Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
This is not how modern politics works
It is far, far more dangerous for a party leader to have held a job under continuous public scrutiny. Because there is plenty to criticise.
As director of public prosecutions, Starmer refused to prosecute the police officers accused of killing Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson.
He did not cover himself in glory.
Did he?
The Jean Charles de Menezes stuff was before his time, as this article states it was in 2006, and he only became DPP in 2008.
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
This is not how modern politics works
It is far, far more dangerous for a party leader to have held a job under continuous public scrutiny. Because there is plenty to criticise.
As director of public prosecutions, Starmer refused to prosecute the police officers accused of killing Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson.
He did not cover himself in glory.
Did he?
The Jean Charles de Menezes stuff was before his time, as this article states it was in 2006, and he only became DPP in 2008.
I don't think "not being DPP at the time" and other "facts" are going to get in the way of these criticisms of Starmer.
As I have pointed out, SKS was asked to review the decision of his predecessor.
In light of an Open verdict by a Coroner. Given that verdict the likely decision was even more likely to be no prosecution than the original decision.
One thing I've noticed about all these attacks on SKS is that they seem to pick the popular but easily explained ones never an obscure one where the decision could have gone either way.
Jimmy Saville?
Please share with us your expert legal opinion on what else he should have done?
Well as Saville abused 500+ victims over a four decade period the decision of the CPS to not prosecute due to insufficient evidence was rather odd.
What evidence was presented in a police case? That is the start point for the DPP, and if you can point to a police file that was submitted to not advanced then you have a point. I don't recall hearing of one, but then I may have missed it.
I know in various shows we have pathologists, CSIs, prosecutors, old ladies and even parish priests detecting, putting cases and the whole gamut, but I missed the 'Starmer: DPP' 6 part series where he end to end sleuthed to right every wrong.
Both Surrey and Sussex police refered 4 cases to the CPS of learning diabled girls under the age of 16 that Saville had raped. The CPS dropped the case due to insufficient evidence.
O/T Would love to hear Priti’s thoughts (ok likely tumbleweed)…..
“The president of Fifa, Gianni Infantino, has said his plans for a World Cup every two years could stop African migrants from finding “death in the sea”, in an extraordinary address to European politicians.”
Perhaps a match between FC Dynamo Kyiv and FC Spartak Moscow in the snowy no-mans land between trenches on the Ukraine-Russia border might be just the thing.
With adjournment debate about to start, senior Cabinet minister tells me: “I think you can safely have an early night tonight.” Some backbenchers now predicting no PM statement on Gray report until Monday.
I wonder what Sue Gray will think about that, given that her apparently public call to publish 'within hours' has apparently been completely ignored. No doubt Johnson wants to calm down the momentum, and go through with individual MP's what's in the report first.
It is reported that the hold up is between Sue Gray and the Met on deciding on what can be released in view of the criminal investigation
A source for this, please ? There was certain amount of scepticism on the security aspect earlier, that I saw from various talking heads.
Sky news
Hmm. That may be what is going on, but it also seems prudent to reserve judgement about that, after what happened yesterday, and the official claims on delay that were later debunked.
"Checks", which could mean anything by anyone, ofcourse.
Not no 10 as they have not received it
Not officially. I don't think anyone can be blamed for being sceptical after the government's machinations and obfuscations with legal issues yesterday.
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
Seanie luv you've posted this a few times now and I don't get it. There is nothing blocking this parliament or the next parliament or any future parliament voting to rejoin the EU or reverse literally every law we have on the statute books. It is the literal definition of parliamentary sovereignty, something that many leave voters advocated as a reason for their vote.
So how does the 2017 parliament in question proposing to reverse something from the 2015 parliament represent an act that "would have destroyed democracy"? The referendum was in the 2015 parliament and didn't even bind that parliament, never mind the ones that have followed.
This is the never-ending Brexit hell we now find ourselves in. The "will of the people" is whatever people vote for, and if we get the next parliament full of people who think the Brexit settlement is shit and they rip up chunks of it that is democracy in action, not being destroyed. We could still be debating Brexit every parliament for the next 30 years...
And another thing, I happen to know that when Jimmy Saville was hosting Top of the Pops in the 1970s the teenage Starmer used to not only watch it, but enjoy it. No wonder he couldn't be bothered, when he became DPP, to charge Saville. Guilty, m'lud.
Having decided how the current royal family would have voted in the Brexit referendum, let's do the same with historic monarchs:
Edward VIII: would have found the EU insufficiently fascistic, and would have abstained Victoria: preferred Empire over European entanglements, Leave George IV: definitely a Remainer George III: Leaver George I: barely spoke English, Remain William & Mary: Remain Cromwell: Definitely Leave Elizabeth: Leave (bloody Spaniards) Henry VIII: Leave Henry V: Kept trying to join France - Remain
Why miss out George II? Actually led British troops against European armies, I think. Leave.
No, he wanted to hang onto his German lands. Definite Remain.
And Cromwell was very...enthusiastic about ensuring no border between Britain and Ireland, so definite Remain.
I see no reason why we won’t follow Denmark, and see another surge from kids plus BA2
This is, however, no reason to reimpose ANY restrictions. Omicron is here, in whatever format. Life is just riskier. That’s it
From what I read, it is believed that prior infection of BA1 protects against BA2, vaccine protection is about the same and that although BA2 is more infectious, it is not the sort of order of multiples we have seen between Delta and Omicron.
It just comes back to the reality of the situation, we are all going to get exposed to Omicron, a large percentage infected, but triple vaccinated and the protection against serious illness remains extremely high. It seems that the main impact of BA2 does is just speed up this process.
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
But, with all due respect, you are all old (like me)
Younger military types are much Leavier. Especially the boozy laddish types like Harry (as was, RIP)
Harry is a boozy laddish HCav officer.
All the ex-servicemen I know (including a few under 30) were remainers. Sorry Leon, being a useful idiot for Putin doesn't exactly make you a patriot.
The useful idiots for Putin are those like the Germans who want to tie our economic future to Putin's gas, Nord stream II and those who wish to tie our economic and strategic future to Germany.
Britain leaving that was against Putin's interest.
I think Putin likes to stir up trouble, on the basis that the world is a zero sum game, and the more countries are consumed with infighting, the better.
He would therefore have initially backed Leave, but then thrown his social media trolls behind the campaign for a second vote.
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
This is not how modern politics works
It is far, far more dangerous for a party leader to have held a job under continuous public scrutiny. Because there is plenty to criticise.
As director of public prosecutions, Starmer refused to prosecute the police officers accused of killing Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson.
He did not cover himself in glory.
Did he?
The Jean Charles de Menezes stuff was before his time, as this article states it was in 2006, and he only became DPP in 2008.
I don't think "not being DPP at the time" and other "facts" are going to get in the way of these criticisms of Starmer.
As I have pointed out, SKS was asked to review the decision of his predecessor.
Does that make him bad? There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the law here. If there is insufficient evidence to prosecute DPPs generally don't decide to make some up.
A lot of people feel that an innocent person was shot dead, we know exactly who was involved in the shooting and the decision to shoot, therefore someone ought to be responsible and prosecuted.
Yet the Coroner came up with an open verdict and the original 2006 review of the case was that there wasn't enough evidence to get a conviction.
As I said earlier this was all covered before and there is no actual evidence that SKS had anything to do with these cases not being prosecuted.
Yes, that is fair enough, but politics is about perception, as we are seeing also over the issue of whether the Downing Street parties broke the law. So if a political opponent wanted to make something of that decision, there would certainly be some voters who wouldn't be happy about Starmer's perceived role in it.
Emily being helpful as ever, Lenin and Castro, your friendly neighbourhood lawyers turned leaders...but having to be dragged to say Thatcher at the end.
There is a strange mindset among some that can easily laud the likes of Lenin or Castro, leaders of brutal regimes, while finding it nearly impossible to give any credit to Thatcher for anything.
Maybe because I am not some party loyalist, but I don't have any issue in crediting Blair or Thatcher as leaders who were lawyers.
Fuck me she went for Lenin, and Bill “Esptein” Clinton. Then Castro. And only then, begrudgingly, Thatcher
They are insane. Even if she is trolling, or on Fentanyl, this is insane. There is an upper middle class elite at the top of Labour which has absolutely no interest in winning, indeed they positively relish losing, if they can rile their opponents and revel in attention
Starmer, if he is as clever as suggested, needs to kick em all out
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
But, with all due respect, you are all old (like me)
Younger military types are much Leavier. Especially the boozy laddish types like Harry (as was, RIP)
Harry is a boozy laddish HCav officer.
All the ex-servicemen I know (including a few under 30) were remainers. Sorry Leon, being a useful idiot for Putin doesn't exactly make you a patriot.
Nah, Harry is a Brexit backing traditionalist.
He did what his ancestors did, foreign princes going to Muslim lands and killing Muslims.
So many Brexiteers thought that St George was a Brexiteer, being a patriotic Englishman after all.
On a similar vein there is an excellent comic series called 'Once and Future' which starts with the premise that a bunch of English Nationalist EDL types manage to resurrect Arthur from his long sleep so he can drive out all the foreigners. Of course, not being that bright they forget that Arthur spent his time back in the dark ages fighting those Anglo-Saxon invaders and so the first thing he does is kill all the EDL types.
And another thing, I happen to know that when Jimmy Saville was hosting Top of the Pops in the 1970s the teenage Starmer used to not only watch it, but enjoy it. No wonder he couldn't be bothered, when he became DPP, to charge Saville. Guilty, m'lud.
It's stupid isn't it?
These idiots make the prats who use pictures like this to say Thatcher must have known about Savile, she knighted him after all?
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
But, with all due respect, you are all old (like me)
Younger military types are much Leavier. Especially the boozy laddish types like Harry (as was, RIP)
Harry is a boozy laddish HCav officer.
