Three Red Wall Conservative MPs are in defection talks with Labour, The Telegraph can reveal.
Labour sources told The Telegraph that the three male Conservatives, first elected in 2019, have entered formal discussions about crossing the floor to join Sir Keir Starmer’s party.
Those familiar with discussions said the MPs had slim majorities in Red Wall areas in the North that have historically voted Labour and believed they would lose their seats at the next election if they did not defect.
It is understood the three have felt dissatisfied with Boris Johnson’s leadership in recent weeks and were pushed towards the decision after a confidence vote in which 148 Tory MPs did not back the Prime Minister.
One source who has spoken to the MPs said they were frustrated with the “ideological direction” of the Conservative Party.
A second said talks with one Conservative were at initial stages, but another was in live discussions with the Labour whips’ office. The whips’ office declined to comment.
I do think there’s some merit to the argument that if you defect, there should be a by-election. Whether it benefits my team or not. Just doesn’t seem like cricket.
I suppose I could let it go if it’s done on a sincere matter of conscience. No laughing at the back.
But it rankles if it’s done purely cos you think you’re going to be turfed out at the next election.
Obviously all these people will be the former, suffering sleepless nights, wrestling with their conscience as they contemplate the social democracy stirring in their, previously avowedly Johnsonian, hearts.
There was a time I was quite willing to kneecap defectors from the Tory Party, one in particular I wanted to stick a red hot poker up his arse for the timing of his treachery.
There are no fundamental and important differences between moderate centrist Tories and ditto Labour. They have infinitely more in common with each other than they do with their own extremes.
The perfidy stuff about switching parties is all about fear, identity and group solidarity and little to do with the actuality of policy.
It would probably be good for the rest of us if this happened more.
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
"Reportage"? If reading Twitter and reposting it is reportage then I can be fucking Kate Adie.
Three Red Wall Conservative MPs are in defection talks with Labour, The Telegraph can reveal.
Labour sources told The Telegraph that the three male Conservatives, first elected in 2019, have entered formal discussions about crossing the floor to join Sir Keir Starmer’s party.
Those familiar with discussions said the MPs had slim majorities in Red Wall areas in the North that have historically voted Labour and believed they would lose their seats at the next election if they did not defect.
It is understood the three have felt dissatisfied with Boris Johnson’s leadership in recent weeks and were pushed towards the decision after a confidence vote in which 148 Tory MPs did not back the Prime Minister.
One source who has spoken to the MPs said they were frustrated with the “ideological direction” of the Conservative Party.
A second said talks with one Conservative were at initial stages, but another was in live discussions with the Labour whips’ office. The whips’ office declined to comment.
Most of us have Twitter accounts. We don't need you to come in here and post this stuff. Can you imagine what PB would be like if we all did this? It's boring, worse its annoyingly boring.
Most of us have Twitter accounts. We don't need you to come in here and post this stuff. Can you imagine what PB would be like if we all did this? It's boring, worse its annoyingly boring.
Then why don't you fuck off?
If you want to read travelogues go to the Thomas Cook site
"The Tragedy of the Unwanted Child: What Ancient Cultures Did Before Abortion Safe abortion is the modern cure for the ancient heartbreaks of neonaticide and abandonment. Rob Brooks"
Three Red Wall Conservative MPs are in defection talks with Labour, The Telegraph can reveal.
Labour sources told The Telegraph that the three male Conservatives, first elected in 2019, have entered formal discussions about crossing the floor to join Sir Keir Starmer’s party.
Those familiar with discussions said the MPs had slim majorities in Red Wall areas in the North that have historically voted Labour and believed they would lose their seats at the next election if they did not defect.
It is understood the three have felt dissatisfied with Boris Johnson’s leadership in recent weeks and were pushed towards the decision after a confidence vote in which 148 Tory MPs did not back the Prime Minister.
One source who has spoken to the MPs said they were frustrated with the “ideological direction” of the Conservative Party.
A second said talks with one Conservative were at initial stages, but another was in live discussions with the Labour whips’ office. The whips’ office declined to comment.
Odd. If true, why would Labour leak it to the Telegraph?
Didnt the Telegraph run with the series of Labour to Con defections allegedly under discussion earlier last year? It might have been the Times. Its always either bullshit or leaked by the party being defected from to try and pressure colleagues/friends to intervene.
Actual defections almost never leak until they happen. The party ‘receiving’ doesn’t want the MP talked out of it by whips, so it’s all done in the utmost confidence.
The premise that he is some kind of Brexit intellectual who now has to suffer as it is destroyed at the hands of barbarians is a nonsense.
It's funny how his identity hasn't changed with his life's work coming to fruition. He was always this sort of cassandra/prince across the water type figure, and post-Brexit he hasn't been able to actually get stuck in, he has instead retained his cassandra persona. I used to think that him and Carswell were spies against leaving the EU, but I think they are just that inhibited by their own personalities - perpetual rebels without a cause.
To be honest the cash is a distraction. The issue is that Charles is soliciting donations for his preferred charities from a head of state. That creates obligations.
I agree with monkey on scott. It'd be bad news if lots of posters did similar but it works fine with one. Ditto with others who plough their own furrows. Eg morris with his replies to 'mr' or 'ms' such and such without quoting the original so nobody ever quite knows whether he's on or off the point or what the exchange is actually about. If lots did that we'd be up a gumtree but as it is it's ok and arguably a feature. Then there's Leon's postcards from the ledge (that in his own mind he is). Same there. Great - but if others follow suit, carnage.
Three Red Wall Conservative MPs are in defection talks with Labour, The Telegraph can reveal.
Labour sources told The Telegraph that the three male Conservatives, first elected in 2019, have entered formal discussions about crossing the floor to join Sir Keir Starmer’s party.
Those familiar with discussions said the MPs had slim majorities in Red Wall areas in the North that have historically voted Labour and believed they would lose their seats at the next election if they did not defect.
It is understood the three have felt dissatisfied with Boris Johnson’s leadership in recent weeks and were pushed towards the decision after a confidence vote in which 148 Tory MPs did not back the Prime Minister.
One source who has spoken to the MPs said they were frustrated with the “ideological direction” of the Conservative Party.
A second said talks with one Conservative were at initial stages, but another was in live discussions with the Labour whips’ office. The whips’ office declined to comment.
Odd. If true, why would Labour leak it to the Telegraph?
For the bit in bold - either to make any defectors look like selfish traitors, or to fire a shit across the bows at Boris, by being clear they are only contemplating it because he is no longer an electoral asset.
Meant this bit, to be clear
Those familiar with discussions said the MPs had slim majorities in Red Wall areas in the North that have historically voted Labour and believed they would lose their seats at the next election if they did not defect.
Thats going to go down really well with their constituents. 'I'll loyally vote for whatever chap keeps me in duck houses. Local issues? Fuck that shit'
I would just say that for me there is only one topic of conversation I am interested in and that is just when the conservative mps and constituency chairs rid the party of Johnson
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I think the problem with Scott's twitter postings is that he engages in no editorial capacity - if it is anti-Brexit he will post it no matter how patently stupid or wrong it is. He makes no comment, rarely if ever responds to other people's comment and is content to repost utter drivel alongside some occasional good tweets. I have liked some of the tweets he has posted in the past but the vast bulk are fatuous and stupid and add nothing to the site if he is not willing to engage and defend them himself. I can only assume he doesn't do this because of his own lack of knowledge and ability.
Exactly this. And, if you complain, he more often than not responds with abuse.
He's clearly a very angry man. It's rather sad really given he's now spent 6 years of his life doing this day in day out and he's probably only got a maximum of 90 on this planet.
He's blown (at least) 7% of his whole lifespan being desperately angry and unhappy. It's sad really.
My irony meter just exploded................were you looking in the mirror when you posted that Mr Angry
The premise that he is some kind of Brexit intellectual who now has to suffer as it is destroyed at the hands of barbarians is a nonsense.
It's funny how his identity hasn't changed with his life's work coming to fruition. He was always this sort of cassandra/prince across the water type figure, and post-Brexit he hasn't been able to actually get stuck in, he has instead retained his cassandra persona. I used to think that him and Carswell were spies against leaving the EU, but I think they are just that inhibited by their own personalities - perpetual rebels without a cause.
He sounds to me like yet another person who has been sold down the river and utterly shafted by Johnson and yet finds themselves surprised.
Incredible how many utterly gullible people there are in politics and public life.
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
That's how you win wars.
If Brexit was a war, Scotty is Hiroo Onoda.
