Best Of

So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.

There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.

I'm with you in saying bollocks to that.
The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.

It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.

I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.

US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...

They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.

Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus.
I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.

BBC v Trump

Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.

Can’t they both lose ?

However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.

Just for you.

https://x.com/EdwardJDavey/status/2000850649064546505
Keir Starmer needs to stand up for the BBC against Trump's outrageous $5bn lawsuit and protect licence fee payers from being hit in the pocket.

Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.

So Ed Davey has no comment to make on the actual merits of the case, he just reflexively says BBCGood and OrangeManBad.

He knows the case is meritless. As do most of us. He's saying what most of us think.

So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.

There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.

I'm with you in saying bollocks to that.
The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.

It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.

I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.

US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...

They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.

Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus.
I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.

BBC v Trump

Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.

Can’t they both lose ?

However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.

Just for you.

https://x.com/EdwardJDavey/status/2000850649064546505
Keir Starmer needs to stand up for the BBC against Trump's outrageous $5bn lawsuit and protect licence fee payers from being hit in the pocket.

Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.

Ha ha, I was wondering when British politics version of Joey Deacon would comment.

You have some brass neck needling me about my criticism of the Lib Dem’s, you’re utterly obsessed with Trump. You probably dream about him. 😂

Once he is gone from office, I'll happily ignore him forever.
Until then, his actions are, unfortunately, highly consequential for the entire world.

Good.

Until last November you were a pleasant, rational, poster never rude to anyone.

Since the election you’ve become obsessed with Trump and quite happy to make personal comments to people who have never made them to you. Like myself a few times concerning Lib Dem’s. For example my posts on the Lib Dem’s are like the noise a fly makes to you. Not quite sure what you get from it but if it makes you happy, but it’s a shitty thing to say to someone who’s never insulted you.

Hope the old Nigelb returns.

You give as good as you get, Taz, but if I've genuinely upset you there, then apologies.

I do usually, Nigel, I’ll admit it but I’ve not to you.

Thank you.

a

So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.

There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.

I'm with you in saying bollocks to that.
The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.

It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.

I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.

US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...

They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.

Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus.
I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.

BBC v Trump

Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.

Can’t they both lose ?

However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.

Just for you.

https://x.com/EdwardJDavey/status/2000850649064546505
Keir Starmer needs to stand up for the BBC against Trump's outrageous $5bn lawsuit and protect licence fee payers from being hit in the pocket.

Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.

So Ed Davey has no comment to make on the actual merits of the case, he just reflexively says BBCGood and OrangeManBad.

What merits of the case could Trump possibly have? I mean Davey really doesn't have to go into analysis mode on this

He said to march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”, but the BBC said that he said march to the Capitol “and fight like Hell”.

Given that there was actually a disturbance at the Capitol after the event at which he spoke, a reputable journalist might want to make sure that his words were accurately reported.

The actual quote is

I said something's wrong here, something is really wrong, can have happened.

And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.

Trump used the word fight twenty times. Is it plausible he wasn't inciting the mob?

The problem is getting the two facts to be admitted

- Trump incited the Jan 6 riot and attempted to steal the Presidency by pushing the VP to not validate the result.
- The BBC fucked up in editing the speech

Bit like Alison Rose and Coutts losing a truth telling competition with Nigel Fucking Farage. As a result of which they had to make Farage rich enough to have a Coutts account again.

Wronging a Wong'un Doesn't Make A Right.

I think the BBC should fight the Trump suit, by the way.

People making a fuss about this obviously have no experience of dealing with or being part of broadcast media. It's always chopped about to a bewildering degree, 30 minute interviews turn into a few seconds. As long as the broad message is correct I don't think you can complain at all. And that's certainly the case here.

Editing is one thing, re-ordering clips quite another. Remember this scandal?

https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/bbc-fails-to-calm-furious-queen-over-crowngate-affair-6669385.html

I think the Trump one was just cutting bit out.

Just had the interesting experience of being present for a rare political discussion among a couple of my older relatives, which gave me a different peception on things. Key details included:

• The government is deliberately trying to destroy the NHS (reasons unclear)
  
• Politicians don't care about old people (that's news to me)
  
• Older people should not have to pay tax (naturally)
  
• Colonel Gaddafi did a lot of good actually (ok, that was a surprising inclusion)
  
• Roads used to be better (might be true for all I know)
  

Interesting indeed. I'm old and I wouldn't agree with any of those (except to say I know little of Col. Gaddafi and for all I know he may have been a genial chap to his friends).

A person I knew who taught him English (he took a short course in Beaconsfield) in the 60s said he was just another pleasant ish young guy but didn't stand out in any way.

A friend of a friend had eye problems as a kid. Recently, her parents were clearing stuff out and gave her a bunch of medical records from her childhood. She was curious to look through these and to find out the name of the lovely doctor who she had seen as a child. Guess who it was?

“The Bash” Assad?

So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.

There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.

I'm with you in saying bollocks to that.
The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.

It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.

I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.

US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...

They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.

Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus.
I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.

BBC v Trump

Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.

Can’t they both lose ?

However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.

Just for you.

https://x.com/EdwardJDavey/status/2000850649064546505
Keir Starmer needs to stand up for the BBC against Trump's outrageous $5bn lawsuit and protect licence fee payers from being hit in the pocket.

Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.

Starmer should take a leaf out of Trump's playbook - and pardon the BBC and all involved.

He doesn't have to (not that he could), since there is no real case.
It's impossible for Trump to argue damages from being accused of encouraging a group of people to do something that he regards as blameless - since he pardoned every single one of them.

And the effect of literally any comment, on the reputation of a man who tweeted what he did about the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, is quite obviously nugatory.

Just had the interesting experience of being present for a rare political discussion among a couple of my older relatives, which gave me a different peception on things. Key details included:

• The government is deliberately trying to destroy the NHS (reasons unclear)
  
• Politicians don't care about old people (that's news to me)
  
• Older people should not have to pay tax (naturally)
  
• Colonel Gaddafi did a lot of good actually (ok, that was a surprising inclusion)
  
• Roads used to be better (might be true for all I know)
  

Yes, roads used to be better. An easy insight on that is to find a spot, and compare streetview for 2022 and 2009. I now have bushes growing out of some of my local pedestrian refuges.

They have never been good in the UK since the war, as we have no system to our maintenance, and Tom Dick or Harry can dig holes and botch the repairs.

Starmer's Govt are too timid to change this, and the Conservatives like a wild west system.

So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.

There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.

I'm with you in saying bollocks to that.
The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.

It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.

I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.

US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...

They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.

Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus.
I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.

BBC v Trump

Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.

Can’t they both lose ?

However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.

Just for you.

https://x.com/EdwardJDavey/status/2000850649064546505
Keir Starmer needs to stand up for the BBC against Trump's outrageous $5bn lawsuit and protect licence fee payers from being hit in the pocket.

Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.

Starmer should take a leaf out of Trump's playbook - and pardon the BBC and all involved.

Ukraine starting to lose German and French voter support which is pretty concerning. I suspect we shall get a bad peace deal in 2026, which will give the global economy a temporary boost but at the expense of emboldening Putin and might is right generally.

https://www.politico.eu/article/french-and-germans-lean-toward-dialing-back-ukraine-support-new-international-politico-poll-shows/

We won’t, Zelensky will only accept a ceasefire on current lines and Putin will only accept a ceasefire with Russia getting given more Ukrainian territory

A settlement on current lines wouldn't be good for VVP. Odessa might just make it all worth it. It was the Kulkovye Polye protests/massacre and subsequent firestorm of disinformation from both sides in 2014 that so inflamed Russian ire and germinated the conflict. Getting Katherine's city back would be the sort of sentimental symmetry that nourishes the Slavic psyche.

I see Big Z has now given up on joining NATO so you can sort of see the hazy outlines of a deal that could emerge. Russia will need more though.

Given the state of the Russian Black Sea fleet, Odessa looks unattainable.

Russian navy down one submarine, taken out by Ukranian suicide drone sub while in port at Novorossiysk.

https://x.com/girkingirkin/status/2000583441344028779

Stand by for a few more Ukranian drone subs heading for Novorossiysk in the coming days and weeks.

I was watching video of that yesterday. The drone rounded several ships and harbour fittings before hitting the submarine. It was seriously impressive but also a bit scary. I really wonder if the RN would have fared any better if facing such an attack.

Very scary. This new drone is basically a navigable torpedo that can go anywhere.

One assumes that the Royal Navy takes port security a little more seriously than the Russians, and can spot an enemy vessel approaching!

That's the rational for the sea drones the RN is testing. But it would require an awful lot of them, and I doubt the MoD has the money.

They surely need satellites to navigate and I imagine in a big war scenario those satellites will be gone in minutes?

There’s probably an inertia/star chart/object recognition/local radio towers based solution that doesn’t need satellites.

Some combination of INS and sea bed mapping.

Whatever this was, it wasn't a Sea Baby/Magura 5 as they 6m long surface vessels and there is nothing like that on the video.

The Ukranians were obviously active inside the port because they had that camera feed so it might be covert mine laying marketed as a new wonder drone for PR purposes.

A submersible drone is not really a massive advance on previously deployed technology, but it's definitely +1 for Ukraine that there's one less submarine to launch Kalibr cruise missiles.

In all the previous sea drone attacks, they used Starlink to control them.

It’s not hard to imagine a submersible drone that runs inertially, then comes up for orders.

The mini-Starlink dishes are pretty small now and the quality of the “lock” is crazy. In the US, the standard land based ones were getting popular with private pilots, before SpaceX clamped down on max speed) and there is a thing for mounting them for off road motorcycle races.

There’s rumours around of SpaceX spinning off Starlink with in IPO next year, potentially valued at $500bn. It’s a crazy technology and they’re years ahead of their competition in this space.

Not rumours - and they're not spinning off Starlink.

Musk is talking about taking the whole thing public - but only selling 2% of the (non-voting) shares to the public.

So he will still have 80% of the voting stock.

If they only sell 2% there will be a massive scramble for it, inflating the value even further.

He wants to see the value of the company but without jeopardising the Mars mission, which is his lifetime’s passion.

I thought his lifetime's passion was white supremacism.

There's a synergy. The dream is to facilitate white flight from Earth to bigger and better places. It's a tall order but if anyone can Elon can.