All the ex-servicemen I know (including a few under 30) were remainers. Sorry Leon, being a useful idiot for Putin doesn't exactly make you a patriot.
The useful idiots for Putin are those like the Germans who want to tie our economic future to Putin's gas, Nord stream II and those who wish to tie our economic and strategic future to Germany.
Britain leaving that was against Putin's interest.
Putin's interest is in sewing discord and disharmony amongst his 'enemies'. Hence it's perfectly possible he would have viewed a vote for or against Brexit (as an example) as a win: as long as the arguments split the body politic of his opponents.
It wouldn't surprise me if his online agents were working for both sides in some arguments, stoking division.
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
Not HMF, me - just my dad (but very much so).
Ex-HMF-wise, there's also me, and I was Remain.
Ah soz. So still at PB ex-HMF 100% remain, old gits as we may be.
I can also say, talking to some young officers, that if it wasn't a majority of remainers I would be amazed. Soldiers I couldn't possibly comment.
Over the past 20 years the competition to become an eg army officer has increased dramatically (no idea for RN, RAF). You have to be exceptional - I went to a regimental do the other day and everyone looked like Henry Cavill whereas in my day you had the proverbial two doctors one looking in each ear and unless their gazes met, you were in.
Hence much more wordly, all round, intelligent officers hence of course mostly Remain.
The unending supply of cnuts you've never heard of that the Tory party has in parliament never ceases to amaze me. At least in this time of crises he's concerning himself with the big issues.
Its more a problem with MP's not being very good at social media. I did listen to what he had to say, and didn't find it that badly judged.
'received a complaint from a left wing whingebag, groaner, moaner, whatever it may be'
'I think it's quite tragic really that this Labour supporter, Labour member, maybe even a Labour councillor, y'know, who knows..'
It might even have been SKS!
Amazing how the Tory mindset has changed in recent times: adherence to the law is now what only finicky, humourless, vindictive and curmudgeonly Lefties get bothered with. It can only be the rise of Trump/Boris that brought this about. I can't imagine it was a thing when even Theresa, May or IDS were around.
What he said seems entirely reasonable to me and it's quite pathetic if someone has taken a political opponents video and complained to authorities about dogs because they don't like the politician.
Trump famously hates dogs so he'd be on the side of the snitch.
He says in the clip that he doesn't know who the complainant was, which rather makes my point: in his eyes it's inconceivable that someone who wants the law upheld can be anything other than a Lefty.
A logical assumption.
I doubt the Moaning Myrtle who ran to the Council is someone who "wants the law upheld" I expect it is someone who dislikes his politics so is targeting him because of that. They probably don't even go to that park, or care if dogs are in that park.
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
Seanie luv you've posted this a few times now and I don't get it. There is nothing blocking this parliament or the next parliament or any future parliament voting to rejoin the EU or reverse literally every law we have on the statute books. It is the literal definition of parliamentary sovereignty, something that many leave voters advocated as a reason for their vote.
So how does the 2017 parliament in question proposing to reverse something from the 2015 parliament represent an act that "would have destroyed democracy"? The referendum was in the 2015 parliament and didn't even bind that parliament, never mind the ones that have followed.
This is the never-ending Brexit hell we now find ourselves in. The "will of the people" is whatever people vote for, and if we get the next parliament full of people who think the Brexit settlement is shit and they rip up chunks of it that is democracy in action, not being destroyed. We could still be debating Brexit every parliament for the next 30 years...
Pursuing a policy through parliamentary means and speaking openly about it, that's treason. Didn't you get the memo?
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
But, with all due respect, you are all old (like me)
Younger military types are much Leavier. Especially the boozy laddish types like Harry (as was, RIP)
Harry is a boozy laddish HCav officer.
All the ex-servicemen I know (including a few under 30) were remainers. Sorry Leon, being a useful idiot for Putin doesn't exactly make you a patriot.
The useful idiots for Putin are those like the Germans who want to tie our economic future to Putin's gas, Nord stream II and those who wish to tie our economic and strategic future to Germany.
Britain leaving that was against Putin's interest.
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
But, with all due respect, you are all old (like me)
Younger military types are much Leavier. Especially the boozy laddish types like Harry (as was, RIP)
Harry is a boozy laddish HCav officer.
All the ex-servicemen I know (including a few under 30) were remainers. Sorry Leon, being a useful idiot for Putin doesn't exactly make you a patriot.
Nah, Harry is a Brexit backing traditionalist.
He did what his ancestors did, foreign princes going to Muslim lands and killing Muslims.
So many Brexiteers thought that St George was a Brexiteer, being a patriotic Englishman after all.
On a similar vein there is an excellent comic series called 'Once and Future' which starts with the premise that a bunch of English Nationalist EDL types manage to resurrect Arthur from his long sleep so he can drive out all he foreigners. Of course, not being that bright they forget that Arthur spent his time back in the dark ages fighting those Anglo-Saxon invaders and so the first thing he does is kill all the EDL types.
Brilliant, I love stuff like that.
As an aside, in America, the people in the South who still support/like the Confederacy have co-opted Jesus like that, he's a patriotic white American who will rid America of darkies/immigrants/etc.
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
Re your last paragraph on a 2nd referendum, rather than Starmer in particular, I appreciate this is your opinion but words like rotten, immoral, catastrophic, destroyed, civil strife in 2 short sentences is somewhat over the top. It is an opinion that many of us (millions in fact) think is wrong. I am no fan of referenda, but if you are going to have one on an event that has multiple outcomes if it succeeds, you should have a confirmation one on the outcome of the specific outcome (or have had that choice in the first referendum).
Many feel that the shambles of parliament when this was going on was a bad thing. I don't. It was the first time we actually had a parliament debating stuff rather than the usual elected dictatorship we have that makes parliament redundant for the most part. It might have been a shambles, but that was because it was new experience for MPs to actually have some power and influence. They should have more rather than being stream-rollered over by any Government most of the time.
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
But, with all due respect, you are all old (like me)
Younger military types are much Leavier. Especially the boozy laddish types like Harry (as was, RIP)
Harry is a boozy laddish HCav officer.
All the ex-servicemen I know (including a few under 30) were remainers. Sorry Leon, being a useful idiot for Putin doesn't exactly make you a patriot.
The useful idiots for Putin are those like the Germans who want to tie our economic future to Putin's gas, Nord stream II and those who wish to tie our economic and strategic future to Germany.
Britain leaving that was against Putin's interest.
Putin's interest is in sewing discord and disharmony amongst his 'enemies'. Hence it's perfectly possible he would have viewed a vote for or against Brexit (as an example) as a win: as long as the arguments split the body politic of his opponents.
It wouldn't surprise me if his online agents were working for both sides in some arguments, stoking division.
Oh absolutely and people like our Nigel who still want to fight the battles of six years ago rather than accepting it and moving on suit his purposes perfectly.
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
But, with all due respect, you are all old (like me)
Younger military types are much Leavier. Especially the boozy laddish types like Harry (as was, RIP)
Harry is a boozy laddish HCav officer.
All the ex-servicemen I know (including a few under 30) were remainers. Sorry Leon, being a useful idiot for Putin doesn't exactly make you a patriot.
The useful idiots for Putin are those like the Germans who want to tie our economic future to Putin's gas, Nord stream II and those who wish to tie our economic and strategic future to Germany.
Britain leaving that was against Putin's interest.
Putin very much in favour of weakening the EU by having Britain leave.
That doesn't mean we can't cooperate with the EU now to deter Russian aggression, or that it's impossible for someone to reasonably decide to leave the EU for other reasons, but this game you have of twisting everything to be a reason to leave is infantile.
And another thing, I happen to know that when Jimmy Saville was hosting Top of the Pops in the 1970s the teenage Starmer used to not only watch it, but enjoy it. No wonder he couldn't be bothered, when he became DPP, to charge Saville. Guilty, m'lud.
It's stupid isn't it?
These idiots make the prats who use pictures like this to say Thatcher must have known about Savile, she knighted him after all?
You only have to look at the madness in the eyes, and the really horrific dress sense to know that something was terribly, terribly wrong inside that brain. How did so many people get suckered into trusting that monster?
And another thing, I happen to know that when Jimmy Saville was hosting Top of the Pops in the 1970s the teenage Starmer used to not only watch it, but enjoy it. No wonder he couldn't be bothered, when he became DPP, to charge Saville. Guilty, m'lud.
It's stupid isn't it?
These idiots make the prats who use pictures like this to say Thatcher must have known about Savile, she knighted him after all?
You only have to look at the madness in the eyes, and the really horrific dress sense to know that something was terribly, terribly wrong inside that brain. How did so many people get suckered into trusting that monster?
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
But, with all due respect, you are all old (like me)
Younger military types are much Leavier. Especially the boozy laddish types like Harry (as was, RIP)
Harry is a boozy laddish HCav officer.
All the ex-servicemen I know (including a few under 30) were remainers. Sorry Leon, being a useful idiot for Putin doesn't exactly make you a patriot.
Nah, Harry is a Brexit backing traditionalist.
He did what his ancestors did, foreign princes going to Muslim lands and killing Muslims.
So many Brexiteers thought that St George was a Brexiteer, being a patriotic Englishman after all.
St George was a Turk, no? Or at least from what is now Turkey. Easy mistake to make for a Brexiter.
Back in 2008/09 the EDL were protesting in central Manchester, one chap had a banner saying that it was shameful that St George's heirs were forced to deal with so many immigrants in the UK.
Always amused me.
There's another chap of Turkish descent that I have heard about recently, come to think of it. But as I have not looked into the matter to verify the rumour, not being a Brexiter, it would be unfair to name him.