There’s no reason for that sort of language on here 😠.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
Not conned, but chose a different path. We have left the political side of the EU, with all the issues associated with that. It’s come at a cost. It’s frankly quite hard to distinguish the costs of Brexit from the costs of Covid and the war in Ukraine. I have no doubt Brexit is not a net positive in a financial sense for the U.K. However it needs to be judged in the long term and not just in simple finance numbers. Other aspects count too. We will ultimately achieve a much smoother relationship with the EU. This has been a divorce and it takes time after divorce to be friends again, but it will happen. Fine, ignore @Scott_xP . My biggest complaint is how he posts his copied tweets. They are not always obvious as tweets, rather than his own words. He should take more care.
Eminent economists seem to have distinguished the costs of Brexit from Covid and Ukraine.
It certainly will be judged in the long term. And I may be wrong, but I don’t think it will be a ringing endorsement.
I have little respect for eminent economists given how poorly they are able to predict anything about the economy, and how much I suspect they have their own prejudices to help ‘tweak’ assumptions in their models.
Ooooh you are cynical. Poor economists.
They’re like historians in that way. You must have half an eye on an author’s potential prejudices or biases when reading their stuff. And your own too. That’s the most useful skill a history degree taught me.
I am late to the debate on @Scott_xP's tweets, but more generally I would say one of the things I most enjoy about the comments on this site is that it sometimes acts as a filtering service for political twitter, which I can never be bothered to wade through. So, in general, please do keep posting tweets from all sides of the political spectrum.
Two very diverse queries for the PB Brain Trust, only one of them political:
1. In my job, we are scattered all over Europe, and periodically need to sign contracts received in PDF form electronically. Adobe charge £15/month for this option (though if you sign up for a trial and cancel they'll offer you a £10 rate). Is there a cheaper alternative?
Digisigner do a free tier (3 docs/month) and slightly cheaper pricing, but Adobe is the standard for these things and everyone trusts them.
To be honest the cash is a distraction. The issue is that Charles is soliciting donations for his preferred charities from a head of state. That creates obligations.
Is not money laundering of the type & scale alleged, itself a crime under UK law?
Most of us have Twitter accounts. We don't need you to come in here and post this stuff. Can you imagine what PB would be like if we all did this? It's boring, worse its annoyingly boring.
To be honest I just cannot be bothered with him and he is only irritating many who may otherwise be amenable to a sensible discussion on brexit
Furthermore, for all his fury the political establishment are not seeking to rejoin and both Starmer and Lammy even went as far as to say Labour will not rejoin the single market
It seems we could be in for years of his tweets going nowhere
Much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Tories, you boys can hardly moan from your glasshouses given the huge amount of Tory manure we have to put up with on here. Regale us with those Brexit sunny uplands
The Leavers must surely be the worst winners in the history of politics....
What you don't say in the above is equally important.
If next year Labour decided to run 2 candidates or the Lib Dems decided to run 2 candidates it's very likely that by splitting the vote you could end up in a position where both of you miss out.
Quite so. I dare say that both parties will not get round to finding a second candidate. So hard to find the right people, and difficult to justify where we have no major quarrels.
Hi Dr Nick! Wondered if you had seen this Guardian article and had any thoughts about it?
Yes - if the report is fair then I don't approve (I like Denmark but not everything Danish is perfect). I do think there's merit in encouraging migrants to spread out, but I can see strong reasons why many won't want to, at least initially. If we were fleeing to somewhere unfamiliar, I'm sure we'd like to be near other migrants who could advise on how to get along in the new country. Offering positive incentives to move would make sense, but not eviction.
"The Tragedy of the Unwanted Child: What Ancient Cultures Did Before Abortion Safe abortion is the modern cure for the ancient heartbreaks of neonaticide and abandonment. Rob Brooks"
I am late to the debate on @Scott_xP's tweets, but more generally I would say one of the things I most enjoy about the comments on this site is that it sometimes acts as a filtering service for political twitter, which I can never be bothered to wade through. So, in general, please do keep posting tweets from all sides of the political spectrum.
Agreed. I don't monitor Twitter for politics myself.
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
That's how you win wars.
If Brexit was a war, Scotty is Hiroo Onoda.
There’s no reason for that sort of language on here 😠.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
We know it was won on lies - some of the leading figures in "Leave" openly said so
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
Well F*** off to twitter then , lots of us are happy to have differing opinions and not just your Tory hogwash. Be off with you and whine elsewhere.
You are the stupidest man on God’s Earth. How dare you call me a Tory you bottom feeding arse. All you do is sit there in your Saltire underpants spreading your bile. Get a job you cretinous creature. There’s a labour shortage, even a failure in all respects like you could find something to do, you excuse for a human. Go watch your VHS of Braveheart it you haven’t worn it out yet and the TV licence people haven’t found you. I am not and will never be a Tory.
OT: After a particularly trying day at school, particularly in relation to students' use of snapchat to bully other students, I am really interested in anyone on here who would defend the current accessibility of smartphones and social media to teenagers.
If it were up to me, in my current mood, I'd ban any smartphone or social media accounts for anyone under 18. I'm aware that I'm frustrated, and probably not seeing all sides of the debate, so would be really interested in anyone who is prepared to argue in favour of the status quo (kids between the ages of 12 and 18 having smartphones and social media accounts).
As an aside, I am not normally in favour of state interference in the private lives of citizens, including kids, and would very much like this to be an issue that parents were empowered to take action on themselves. But I egularly speak to parents who feel powerless to do anything other than follow the crowd by giving kids smartphones, to avoid the kid being excluded from friendship circles.
It seems unlikely to me that Labour voters would suddenly be happy to vote for a former Tory MP even if they switched sides.
I think most would be absolutely fine with it - even members have accepted Christian Wakefield with a few grumbles ("well, at least he's seen the light now"), and non-members voter are very unlikely to pore over past voting records as they ponder their choice.
There are quite a few precedents where it worked out.
Most of us have Twitter accounts. We don't need you to come in here and post this stuff. Can you imagine what PB would be like if we all did this? It's boring, worse its annoyingly boring.
Then why don't you fuck off?
If you want to read travelogues go to the Thomas Cook site
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
Not conned, but chose a different path. We have left the political side of the EU, with all the issues associated with that. It’s come at a cost. It’s frankly quite hard to distinguish the costs of Brexit from the costs of Covid and the war in Ukraine. I have no doubt Brexit is not a net positive in a financial sense for the U.K. However it needs to be judged in the long term and not just in simple finance numbers. Other aspects count too. We will ultimately achieve a much smoother relationship with the EU. This has been a divorce and it takes time after divorce to be friends again, but it will happen. Fine, ignore @Scott_xP . My biggest complaint is how he posts his copied tweets. They are not always obvious as tweets, rather than his own words. He should take more care.
Eminent economists seem to have distinguished the costs of Brexit from Covid and Ukraine.
It certainly will be judged in the long term. And I may be wrong, but I don’t think it will be a ringing endorsement.
I have little respect for eminent economists given how poorly they are able to predict anything about the economy, and how much I suspect they have their own prejudices to help ‘tweak’ assumptions in their models.
Ooooh you are cynical. Poor economists.
They’re like historians in that way. You must have half an eye on an author’s potential prejudices or biases when reading their stuff. And your own too. That’s the most useful skill a history degree taught me.
Of course I’m cynical, I’m a scientist. Never rated economics. I mean take the current situation with rising inflation. What tools do we have? Interest rates. And that’s it. Only affects those who (a) have a variable mortgage. So not many. And thus is supposed to be a lever? Then there is the measuring of economic data. Constantly revised, usually for the better, like the triple dip recession that never was. Perhaps that’s because they don’t understand uncertainty. Maybe it’s the reporters. Whatever - it’s still shit.
I am late to the debate on Scott_xP's tweets, but more generally I would say one of the things I most enjoy about the comments on this site is that it sometimes acts as a filtering service for political twitter, which I can never be bothered to wade through. So, in general, please do keep posting tweets from all sides of the political spectrum.
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
That's how you win wars.
If Brexit was a war, Scotty is Hiroo Onoda.
There’s no reason for that sort of language on here 😠.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
We know it was won on lies - some of the leading figures in "Leave" openly said so
Three Red Wall Conservative MPs are in defection talks with Labour, The Telegraph can reveal.
Labour sources told The Telegraph that the three male Conservatives, first elected in 2019, have entered formal discussions about crossing the floor to join Sir Keir Starmer’s party.
Those familiar with discussions said the MPs had slim majorities in Red Wall areas in the North that have historically voted Labour and believed they would lose their seats at the next election if they did not defect.
It is understood the three have felt dissatisfied with Boris Johnson’s leadership in recent weeks and were pushed towards the decision after a confidence vote in which 148 Tory MPs did not back the Prime Minister.
One source who has spoken to the MPs said they were frustrated with the “ideological direction” of the Conservative Party.
