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Johnson’s failure to apologise for party-gate is making matters worse – politicalbetting.com
Johnson’s failure to apologise for party-gate is making matters worse – politicalbetting.com
Breaking:Boris Johnson is *still* refusing to accept that law has been broken over Downing Street parties despite 20 fines being issuedPM’s official spokesman refuses to endorse Raab’s assertion that law was broken and that PM was wrong to say in Commons no rules were broken
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Berlin activates emergency law as west refuses to comply with Moscow’s demand for roubles"
https://www.ft.com/content/0706d6f4-6668-4f67-ab1c-d535d847caf7
https://www.bcg.com/publications/2021/virtual-mobility-in-the-global-workforce
https://twitter.com/MetroUK/status/1509200457603993614?s=20&t=rLzVpX_5-mU7iDJ9YR-JvA
So - the logic must be when his fine finally arrives, he will contest it in court?
FrankBooth said:
I don't think they are having a good week on the battlefield. Ukrainian counterattacks appears to be the main story.
The problem is that the better the Ukrainians do on the battlefield the more room there is for countries to go soft on sanctions. And it's unclear whether Ukraine can really push the Russians out of most of their positions even if they are stalled. A possible stalemate with not much likelihood of a negotiated settlement.
TimT said:
Or the longer, slower, attrition-oriented phase of the war. In which the Ukrainians make no big newsworthy advances, but behind the scenes keep on attacking supplies and keep on doing hit and run harassment and so generally sapping at both the morale and capability of the Russian forces.
There does not appear to have been any real slowing of Russian equipment losses. Still running at about 10 tanks and 50 other items a day. In the last week it has gone for 260 tanks/1600 total, to 342 tanks and just shy of 2100 total. Backlog has only gone down from 170 to 160, so that's not it.
I politely suggest this survey is worse than useless
Visegrád 24
@visegrad24
·
43m
BREAKING:
Swedish TV4 has revealed that two of the four Russian aircraft that violated Swedish airspace a few weeks ago, were carrying nuclear weapons while doing it.
Swedes are outraged.
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1509194414564032516
Imagine if Russian planes were overflying Britain WITH NUKES ON BOARD
Edit: NB there is a Swedish expert on that thread who is highly skeptical that this happened, so who knows
44% of Russians surveyed trust Putin, a rise of 10%.
Those numbers are an enormous turnaround given they hit rock bottom not long ago.
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1509203772924383249
Has the EU closed its ports to Russian shipping yet? The UK did a month ago, when the EU said it was "considering it".....
Our rulers did not think that even the guidelines applied to them. I find this just as appalling as selective lawbreaking.
Is it?
Tory MPs seem fine with it...
"Macron is a goner. Do you believe me now?
Macron, Boris, sacked in same year - Putin survives the year."
I am beginning to get weird feelings in me waters about France. There is an awful lot of discontent. As a nation, they haven't thrown a total strop in decades. They like global attention. Le Pen has detoxed the brand and is gathering all the opposition around her. Macron is fecking annoying, even for the French (esp the French?). He is a snob
Le Pen could just snatch it.
As it happens, if she did, I don't think it would be Fascist Apocalypse, more like a spasm of Gaullist Nationalism, but it would frighten all the horses of Europe
To me that seems VALUE, given that latest poll:
Macron (EC-RE): 52.5% (-3.5)
Le Pen (RN-ID): 47.5% (+3.5)
+/- vs. 19-21 March 2022
Should be more like 7/1 or 8/1?
She's not a rank outsider, not on those numbers
In the Goode Olde Days of the cold war, everyone spent lots of time and money trying to make sure their nukes didn't go bang Until The Day. Lots of tests (actual nuclear tests) to make sure of this.
There were, in fact quite a few instances where aircraft crashed with nukes on board. Or the nukes fell off. Or were involved in a fire. In a number of instances the conventional explosives went off, but no nuclear yield.
I still think he will win it but Le Pen has sufficiently detoxified the brand she is more of a viable alternative than 5 years ago or than her father ever was. Even if Macron is re elected, Le Pen will probably win the white working class vote and the rural vote
Shortened to 12/1
Like you, I am still pretty sure Macron will win, but in a time of war and plague - literally - nothing is as certain as 1/33
However, the other bomb managed to arm itself to some extent. 'Until my death I will never forget hearing my sergeant [Earl Smith] say, "Lieutenant, we found the arm/safe switch." And I said, "Great." He said, "Not great. It's on arm."'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash
She may have rehearsed a bit in the last few years, but I suspect that will be her undoing again this time.