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
Seanie luv you've posted this a few times now and I don't get it. There is nothing blocking this parliament or the next parliament or any future parliament voting to rejoin the EU or reverse literally every law we have on the statute books. It is the literal definition of parliamentary sovereignty, something that many leave voters advocated as a reason for their vote.
So how does the 2017 parliament in question proposing to reverse something from the 2015 parliament represent an act that "would have destroyed democracy"? The referendum was in the 2015 parliament and didn't even bind that parliament, never mind the ones that have followed.
This is the never-ending Brexit hell we now find ourselves in. The "will of the people" is whatever people vote for, and if we get the next parliament full of people who think the Brexit settlement is shit and they rip up chunks of it that is democracy in action, not being destroyed. We could still be debating Brexit every parliament for the next 30 years...
And another thing, I happen to know that when Jimmy Saville was hosting Top of the Pops in the 1970s the teenage Starmer used to not only watch it, but enjoy it. No wonder he couldn't be bothered, when he became DPP, to charge Saville. Guilty, m'lud.
It's stupid isn't it?
These idiots make the prats who use pictures like this to say Thatcher must have known about Savile, she knighted him after all?
You only have to look at the madness in the eyes, and the really horrific dress sense to know that something was terribly, terribly wrong inside that brain. How did so many people get suckered into trusting that monster?
Weirdos are not all monsters, unfortunately. Plenty of innocents convicted when the police fixate on the local weirdo.
Not being present at the time it does seem odd what his appeal was as a presenter etc.
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
But, with all due respect, you are all old (like me)
Younger military types are much Leavier. Especially the boozy laddish types like Harry (as was, RIP)
Harry is a boozy laddish HCav officer.
All the ex-servicemen I know (including a few under 30) were remainers. Sorry Leon, being a useful idiot for Putin doesn't exactly make you a patriot.
The useful idiots for Putin are those like the Germans who want to tie our economic future to Putin's gas, Nord stream II and those who wish to tie our economic and strategic future to Germany.
Britain leaving that was against Putin's interest.
Putin very much in favour of weakening the EU by having Britain leave.
That doesn't mean we can't cooperate with the EU now to deter Russian aggression, or that it's impossible for someone to reasonably decide to leave the EU for other reasons, but this game you have of twisting everything to be a reason to leave is infantile.
I see no evidence that a "strong EU" is against Putin's interests, or a weak EU against it.
The EU weakening democratic nations and tying them down with Byzantine bureaucracy and allowing his useful idiots in Germany to have a strong say over their future seems to be entirely in Putin's interests.
When the EU's powerhouse is Putin's most useful idiot, a weaker EU seems to be just what the doctor ordered in weakening Putin.
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
But, with all due respect, you are all old (like me)
Younger military types are much Leavier. Especially the boozy laddish types like Harry (as was, RIP)
Harry is a boozy laddish HCav officer.
All the ex-servicemen I know (including a few under 30) were remainers. Sorry Leon, being a useful idiot for Putin doesn't exactly make you a patriot.
Nah, Harry is a Brexit backing traditionalist.
He did what his ancestors did, foreign princes going to Muslim lands and killing Muslims.
So many Brexiteers thought that St George was a Brexiteer, being a patriotic Englishman after all.
On a similar vein there is an excellent comic series called 'Once and Future' which starts with the premise that a bunch of English Nationalist EDL types manage to resurrect Arthur from his long sleep so he can drive out all he foreigners. Of course, not being that bright they forget that Arthur spent his time back in the dark ages fighting those Anglo-Saxon invaders and so the first thing he does is kill all the EDL types.
Brilliant, I love stuff like that.
As an aside, in America, the people in the South who still support/like the Confederacy have co-opted Jesus like that, he's a patriotic white American who will rid America of darkies/immigrants/etc.
This sort of stuff seems to enrage them.
Surprised he's not given a less hispanic name like Johnny Christopher.
And another thing, I happen to know that when Jimmy Saville was hosting Top of the Pops in the 1970s the teenage Starmer used to not only watch it, but enjoy it. No wonder he couldn't be bothered, when he became DPP, to charge Saville. Guilty, m'lud.
It's stupid isn't it?
These idiots make the prats who use pictures like this to say Thatcher must have known about Savile, she knighted him after all?
You only have to look at the madness in the eyes, and the really horrific dress sense to know that something was terribly, terribly wrong inside that brain. How did so many people get suckered into trusting that monster?
Yes, Thatcher didn't just want to give him a knighthood, she was his friend. He had quite a few other friends in high places, ofcourse, but it doesn't say much for her instinctual judgement of people.
Disappointing that Baldy Wallace has sold the pass. Presumably threat that he won't get to be sosfd for this lovely upcoming war/carrot that if he has a good war the upstart Truss can be shoved out to make room for him. Boris lied to sky news, baldy lied to Foreign Affairs cttee.
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
Re your last paragraph on a 2nd referendum, rather than Starmer in particular, I appreciate this is your opinion but words like rotten, immoral, catastrophic, destroyed, civil strife in 2 short sentences is somewhat over the top. It is an opinion that many of us (millions in fact) think is wrong. I am no fan of referenda, but if you are going to have one on an event that has multiple outcomes if it succeeds, you should have a confirmation one on the outcome of the specific outcome (or have had that choice in the first referendum).
Sorry, but holding a second referendum with a Remain option would have been equivalent to voiding the first result. It would have meant that people who want to Leave would have had to win two referendums, but people who wanted to Remain could do so by winning only one. This is not democracy.
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Edward worked in the arts and media so I reckon Remain, almost certainly. All his friends in that circle will be Remain
Kate is the daughter of quite Leavey people, I suspect, and will also have been guided by the Q, I have her down as a secret Leaver, she probably fibbed to Wills
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Piquantly he met Megan a month after the Brexit referendum, I imagine she converted him to Remain instantly, but too late
I think all of them would probably have been Remainers with the possible exception of Prince Philip.
With adjournment debate about to start, senior Cabinet minister tells me: “I think you can safely have an early night tonight.” Some backbenchers now predicting no PM statement on Gray report until Monday.
I wonder what Sue Gray will think about that, given that her apparently public call to publish 'within hours' has apparently been completely ignored. No doubt Johnson wants to calm down the momentum, and go through with individual MP's what's in the report first.
It is reported that the hold up is between Sue Gray and the Met on deciding on what can be released in view of the criminal investigation
A source for this, please ? There was certain amount of scepticism on the security aspect earlier, that I saw from various talking heads.
Complete nonsense I would guess. Has a £100 fixed penalty notice ever been subject to sub judice rules?
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
But, with all due respect, you are all old (like me)
Younger military types are much Leavier. Especially the boozy laddish types like Harry (as was, RIP)
Harry is a boozy laddish HCav officer.
All the ex-servicemen I know (including a few under 30) were remainers. Sorry Leon, being a useful idiot for Putin doesn't exactly make you a patriot.
The useful idiots for Putin are those like the Germans who want to tie our economic future to Putin's gas, Nord stream II and those who wish to tie our economic and strategic future to Germany.
Britain leaving that was against Putin's interest.
Putin very much in favour of weakening the EU by having Britain leave.
That doesn't mean we can't cooperate with the EU now to deter Russian aggression, or that it's impossible for someone to reasonably decide to leave the EU for other reasons, but this game you have of twisting everything to be a reason to leave is infantile.
I see no evidence that a "strong EU" is against Putin's interests, or a weak EU against it.
The EU weakening democratic nations and tying them down with Byzantine bureaucracy and allowing his useful idiots in Germany to have a strong say over their future seems to be entirely in Putin's interests.
When the EU's powerhouse is Putin's most useful idiot, a weaker EU seems to be just what the doctor ordered in weakening Putin.
Put aside your own feelings about the EU, and look at Russia's strategy. It is openly hostile towards towards the EU. Whether or not you agree that such a strategy is in Russia's interests, that IS the Russian strategy. Russia's leadership believes it to be in their interests to weaken the EU.
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
Re your last paragraph on a 2nd referendum, rather than Starmer in particular, I appreciate this is your opinion but words like rotten, immoral, catastrophic, destroyed, civil strife in 2 short sentences is somewhat over the top. It is an opinion that many of us (millions in fact) think is wrong. I am no fan of referenda, but if you are going to have one on an event that has multiple outcomes if it succeeds, you should have a confirmation one on the outcome of the specific outcome (or have had that choice in the first referendum).
Many feel that the shambles of parliament when this was going on was a bad thing. I don't. It was the first time we actually had a parliament debating stuff rather than the usual elected dictatorship we have that makes parliament redundant for the most part. It might have been a shambles, but that was because it was new experience for MPs to actually have some power and influence. They should have more rather than being stream-rollered over by any Government most of the time.
Very true. It was a sight to behold the 'Parliament Must Reign Supreme' brigade suddenly demanding that all its MPs fall to the floor and obey Boris.
He's not. He's sui generis. Was attacking the SNP many years before the defenestration of Mr Salmond. Leftie Glaswegian protester, IIRC. So not a good fit for Alba either.
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
Re your last paragraph on a 2nd referendum, rather than Starmer in particular, I appreciate this is your opinion but words like rotten, immoral, catastrophic, destroyed, civil strife in 2 short sentences is somewhat over the top. It is an opinion that many of us (millions in fact) think is wrong. I am no fan of referenda, but if you are going to have one on an event that has multiple outcomes if it succeeds, you should have a confirmation one on the outcome of the specific outcome (or have had that choice in the first referendum).
Sorry, but holding a second referendum with a Remain option would have been equivalent to voiding the first result. It would have meant that people who want to Leave would have had to win two referendums, but people who wanted to Remain could do so by winning only one. This is not democracy.