A second said talks with one Conservative were at initial stages, but another was in live discussions with the Labour whips’ office. The whips’ office declined to comment.
Odd. If true, why would Labour leak it to the Telegraph?
For the bit in bold - either to make any defectors look like selfish traitors, or to fire a shit across the bows at Boris, by being clear they are only contemplating it because he is no longer an electoral asset.
Meant this bit, to be clear
Those familiar with discussions said the MPs had slim majorities in Red Wall areas in the North that have historically voted Labour and believed they would lose their seats at the next election if they did not defect.
The idea that a Tory MP worried about this government’s ideological direct would join a higher tax / higher spending party amused…
"The Tragedy of the Unwanted Child: What Ancient Cultures Did Before Abortion Safe abortion is the modern cure for the ancient heartbreaks of neonaticide and abandonment. Rob Brooks"
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
That's how you win wars.
If Brexit was a war, Scotty is Hiroo Onoda.
There’s no reason for that sort of language on here 😠.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
We know it was won on lies - some of the leading figures in "Leave" openly said so
That invocation of patriotism as a justification for the bill didn't go down well with NI Committee Chair Simon Hoare who asks if Liz Truss is "impugning the patriotism" of those who have concerns. He calls it a "false conflation". https://twitter.com/robpowellnews/status/1541450932327780353
I call it incredibly lazy. When you're reduced to throwing out that accusation so swiftly, you know you are struggling.
Sure, people inpugned the patriotism of Corbyn (and by association those who served under him), but even with him they didn't make that the sole criticism.
I find it incredibly lazy to cut and paste Twitter posts in lieu of an actual opinion. Not you of course.
Pah, he is providing a public service
Agree with malcolm for a change. It's useful to get political tweets of interest to some of us posted here, saves time reading through all the Twitter dross, and make a point succinctly, unlike, er, some of us.
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
That's how you win wars.
If Brexit was a war, Scotty is Hiroo Onoda.
There’s no reason for that sort of language on here 😠.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
We know it was won on lies - some of the leading figures in "Leave" openly said so
"The Tragedy of the Unwanted Child: What Ancient Cultures Did Before Abortion Safe abortion is the modern cure for the ancient heartbreaks of neonaticide and abandonment. Rob Brooks"
That is rather interesting: sometimes much higher rates than I had realised.
See Tahiti for an interesting example as observed by Cook and Joseph Banks.
I was thinking about C18-C19 Britain (don't know about Ireland), too. And baby farming. Very thinly disguised disposal system, it sometimes seemed, to get rid of your baby. Though some folk did want the best for theirs.
OT: After a particularly trying day at school, particularly in relation to students' use of snapchat to bully other students, I am really interested in anyone on here who would defend the current accessibility of smartphones and social media to teenagers.
If it were up to me, in my current mood, I'd ban any smartphone or social media accounts for anyone under 18. I'm aware that I'm frustrated, and probably not seeing all sides of the debate, so would be really interested in anyone who is prepared to argue in favour of the status quo (kids between the ages of 12 and 18 having smartphones and social media accounts).
As an aside, I am not normally in favour of state interference in the private lives of citizens, including kids, and would very much like this to be an issue that parents were empowered to take action on themselves. But I egularly speak to parents who feel powerless to do anything other than follow the crowd by giving kids smartphones, to avoid the kid being excluded from friendship circles.
You’re completely right, schools need to step in and ban smartphones, and social media companies need to stop people under 16 from signing up.
Here’s psycology professor Jonathan Haidt, discussing this very issue. The social media business model of creating ‘engagement’ for advertisers is fundamentally incompatible with teenagers’ developing brains. https://youtube.com/watch?v=f0un-l1L8Zw#
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I think the problem with Scott's twitter postings is that he engages in no editorial capacity - if it is anti-Brexit he will post it no matter how patently stupid or wrong it is. He makes no comment, rarely if ever responds to other people's comment and is content to repost utter drivel alongside some occasional good tweets. I have liked some of the tweets he has posted in the past but the vast bulk are fatuous and stupid and add nothing to the site if he is not willing to engage and defend them himself. I can only assume he doesn't do this because of his own lack of knowledge and ability.
Exactly this. And, if you complain, he more often than not responds with abuse.
He's clearly a very angry man. It's rather sad really given he's now spent 6 years of his life doing this day in day out and he's probably only got a maximum of 90 on this planet.
He's blown (at least) 7% of his whole lifespan being desperately angry and unhappy. It's sad really.
My irony meter just exploded................were you looking in the mirror when you posted that Mr Angry
"The Tragedy of the Unwanted Child: What Ancient Cultures Did Before Abortion Safe abortion is the modern cure for the ancient heartbreaks of neonaticide and abandonment. Rob Brooks"
Many years ago while a student, attended a lecture by guy who had done extensive analysis of 19th century French police records. In which he discussed differences between men and women, also between city versus rural folk.
This is only thing I recall - struck me forcefully then, and since:
> number one crime charged against urban women = abortion > number one crime charged against rural women = infanticide
Most of us have Twitter accounts. We don't need you to come in here and post this stuff. Can you imagine what PB would be like if we all did this? It's boring, worse its annoyingly boring.
I am late to the debate on Scott_xP's tweets, but more generally I would say one of the things I most enjoy about the comments on this site is that it sometimes acts as a filtering service for political twitter, which I can never be bothered to wade through. So, in general, please do keep posting tweets from all sides of the political spectrum.
If that were what he did, nobody would complain.
Yeah, having scrolled through a few I can definitely see an issue with quality control, which isn't usually the case.
To be honest the cash is a distraction. The issue is that Charles is soliciting donations for his preferred charities from a head of state. That creates obligations.
Is not money laundering of the type & scale alleged, itself a crime under UK law?
The article said he handed to his officials who immediately did the necessary checks and tests. So from a kYC perspective they are probably ok
Most of us have Twitter accounts. We don't need you to come in here and post this stuff. Can you imagine what PB would be like if we all did this? It's boring, worse its annoyingly boring.
Then why don't you fuck off?
Wow. I’m simply crushed.
Don't be crushed. Be interesting.
How do you manage to be as boring as you are and not be crushed? Let’s face it, you’re hardly a draw. I don’t want to be a dick about this but you’ve been on here three times longer than me, posted twice as much, and have half as many “likes”. People are not exactly engaging with your content.
Leon asked: "I’m thinking of tackling Rebecca West. The Falcon thingy
Is it worth it? It’s got an amazing reputation but it is 1000 pages long!!"
Harry Truman thought it was a great book. And, having read it a few years ago, I would agree, but I would warn you that you may find it depressing. (I did.)
I bought The Last Hurrah on your recommendation, by the way - thanks for the tip!
She's just giving Prince Charles all the precedents he needs to interfere when he becomes King.
A Scottish government memo obtained by the Guardian reveals that “it is almost certain” draft laws have been secretly changed to secure the Queen’s approval.
Under an arcane mechanism known as Queen’s consent, the monarch is routinely given advance sight of proposed laws that could affect her personal property and public powers. Unlike the better-known procedure of royal assent, a formality that marks the moment when a bill becomes law, Queen’s consent must be sought before the relevant legislation can be approved by parliament.
A Guardian investigation last year revealed the Queen’s consent procedure had been used by the monarch in recent decades to privately lobby for changes to proposed UK legislation. In Scotland, where the procedure is known as crown consent, research by the Guardian identified at least 67 instances in which Scottish bills were vetted by the Queen.
It is perfectly correct that the monarch is informed of legislation affecting Crown property.
Calling the Queen an 'uneducated philistine' is also extremely disrespectful in her Jubilee year and Starkey was bad enough when he first used the phrase
She's not particularly well educated. There was that governess that they fucked over, then she drove Austin 2 ton trucks round in circles for a bit in WW11 before a lifelong career of being driven to the races in a Rolls-Royce.
She speaks fluent French and has a sound understanding of her role and the Constitution. She has been far more popular over her reign than most of the more educated, largely Oxford graduate PMs she has dealt with
She's just giving Prince Charles all the precedents he needs to interfere when he becomes King.
A Scottish government memo obtained by the Guardian reveals that “it is almost certain” draft laws have been secretly changed to secure the Queen’s approval.
Under an arcane mechanism known as Queen’s consent, the monarch is routinely given advance sight of proposed laws that could affect her personal property and public powers. Unlike the better-known procedure of royal assent, a formality that marks the moment when a bill becomes law, Queen’s consent must be sought before the relevant legislation can be approved by parliament.
A Guardian investigation last year revealed the Queen’s consent procedure had been used by the monarch in recent decades to privately lobby for changes to proposed UK legislation. In Scotland, where the procedure is known as crown consent, research by the Guardian identified at least 67 instances in which Scottish bills were vetted by the Queen.
