The Tory membership is not interested in a critique of Hitchens or his views.
They don't believe that Boris did anything too much wrong. And want him back
Perhaps but if we allow comments like Hitchens to pass unchallenged it becomes easier for his jaundiced revisionism to become accepted as the "truth".
As it was with Johnson - he was allowed far too often to say things and claim things which were inaccurate at best and downright untruthful at worst. He was never strongly or directly challenged enough by the media who presumably were terrified of the political pygmy Nadine Dorries or the bile of the Mail to hold either the Prime Minister or his Government properly to account.
It's a standard to which ALL politicians should be held of course.
There will be those who will worship Johnson as the "king across the water" and consider him some kind of political demi-god. I can't help that - I've never at any time understood the attraction. He was an average Mayor of London who used his eight years to achieve almost nothing apart from his personal political self-interest. You might argue Khan and Livingstone are and were no better of course.
As an example, Johnson came in promising to tame the RMT and end strikes on the Underground - he came up against Bob Crow and folded faster than the average origami.
Have we done this one earlier? It is potentially explosive.
" With direct impacts of Covid ruled out, the most plausible remaining explanation is grim: we may be witnessing the collapse of the NHS, as hundreds of thousands of patients, unable to access timely care, see their condition worsen to the point of being unable to work. The 332,000 people who have been waiting more than a year for hospital treatment in Britain is a close numerical match for the 309,000 now missing from the labour force due to long-term sickness."
It is just unthinkable to me there is yet to parliamentary inquiry in Germany into the past errors on energy policy, the Schröder Kreis, the cause of the errors, the corruption networks, foreign influence, etc. unthinkable in any developed democracy
I am not being facetious, we need Germany to sign a memorandum committing to profound changes in its energy but also economic model. I don’t know anyone who thinks Germany will do it motu proprio
2014: Russia starts its invasion and occupation of Ukraine 2015: Nord Stream 2 signed
Do you get it from a website called something like xenophobia.com? where only negative stories about the hated furriners can be found? I know there is one rather unintelligent poster (the one often apt to posting laughable porkies) who claims you, like him (snigger) have bene on a "journey", but seriously, what happened to turn you from one extreme of the most Europhile of Europhiles to a frothing swivel eyed Europhobe who gets his kicks from posting negative stories about our erstwhile partners?
There are journeys and there are ludicrous lurches. There are gradual movements or evolution from one position to another. But then there is yours. It is like akin to John Mcdonnell waking up one day and switching to the Tories and joining the ERG. Actually even that is not extreme enough to be analogous. As I have said before, I can only imagine someone else has nicked the account that once belonged to @williamglenn Where have you put him please?
Almost everyone agrees that Germany has made a very serious mistake by making itself so reliant on Russian energy.
Of course, but that is not the point. @williamglenn posts a gloating negative story about the EU or one of the EU countries with monotonous regularity. This would not be so ludicrous if it were not for the fact that only a short time ago he was more Europhile than Leon Brittan.
Think of it as balance in action. As my dad said, always read both The Guardian & The Telegraph. Plus as many other sources as you can. All are biased. Just in different directions.
I had to laugh at one of Bart's posts the other day, in which he was making some general point about the UK and other democracies with similar interests. His list of similar democracies was the USA, Canada, India and Japan; he couldn't actually bring himself to mention more obviously similar democracies like France and Germany, due presumably to their membership of the hated EU.
He genuinely believes they are part of one country. lol.
If the EU doesn't yet qualify as a country, it's not because it's not on the road towards that status.
Oh dear. It is not a country. It is an association of sovereign states with some areas of pooled sovereignty. Some EU politicians still believe in "ever closer union" in the same way as some people in this country still believe Brexit was sensible. Both sets of people are dumb
You've still never figured out why Leave won.
I think most of have figured out why leave won.
Have you figured out why, a couple of years on, only 35% of voters (and dropping) believe we did the right thing?. I would be fascinated to hear your explanation.
A combination of the scapegoat effect, May fucking up the negotiations, a lack of realism that Brexit wasn't a magic wand, and the opinion poll question being completely irrelevant.
The EU has been blamed for every problem for a half century, now everything will be blamed on Brexit for a few decades, until we rejoin.
If the situation broadly is that when we are in a plurality want to be out, and when out a plurality want to be in, does this not suggest a failure of statecraft?
Comments
As it was with Johnson - he was allowed far too often to say things and claim things which were inaccurate at best and downright untruthful at worst. He was never strongly or directly challenged enough by the media who presumably were terrified of the political pygmy Nadine Dorries or the bile of the Mail to hold either the Prime Minister or his Government properly to account.
It's a standard to which ALL politicians should be held of course.
There will be those who will worship Johnson as the "king across the water" and consider him some kind of political demi-god. I can't help that - I've never at any time understood the attraction. He was an average Mayor of London who used his eight years to achieve almost nothing apart from his personal political self-interest. You might argue Khan and Livingstone are and were no better of course.
As an example, Johnson came in promising to tame the RMT and end strikes on the Underground - he came up against Bob Crow and folded faster than the average origami.
"
With direct impacts of Covid ruled out, the most plausible remaining explanation is grim: we may be witnessing the collapse of the NHS, as hundreds of thousands of patients, unable to access timely care, see their condition worsen to the point of being unable to work. The 332,000 people who have been waiting more than a year for hospital treatment in Britain is a close numerical match for the 309,000 now missing from the labour force due to long-term sickness."
Chronic illness makes UK workforce the sickest in developed world
https://www.ft.com/content/c333a6d8-0a56-488c-aeb8-eeb1c05a34d2?sharetype=blocked