Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
Penny's time, as with Rishi, has been and gone. After Liz the next leadership election will be all about Kemi.
Last night, idly surfing, I came across the possible first female president of the USA, and, fuck me, she is scary
Her name is Kari Lake, she's a Trumpite running for the Arizona governorship. She's also an ex TV news anchor. Her views are extreme (to me) and often ugly. Yet she has an undeniable charisma and confidence
One thing that might tell against her is her age. She's in her mid 50s and when might she get a run at the White House? But she is good. She actually talks like Trump - identical cadences - yet delivered by an attractive, eloquent woman with presence, it is unsettling as heck
I recall reading something twenty years ago by a political analyst saying that America was basically a "pre-fascist" state. I think George W Bush was in office at the time. I can't recall what his logic was, but seems to me to have been eerily prescient.
When Trump wins in 2024 there will be no way of getting him out again as his fascist cult followers take all the levers of government and administration.
The country will tear itself apart and it will certainly be an extraordinarily dangerous time for the rest of the world.
Incredibly 40% or so of Americans seem to want this.
Yes there would be, he could be impeached by Congress and the US armed forces take an oath to the constitution as much as the President. Trump would need to amend that so they solely take an oath of loyalty to him.
I also still think Buttigieg has an excellent chance of the Presidency in 2024, Trump may not even run
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Whatever happens at the next election will, for better or worse, only partly be about whatever Truss does. She will carry the legacy of Brexit and the Johnson premiership (whether you think those are good or bad legacies). She could partly repair the Conservative coalition, but still lose.
However, I suspect, she’ll be shit on top of a shit legacy, the Tories will lose, and then they’ll pick an even shitter new leader.
I may be wrong but I expect the Tories will suffer a heavier defeat under Truss than they would have done under Boris.
She will have less appeal to the redwall white working class than Boris did and lose voters there to Labour and RefUK while still proving just as much of a turnoff for Remainers in London and the South who don't fear Starmer as they did Corbyn and have been moving Labour or LD.
The Telegraph headline today is 'Truss plans Thatcherite shake-up of the Treasury' including bringing back John Redwood, very bright but equally toxic in the redwall and Remain voting areas of the bluewall
I think you might be right, but OTOH we shouldn’t underestimate how much Boris trashed his own legacy and she has the one advantage of not being Johnson.
It was Boris who had the reach in the redwall, Truss won't have the same reach especially with her more Thatcherite economics and in the bluewall she has tied herself so much to his legacy and hard Brexit agenda she will be just as toxic anyway.
For instance she co-authored Britannia Unchained, a pamphlet that described the British as “among the worst idlers in the world”. I am sure the red wall will love that and Labour will make sure they are fully aware of it
Isn’t the concern about drag act story time that men who dress up as women do so for a sexual kick? Panto is a bit different because that’s actors playing a part in a play.
The funny thing is, if it was trans person story time, that would be much more appropriate as it would be getting kids used to the idea that some people present as a different gender.
Panto and drag are not necessarily the same thing. Some drag acts are for adults only and simply not suitable for children. The National Theatre recently apologised for having a drag act at a family show who talked about children "opening their legs".
My memory may be playing tricks, but 50 years ago wasn't Danny la Rue mainstream family entertainment on TV on weekend evenings?
Cross-dressing was always a recurring theme in British light entertainment, in a way that it wasn’t in the US (with the notable exception of that Some Like It Hot).
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
In a way it is. There's no rational basis to believe someone can be in the 'wrong' body.
That's the same as saying the concept of gender is irrational. It's meaningful only if it can differ (in an individual) from biological sex. If it can't it means gender is null and void for all practical purposes hence so is the notion of transgender. I reckon this view is quite widely held.
I don't think it's the same. Even if you accept the theory of gender as something socially constructed, it doesn't automatically follow that someone who identifies as the opposite gender to their biological sex literally is a man/woman trapped in a woman/man's body.
Kind of does though. "Trapped in wrong body" is code for "My sex is different to my gender."
If the concept of gender is meaningful it follows it is different to sex. If it isn't we don't need the term.
And if the 2 things are different a person can have their sex and gender misaligned - ie be trapped in the wrong body.
This is only irrational to somebody who thinks the notion of gender is bollox.