Yes, it is fucking abhorrent. The fact Remainers are STILL unable to see this makes me want to puke
With adjournment debate about to start, senior Cabinet minister tells me: “I think you can safely have an early night tonight.” Some backbenchers now predicting no PM statement on Gray report until Monday.
I wonder what Sue Gray will think about that, given that her apparently public call to publish 'within hours' has apparently been completely ignored. No doubt Johnson wants to calm down the momentum, and go through with individual MP's what's in the report first.
It is reported that the hold up is between Sue Gray and the Met on deciding on what can be released in view of the criminal investigation
A source for this, please ? There was certain amount of scepticism on the security aspect earlier, that I saw from various talking heads.
Complete nonsense I would guess. Has a £100 fixed penalty notice ever been subject to sub judice rules?
Rules don't apply till arrest or issue of arrest warrant or summons anyway
And another thing, I happen to know that when Jimmy Saville was hosting Top of the Pops in the 1970s the teenage Starmer used to not only watch it, but enjoy it. No wonder he couldn't be bothered, when he became DPP, to charge Saville. Guilty, m'lud.
It's stupid isn't it?
These idiots make the prats who use pictures like this to say Thatcher must have known about Savile, she knighted him after all?
You only have to look at the madness in the eyes, and the really horrific dress sense to know that something was terribly, terribly wrong inside that brain. How did so many people get suckered into trusting that monster?
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
In fact - and maybe this'll be equally unexpected since you don't always pay attention - my view on Ref2, if we just strip out your hyperbole, was pretty much that. Ignoring the result of such a momentous enervating vote and doing it all over again was always, to me, a ludicrous (and not happening) notion.
But the politics steered Labour inexorably to where they got to with their Brexit policy. They couldn't leave the 'Remain after all' lane for the LDs to swim alone. That risked an electoral meltdown in 'young urban educated' Britain and the LDs maybe supplanting them as the main non-Tory party. That was the calculus. It's why they had to go the Ref2 route. Nobody's fault. Just the politics.
Hmpft
OK bravo for your honesty, and - it may or may not surprise you - I do respect the fact that you said this from the get-go (if I recall correctly): We have to accept the vote. We did. and we have. Thank God.
However this does not excuse the position of the Labour Party. If we are to call for Boris’ resignation - AS I AM DOING - on the grounds he is a perennial and incurable liar, then Starmer should be nowhere near the leadership of the Opposition, given that he was calling for the cancellation of democracy via a 2nd vote, just two years ago
Boris could argue Oh it’s just politics, so could Starmer. I don’t fucking care. Sometimes you stoop so low mere political advantage is no excuse whatsoever. This applies to both of them. Boris is a lying oaf who must go. Starmer is a conniving anti-democrat who should not be where he is.
Ah so (thank the lord) there is a difference in how we viewed Ref2. Both strongly anti it but in my case not because it would have been a crime against democracy - it wouldn't if there were sufficient support - but because it would have been dreadful for the country to have to go through such an all consuming, divisive exercise again, just a couple of years after the last supposedly defining one, and also on the technical point that there was no satisfactory formulation of the question that would have been both fair and actionable.
And another thing, I happen to know that when Jimmy Saville was hosting Top of the Pops in the 1970s the teenage Starmer used to not only watch it, but enjoy it. No wonder he couldn't be bothered, when he became DPP, to charge Saville. Guilty, m'lud.
It's stupid isn't it?
These idiots make the prats who use pictures like this to say Thatcher must have known about Savile, she knighted him after all?
You only have to look at the madness in the eyes, and the really horrific dress sense to know that something was terribly, terribly wrong inside that brain. How did so many people get suckered into trusting that monster?
Do you really and honestly judge someone on their dress sense?!
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
But, with all due respect, you are all old (like me)
Younger military types are much Leavier. Especially the boozy laddish types like Harry (as was, RIP)
Harry is a boozy laddish HCav officer.
All the ex-servicemen I know (including a few under 30) were remainers. Sorry Leon, being a useful idiot for Putin doesn't exactly make you a patriot.
Nah, Harry is a Brexit backing traditionalist.
He did what his ancestors did, foreign princes going to Muslim lands and killing Muslims.
So many Brexiteers thought that St George was a Brexiteer, being a patriotic Englishman after all.
On a similar vein there is an excellent comic series called 'Once and Future' which starts with the premise that a bunch of English Nationalist EDL types manage to resurrect Arthur from his long sleep so he can drive out all he foreigners. Of course, not being that bright they forget that Arthur spent his time back in the dark ages fighting those Anglo-Saxon invaders and so the first thing he does is kill all the EDL types.
Brilliant, I love stuff like that.
As an aside, in America, the people in the South who still support/like the Confederacy have co-opted Jesus like that, he's a patriotic white American who will rid America of darkies/immigrants/etc.
This sort of stuff seems to enrage them.
Surprised he's not given a less hispanic name like Johnny Christopher.
He's already been given a less jewish name in place of Joshua ben Yusuf
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
Re your last paragraph on a 2nd referendum, rather than Starmer in particular, I appreciate this is your opinion but words like rotten, immoral, catastrophic, destroyed, civil strife in 2 short sentences is somewhat over the top. It is an opinion that many of us (millions in fact) think is wrong. I am no fan of referenda, but if you are going to have one on an event that has multiple outcomes if it succeeds, you should have a confirmation one on the outcome of the specific outcome (or have had that choice in the first referendum).
Sorry, but holding a second referendum with a Remain option would have been equivalent to voiding the first result. It would have meant that people who want to Leave would have had to win two referendums, but people who wanted to Remain could do so by winning only one. This is not democracy.
Imagine the people had changed their mind in the 3 years after the vote. I'm not saying they did, but just imagine. The democratic thing to do would be... what? Ignore that fact and press on? Or ask the question? For Leave to have lost a second referendum would have been galling for those who still believed in Leave... but they would have been in a minority, by definition.
And another thing, I happen to know that when Jimmy Saville was hosting Top of the Pops in the 1970s the teenage Starmer used to not only watch it, but enjoy it. No wonder he couldn't be bothered, when he became DPP, to charge Saville. Guilty, m'lud.
It's stupid isn't it?
These idiots make the prats who use pictures like this to say Thatcher must have known about Savile, she knighted him after all?
You only have to look at the madness in the eyes, and the really horrific dress sense to know that something was terribly, terribly wrong inside that brain. How did so many people get suckered into trusting that monster?
Do you really and honestly judge someone on their dress sense?!
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
Re your last paragraph on a 2nd referendum, rather than Starmer in particular, I appreciate this is your opinion but words like rotten, immoral, catastrophic, destroyed, civil strife in 2 short sentences is somewhat over the top. It is an opinion that many of us (millions in fact) think is wrong. I am no fan of referenda, but if you are going to have one on an event that has multiple outcomes if it succeeds, you should have a confirmation one on the outcome of the specific outcome (or have had that choice in the first referendum).
Sorry, but holding a second referendum with a Remain option would have been equivalent to voiding the first result. It would have meant that people who want to Leave would have had to win two referendums, but people who wanted to Remain could do so by winning only one. This is not democracy.
I disagree. They are two different things but unfortunately in the way it was actually carried out I grant you.
First you should be voting on the principle, then you are voting on the outcome of the negotiations. It isn't one sided against Leavers as potentially they may have got a deal that Remainers approved of or a deal so awful that Leavers wanted to change their mind. Everyone should be given the option of changing their minds when the details are available. None of us were given that option, which is anti democratic.
Of course it should have been done better than that so if a Government is elected on a Leave platform it could have negotiated without a referendum and then had one once people knew the outcome of the referendum, or if you must have two referendum that should be stated upfront and what the purpose of each referendum is. I am quite tempted to vote for a change and then change my mind when I see the details of that change.
And another thing, I happen to know that when Jimmy Saville was hosting Top of the Pops in the 1970s the teenage Starmer used to not only watch it, but enjoy it. No wonder he couldn't be bothered, when he became DPP, to charge Saville. Guilty, m'lud.
It's stupid isn't it?
These idiots make the prats who use pictures like this to say Thatcher must have known about Savile, she knighted him after all?
You only have to look at the madness in the eyes, and the really horrific dress sense to know that something was terribly, terribly wrong inside that brain. How did so many people get suckered into trusting that monster?
He's not. He's sui generis. Was attacking the SNP many years before the defenestration of Mr Salmond. Leftie Glaswegian protester, IIRC. So not a good fit for Alba either.
He was very cosy with Salmond in 2011 IIRC as I remember him and a group of loons having a meeting with him before the election. He also accosted Iain Gray in Glasgow Central station.
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
Re your last paragraph on a 2nd referendum, rather than Starmer in particular, I appreciate this is your opinion but words like rotten, immoral, catastrophic, destroyed, civil strife in 2 short sentences is somewhat over the top. It is an opinion that many of us (millions in fact) think is wrong. I am no fan of referenda, but if you are going to have one on an event that has multiple outcomes if it succeeds, you should have a confirmation one on the outcome of the specific outcome (or have had that choice in the first referendum).
Sorry, but holding a second referendum with a Remain option would have been equivalent to voiding the first result. It would have meant that people who want to Leave would have had to win two referendums, but people who wanted to Remain could do so by winning only one. This is not democracy.
I disagree. They are two different things but unfortunately in the way it was actually carried out I grant you.
First you should be voting on the principle, then you are voting on the outcome of the negotiations.
If that were the case, the second vote would be Accept vs Go Back And Negotiate Again.
Having decided how the current royal family would have voted in the Brexit referendum, let's do the same with historic monarchs:
Edward VIII: would have found the EU insufficiently fascistic, and would have abstained Victoria: preferred Empire over European entanglements, Leave George IV: definitely a Remainer George III: Leaver George I: barely spoke English, Remain William & Mary: Remain Cromwell: Definitely Leave Elizabeth: Leave (bloody Spaniards) Henry VIII: Leave Henry V: Kept trying to join France - Remain
Why miss out George II? Actually led British troops against European armies, I think. Leave.