It is perfectly correct that the monarch is informed of legislation affecting Crown property.
Calling the Queen an 'uneducated philistine' is also extremely disrespectful in her Jubilee year and Starkey was bad enough when he first used the phrase
She's not particularly well educated. There was that governess that they fucked over, then she drove Austin 2 ton trucks round in circles for a bit in WW11 before a lifelong career of being driven to the races in a Rolls-Royce.
She speaks fluent French and has a sound understanding of her role and the Constitution. She has been far more popular over her reign than most of the more educated, largely Oxford graduate PMs she has dealt with
She's just giving Prince Charles all the precedents he needs to interfere when he becomes King.
A Scottish government memo obtained by the Guardian reveals that “it is almost certain” draft laws have been secretly changed to secure the Queen’s approval.
Under an arcane mechanism known as Queen’s consent, the monarch is routinely given advance sight of proposed laws that could affect her personal property and public powers. Unlike the better-known procedure of royal assent, a formality that marks the moment when a bill becomes law, Queen’s consent must be sought before the relevant legislation can be approved by parliament.
A Guardian investigation last year revealed the Queen’s consent procedure had been used by the monarch in recent decades to privately lobby for changes to proposed UK legislation. In Scotland, where the procedure is known as crown consent, research by the Guardian identified at least 67 instances in which Scottish bills were vetted by the Queen.
It is perfectly correct that the monarch is informed of legislation affecting Crown property.
Calling the Queen an 'uneducated philistine' is also extremely disrespectful in her Jubilee year and Starkey was bad enough when he first used the phrase
She's not particularly well educated. There was that governess that they fucked over, then she drove Austin 2 ton trucks round in circles for a bit in WW11 before a lifelong career of being driven to the races in a Rolls-Royce.
She speaks fluent French and has a sound understanding of her role and the Constitution. She has been far more popular over her reign than most of the more educated, largely Oxford graduate PMs she has dealt with
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
I would just say that for me there is only one topic of conversation I am interested in and that is just when the conservative mps and constituency chairs rid the party of Johnson
Everything else is secondary
I fear you may be waiting some time.
His downfall will be at the hands of the electorate imho.
Not enough of them have the guts and simple decency to do the deed.
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
Not conned, but chose a different path. We have left the political side of the EU, with all the issues associated with that. It’s come at a cost. It’s frankly quite hard to distinguish the costs of Brexit from the costs of Covid and the war in Ukraine. I have no doubt Brexit is not a net positive in a financial sense for the U.K. However it needs to be judged in the long term and not just in simple finance numbers. Other aspects count too. We will ultimately achieve a much smoother relationship with the EU. This has been a divorce and it takes time after divorce to be friends again, but it will happen. Fine, ignore @Scott_xP . My biggest complaint is how he posts his copied tweets. They are not always obvious as tweets, rather than his own words. He should take more care.
Eminent economists seem to have distinguished the costs of Brexit from Covid and Ukraine.
It certainly will be judged in the long term. And I may be wrong, but I don’t think it will be a ringing endorsement.
I have little respect for eminent economists given how poorly they are able to predict anything about the economy, and how much I suspect they have their own prejudices to help ‘tweak’ assumptions in their models.
Ooooh you are cynical. Poor economists.
They’re like historians in that way. You must have half an eye on an author’s potential prejudices or biases when reading their stuff. And your own too. That’s the most useful skill a history degree taught me.
Of course I’m cynical, I’m a scientist. Never rated economics. I mean take the current situation with rising inflation. What tools do we have? Interest rates. And that’s it. Only affects those who (a) have a variable mortgage. So not many. And thus is supposed to be a lever? Then there is the measuring of economic data. Constantly revised, usually for the better, like the triple dip recession that never was. Perhaps that’s because they don’t understand uncertainty. Maybe it’s the reporters. Whatever - it’s still shit.
As an economics graduate I mostly agree.
At its best it is a fascinating study of uncertainty, complexity and chaos.
Far too often it is a vehicle for hidden biases and vested interests. In the vast majority of cases it is based on underlying assumptions about human behaviour that are laughable.
And even when the economic theoy is good, and sensibly applied to situations, most reporters don't get it, so what we read in tbe media is close to nonsense.
The clearest example in my view was the coalition government's nonsense about 'balancing the books' after the financial crisis, and trying to make analogies with paying off credit cards to justify austerity. It was utterly economically illiterate.
The left are rarely any better, though I think it could be absolutely fascinating for a decent leftwing economist to start from the bottom up and design economic policy that worked for the poorest in society. If anyone knows of someone who has done this, please let me know! I think the new economics foundation make a decent, if piecemeal, fist of it.
Most of us have Twitter accounts. We don't need you to come in here and post this stuff. Can you imagine what PB would be like if we all did this? It's boring, worse its annoyingly boring.
Then why don't you fuck off?
If you want to read travelogues go to the Thomas Cook site
This from the crackpot, rogerdamus, who,thinks the U.K. is on a par with Mugabes Zimbabwe or North Korea. While living in France.
"The Tragedy of the Unwanted Child: What Ancient Cultures Did Before Abortion Safe abortion is the modern cure for the ancient heartbreaks of neonaticide and abandonment. Rob Brooks"
That is rather interesting: sometimes much higher rates than I had realised.
See Tahiti for an interesting example as observed by Cook and Joseph Banks.
I was thinking about C18-C19 Britain (don't know about Ireland), too. And baby farming. Very thinly disguised disposal system, it sometimes seemed, to get rid of your baby. Though some folk did want the best for theirs.
There is a place in SW Ireland which was literally full of skeletons of discarded babies. Over 10,000 "fallen women" were locked away in church run Magdalen Laundries and there they were abused, tortured or killed.
This is why when I see "religious" bigots in the USA celebrating the removal of women's reproductive health, I feel that we (or at least they) are going backwards.
Exclusive: Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has formally written to the PM to ask for the UK’s defence budget to be permanently increased to 2.5% of GDP - an extra 20% or £10bn a year - by 2028 because of the threat from a resurgent Russia, @TheNewsDesk can reveal.
Ben Wallace has also pressed Boris Johnson to use the Madrid summit of NATO leaders tomorrow to show leadership on the international stage and call on the whole of the alliance to increase its minimum spend per country to 2.5 of GDP.
In the letter and subsequent conversations with No10, Mr Wallace has highlighted alarming shortfalls in the UK’s military capabilities that the Ukraine conflict has exposed. They include not enough deep strike weapons, such as long range rockets…
I would just say that for me there is only one topic of conversation I am interested in and that is just when the conservative mps and constituency chairs rid the party of Johnson
Everything else is secondary
I fear you may be waiting some time.
His downfall will be at the hands of the electorate imho.
Not enough of them have the guts and simple decency to do the deed.
I am fairly confident he will be ousted before conference
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
That's how you win wars.
If Brexit was a war, Scotty is Hiroo Onoda.
There’s no reason for that sort of language on here 😠.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
We know it was won on lies - some of the leading figures in "Leave" openly said so
She's just giving Prince Charles all the precedents he needs to interfere when he becomes King.
A Scottish government memo obtained by the Guardian reveals that “it is almost certain” draft laws have been secretly changed to secure the Queen’s approval.
Under an arcane mechanism known as Queen’s consent, the monarch is routinely given advance sight of proposed laws that could affect her personal property and public powers. Unlike the better-known procedure of royal assent, a formality that marks the moment when a bill becomes law, Queen’s consent must be sought before the relevant legislation can be approved by parliament.
A Guardian investigation last year revealed the Queen’s consent procedure had been used by the monarch in recent decades to privately lobby for changes to proposed UK legislation. In Scotland, where the procedure is known as crown consent, research by the Guardian identified at least 67 instances in which Scottish bills were vetted by the Queen.
It is perfectly correct that the monarch is informed of legislation affecting Crown property.
Calling the Queen an 'uneducated philistine' is also extremely disrespectful in her Jubilee year and Starkey was bad enough when he first used the phrase
She's not particularly well educated. There was that governess that they fucked over, then she drove Austin 2 ton trucks round in circles for a bit in WW11 before a lifelong career of being driven to the races in a Rolls-Royce.
She speaks fluent French and has a sound understanding of her role and the Constitution. She has been far more popular over her reign than most of the more educated, largely Oxford graduate PMs she has dealt with
The Krays were popular.
They loved their old Mom and never hurt anyone other than villains, cor, luv a duck, me ole cook Sparra.
The premise that he is some kind of Brexit intellectual who now has to suffer as it is destroyed at the hands of barbarians is a nonsense.