I would argue we don't need the term gender. It used to just be a euphemism for sex. Are you male or female? What is your body? Do you have a willy or not? That is a meaningful question with a meaningful answer. But gender - do you feel like a man or a woman - how do you define what someone of the female gender is without getting into the circular logic of 'someone who identifies as a woman'? I'd argue that the term is redundant.
Yep. I don't agree with you but I think lots of those whose heckles rise at the notion of "trans rights" do feel this way.
The damaging revelations of the Jan. 6 committee hearings are fueling skepticism among Senate Republicans that former President Trump can win the GOP nomination in 2024 or even run for another term in the White House.
Thank you to former First Minister @AlexSalmond for coming to visit our Glasgow Soup Kitchen, Mr Salmond got his jacket off and apron on and ready to serve the most vulnerable in our city of Glasgow.
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Whatever happens at the next election will, for better or worse, only partly be about whatever Truss does. She will carry the legacy of Brexit and the Johnson premiership (whether you think those are good or bad legacies). She could partly repair the Conservative coalition, but still lose.
However, I suspect, she’ll be shit on top of a shit legacy, the Tories will lose, and then they’ll pick an even shitter new leader.
I may be wrong but I expect the Tories will suffer a heavier defeat under Truss than they would have done under Boris.
She will have less appeal to the redwall white working class than Boris did and lose voters there to Labour and RefUK while still proving just as much of a turnoff for Remainers in London and the South who don't fear Starmer as they did Corbyn and have been moving Labour or LD.
The Telegraph headline today is 'Truss plans Thatcherite shake-up of the Treasury' including bringing back John Redwood, very bright but equally toxic in the redwall and Remain voting areas of the bluewall
I think you might be right, but OTOH we shouldn’t underestimate how much Boris trashed his own legacy and she has the one advantage of not being Johnson.
It was Boris who had the reach in the redwall, Truss won't have the same reach especially with her more Thatcherite economics and in the bluewall she has tied herself so much to his legacy and hard Brexit agenda she will be just as toxic anyway.
Dunno. Truss is unpredictable. We all thought she was finished after that dreadful first debate and yet here we are. And she has got seriously better at this, in a few short weeks. Perhaps she will grow in stature, in a similar way, once in office. And she might put the wind up Starmer
Also, your reputation as a Tory soothsayer has taken a bit of a dent, I am afraid. You backed Wallace as leader (even as we told you he wouldn't even run). He didn't even run. Then you backed the dull pointless Tugendhat. Now you're on to Sunak. You've backed the loser every time. Perhaps your political antennae need a reboot
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
Penny's time, as with Rishi, has been and gone. After Liz the next leadership election will be all about Kemi.
Last night, idly surfing, I came across the possible first female president of the USA, and, fuck me, she is scary
Her name is Kari Lake, she's a Trumpite running for the Arizona governorship. She's also an ex TV news anchor. Her views are extreme (to me) and often ugly. Yet she has an undeniable charisma and confidence
One thing that might tell against her is her age. She's in her mid 50s and when might she get a run at the White House? But she is good. She actually talks like Trump - identical cadences - yet delivered by an attractive, eloquent woman with presence, it is unsettling as heck
I recall reading something twenty years ago by a political analyst saying that America was basically a "pre-fascist" state. I think George W Bush was in office at the time. I can't recall what his logic was, but seems to me to have been eerily prescient.
When Trump wins in 2024 there will be no way of getting him out again as his fascist cult followers take all the levers of government and administration.
The country will tear itself apart and it will certainly be an extraordinarily dangerous time for the rest of the world.
Incredibly 40% or so of Americans seem to want this.
She reminds me of the British Hard Right demagogue - Vivienne Rook - played by Emma Thompson in the dystopian drama Years and Years. Except Kari Lake is real, and better at the demagoguery
A few days ago, on here, I said that I could envisage America voting for something close to Fascism. I believe I am looking at a woman who could deliver that
Kari Lake trails likely Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs 43% to 38% in the latest Arizona governor poll and was 9% behind in the poll before that
No polling data in either of them though unlike what I posted.
In 2020 Biden also became the first Democrat to win Arizona in a presidential election since Bill Clinton in 1996, who in turn was the first Democrat to win it since Truman in 1948.
Arizona is normally solid red but it does not like Trump's nationalism, it is more a libertarian state
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Whatever happens at the next election will, for better or worse, only partly be about whatever Truss does. She will carry the legacy of Brexit and the Johnson premiership (whether you think those are good or bad legacies). She could partly repair the Conservative coalition, but still lose.