I think William III would have ended up BINO because his heart would have been Remain but dealing with the Frogs would have pushed him towards Leave.
Edward VI would have definitely been Leave.
Bloody Mary certainly Remain.
King John would have been Remain, especially after he lost Normandy and spent the rest of his life trying to get it back.
"Despite hours of intense rumours, Sue Gray has yet to hand the PM what is expected to be a damning assessment of alleged lockdown breaches in Downing Street and Whitehall.
The Commons rose at 4.43pm - nearly three hours early - meaning that there is no chance of Mr Johnson giving his version of events in a promised statement.
It is understood there is no certainty that Ms Gray will complete her work tonight, with redrafting, wrangling with lawyers and police, and HR issues being blamed for the hold-ups."
Hmm. That could mean anything, particularly "redrafting". An interestingly disparate and unclear mix of reasons being given there, making it all sound procedural.
"It is understood there is no certainty that Ms Gray will complete her work tonight, with redrafting, wrangling with lawyers and police, and HR issues being blamed for the hold-ups."
Hmm. That could mean anything, particularly 'redrafting'.
What is the difference between the government releasing a redacted report and the government sending a room full of lawyers to intimidate Gray into redrafting certain sections before release?
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
Re your last paragraph on a 2nd referendum, rather than Starmer in particular, I appreciate this is your opinion but words like rotten, immoral, catastrophic, destroyed, civil strife in 2 short sentences is somewhat over the top. It is an opinion that many of us (millions in fact) think is wrong. I am no fan of referenda, but if you are going to have one on an event that has multiple outcomes if it succeeds, you should have a confirmation one on the outcome of the specific outcome (or have had that choice in the first referendum).
Sorry, but holding a second referendum with a Remain option would have been equivalent to voiding the first result. It would have meant that people who want to Leave would have had to win two referendums, but people who wanted to Remain could do so by winning only one. This is not democracy.
A rerun referendum in the same parliament? Sure, I take your point. But we had a General Election and elected a new parliament with nothing done barring Article 50. And the rerun referendum was proposed by MPs elected in 2017. That 2017 parliament was not bound by anything done by the previous one and the government lost its majority because people voted not to carry on with the agenda pursued by the 2015 parliament.
Democracy is that we elect a sovereign parliament. Thats it. Sovereign to pass laws, not to be beholden to the past. We don't live in Switzerland where everything is decided by direct democracy referenda, we have a parliamentary system.
This for me reinforces just how broken our constitution is and how out of touch our electoral system is. It was a simple legal fact that the referendum didn't bind even the 2015 parliament, never mind successive parliaments. The problem is that dipshit politicians said that it did and people who don't understand how our stupid system works believed them. Same as the people who think they elect a party or a prime minister. Thinking it doesn't make it correct, but does create problems of legitimacy.
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
But, with all due respect, you are all old (like me)
Younger military types are much Leavier. Especially the boozy laddish types like Harry (as was, RIP)
Harry is a boozy laddish HCav officer.
All the ex-servicemen I know (including a few under 30) were remainers. Sorry Leon, being a useful idiot for Putin doesn't exactly make you a patriot.
Nah, Harry is a Brexit backing traditionalist.
He did what his ancestors did, foreign princes going to Muslim lands and killing Muslims.
So many Brexiteers thought that St George was a Brexiteer, being a patriotic Englishman after all.
On a similar vein there is an excellent comic series called 'Once and Future' which starts with the premise that a bunch of English Nationalist EDL types manage to resurrect Arthur from his long sleep so he can drive out all he foreigners. Of course, not being that bright they forget that Arthur spent his time back in the dark ages fighting those Anglo-Saxon invaders and so the first thing he does is kill all the EDL types.
Brilliant, I love stuff like that.
As an aside, in America, the people in the South who still support/like the Confederacy have co-opted Jesus like that, he's a patriotic white American who will rid America of darkies/immigrants/etc.
This sort of stuff seems to enrage them.
It is indeed rather ironic that Christianity is now the largest religion on every inhabited continent bar Asia (including the Middle East in Asia).
Although Jerusalem of course remains a Holy City for Christians as it also is for Jews and Muslims
"It is understood there is no certainty that Ms Gray will complete her work tonight, with redrafting, wrangling with lawyers and police, and HR issues being blamed for the hold-ups."
Hmm. That could mean anything, particularly 'redrafting'.
What is the difference between the government releasing a redacted report and the government sending a room full of lawyers to intimidate Gray into redrafting certain sections before release?
Constitutionally there was no need for a ballot at all. The PM remains in office until a VONC in Parliament. Thatcher could have ignored her party's 'local poll' and stood her ground. "I'm staying until HoC passes a VONC'" she might well have said. How many Tory MPs would have failed to support her?
This is not irrelevant to the current situation. The Conservative Party is nothing more than a voluntary association. It has no constitutional significance at all.
If the Conservative Party elects a new leader and the PM doesn't resign, HMQ will be having a word.
There is no point the incumbent PM not resigning as there would shortly be a confidence vote in the Commons and they would lose. The only point would be if there is some doubt about the state of the House or just bloody mindlessness.
There was speculation around the time Johnson took over that he would be able to ignore a vote of no confidence going against him in the Commons, wait out the two weeks, and force an election in preference to allowing a different PM take over.
That might be the scenario he would suggest in an attempt to keep MPs fearful of losing their seats in line.
That appears to be what happens under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act. It isn't a mechanism to force the PM to resign and it's unclear whether the result of codifying the form of confidence motion has been to make it impossible for the house to indicate its support for a successor (they can only stave off an election 14 days after a no confidence vote by voting confidence in HM Government, not a notional alternative government - so the previous government has to have resigned first).
Another instance of the FTPA messing up the constitution.
I think in such a scenario (renegade PM holding the house to hostage) the only way to prevent a GE would be for the house to vote confidence in HMG. I don’t think the FTPA has messed with the convention that a PM who loses the confidence of the house has to tender his or her resignation to the monarch, though it is unclear at what point the confidence is lost (I.e at the point of the VONC or the 14 days elapsing).
Whatever the confusion in that situation, I think a monarch is correctly executing their powers to dismiss the PM if they were to establish that an alternative government could be formed. So if the Tory Party MPs were to notify her that they would get behind an alternative figure as PM, and there were enough of them to sustain a majority in the HoC, whatever Boris’ position on the matter I suspect the dismissal would take place and a new PM would take over, to table a vote of confidence in HMG and stop the 14 days elapsing.
Of course all of this would be a complete mess and in many ways our crisis moment just like the storming of the Capitol. Our constitution does rely on the PM of the day having a sense of fair play and knowing when the game is up, for the most part.
I don't think it's confusing, beyond the fact that the name of the act isn't really what it does. The old system gave the PM a weird prerogative that they could abuse, and the FTPA fixes this.
Without FTPA: PM can call an election whenever they like, technically they're within their rights to call an election to prevent themselves from being replaced by a new leader.
With FTPA: Parliament is in the driving seat, so if the majority of MPs want to kick out their PM and substitute someone else, they can. The mechanism is: Vote of confidence to dismiss the old PM, indicate to The Queen (by a formal vote or a letter or whatever) that they support someone else, and that person becomes PM.
If MPs go ahead and vote to repeal the FTPA, they're writing a blank cheque to their PM, who they know only cares about himself, to send them on a kamikaze run to save his own job. It's probably not in their best interests to let him do that.
Under FTPA a vote of confidence doesn't dismiss the old PM - it simply sets the clock ticking for a GE.
That's what I said: The vote of confidence doesn't dismiss the old PM (likewise under the old system). Doing that *then finding somebody else who can command a majority* dismisses the old PM. The difference is that with the FTPA, MPs unambiguously get a chance to do that, whereas without it the rejected PM may be able to dissolve parliament instead.
But under FTPA the only thing that stops an election is a vote of confidence in "HM Government" - not "somebody else". You can't vote confidence in them until they are appointed, and they can't be appointed unless the PM resigns or is dismissed. Agree that the rejected PM can't dissolve parliament, but that's what happens automatically 14 days later.
If MPs find someone they support the PM resigns or is dismissed. What do you think the 14-day period is for, just to give everyone a chance to see if they change their minds?
FTPA isn't a great bit of legislation and I think it was drafted assuming that a PM would behave honourably in line with convention and resign. The 14 days are to allow time to find someone who can command the confidence of the house - I've not gone back to Hansard or the explanatory notes to the Bill to check but my best guess is that nobody raised the question if what would happen if a PM refused to resign. There might be some other authority that makes it sufficiently clear that a PM has to go in that case such that HMQ would dismiss him if he doesn't resign, but I've not seen anything to that effect.
The thing is that, in principle, a PM might be able to assemble a new coalition of MPs to support them, after losing a confidence vote, so I don't think you'd necessarily want it to be automatic that they had to resign.
You could imagine a scenario where a Labour PM was reliant on the Lib Dems for a majority, lost their support, but was able to form a new majority by doing a deal with the SNP.
The key missing link is for the Commons to have a way of indicating whether they do have confidence in anyone else, so that person can take over.
That’s where HMQ comes in.
Anyway, your point isn’t really relevant here. Not even the DUP are daft enough to prop up a lame-duck liar, who has totally shafted them in the last two years.
FuckYourDeadMotherInLawUlsterPlebGate was the final straw.
HMQ demonstrated over prorogation that she is a paper tiger and will not act contrary to the advice of the PM.
I’m sure she’s sick to the back teeth with the lot of them.
So fed up she might go after her now-tainted jubilee?