It's funny how his identity hasn't changed with his life's work coming to fruition. He was always this sort of cassandra/prince across the water type figure, and post-Brexit he hasn't been able to actually get stuck in, he has instead retained his cassandra persona. I used to think that him and Carswell were spies against leaving the EU, but I think they are just that inhibited by their own personalities - perpetual rebels without a cause.
He sounds to me like yet another person who has been sold down the river and utterly shafted by Johnson and yet finds themselves surprised.
Incredible how many utterly gullible people there are in politics and public life.
Brexit is a multi faceted thing. It's about the UK constitution; it's about where power lies; its about broad political/economic policy and its about tactical choices.
To support Brexit (and the only thing one could do was vote Leave if that was your position - no more subtle things were available) is to support a particular constitutional settlement, by which we were not members of the EU. And that is all.
Absolutely everything else is a matter for the UK political process. Hannan, doesn't like it all. Nor do I. Well, that's democracy. And it is only us and our parliament to look to for remedies. I think Hannan probably gets that.
(The fascinating spectacle is that of SNP types who get exactly this about Scottish Independence but pretend not to understand Brexit. You couldn't make it up.)
"The Tragedy of the Unwanted Child: What Ancient Cultures Did Before Abortion Safe abortion is the modern cure for the ancient heartbreaks of neonaticide and abandonment. Rob Brooks"
That is rather interesting: sometimes much higher rates than I had realised.
See Tahiti for an interesting example as observed by Cook and Joseph Banks.
I was thinking about C18-C19 Britain (don't know about Ireland), too. And baby farming. Very thinly disguised disposal system, it sometimes seemed, to get rid of your baby. Though some folk did want the best for theirs.
Yes the practice of Victorian times, where mothers gave babies up to the workhouse who then subcontracted them out to the baby farmers was horrific. I believe a similar system worked in parts of the USA.
OT: After a particularly trying day at school, particularly in relation to students' use of snapchat to bully other students, I am really interested in anyone on here who would defend the current accessibility of smartphones and social media to teenagers.
If it were up to me, in my current mood, I'd ban any smartphone or social media accounts for anyone under 18. I'm aware that I'm frustrated, and probably not seeing all sides of the debate, so would be really interested in anyone who is prepared to argue in favour of the status quo (kids between the ages of 12 and 18 having smartphones and social media accounts).
As an aside, I am not normally in favour of state interference in the private lives of citizens, including kids, and would very much like this to be an issue that parents were empowered to take action on themselves. But I egularly speak to parents who feel powerless to do anything other than follow the crowd by giving kids smartphones, to avoid the kid being excluded from friendship circles.
You’re completely right, schools need to step in and ban smartphones, and social media companies need to stop people under 16 from signing up.
Here’s psycology professor Jonathan Haidt, discussing this very issue. The social media business model of creating ‘engagement’ for advertisers is fundamentally incompatible with teenagers’ developing brains. https://youtube.com/watch?v=f0un-l1L8Zw#
Thanks for the reply. The problem is, schools banning smartphones only works in school (I know, we have done it, to the immense relief of most of the students). It just transfers the problem out of the school gates. The worst is the kid at home alone at night reading stuff about them, which regularly happens. Parents can of course regulate some of this - but imo its not enough.
Leon, for what it's worth, am reading Njegos on that archive.org link I posted, and checking out the book for another hour only took hitting one button, and that was fifteen minutes AFTER the first hour expired.
I would just say that for me there is only one topic of conversation I am interested in and that is just when the conservative mps and constituency chairs rid the party of Johnson
Everything else is secondary
I fear you may be waiting some time.
His downfall will be at the hands of the electorate imho.
Not enough of them have the guts and simple decency to do the deed.
I am fairly confident he will be ousted before conference
I sincerely hope you are right. His premiership is a disgrace on the office.
Exclusive: Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has formally written to the PM to ask for the UK’s defence budget to be permanently increased to 2.5% of GDP - an extra 20% or £10bn a year - by 2028 because of the threat from a resurgent Russia, @TheNewsDesk can reveal.
Ben Wallace has also pressed Boris Johnson to use the Madrid summit of NATO leaders tomorrow to show leadership on the international stage and call on the whole of the alliance to increase its minimum spend per country to 2.5 of GDP.
In the letter and subsequent conversations with No10, Mr Wallace has highlighted alarming shortfalls in the UK’s military capabilities that the Ukraine conflict has exposed. They include not enough deep strike weapons, such as long range rockets…
I agree with him, but something has got to give and it won't be the NHS, social care and pensions
I sit outside every evening looking at this view and yet: No Mozzies
Is it coz the karst is so dry?
Yes, limestone environments usually have fewer biting insects unless there are large lakes or other freshwater in the area. It was an influence on where people settled in Southern Italy until mid last century.
The other thing in dry environments is how farmers manage irrigation, and roof slope - not sure about Kotor as not been there but flat roofs (common in the med) are a common breeding ground for larvae (they look pitched in the photo) as are small irrigation reservoirs on farms. I don't think there's much agriculture in Montenegro so that may also be a contributing factor.
They loved their old Mom and never hurt anyone other than villains, cor, luv a duck, me ole cook Sparra.
When I were a young lad I was shocked, genuinely shocked about Robert Boothby and Ronnie Kray, then even more open mouthed when I learned where else Boothby had spread his demon seed.
Three Red Wall Conservative MPs are in defection talks with Labour, The Telegraph can reveal.
Labour sources told The Telegraph that the three male Conservatives, first elected in 2019, have entered formal discussions about crossing the floor to join Sir Keir Starmer’s party.
Those familiar with discussions said the MPs had slim majorities in Red Wall areas in the North that have historically voted Labour and believed they would lose their seats at the next election if they did not defect.
It is understood the three have felt dissatisfied with Boris Johnson’s leadership in recent weeks and were pushed towards the decision after a confidence vote in which 148 Tory MPs did not back the Prime Minister.
One source who has spoken to the MPs said they were frustrated with the “ideological direction” of the Conservative Party.
A second said talks with one Conservative were at initial stages, but another was in live discussions with the Labour whips’ office. The whips’ office declined to comment.
Odd. If true, why would Labour leak it to the Telegraph?
For the bit in bold - either to make any defectors look like selfish traitors, or to fire a shit across the bows at Boris, by being clear they are only contemplating it because he is no longer an electoral asset.
Meant this bit, to be clear
Those familiar with discussions said the MPs had slim majorities in Red Wall areas in the North that have historically voted Labour and believed they would lose their seats at the next election if they did not defect.
The idea that a Tory MP worried about this government’s ideological direct would join a higher tax / higher spending party amused…
It’s just some shit stirring
That’s exactly what it it. Although I’d love it if Lee Anderson jumped ship. Just to see the reaction of labour supporters on Twitter.
1. The Owl and the Pussycat, which I used to recite to the children when they were little at bedtime. 2. An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.
I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.
I love the Lake Isle of Innisfree and The Second Coming by him too.
Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress is a marvel too.
I love poetry. It's music through words.
For me, having tried a lot of poetry and now like almost none of it, one of the few I'll still remember and like is his "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz".
Definite theme here. Remoaners don't like poetry. They are quintessentially middlebrow
1. The Owl and the Pussycat, which I used to recite to the children when they were little at bedtime. 2. An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.
I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.
I love the Lake Isle of Innisfree and The Second Coming by him too.
Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress is a marvel too.
I love poetry. It's music through words.
For me, having tried a lot of poetry and now like almost none of it, one of the few I'll still remember and like is his "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz".
Definite theme here. Remoaners don't like poetry. They are quintessentially middlebrow
Like you I love This Be The Verse. The only poem I can quote from memory. Good job it’s short.
I’m not a huge fan of poetry but I do have a soft spot for Charles Bukowski. I like his prose too:
"There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die."
Hmmm, I'm not sure many of us will - on our death beds - think "damn, I wish I hadn't had so much sex"
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
That's how you win wars.
If Brexit was a war, Scotty is Hiroo Onoda.
There’s no reason for that sort of language on here 😠.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
We know it was won on lies - some of the leading figures in "Leave" openly said so
Exclusive: Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has formally written to the PM to ask for the UK’s defence budget to be permanently increased to 2.5% of GDP - an extra 20% or £10bn a year - by 2028 because of the threat from a resurgent Russia, @TheNewsDesk can reveal.
Ben Wallace has also pressed Boris Johnson to use the Madrid summit of NATO leaders tomorrow to show leadership on the international stage and call on the whole of the alliance to increase its minimum spend per country to 2.5 of GDP.
In the letter and subsequent conversations with No10, Mr Wallace has highlighted alarming shortfalls in the UK’s military capabilities that the Ukraine conflict has exposed. They include not enough deep strike weapons, such as long range rockets…
Wallace is absolutely right.
