinary Iranians could backfire strategically, rallying Iranian society to support the regime and further driving up oil prices throughout the World."

Israel wants a very different result from attacking Iran than Trump wants.

Which is a problem because for Israel an ongoing war is their desired result, Trump wanted to be in and out within a week.

Now we are in week 2 and the consequences of the Middle East not shipping oil is about to become very obvious - anyone remember the oil crisis in the 70s, it's going to be a modern version of that.

"The Trump Administration was dismayed by the scale and wide-spread destruction caused by Saturday’s strike campaign by Israel against oil infrastructure in and around the Iranian capital of Tehran, which reportedly targeting 30 oil and fuel depots sparking massive fires across the city that continue to burn into Sunday, according to a U.S. official, Israeli official and a source with knowledge who spoke to Axios.

U.S. officials state that Saturday’s strikes went far beyond what the United States expected when Israel notified it in advance, created large fires in Tehran, igniting flames visible for miles and blanketing the capital in heavy smoke. Senior officials in the Trump Administration are concerned Israeli strikes on infrastructure that serves ordinary Iranians could backfire strategically, rallying Iranian society to support the regime and further driving up oil prices throughout the World."

I wonder how the right wing tabloids. Farage and Kemi are feeling about their calls for us to back these idiots unconditionally as to do otherwise might damage the "special relationship" ?

A craven and utterly foolish display.

"Those Know Your Customer, Anti-Money Laundering and Politically Exposed Persons rules don’t seem to be working as they ought."

Nobody who knows anything about business ever thought they would.

It was completely obvious that the motivated and wealthy will always find ways around such rules, while ordinary people and businesses are hugely inconvenienced.

But governments need to be seen to be "doing something", no matter how pointless, badly thought through and counter-productive, to control the "narrative". Their ministers get to preen at international conferences. And their lawyers think that, whatever the problem, more law or regulation is always the solution.

And the public, or the few who actually find work worthwhile, get to pick up the ever higher bills for the ever-growing and ever-more-failing state.

How long before the spike in energy prices starts feeding into the wider economy ?

Any economists in here ?

Within the next few days. I expect petrol prices to become unpalatable by the end of the week and an emergency rise in the energy price cap by the end of next week if this is still ongoing. Oil and gas prices are returning to the rates we saw during the start of the Ukraine war.

We need for the US and Israel to win and win fast or I fear that inflation will soon hit 5-6% and living standards are going to fall fast.

No need for an emergency rise in the energy price cap. The providers knew what it was and should have hedged the risk via forward contracts. Any that failed to deserve the resulting losses, just as they would have benefited from outsized gains if prices had fallen.

Petrol prices will be much higher.

I have mixed views on the price cap. And these energy support schemes are pretty malign, in the long run - we already have a substantial welfare system to help low income households we can use instead, and such a scheme sends all the wrong signals about energy use and government largesse. Wars and recessions are supposed to hurt.

I think consumers should have hedged against this. The solar/battery/heat pump/EV brigade will be feeling smug, and so they should be.

Ed Miliband...National Hero!