Leaving aside her probably genuine belief that the job is her God-given duty, the only thing worse for her than dealing with the politicians would be seeing her son balls the whole thing up.
I think a King Charles would get on quite well with Starmer, an eco warrior who wants to modernise the monarchy and probably I suspect a Remainer though he accepts the result like Starmer allegedly now does. Charles also getting more woke, see his apology for slavery in Barbados.
The Queen however was probably a Leaver, she is more suited to Boris' Tories
I doubt this. As head of the CoE you'd expect HMQ to be broadly aligned politically with Jesus - a social democrat as we agreed earlier.
Not sure that holds. Political affiliation doesn't always run in the family.
Absolutely. Jesus's dad was a right hard bastard, ask the Egyptians.
Off topic: Confusion at work when someone asked for people's availability for a meeting "next Friday", and everyone thought they meant "this Friday".
I always say “this coming Friday” in work conversations. Seems to have the desired effect, though I’m not sure quite why. Just a little emphasis I suppose.
"Despite hours of intense rumours, Sue Gray has yet to hand the PM what is expected to be a damning assessment of alleged lockdown breaches in Downing Street and Whitehall.
The Commons rose at 4.43pm - nearly three hours early - meaning that there is no chance of Mr Johnson giving his version of events in a promised statement.
It is understood there is no certainty that Ms Gray will complete her work tonight, with redrafting, wrangling with lawyers and police, and HR issues being blamed for the hold-ups."
Hmm. That could mean anything, particularly "redrafting". An interestingly disparate and unclear collection of reasons there.
And all prefaced by 'it is understood' meaning 'this could all be nonsense but if so not our fault'.
Absolutely. Jesus's dad was a right hard bastard, ask the Egyptians.
There's one thing that has always interested but I am scared to google it because googling anything involving The Holocaust leads to 'interesting' sites.
So, why did Yahweh save the Jews from the bondage of Pharaoh but didn't intervene during The Holocaust?
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
Re your last paragraph on a 2nd referendum, rather than Starmer in particular, I appreciate this is your opinion but words like rotten, immoral, catastrophic, destroyed, civil strife in 2 short sentences is somewhat over the top. It is an opinion that many of us (millions in fact) think is wrong. I am no fan of referenda, but if you are going to have one on an event that has multiple outcomes if it succeeds, you should have a confirmation one on the outcome of the specific outcome (or have had that choice in the first referendum).
Sorry, but holding a second referendum with a Remain option would have been equivalent to voiding the first result. It would have meant that people who want to Leave would have had to win two referendums, but people who wanted to Remain could do so by winning only one. This is not democracy.
I disagree. They are two different things but unfortunately in the way it was actually carried out I grant you.
First you should be voting on the principle, then you are voting on the outcome of the negotiations.
If that were the case, the second vote would be Accept vs Go Back And Negotiate Again.
Don't have a problem with that, but you might have to accept that the final negotiation is to do nothing and the people need to be given that option as well eventually if they reject all other outcomes. I'm not sure how many referenda you have to get to that point. As I said I am not a fan of them generally. I tend to believe in a representative democracy.
Off topic: Confusion at work when someone asked for people's availability for a meeting "next Friday", and everyone thought they meant "this Friday".
I always say “this coming Friday” in work conversations. Seems to have the desired effect, though I’m not sure quite why. Just a little emphasis I suppose.
I very rarely have work meetings these days, but unless it's "today" or "tomorrow" I'm including the date, so in this case "next Friday (4th)".
Constitutionally there was no need for a ballot at all. The PM remains in office until a VONC in Parliament. Thatcher could have ignored her party's 'local poll' and stood her ground. "I'm staying until HoC passes a VONC'" she might well have said. How many Tory MPs would have failed to support her?
This is not irrelevant to the current situation. The Conservative Party is nothing more than a voluntary association. It has no constitutional significance at all.
If the Conservative Party elects a new leader and the PM doesn't resign, HMQ will be having a word.
There is no point the incumbent PM not resigning as there would shortly be a confidence vote in the Commons and they would lose. The only point would be if there is some doubt about the state of the House or just bloody mindlessness.
There was speculation around the time Johnson took over that he would be able to ignore a vote of no confidence going against him in the Commons, wait out the two weeks, and force an election in preference to allowing a different PM take over.
That might be the scenario he would suggest in an attempt to keep MPs fearful of losing their seats in line.
That appears to be what happens under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act. It isn't a mechanism to force the PM to resign and it's unclear whether the result of codifying the form of confidence motion has been to make it impossible for the house to indicate its support for a successor (they can only stave off an election 14 days after a no confidence vote by voting confidence in HM Government, not a notional alternative government - so the previous government has to have resigned first).
Another instance of the FTPA messing up the constitution.
I think in such a scenario (renegade PM holding the house to hostage) the only way to prevent a GE would be for the house to vote confidence in HMG. I don’t think the FTPA has messed with the convention that a PM who loses the confidence of the house has to tender his or her resignation to the monarch, though it is unclear at what point the confidence is lost (I.e at the point of the VONC or the 14 days elapsing).
Whatever the confusion in that situation, I think a monarch is correctly executing their powers to dismiss the PM if they were to establish that an alternative government could be formed. So if the Tory Party MPs were to notify her that they would get behind an alternative figure as PM, and there were enough of them to sustain a majority in the HoC, whatever Boris’ position on the matter I suspect the dismissal would take place and a new PM would take over, to table a vote of confidence in HMG and stop the 14 days elapsing.
Of course all of this would be a complete mess and in many ways our crisis moment just like the storming of the Capitol. Our constitution does rely on the PM of the day having a sense of fair play and knowing when the game is up, for the most part.
I don't think it's confusing, beyond the fact that the name of the act isn't really what it does. The old system gave the PM a weird prerogative that they could abuse, and the FTPA fixes this.
Without FTPA: PM can call an election whenever they like, technically they're within their rights to call an election to prevent themselves from being replaced by a new leader.
With FTPA: Parliament is in the driving seat, so if the majority of MPs want to kick out their PM and substitute someone else, they can. The mechanism is: Vote of confidence to dismiss the old PM, indicate to The Queen (by a formal vote or a letter or whatever) that they support someone else, and that person becomes PM.
If MPs go ahead and vote to repeal the FTPA, they're writing a blank cheque to their PM, who they know only cares about himself, to send them on a kamikaze run to save his own job. It's probably not in their best interests to let him do that.
Under FTPA a vote of confidence doesn't dismiss the old PM - it simply sets the clock ticking for a GE.
That's what I said: The vote of confidence doesn't dismiss the old PM (likewise under the old system). Doing that *then finding somebody else who can command a majority* dismisses the old PM. The difference is that with the FTPA, MPs unambiguously get a chance to do that, whereas without it the rejected PM may be able to dissolve parliament instead.
But under FTPA the only thing that stops an election is a vote of confidence in "HM Government" - not "somebody else". You can't vote confidence in them until they are appointed, and they can't be appointed unless the PM resigns or is dismissed. Agree that the rejected PM can't dissolve parliament, but that's what happens automatically 14 days later.
If MPs find someone they support the PM resigns or is dismissed. What do you think the 14-day period is for, just to give everyone a chance to see if they change their minds?
FTPA isn't a great bit of legislation and I think it was drafted assuming that a PM would behave honourably in line with convention and resign. The 14 days are to allow time to find someone who can command the confidence of the house - I've not gone back to Hansard or the explanatory notes to the Bill to check but my best guess is that nobody raised the question if what would happen if a PM refused to resign. There might be some other authority that makes it sufficiently clear that a PM has to go in that case such that HMQ would dismiss him if he doesn't resign, but I've not seen anything to that effect.
The thing is that, in principle, a PM might be able to assemble a new coalition of MPs to support them, after losing a confidence vote, so I don't think you'd necessarily want it to be automatic that they had to resign.
You could imagine a scenario where a Labour PM was reliant on the Lib Dems for a majority, lost their support, but was able to form a new majority by doing a deal with the SNP.
The key missing link is for the Commons to have a way of indicating whether they do have confidence in anyone else, so that person can take over.
That’s where HMQ comes in.
Anyway, your point isn’t really relevant here. Not even the DUP are daft enough to prop up a lame-duck liar, who has totally shafted them in the last two years.
FuckYourDeadMotherInLawUlsterPlebGate was the final straw.
HMQ demonstrated over prorogation that she is a paper tiger and will not act contrary to the advice of the PM.
I’m sure she’s sick to the back teeth with the lot of them.
So fed up she might go after her now-tainted jubilee?
Leaving aside her probably genuine belief that the job is her God-given duty, the only thing worse for her than dealing with the politicians would be seeing her son balls the whole thing up.
I think a King Charles would get on quite well with Starmer, an eco warrior who wants to modernise the monarchy and probably I suspect a Remainer though he accepts the result like Starmer allegedly now does. Charles also getting more woke, see his apology for slavery in Barbados.
The Queen however was probably a Leaver, she is more suited to Boris' Tories
I doubt this. As head of the CoE you'd expect HMQ to be broadly aligned politically with Jesus - a social democrat as we agreed earlier.
No, as I said earlier Jesus was a social conservative, although yes he might be a social democrat economically but focused on work and helping the poor in a practical way not just welfare dependency. Jesus would likely be Brownite Labour economically.
The Old Testament however is more Tory than the Tories
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
Re your last paragraph on a 2nd referendum, rather than Starmer in particular, I appreciate this is your opinion but words like rotten, immoral, catastrophic, destroyed, civil strife in 2 short sentences is somewhat over the top. It is an opinion that many of us (millions in fact) think is wrong. I am no fan of referenda, but if you are going to have one on an event that has multiple outcomes if it succeeds, you should have a confirmation one on the outcome of the specific outcome (or have had that choice in the first referendum).