Europe and UK needs to rearm as a matter of extreme urgency.
This is 1930s again. Here, now. Clear and present danger whilst Putin and his mad, neo-russian-empire chums are in power.
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
That's how you win wars.
If Brexit was a war, Scotty is Hiroo Onoda.
There’s no reason for that sort of language on here 😠.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
We know it was won on lies - some of the leading figures in "Leave" openly said so
There are others. Thirty seconds use of Google Search will turn up plenty of references
It was won because reman failed to make a case and Obama comments of UK at the back of the queue annoyed a lot of people
Lies or otherwise it was a failure by the remain camp to win their case which should have been a walk in the park
The Cameron-led Remain camp.
I may be being paranoid, or over sensitive, but I sometimes think that when people refer to the remain camp, there’s a quiet inference that Remain = Labour.
I could be completely wrong. I could be a frothing FBPE Remainiac. I try not to be, but you never know.
But I do think that it is very important to remember that all three (count ‘em!) campaigns - Remain and the two Leaves - were essentially brought to you by the Tories. Or ex-Tory Ukippers.
Yes Corbyn, yes Hoey, etc, etc. But that doesn’t change the fact that Brexit is Tory. Remain campaign, it’s faults and shortcomings - Tory. Leave, and it’s unicorn herds - Tory. The whole shitshow was.
I hope that, to me, important point doesn’t get lost.
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
That's how you win wars.
If Brexit was a war, Scotty is Hiroo Onoda.
There’s no reason for that sort of language on here 😠.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
We know it was won on lies - some of the leading figures in "Leave" openly said so
To be honest the cash is a distraction. The issue is that Charles is soliciting donations for his preferred charities from a head of state. That creates obligations.
Is not money laundering of the type & scale alleged, itself a crime under UK law?
The article said he handed to his officials who immediately did the necessary checks and tests. So from a kYC perspective they are probably ok
Giving someone a shopping bag full of cash is obviously a gesture of contempt. "Here it is. We have to give it to you, because of who you are, but don't be mistaken about what grubby little level this is on."
I wouldn't be surprised if it was the Qatar side who leaked the story.
OT: After a particularly trying day at school, particularly in relation to students' use of snapchat to bully other students, I am really interested in anyone on here who would defend the current accessibility of smartphones and social media to teenagers.
If it were up to me, in my current mood, I'd ban any smartphone or social media accounts for anyone under 18. I'm aware that I'm frustrated, and probably not seeing all sides of the debate, so would be really interested in anyone who is prepared to argue in favour of the status quo (kids between the ages of 12 and 18 having smartphones and social media accounts).
As an aside, I am not normally in favour of state interference in the private lives of citizens, including kids, and would very much like this to be an issue that parents were empowered to take action on themselves. But I egularly speak to parents who feel powerless to do anything other than follow the crowd by giving kids smartphones, to avoid the kid being excluded from friendship circles.
You’re completely right, schools need to step in and ban smartphones, and social media companies need to stop people under 16 from signing up.
Here’s psycology professor Jonathan Haidt, discussing this very issue. The social media business model of creating ‘engagement’ for advertisers is fundamentally incompatible with teenagers’ developing brains. https://youtube.com/watch?v=f0un-l1L8Zw#
Thanks for the reply. The problem is, schools banning smartphones only works in school (I know, we have done it, to the immense relief of most of the students). It just transfers the problem out of the school gates. The worst is the kid at home alone at night reading stuff about them, which regularly happens. Parents can of course regulate some of this - but imo its not enough.
I agree that it is a major problem. The genie is out of the bottle though, I cannot see how they are banned.
Locking them away at the school door to be picked up at going home time is as far as schools can go.
Exclusive: Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has formally written to the PM to ask for the UK’s defence budget to be permanently increased to 2.5% of GDP - an extra 20% or £10bn a year - by 2028 because of the threat from a resurgent Russia, @TheNewsDesk can reveal.
Ben Wallace has also pressed Boris Johnson to use the Madrid summit of NATO leaders tomorrow to show leadership on the international stage and call on the whole of the alliance to increase its minimum spend per country to 2.5 of GDP.
In the letter and subsequent conversations with No10, Mr Wallace has highlighted alarming shortfalls in the UK’s military capabilities that the Ukraine conflict has exposed. They include not enough deep strike weapons, such as long range rockets…
I agree with him, but something has got to give and it won't be the NHS, social care and pensions
Indeed and I fear the plans to increase NATO RRF forces 40,000 to 300,000 is like my plans to marry Scarlett Johansson, unrealistic.
They loved their old Mom and never hurt anyone other than villains, cor, luv a duck, me ole cook Sparra.
When I were a young lad I was shocked, genuinely shocked about Robert Boothby and Ronnie Kray, then even more open mouthed when I learned where else Boothby had spread his demon seed.
His story of when he met Hitler was amusing. It’s still on YouTube somewhere. I dread to think where else he spread his seed.
The BBC TV series The Long Firm had a character player by Derek Jacobi based on Boothby. Very good it was too.
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
That's how you win wars.
If Brexit was a war, Scotty is Hiroo Onoda.
There’s no reason for that sort of language on here 😠.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
We know it was won on lies - some of the leading figures in "Leave" openly said so
There are others. Thirty seconds use of Google Search will turn up plenty of references
It was won because reman failed to make a case and Obama comments of UK at the back of the queue annoyed a lot of people
Lies or otherwise it was a failure by the remain camp to win their case which should have been a walk in the park
The Cameron-led Remain camp.
I may be being paranoid, or over sensitive, but I sometimes think that when people refer to the remain camp, there’s a quiet inference that Remain = Labour.
I could be completely wrong. I could be a frothing FBPE Remainiac. I try not to be, but you never know.
But I do think that it is very important to remember that all three (count ‘em!) campaigns - Remain and the two Leaves - were essentially brought to you by the Tories. Or ex-Tory Ukippers.
Yes Corbyn, yes Hoey, etc, etc. But that doesn’t change the fact that Brexit is Tory. Remain campaign, it’s faults and shortcomings - Tory. Leave, and it’s unicorn herds - Tory. The whole shitshow was.
I hope that, to me, important point doesn’t get lost.
"The Tragedy of the Unwanted Child: What Ancient Cultures Did Before Abortion Safe abortion is the modern cure for the ancient heartbreaks of neonaticide and abandonment. Rob Brooks"
That is rather interesting: sometimes much higher rates than I had realised.
See Tahiti for an interesting example as observed by Cook and Joseph Banks.
I was thinking about C18-C19 Britain (don't know about Ireland), too. And baby farming. Very thinly disguised disposal system, it sometimes seemed, to get rid of your baby. Though some folk did want the best for theirs.
Yes the practice of Victorian times, where mothers gave babies up to the workhouse who then subcontracted them out to the baby farmers was horrific. I believe a similar system worked in the UK.
The problem with 4 billion years of evolution is that it is very clever but not over intelligent, and sometimes works too well. It just so happens that we are in the uniquely fortunate position of being able to regulate fertility better than humans ever have in all the epochs past. Good.
For this reason, and for the sake of general human happiness, there is good reason why pregnancy should generally occur when it is desired, and in the wealthy world especially even when sub-optimal it should often be embraced lovingly.
Which is why it is rational to believe that abortion should be safe, legal and rare in the rich world and that social policy directed towards this end would be money and effort well spent.
1. The Owl and the Pussycat, which I used to recite to the children when they were little at bedtime. 2. An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.
I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.
I love the Lake Isle of Innisfree and The Second Coming by him too.
Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress is a marvel too.
I love poetry. It's music through words.
For me, having tried a lot of poetry and now like almost none of it, one of the few I'll still remember and like is his "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz".
Definite theme here. Remoaners don't like poetry. They are quintessentially middlebrow
1. The Owl and the Pussycat, which I used to recite to the children when they were little at bedtime. 2. An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.
I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.
I love the Lake Isle of Innisfree and The Second Coming by him too.
Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress is a marvel too.
I love poetry. It's music through words.
For me, having tried a lot of poetry and now like almost none of it, one of the few I'll still remember and like is his "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz".
Definite theme here. Remoaners don't like poetry. They are quintessentially middlebrow
Like you I love This Be The Verse. The only poem I can quote from memory. Good job it’s short.
I’m not a huge fan of poetry but I do have a soft spot for Charles Bukowski. I like his prose too:
"There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die."
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
That's how you win wars.
If Brexit was a war, Scotty is Hiroo Onoda.
There’s no reason for that sort of language on here 😠.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
We know it was won on lies - some of the leading figures in "Leave" openly said so
Most of us have Twitter accounts. We don't need you to come in here and post this stuff. Can you imagine what PB would be like if we all did this? It's boring, worse its annoyingly boring.