Additionally, the two previous times a far right candidate made the run-off (2017 and 2002) they significantly underperformed polling in the second round. You get Melanchon voters and so on expressing extreme reluctance to vote for the Establishment candidate... but in the end they largely hold their noses and do so.
I'd not bet on Le Pen at odds shorter than 25-1.
FIRST CANDIDATES ELECTED FOR MAY'S ELECTIONS:
Inverclyde East is uncontested - a 3 member ward with 3 candidates. Christopher Curley (SNP), Stephen McCabe (Labour) and David Wilson (Conservative) will thus be automatically elected in May.
https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1509208754545385472
SECOND CANDIDATES ELICTED FOR MAY'S ELECTIONS:
'Buckie in Moray is uncontested - also 3 in a 3. Neil McLennan (Conservative), Christopher Thomas Price (Lib Dem), Sonya Warren (SNP) will thus be automatically elected in May.
This is v funny as LD's would never have won here.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_French_presidential_election#Opinion_polls
The French are an ornery, contrary bunch. A nation born of revolution
I can see a lot of French people walking to the voting booth and thinking Ah, Fuck It
You know exactly what Macron will deliver, if you vote Macron: it will be 5 more years of the same. Le Pen? She is change. She is different. If you're pissed off in any fundamental way, she is the choice
Hmm. Still unlikely but certainement pas impossible
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash
The 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash was an accident that occurred near Goldsboro, North Carolina, on 23 January 1961. A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress carrying two 3–4-megaton Mark 39 nuclear bombs broke up in mid-air, dropping its nuclear payload in the process...Information declassified in 2013 showed that one of the bombs came close to detonating, with three of the four required triggering mechanisms having activated
In that light you could argue voters will go for the safer option. Macron. Or they will want a more robust selfish France to protect France: Le Pen
If I were a betting man (and I am not) I'd pop £5 on Le Pen at 14/1
I accept this isn't on that level, but think you're underestimating how likely the likely outcome is here.
Without that, the primary wouldn't go nuclear. So if the conventional explosives donated, you'd get a mess, but no mushroom clouds.
Ditto Trump in, say, 2015
We are in a time of unusual events
"Our polling reveals a striking generational divide on Ukraine
Young people in America and Europe are less sympathetic towards it"
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/03/29/our-polling-reveals-a-striking-generational-divide-on-ukraine
But, IANAE, and maybe they do things differently in times of
'war''special military operation' and/or in RussiaFirstly, that movement at the end (up for Macron, down for Le Pen) is indeed the second round debate as mentioned.
Secondly, you see the bold yellow and blue dots at the end of the graph? That's the actual result - the only poll that matters. For Macron, it's higher than his polling line not just at the end but at ANY point. For Le Pen it's below the blue line at ANY point. That't the "holding your nose" effect for Macron from hard left and moderate right voters.
A US bomber crashed in northern Greenland with four nukes on board. AND ONE IS STILL MISSING
https://www.fastcompany.com/40518772/thule-accident-nuclear-weapon-lost-greenland-us-denmark
Depends what you count as a nuke. For example, a B47 went missing over the Med with a couple of cores in carrying cases.
Tories running 30 candidates, up from 23 in 2017. Would be interesting to hear RochdalePioneer's analysis on Aberdeenshire. I'm surprised they are not running 2 in Inverurie although perhaps that is to do with the independent standing and could be good news for the LDs there.
Touch wood we seem not to have too much of this sort of thing here.
but it is interesting how its much more pronounced in the USA middling in France and very small in UK.
Leaving the contrary's defences aside, is this mostly a difference of weather you have a memory of the cold war? maybe?
For some there's no difference between the invasion of Ukraine and the liberation of Iraq in 2003.
We haven't seen what happens in the long term when those foreign adventures turn out badly...
Michael Palin's New Europe programme from 2007 is on TV at the moment. He's in Moldova and Romania.
fairly sure there's some bombs unaccounted for ...
Interestingly the US divide was purely age related and non-partisan. Equal scores for both GOP and Dem supporters in both age groups. May be something to do with memory of the cold war.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/how-the-us-lost-4-nukes.html?msclkid=f213a08ab04a11ec8d76159f53edc772&edg-c=1
Dirk Pitt come on down
Polling for the 2016 Referendum often showed a lead for Leave. Polling for the 2016 Presidential election sometimes showed a Trump lead and often showed him within 2% (noting that was in fact the Clinton margin in the popular vote). A couple of polls showed a lead for "Yes" in the 2014, and most in the final six weeks indicated it was a good deal closer than the final, double digit margin.