Sorry, but holding a second referendum with a Remain option would have been equivalent to voiding the first result. It would have meant that people who want to Leave would have had to win two referendums, but people who wanted to Remain could do so by winning only one. This is not democracy.
I disagree. They are two different things but unfortunately in the way it was actually carried out I grant you.
First you should be voting on the principle, then you are voting on the outcome of the negotiations. It isn't one sided against Leavers as potentially they may have got a deal that Remainers approved of or a deal so awful that Leavers wanted to change their mind. Everyone should be given the option of changing their minds when the details are available. None of us were given that option, which is anti democratic.
Of course it should have been done better than that so if a Government is elected on a Leave platform it could have negotiated without a referendum and then had one once people knew the outcome of the referendum, or if you must have two referendum that should be stated upfront and what the purpose of each referendum is. I am quite tempted to vote for a change and then change my mind when I see the details of that change.
Oh just shut up. It is grotesque. We had a vote, the biggest vote in our history. The prime minister solemnly told us it would be respected, whatever. Every household was sent a leaflet saying exactly that: the government will respect and enact your vote
Trying to wiggle out of this is demeaning. It is squalid. Enough
It was a simple legal fact that the referendum didn't bind even the 2015 parliament, never mind successive parliaments.
Technically correct, but emotionally and politically wrong.
Yes, just like any other police one disagrees with.
Well, it's a bit like these Downing Street parties. Even if it turns out they were technically legal and/or Boris personally hasn't technically broken any laws, he's still politically screwed.
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
But, with all due respect, you are all old (like me)
Younger military types are much Leavier. Especially the boozy laddish types like Harry (as was, RIP)
Harry is a boozy laddish HCav officer.
All the ex-servicemen I know (including a few under 30) were remainers. Sorry Leon, being a useful idiot for Putin doesn't exactly make you a patriot.
The useful idiots for Putin are those like the Germans who want to tie our economic future to Putin's gas, Nord stream II and those who wish to tie our economic and strategic future to Germany.
Britain leaving that was against Putin's interest.
Putin very much in favour of weakening the EU by having Britain leave.
That doesn't mean we can't cooperate with the EU now to deter Russian aggression, or that it's impossible for someone to reasonably decide to leave the EU for other reasons, but this game you have of twisting everything to be a reason to leave is infantile.
I see no evidence that a "strong EU" is against Putin's interests, or a weak EU against it.
The EU weakening democratic nations and tying them down with Byzantine bureaucracy and allowing his useful idiots in Germany to have a strong say over their future seems to be entirely in Putin's interests.
When the EU's powerhouse is Putin's most useful idiot, a weaker EU seems to be just what the doctor ordered in weakening Putin.
Put aside your own feelings about the EU, and look at Russia's strategy. It is openly hostile towards towards the EU. Whether or not you agree that such a strategy is in Russia's interests, that IS the Russian strategy. Russia's leadership believes it to be in their interests to weaken the EU.
It is openly hostile to NATO, not the EU.
It is NATO that helped defeat the Soviet Union and that was before the Maastricht Treaty and before the EU even existed.
If the EU causes discord as a rival to NATO, that divides the free world and Europe away from America then that is in Putin's interests.
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
Re your last paragraph on a 2nd referendum, rather than Starmer in particular, I appreciate this is your opinion but words like rotten, immoral, catastrophic, destroyed, civil strife in 2 short sentences is somewhat over the top. It is an opinion that many of us (millions in fact) think is wrong. I am no fan of referenda, but if you are going to have one on an event that has multiple outcomes if it succeeds, you should have a confirmation one on the outcome of the specific outcome (or have had that choice in the first referendum).
Sorry, but holding a second referendum with a Remain option would have been equivalent to voiding the first result. It would have meant that people who want to Leave would have had to win two referendums, but people who wanted to Remain could do so by winning only one. This is not democracy.
I disagree. They are two different things but unfortunately in the way it was actually carried out I grant you.
First you should be voting on the principle, then you are voting on the outcome of the negotiations.
If that were the case, the second vote would be Accept vs Go Back And Negotiate Again.
Don't have a problem with that, but you might have to accept that the final negotiation is to do nothing and the people need to be given that option as well eventually if they reject all other outcomes. I'm not sure how many referenda you have to get to that point. As I said I am not a fan of them generally. I tend to believe in a representative democracy.
But Remain had already been rejected, that's the point.
He's not. He's sui generis. Was attacking the SNP many years before the defenestration of Mr Salmond. Leftie Glaswegian protester, IIRC. So not a good fit for Alba either.
He was very cosy with Salmond in 2011 IIRC as I remember him and a group of loons having a meeting with him before the election. He also accosted Iain Gray in Glasgow Central station.
Don't remember that - and ndeed Mr Clerkin was disrupting at least one SNP or SG occasion about that time. Never thought of them as being cosy; might have been just having a chat under a flag of truce. If he is close to any one party I'd say Tommy Sheridan's lot - both out of protests on the housing schemes AIUI.
Absolutely. Jesus's dad was a right hard bastard, ask the Egyptians.
There's one thing that has always interested but I am scared to google it because googling anything involving The Holocaust leads to 'interesting' sites.
So, why did Yahweh save the Jews from the bondage of Pharaoh but didn't intervene during The Holocaust?
Not sure. Same reason Allah hasn't intervened to help the Palestinians?
Those who are criticising Starmer for bad decisions as DPP are really missing the point. He has been in a job, outside of politics, where he had to make very significant decisions. He went beyond the performance of being a barrister, taking the leap to be a decision maker. And not in the form a Judge, but as a prosecutor, under continuous public scrutiny. I just find that really impressive.
What did all these other people in Parliament do? Opinion writing columnist, novelist, councillor, a few years in an investment bank, think tankers... I don't think anyone is in the same league as Starmer. Just compare him to Braverman and Raab - both failed at magic circle careers, with their careers dissolving in to mid rate jobs where they failed to make any real impact; and now they seem to be being used to provide a front to provide credibility for what they and everyone else knows is bad law.
Even people like Emily Thornberry, Bob Neill, and Geoffrey Cox don't come close to Starmer, he is in a league of his own because of his background. That isn't a criticism of the other people in Parliament, experience shows that all different kinds of people can be good decision makers, and I am not exactly a fan of the Labour Party. But I do think that Starmer is exceptional in this one regard.
Enlightened sunny post from the often torrid darkage here.
Yes, and unexpected
Hmm. Last summer I had lunch with a retired but once extremely senior judge, in his sun dappled garden in Burnham on Crouch. Beautiful asparagus
Anyway, the judge told me that Starmer had often come before him, and was the most impressive lawyer he had ever observed in his court
Against that, we must set Starmer’s vocal campaign for a second vote, which was not just rotten and immoral, but would have been catastrophic for the country if it had ever succeeded. It would have destroyed democracy and likely seeded civil strife. It really is a black mark against Starmer, and he should not be allowed to forget it
Re your last paragraph on a 2nd referendum, rather than Starmer in particular, I appreciate this is your opinion but words like rotten, immoral, catastrophic, destroyed, civil strife in 2 short sentences is somewhat over the top. It is an opinion that many of us (millions in fact) think is wrong. I am no fan of referenda, but if you are going to have one on an event that has multiple outcomes if it succeeds, you should have a confirmation one on the outcome of the specific outcome (or have had that choice in the first referendum).
Sorry, but holding a second referendum with a Remain option would have been equivalent to voiding the first result. It would have meant that people who want to Leave would have had to win two referendums, but people who wanted to Remain could do so by winning only one. This is not democracy.
I disagree. They are two different things but unfortunately in the way it was actually carried out I grant you.
First you should be voting on the principle, then you are voting on the outcome of the negotiations. It isn't one sided against Leavers as potentially they may have got a deal that Remainers approved of or a deal so awful that Leavers wanted to change their mind. Everyone should be given the option of changing their minds when the details are available. None of us were given that option, which is anti democratic.
Of course it should have been done better than that so if a Government is elected on a Leave platform it could have negotiated without a referendum and then had one once people knew the outcome of the referendum, or if you must have two referendum that should be stated upfront and what the purpose of each referendum is. I am quite tempted to vote for a change and then change my mind when I see the details of that change.
Oh just shut up. It is grotesque. We had a vote, the biggest vote in our history. The prime minister solemnly told us it would be respected, whatever. Every household was sent a leaflet saying exactly that: the government will respect and enact your vote
Trying to wiggle out of this is demeaning. It is squalid. Enough
Absolutely. Jesus's dad was a right hard bastard, ask the Egyptians.
There's one thing that has always interested but I am scared to google it because googling anything involving The Holocaust leads to 'interesting' sites.
So, why did Yahweh save the Jews from the bondage of Pharaoh but didn't intervene during The Holocaust?
Well, arguably He did. He sent the allied armies.
I'd imagine they lost quite a few under the reign of the Pharaoh too before they escaped across the Red Sea. Being in slavery for long periods doesn't tend to do much for population levels.
I'm sure there are things which are more futile than trying to ascribe personal political views to members of the Royal Family, but I can't immediately think of any.
If we ruled out futile political speculations on PB we’d have about 3 comments a day
My bet:
Queen: Leave The Late D of E: Leave Charles: Remain Andrew: Remoaner, wanted a 2nd vote Anne: Leave Edward: Remain Wills: Remain Kate: Leave Harry: Leave Megan: Not sure how Brexit benefits her, so probably Remain
Queen: definitely L D of E: probably L, but he'd want Greece and the UK tied together, so not a definite Charles: R Andrew: he'd want as much young 'totty' in the UK as possible, so R Anne: L Edward: genuinely no idea Wills: R Kate: R (because she knows that she has to support her husband, even when he's mistaken) Harry: Where's the party? Meghan: My friend Oprah said that Brexit was a terrible thing
Harry surely Leave: back then he was a lairy lad in the army. They are all Leave
Er, apart from 100% of the sample ex-HMF on PB that is (me, Dura and Carnyx IIRC - any more for any more?)