Then why don't you fuck off?
If you want to read travelogues go to the Thomas Cook site
This from the crackpot, rogerdamus, who,thinks the U.K. is on a par with Mugabes Zimbabwe or North Korea. While living in France.
Who were you before you changed your username to the very fetching 'Taz'?
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
That's how you win wars.
If Brexit was a war, Scotty is Hiroo Onoda.
There’s no reason for that sort of language on here 😠.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
We know it was won on lies - some of the leading figures in "Leave" openly said so
There are others. Thirty seconds use of Google Search will turn up plenty of references
It was won because reman failed to make a case and Obama comments of UK at the back of the queue annoyed a lot of people
Lies or otherwise it was a failure by the remain camp to win their case which should have been a walk in the park
Obama was absolutely correct in what he said. Leavers didn't like it because he was a part-Kenyan getting above his station.
Bollocks.
Leavers took the piss because it was so obviously written for him by one of Cameron's team.
You clearly weren't on here when he said it. The Leaver consensus was very much, 'How dare that frightful bounder lecture us about American trade policy. And on hallowed English soil at that.'
Exclusive: Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has formally written to the PM to ask for the UK’s defence budget to be permanently increased to 2.5% of GDP - an extra 20% or £10bn a year - by 2028 because of the threat from a resurgent Russia, @TheNewsDesk can reveal.
Ben Wallace has also pressed Boris Johnson to use the Madrid summit of NATO leaders tomorrow to show leadership on the international stage and call on the whole of the alliance to increase its minimum spend per country to 2.5 of GDP.
In the letter and subsequent conversations with No10, Mr Wallace has highlighted alarming shortfalls in the UK’s military capabilities that the Ukraine conflict has exposed. They include not enough deep strike weapons, such as long range rockets…
I agree with him, but something has got to give and it won't be the NHS, social care and pensions
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
That's how you win wars.
If Brexit was a war, Scotty is Hiroo Onoda.
There’s no reason for that sort of language on here 😠.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
We know it was won on lies - some of the leading figures in "Leave" openly said so
There are others. Thirty seconds use of Google Search will turn up plenty of references
It was won because reman failed to make a case and Obama comments of UK at the back of the queue annoyed a lot of people
Lies or otherwise it was a failure by the remain camp to win their case which should have been a walk in the park
The Cameron-led Remain camp.
I may be being paranoid, or over sensitive, but I sometimes think that when people refer to the remain camp, there’s a quiet inference that Remain = Labour.
I could be completely wrong. I could be a frothing FBPE Remainiac. I try not to be, but you never know.
But I do think that it is very important to remember that all three (count ‘em!) campaigns - Remain and the two Leaves - were essentially brought to you by the Tories. Or ex-Tory Ukippers.
Yes Corbyn, yes Hoey, etc, etc. But that doesn’t change the fact that Brexit is Tory. Remain campaign, it’s faults and shortcomings - Tory. Leave, and it’s unicorn herds - Tory. The whole shitshow was.
I hope that, to me, important point doesn’t get lost.
Cameron and remain made a complete hash of the campaign, though it is fair to say labour did not support leave nor do they today, despite what they may say in public
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
That's how you win wars.
If Brexit was a war, Scotty is Hiroo Onoda.
There’s no reason for that sort of language on here 😠.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
We know it was won on lies - some of the leading figures in "Leave" openly said so
There are others. Thirty seconds use of Google Search will turn up plenty of references
It was won because reman failed to make a case and Obama comments of UK at the back of the queue annoyed a lot of people
Lies or otherwise it was a failure by the remain camp to win their case which should have been a walk in the park
Obama was absolutely correct in what he said. Leavers didn't like it because he was a part-Kenyan getting above his station.
Bollocks.
Leavers took the piss because it was so obviously written for him by one of Cameron's team.
You clearly weren't on here when he said it. The Leaver consensus was very much, 'How dare that frightful bounder lecture us about American trade policy. And on hallowed English soil at that.'
Forgive me if I look at your avatar and see you as far from a neutral reporter of what was said.
I sit outside every evening looking at this view and yet: No Mozzies
Is it coz the karst is so dry?
Yes, limestone environments usually have fewer biting insects unless there are large lakes or other freshwater in the area. It was an influence on where people settled in Southern Italy until mid last century.
The other thing in dry environments is how farmers manage irrigation, and roof slope - not sure about Kotor as not been there but flat roofs (common in the med) are a common breeding ground for larvae (they look pitched in the photo) as are small irrigation reservoirs on farms. I don't think there's much agriculture in Montenegro so that may also be a contributing factor.
It’s now 9pm, I’m sitting out outside in my pants (sorry PB) and there is not.a mosquito to be seen. Not a whine to be heard. It’s deffo a thing and yes the dry karst landscape must play a role
1. The Owl and the Pussycat, which I used to recite to the children when they were little at bedtime. 2. An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.
I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.
I love the Lake Isle of Innisfree and The Second Coming by him too.
Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress is a marvel too.
I love poetry. It's music through words.
For me, having tried a lot of poetry and now like almost none of it, one of the few I'll still remember and like is his "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz".
Definite theme here. Remoaners don't like poetry. They are quintessentially middlebrow
1. The Owl and the Pussycat, which I used to recite to the children when they were little at bedtime. 2. An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.
I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.
I love the Lake Isle of Innisfree and The Second Coming by him too.
Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress is a marvel too.
I love poetry. It's music through words.
For me, having tried a lot of poetry and now like almost none of it, one of the few I'll still remember and like is his "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz".
Definite theme here. Remoaners don't like poetry. They are quintessentially middlebrow
Like you I love This Be The Verse. The only poem I can quote from memory. Good job it’s short.
I’m not a huge fan of poetry but I do have a soft spot for Charles Bukowski. I like his prose too:
"There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die."
Hmmm, I'm not sure many of us will - on our death beds - think "damn, I wish I hadn't had so much sex"
Well, yes, there is that. Something to aim for, I suppose. It’s good to have goals.
I for one am glad Scott_xP puts up the tweets. Obviously helps that I agree with the points he’s making, whether he is using his own words or someone else’s. We need to hear it. Because Brexit has had a massively negative impact, and will continue to do so, until we accept that and start to try and resolve it (and not by unilaterally breaking treaties we have signed). And we’re far from that point. But we’re getting there slowly.
Stick your fingers in your ears, have a pop at Scott_xP, scroll past his posts without reading them, do whatever you feel. It won’t change the fact that gradually, steadily, inexorably, the country is realising it has been conned.
I've felt like the country has been conned for six years. These Tweets are available on Twitter. I don't come here for syndicated Tweets. I go to Twitter for tweets. They're counterproductive because, amazingly, the poster on here who gets me most wound up about Brexit is a fellow Remainer.
I get that. I still think it needs hammering home. Not everyone goes on Twitter.
And even if you do, it is extremely easy to get stuck in your own Twitter circle jerk, only hearing voices you agree with. It’s Twitter’s biggest fault.
It is good, IMHO, to have Scott’s reportage. Many will find it uncomfortable, or, like you, irritating. I still think he does a valuable service posting in the way he does.
It's not fucking "reportage". @Scott_xP is not on the front line of Brexit, with the shrapnel of the NI Protocol whistling past his ears. It is retweeting
The main emotion it evokes is pity for him. And intense boredom. Is that what he wants? Fair enough, but it does not adorn the site nor does it advance his cause
I think we’re all on the front line of Brexit!
Bless him, he’s in the digital trenches, a plucky runner risking life and limb - and perhaps sanity - to bring us, the armchair generals, blood flecked dispatches full of tales of pettifogging bureaucracy, tumbling exports and frustrated holiday makers, ruefully eyeing the EU gates.
Mute button? Man's won the FBPE VC many times over. Remember those times he posted stuff slightly too uncooked, got a pasting, but still went over the top again.
That's how you win wars.
If Brexit was a war, Scotty is Hiroo Onoda.
There’s no reason for that sort of language on here 😠.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
We know it was won on lies - some of the leading figures in "Leave" openly said so
There are others. Thirty seconds use of Google Search will turn up plenty of references
It was won because reman failed to make a case and Obama comments of UK at the back of the queue annoyed a lot of people
Lies or otherwise it was a failure by the remain camp to win their case which should have been a walk in the park
The Cameron-led Remain camp.
I may be being paranoid, or over sensitive, but I sometimes think that when people refer to the remain camp, there’s a quiet inference that Remain = Labour.
I could be completely wrong. I could be a frothing FBPE Remainiac. I try not to be, but you never know.
