Best Of

Thanks for the header, though I have no opinion on Mahmood. Let's see how she grasps the nettle.

Good to see you writing headers again @Cyclefree and hope you are keeping well.

Indeed it may inspire me to submit a few more headers that have been knocking around in my head.

Yes, interesting header @Cyclefree. Hope you are keeping your spirits up

Mahmood isn’t even listed on Betfair’s next PM market, but you can lay Holly Valance at 870 for £7

I am as well as anyone with my condition is likely to be. Planting roses and spring bulbs and following doctors' orders.

Who is 'The Jewish Community' of which you speak? Those who march behind the Israeli flag like today claiming to be against anti semitism? Or the Board of deputies who supported until his death their late President Greville Janner* You would think those who will today march behind the Netanyahu flag might have the humility to ask themselves what in Hell's name are they supporting.

*https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/12/culture-of-deference-may-have-protected-lord-jenner-abuse-inquiry-hears

What a snide and despicable comment @Roger.

There is a problem with anti-semitism in the UK which has got worse in recent years and, as @JosiasJessop rightly pointed out, dehumanisation of one group (Jews for instance) will eventually catch everyone in that group, regardless of their individual qualities. The march today like the one in autumn 2023 is against anti-semitism and were I not immuno-compromised and advised against being in large crowds I'd have been on it, as I was for the last one, in solidarity with my Jewish friends, neighbours and family members here in the UK, who have all described to me their worries about their future in Britain and about the increase in some horrible abuse and attacks. I am not going to stand by and ignore them or make them feel unwanted and uncared for in their home.

The flag is not the Netanyahu flag but the Israeli flag. It is perfectly possible to be firmly against anti-semitism here while being appalled by the actions of the Israeli government, a distinction you seem to find it hard to make. And as for you becoming all pompous about Greville Janner, given your own problematic approach to the crimes of Roman Polanski because of his "art", you have a fucking nerve talking about people being deemed too important to challenge.

Shabana Mahmood's statements about anti-semitism have been strong and welcomed by representatives of the Jewish community. This is to her credit.

You do know Roger is Jewish too?

So?

A Jewish anti-Semite would be an unusual likely oxymoron.

Is it because everyone relentlessly treated Rayner herself like some special-needs child, a young, underprivileged woman who they secretly suspected couldn’t read or write? If you look at the way Starmer spoke about her, it was constantly in these terms: she was a woman, and working class.

Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/angela-rayner-no-working-class-hero-ptr88wp8b

Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.

Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.

Put the "scum" back in her box where she belongs? We need proper working class heroes like Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Lucy Connolly.

Poshos at the top is the standard order of things, which is why nobody was bothered about the likes of Blair and Darling.

Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.

That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.

But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.

There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.

Like I said.

She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.

And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.

Johnson certainly got Ukraine and covid right but he was responsible, much like Rayner, for his own fall from grace

Such is politics

COVID?

Yes he invented the Oxford Zeneca vaccine but the rest?

I have questions relating to Ukraine from a decade back and prior to his last throw of the dice in 2022.

I do not expect you to give Johnson any credit, but it is widely recognised he did support Ukraine, even Ukrainians recognising it by naming a street after him, and on covid, if he had listened to Starmer we would probably be still in lockdown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know it would be controversial, but Starmer could do an awful lot worse than to ask Boris Johnson to assist with the Ukraine negotiations, especially when it comes to mediating between the Ukranians and Americans.

Yes, he’s still absolutely loved in Ukraine for his actions at the start of the war.

I know you have a genuine personal interest, but really?

I am not entirely sure the Trump Presidency has been as optimal for Ukraine as you anticipated either. Maybe Putin's recent behaviour will turn Trump's head in the right direction eventually.

Johnson is someone known to both Trump and Zelensky, and trusted by both. I’m not sure there’s as much of a relationship between the US and Starmer’s team, given the current headlines over issues such as freedom of speeech.

I disagree with Trump’s approach to Ukraine, I could see what he was trying to do but it should have been obvious long ago that Putin was playing games and had no intention of wanting peace. Someone like Johnson could assist with a nudge or two in the right direction

I am careful not to be dismissive and I don't dispute Johnson's popularity in Ukraine, however he has never been a World statesman, despite suggesting in his book he is a Churchillian diplomat. And persuading Trump to do the right thing is possibly a big ask for even the most seasoned cat herder.

What Putin, and the bond markets, show is that the way you get Trump to do what you want is through fear.

The Canadians understood that. Sadly neither the Brits nor the EU have done, but that partly reflects the fact that Canada has its economic foot on the US throat (albeit at great cost to itself) more securely than we ever could have.

The other world player who understands his limited hand and plays it to the max is Erdogan. He’s a total arse, but he does play geopolitics well. We need to think of things we could threaten to withdraw (and intel sharing is surely one, as perhaps would be access to British military bases), like the Turks do on a regular basis.

I agree that Erdogan is a master of geopolitics, but he plays the game to advance Turkish interests. Damaging British relationships with other countries in order to advance the interests of a third country would not be the actions of a responsible Government.

I know your views of Ukraine and that its interests are not aligned with ours, but forming alliances and protecting geopolitically pivotal countries against European empires has been a significant part of British foreign policy, and very much in our own interests, since the Napoleonic wars.

Luckyguy evidently believes that preserving some sort of subservient relationship to the Trump administration is more important than Europe's future security.

I think that's deeply misguided.

Utter rubbish. I do not favour a subservient relationship to any US administration - though I am clued up enough to know that's what we have at present, and that changing the relationship to one that's more equal is a difficult and very long term project.

All I say, which I might have hoped would be an obvious point, is that we should act and speak in defiance of the USA over matters that are absolutely pivotal to the UK's security or other national interests. Who ends up with bigger bits of Ukraine isn't that, however much some choose to see it that way.

The blunt truth is that we have intertwined our national defence so closely with the US that we have to maintain a relationship with them no matter how much it sticks in the craw. As the junior partner, that relationship will be as subservient as the US administration wishes it to be.

We depend utterly on US co-operation for the functioning of our nuclear deterrent in the near future, our international intelligence gathering depends on them (we finally have a tiny constellation of surveillance satellites of our own at least) & much of our conventional forces depend on support from the US in some form or another: e.g. We have precisely one refuelling aircraft, so depend on US support for missions that require its presence elsewhere, or when it’s undergoing maintenance.

Preserving our relationship with the US is a matter of national security & we will therefore bend the knee & do whatever is required of us unless & until we can maintain a credible deterrent without US support. It sucks, but it is what it is. Anyone who doesn’t recognise this reality is being foolish imo.