And HCav in particular generally are 50:50 Remain:Leave as of the sample I come into contact with. Much like the rest of the population.
But, with all due respect, you are all old (like me)
Younger military types are much Leavier. Especially the boozy laddish types like Harry (as was, RIP)
Harry is a boozy laddish HCav officer.
All the ex-servicemen I know (including a few under 30) were remainers. Sorry Leon, being a useful idiot for Putin doesn't exactly make you a patriot.
The useful idiots for Putin are those like the Germans who want to tie our economic future to Putin's gas, Nord stream II and those who wish to tie our economic and strategic future to Germany.
Britain leaving that was against Putin's interest.
Putin very much in favour of weakening the EU by having Britain leave.
That doesn't mean we can't cooperate with the EU now to deter Russian aggression, or that it's impossible for someone to reasonably decide to leave the EU for other reasons, but this game you have of twisting everything to be a reason to leave is infantile.
I see no evidence that a "strong EU" is against Putin's interests, or a weak EU against it.
The EU weakening democratic nations and tying them down with Byzantine bureaucracy and allowing his useful idiots in Germany to have a strong say over their future seems to be entirely in Putin's interests.
When the EU's powerhouse is Putin's most useful idiot, a weaker EU seems to be just what the doctor ordered in weakening Putin.
Put aside your own feelings about the EU, and look at Russia's strategy. It is openly hostile towards towards the EU. Whether or not you agree that such a strategy is in Russia's interests, that IS the Russian strategy. Russia's leadership believes it to be in their interests to weaken the EU.
It is openly hostile to NATO, not the EU.
It is NATO that helped defeat the Soviet Union and that was before the Maastricht Treaty and before the EU even existed.
If the EU causes discord as a rival to NATO, that divides the free world and Europe away from America then that is in Putin's interests.
You're right it's openly hostile to NATO. You're wrong in that it's also openly hostile to the EU.
You don't need to take my word for it, there's reams of reading around this subject.
Comments
So how does the 2017 parliament in question proposing to reverse something from the 2015 parliament represent an act that "would have destroyed democracy"? The referendum was in the 2015 parliament and didn't even bind that parliament, never mind the ones that have followed.
This is the never-ending Brexit hell we now find ourselves in. The "will of the people" is whatever people vote for, and if we get the next parliament full of people who think the Brexit settlement is shit and they rip up chunks of it that is democracy in action, not being destroyed. We could still be debating Brexit every parliament for the next 30 years...
It just comes back to the reality of the situation, we are all going to get exposed to Omicron, a large percentage infected, but triple vaccinated and the protection against serious illness remains extremely high. It seems that the main impact of BA2 does is just speed up this process.
He would therefore have initially backed Leave, but then thrown his social media trolls behind the campaign for a second vote.
They are insane. Even if she is trolling, or on Fentanyl, this is insane. There is an upper middle class elite at the top of Labour which has absolutely no interest in winning, indeed they positively relish losing, if they can rile their opponents and revel in attention
Starmer, if he is as clever as suggested, needs to kick em all out
These idiots make the prats who use pictures like this to say Thatcher must have known about Savile, she knighted him after all?
It wouldn't surprise me if his online agents were working for both sides in some arguments, stoking division.
I can also say, talking to some young officers, that if it wasn't a majority of remainers I would be amazed. Soldiers I couldn't possibly comment.
Over the past 20 years the competition to become an eg army officer has increased dramatically (no idea for RN, RAF). You have to be exceptional - I went to a regimental do the other day and everyone looked like Henry Cavill whereas in my day you had the proverbial two doctors one looking in each ear and unless their gazes met, you were in.
Hence much more wordly, all round, intelligent officers hence of course mostly Remain.
I doubt the Moaning Myrtle who ran to the Council is someone who "wants the law upheld" I expect it is someone who dislikes his politics so is targeting him because of that. They probably don't even go to that park, or care if dogs are in that park.
As an aside, in America, the people in the South who still support/like the Confederacy have co-opted Jesus like that, he's a patriotic white American who will rid America of darkies/immigrants/etc.
This sort of stuff seems to enrage them.
The current 7 day comparison is 15-21/1 vs 8-14/1 and 15th was well down on 8th. Goes marginally red tomorrow for sure.
Many feel that the shambles of parliament when this was going on was a bad thing. I don't. It was the first time we actually had a parliament debating stuff rather than the usual elected dictatorship we have that makes parliament redundant for the most part. It might have been a shambles, but that was because it was new experience for MPs to actually have some power and influence. They should have more rather than being stream-rollered over by any Government most of the time.
That doesn't mean we can't cooperate with the EU now to deter Russian aggression, or that it's impossible for someone to reasonably decide to leave the EU for other reasons, but this game you have of twisting everything to be a reason to leave is infantile.
Not being present at the time it does seem odd what his appeal was as a presenter etc.
The EU weakening democratic nations and tying them down with Byzantine bureaucracy and allowing his useful idiots in Germany to have a strong say over their future seems to be entirely in Putin's interests.
When the EU's powerhouse is Putin's most useful idiot, a weaker EU seems to be just what the doctor ordered in weakening Putin.
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/8331849/scottish-independence-protesters-union-jacks-fire-burns-night/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebarweb
Guessing he's on Team Alba along with Eck, Craig Murray, and the Reverend of Bath.
Whether or not you agree that such a strategy is in Russia's interests, that IS the Russian strategy. Russia's leadership believes it to be in their interests to weaken the EU.
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1486338440941772805
Here’s the clip of Jake Berry who says No10 could legitimately ask to redact anything about the No11 flag that Boris and Carrie Johnson live in
I had a go at Wordle yesterday for the first time, and the correct answer was "whack". Does that mean "whack" was the correct word for everyone else?
For Leave to have lost a second referendum would have been galling for those who still believed in Leave... but they would have been in a minority, by definition.
This England U19 player, Jacob Bethell, can bat.
He's on 72 from 31 whilst his fellow opener is 7 from 13.
First you should be voting on the principle, then you are voting on the outcome of the negotiations. It isn't one sided against Leavers as potentially they may have got a deal that Remainers approved of or a deal so awful that Leavers wanted to change their mind. Everyone should be given the option of changing their minds when the details are available. None of us were given that option, which is anti democratic.
Of course it should have been done better than that so if a Government is elected on a Leave platform it could have negotiated without a referendum and then had one once people knew the outcome of the referendum, or if you must have two referendum that should be stated upfront and what the purpose of each referendum is. I am quite tempted to vote for a change and then change my mind when I see the details of that change.
The SNP have now accused Boris Johnson of "body shaming" Ian Blackford with his cake jibe at #PMQs
https://twitter.com/ChrisGreenNews/status/1486343030206570496?s=20
We have written to the Scottish Government today about reform of the Gender Recognition Act.
https://twitter.com/EHRC/status/1486362779451809793?s=20
Spoilering it *ahem* frowned upon.
Edward VI would have definitely been Leave.
Bloody Mary certainly Remain.
King John would have been Remain, especially after he lost Normandy and spent the rest of his life trying to get it back.
The Commons rose at 4.43pm - nearly three hours early - meaning that there is no chance of Mr Johnson giving his version of events in a promised statement.
It is understood there is no certainty that Ms Gray will complete her work tonight, with redrafting, wrangling with lawyers and police, and HR issues being blamed for the hold-ups."
Hmm. That could mean anything, particularly "redrafting". An interestingly disparate and unclear mix of reasons being given there, making it all sound procedural.
But Olaf Scholz is starting to firm up"
https://www.economist.com/europe/germanys-new-chancellor-hesitates-in-the-face-of-russias-threats/21807378
Democracy is that we elect a sovereign parliament. Thats it. Sovereign to pass laws, not to be beholden to the past. We don't live in Switzerland where everything is decided by direct democracy referenda, we have a parliamentary system.
This for me reinforces just how broken our constitution is and how out of touch our electoral system is. It was a simple legal fact that the referendum didn't bind even the 2015 parliament, never mind successive parliaments. The problem is that dipshit politicians said that it did and people who don't understand how our stupid system works believed them. Same as the people who think they elect a party or a prime minister. Thinking it doesn't make it correct, but does create problems of legitimacy.
Although Jerusalem of course remains a Holy City for Christians as it also is for Jews and Muslims
It was noted that Russia's demands on NATO were unacceptable.
https://twitter.com/Global_Mil_Info/status/1486382209426771972?s=20
So, why did Yahweh save the Jews from the bondage of Pharaoh but didn't intervene during The Holocaust?
I think once you get to Monday next Friday means a week friday, and the one coming up is 'this Friday'
WASHINGTON (AP) — AP sources: Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer will retire, giving Joe Biden the 1st Supreme Court pick of his presidency.
Trying to wiggle out of this is demeaning. It is squalid. Enough
Thank fuck the vote WAS respected. Eventually
It is NATO that helped defeat the Soviet Union and that was before the Maastricht Treaty and before the EU even existed.
If the EU causes discord as a rival to NATO, that divides the free world and Europe away from America then that is in Putin's interests.
I'd imagine they lost quite a few under the reign of the Pharaoh too before they escaped across the Red Sea. Being in slavery for long periods doesn't tend to do much for population levels.
But I look forward to the GOP arguing 1 year in means the next President should appoint.
You're wrong in that it's also openly hostile to the EU.
You don't need to take my word for it, there's reams of reading around this subject.
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/jan/11/wordle-creator-overwhelmed-by-global-success-of-hit-puzzle