But I do think that it is very important to remember that all three (count ‘em!) campaigns - Remain and the two Leaves - were essentially brought to you by the Tories. Or ex-Tory Ukippers.
Yes Corbyn, yes Hoey, etc, etc. But that doesn’t change the fact that Brexit is Tory. Remain campaign, it’s faults and shortcomings - Tory. Leave, and it’s unicorn herds - Tory. The whole shitshow was.
I hope that, to me, important point doesn’t get lost.
I think there's a difference.
Tories were Remain for national interest reasons - the belief the EU gave the UK more power and influence but held no candle for European unity as a project - whereas Labour (or FBPE, more broadly after) were more Remain for ideological internationalist reasons. Liberals for liberal reasons (i.e. no borders/restrictions etc).
The reason the Tory split was acidic is because the same motives drove the Leave vote in its ranks as well.
Comments
The perfidy stuff about switching parties is all about fear, identity and group solidarity and little to do with the actuality of policy.
It would probably be good for the rest of us if this happened more.
Safe abortion is the modern cure for the ancient heartbreaks of neonaticide and abandonment.
Rob Brooks"
https://quillette.com/2022/06/24/the-tragedy-of-the-unwanted-child-what-ancient-cultures-did-before-abortion/
To be honest the cash is a distraction. The issue is that Charles is soliciting donations for his preferred charities from a head of state. That creates obligations.
suit, carnage.
Everything else is secondary
Incredible how many utterly gullible people there are in politics and public life.
I think you all get too worked up by Brexit on PB. My humble view is the difference between being in and out is out now we will get a bit economically worse off in coming years, less growth, less jobs, less investment in UK - but not to some huge dramatic degree that justifies all this fuss. Even a bit financially poorer, we will still be here, there will always be an England.
Some of you act like it wasn’t democratic or won on a fistful of lies. But you will never have evidence that’s true, so you should be polite and not mention what you can’t prove.
They’re like historians in that way. You must have half an eye on an author’s potential prejudices or biases when reading their stuff. And your own too. That’s the most useful skill a history degree taught me.
https://www.digisigner.com/free-electronic-signature/sign-document-online
https://politicsandinsights.org/2017/10/27/leave-director-admitted-the-brexit-referendum-was-won-by-lying-to-the-public/
There are others. Thirty seconds use of Google Search will turn up plenty of references
If it were up to me, in my current mood, I'd ban any smartphone or social media accounts for anyone under 18. I'm aware that I'm frustrated, and probably not seeing all sides of the debate, so would be really interested in anyone who is prepared to argue in favour of the status quo (kids between the ages of 12 and 18 having smartphones and social media accounts).
As an aside, I am not normally in favour of state interference in the private lives of citizens, including kids, and would very much like this to be an issue that parents were empowered to take action on themselves. But I egularly speak to parents who feel powerless to do anything other than follow the crowd by giving kids smartphones, to avoid the kid being excluded from friendship circles.
There are quite a few precedents where it worked out.
Never rated economics. I mean take the current situation with rising inflation. What tools do we have? Interest rates. And that’s it. Only affects those who (a) have a variable mortgage. So not many. And thus is supposed to be a lever?
Then there is the measuring of economic data. Constantly revised, usually for the better, like the triple dip recession that never was. Perhaps that’s because they don’t understand uncertainty. Maybe it’s the reporters. Whatever - it’s still shit.
Lies or otherwise it was a failure by the remain camp to win their case which should have been a walk in the park
It’s just some shit stirring
As the PB crypt fills with savaged victims of dead sheep.
Here’s psycology professor Jonathan Haidt, discussing this very issue. The social media business model of creating ‘engagement’ for advertisers is fundamentally incompatible with teenagers’ developing brains.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=f0un-l1L8Zw#
The idea of @malcolmg calling someone “mr angry”!
😂
This is only thing I recall - struck me forcefully then, and since:
> number one crime charged against urban women = abortion
> number one crime charged against rural women = infanticide
I sit outside every evening looking at this view and yet: No Mozzies
Is it coz the karst is so dry?
His downfall will be at the hands of the electorate imho.
Not enough of them have the guts and simple decency to do the deed.
At its best it is a fascinating study of uncertainty, complexity and chaos.
Far too often it is a vehicle for hidden biases and vested interests. In the vast majority of cases it is based on underlying assumptions about human behaviour that are laughable.
And even when the economic theoy is good, and sensibly applied to situations, most reporters don't get it, so what we read in tbe media is close to nonsense.
The clearest example in my view was the coalition government's nonsense about 'balancing the books' after the financial crisis, and trying to make analogies with paying off credit cards to justify austerity. It was utterly economically illiterate.
The left are rarely any better, though I think it could be absolutely fascinating for a decent leftwing economist to start from the bottom up and design economic policy that worked for the poorest in society. If anyone knows of someone who has done this, please let me know! I think the new economics foundation make a decent, if piecemeal, fist of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGsFrk0MrwQ
This is why when I see "religious" bigots in the USA celebrating the removal of women's reproductive health, I feel that we (or at least they) are going backwards.
Exclusive: Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has formally written to the PM to ask for the UK’s defence budget to be permanently increased to 2.5% of GDP - an extra 20% or £10bn a year - by 2028 because of the threat from a resurgent Russia, @TheNewsDesk can reveal.
Ben Wallace has also pressed Boris Johnson to use the Madrid summit of NATO leaders tomorrow to show leadership on the international stage and call on the whole of the alliance to increase its minimum spend per country to 2.5 of GDP.
In the letter and subsequent conversations with No10, Mr Wallace has highlighted alarming shortfalls in the UK’s military capabilities that the Ukraine conflict has exposed. They include not enough deep strike weapons, such as long range rockets…
To support Brexit (and the only thing one could do was vote Leave if that was your position - no more subtle things were available) is to support a particular constitutional settlement, by which we were not members of the EU. And that is all.
Absolutely everything else is a matter for the UK political process. Hannan, doesn't like it all. Nor do I. Well, that's democracy. And it is only us and our parliament to look to for remedies. I think Hannan probably gets that.
(The fascinating spectacle is that of SNP types who get exactly this about Scottish Independence but pretend not to understand Brexit. You couldn't make it up.)
The problem is, schools banning smartphones only works in school (I know, we have done it, to the immense relief of most of the students). It just transfers the problem out of the school gates. The worst is the kid at home alone at night reading stuff about them, which regularly happens. Parents can of course regulate some of this - but imo its not enough.
The other thing in dry environments is how farmers manage irrigation, and roof slope - not sure about Kotor as not been there but flat roofs (common in the med) are a common breeding ground for larvae (they look pitched in the photo) as are small irrigation reservoirs on farms. I don't think there's much agriculture in Montenegro so that may also be a contributing factor.
Leavers took the piss because it was so obviously written for him by one of Cameron's team.
Europe and UK needs to rearm as a matter of extreme urgency.
This is 1930s again. Here, now. Clear and present danger whilst Putin and his mad, neo-russian-empire chums are in power.
I may be being paranoid, or over sensitive, but I sometimes think that when people refer to the remain camp, there’s a quiet inference that Remain = Labour.
I could be completely wrong. I could be a frothing FBPE Remainiac. I try not to be, but you never know.
But I do think that it is very important to remember that all three (count ‘em!) campaigns - Remain and the two Leaves - were essentially brought to you by the Tories. Or ex-Tory Ukippers.
Yes Corbyn, yes Hoey, etc, etc. But that doesn’t change the fact that Brexit is Tory. Remain campaign, it’s faults and shortcomings - Tory. Leave, and it’s unicorn herds - Tory. The whole shitshow was.
I hope that, to me, important point doesn’t get lost.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was the Qatar side who leaked the story.
Locking them away at the school door to be picked up at going home time is as far as schools can go.
The BBC TV series The Long Firm had a character player by Derek Jacobi based on Boothby. Very good it was too.
God does move in mysterious ways.
For this reason, and for the sake of general human happiness, there is good reason why pregnancy should generally occur when it is desired, and in the wealthy world especially even when sub-optimal it should often be embraced lovingly.
Which is why it is rational to believe that abortion should be safe, legal and rare in the rich world and that social policy directed towards this end would be money and effort well spent.
And as Tory MPs look increasingly over Boris Johnson's shoulder, some are now talking up @grantshapps as their next leader.
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https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1541489755782844419
'Shapps'
'Fuck, really? Oh well, i'll give it a go'
Tories were Remain for national interest reasons - the belief the EU gave the UK more power and influence but held no candle for European unity as a project - whereas Labour (or FBPE, more broadly after) were more Remain for ideological internationalist reasons. Liberals for liberal reasons (i.e. no borders/restrictions etc).
The reason the Tory split was acidic is because the same motives drove the Leave vote in its ranks as well.