That's not to say Trump and Brexit weren't surprises - they were. But people misremember them as coming completely out of the blue when actually plenty of polls were bang on the money.
Remember, we're not looking at polling a year out from the French Presidential election. It's a month out, with two well known figures and very stable polling over a long period. So your comparison with Trump a year from the 2016 election isn't apt.
Nothing is impossible in a two horse race - I accept that. But you're always addicted to the drama and narrative arc of these things and therefore tend to underestimate the likelihood that the thing that looks very likely to happen on the evidence will indeed happen.
But for many of the younger generation, it appears that what is front and centre for them is the contrast in how the West has reacted to 'like' situations, and hence for them the hypocrisy in our actions.
We aren't at war, and even if the Ukraine war stopped somehow, there won't be a VoNC.
But then having just entered the 35-54 demographic I've transitioned into middle age fart status.
Note that the Russians haven't admitted how many they have lost. Given their habits with submarines, for a start, that's quite a few....
There has to be a place for everyone in my view, whatever their reality, family and community have to adapt to that reality. As Felix fairly flagged up to me, but is that not a bit preachy, telling people what to think, telling people they “have to adapt” like that? and my reply was yes it is, but both sides do sound a bit preachy at each other in this particular debate.
Whatever side of this debate we are in, just be loving to each other and debate things like this in the most sensitive and fair way we can. And that’s not really been happening, that’s basically the only thing I have waded in to say - we can debate this better than this? Actually, it’s Even worse, weaponising this issue as a political football? throwing it into “woke” and “culture wars”? Such posts and posters stand out like a sore thumb on this blog. They either don’t realise this enough to be embarrassed, or wear it as a medal.
Which brings me to my disagreement with your post, your trans friends in my opinion have the right to be out the closet, and accepted - so is it right and fair for anyone (and it is Conservatives and anti-trans feminists who are the biggest villains) to weaponise “man in a dress” stereotypes, and ask questions like “can a women have a penis?” Using those stereotype and others against the entire trans community - does this does not lead to mockery of trans people, abuse and social exclusion? 😕
Something which may be useful to the trans debate. On the subject of being gay girly, very much of the 💋variety, I always felt myself more readily accepted by the men in my life than the lady’s. I wonder if gay men have felt more readily accepted by ladies, than other men?
Or straight people muse for lessons learned over how they themselves felt or acted on these things in their own lives.
If there is to be a place for everyone, whatever their reality, family and community have to adapt to that reality, so the alternative point of view has to be bravely engaged with. What is this alternative being argued for? Are people quick to say they are not very religious, not Christian, but then argue for a outdated and discredited gender binary concepts they have been socialised into? 🤔
One of the interns asked: "What is the Cold War?"
Despite bring bright enough to get an internship at NASA, she did not know about the Cold War. Which had ended just twenty years earlier...
Many modern kids probably know less about it.
...
Just finished an hour-long conversation with POTUS. Shared assessment of the situation on the battlefield and at the negotiating table. Talked about specific defensive support, a new package of enhanced sanctions, macro-financial and humanitarian aid.
https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1509202046574022656?cxt=HHwWgMCyhf3Q4fEpAAAA
I confess I do love a bit of theatrics, however I should point out that I am not saying a Le Pen win is PROBABLE or even QUITE POSSIBLE
Just a bit more possible than 14/1, and Macron is a bit less nailed on than 1/33
Incidentally, you are possibly misremembering - slightly - the Scottish polling. It was not very close - ie NO was usually ahead by quite a distance - until one of the debates, Salmond versus Darling, August 25, when there was a noticeable shift towards YES. Just three weeks before the vote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2014_Scottish_independence_referendum#2014
That debate made a difference. And made it closer
Last time Le Pen fucked up the debates. Expectations will be low. What if she over-performs, this time?
I have a phrase for this, which is naive sophistication. People who think they will appear sophisticated, that is, by naively thinking, with a raised sophisticated eyebrow, that "nothing is what it seems." Truth is, quite a lot of things are what they seem.
https://twitter.com/Baddiel/status/1508446158401769483?cxt=HHwWlsC4pb_yie8pAAAA
René Artois : You stupid woman! Can you not see? I am eloping!
I suspect its more some embittered resentment of the western world which manifests itself in supporting anything opposed to it.