However, I suspect, she’ll be shit on top of a shit legacy, the Tories will lose, and then they’ll pick an even shitter new leader.
I may be wrong but I expect the Tories will suffer a heavier defeat under Truss than they would have done under Boris.
She will have less appeal to the redwall white working class than Boris did and lose voters there to Labour and RefUK while still proving just as much of a turnoff for Remainers in London and the South who don't fear Starmer as they did Corbyn and have been moving Labour or LD.
The Telegraph headline today is 'Truss plans Thatcherite shake-up of the Treasury' including bringing back John Redwood, very bright but equally toxic in the redwall and Remain voting areas of the bluewall
I think you might be right, but OTOH we shouldn’t underestimate how much Boris trashed his own legacy and she has the one advantage of not being Johnson.
It was Boris who had the reach in the redwall, Truss won't have the same reach especially with her more Thatcherite economics and in the bluewall she has tied herself so much to his legacy and hard Brexit agenda she will be just as toxic anyway.
Genuine question, Hyufd.
What do you make of Thatcher, the person - and, more importantly, her political legacy.
In the past year or so, you’ve posted extensively on here about how you (if I’ve read you correctly) define yourself quite strongly against the libertarian tories - who hold Thatcher in very high regard.
Do you think these libertarian tories misunderstand the true Thatcher? Or do they have her right - ie, that they own the Thatcherite legacy - taking it to its logical conclusion, and you (and your wing of the tories) therefore reject her and her legacy?
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
Penny's time, as with Rishi, has been and gone. After Liz the next leadership election will be all about Kemi.
Last night, idly surfing, I came across the possible first female president of the USA, and, fuck me, she is scary
Her name is Kari Lake, she's a Trumpite running for the Arizona governorship. She's also an ex TV news anchor. Her views are extreme (to me) and often ugly. Yet she has an undeniable charisma and confidence
One thing that might tell against her is her age. She's in her mid 50s and when might she get a run at the White House? But she is good. She actually talks like Trump - identical cadences - yet delivered by an attractive, eloquent woman with presence, it is unsettling as heck
I recall reading something twenty years ago by a political analyst saying that America was basically a "pre-fascist" state. I think George W Bush was in office at the time. I can't recall what his logic was, but seems to me to have been eerily prescient.
When Trump wins in 2024 there will be no way of getting him out again as his fascist cult followers take all the levers of government and administration.
The country will tear itself apart and it will certainly be an extraordinarily dangerous time for the rest of the world.
Incredibly 40% or so of Americans seem to want this.
She reminds me of the British Hard Right demagogue - Vivienne Rook - played by Emma Thompson in the dystopian drama Years and Years. Except Kari Lake is real, and better at the demagoguery
A few days ago, on here, I said that I could envisage America voting for something close to Fascism. I believe I am looking at a woman who could deliver that
Kari Lake trails likely Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs 43% to 38% in the latest Arizona governor poll and was 9% behind in the poll before that
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Whatever happens at the next election will, for better or worse, only partly be about whatever Truss does. She will carry the legacy of Brexit and the Johnson premiership (whether you think those are good or bad legacies). She could partly repair the Conservative coalition, but still lose.
However, I suspect, she’ll be shit on top of a shit legacy, the Tories will lose, and then they’ll pick an even shitter new leader.
I may be wrong but I expect the Tories will suffer a heavier defeat under Truss than they would have done under Boris.
She will have less appeal to the redwall white working class than Boris did and lose voters there to Labour and RefUK while still proving just as much of a turnoff for Remainers in London and the South who don't fear Starmer as they did Corbyn and have been moving Labour or LD.
The Telegraph headline today is 'Truss plans Thatcherite shake-up of the Treasury' including bringing back John Redwood, very bright but equally toxic in the redwall and Remain voting areas of the bluewall
I think you might be right, but OTOH we shouldn’t underestimate how much Boris trashed his own legacy and she has the one advantage of not being Johnson.
It was Boris who had the reach in the redwall, Truss won't have the same reach especially with her more Thatcherite economics and in the bluewall she has tied herself so much to his legacy and hard Brexit agenda she will be just as toxic anyway.
Dunno. Truss is unpredictable. We all thought she was finished after that dreadful first debate and yet here we are. And she has got seriously better at this, in a few short weeks. Perhaps she will grow in stature, in a similar way, once in office. And she might put the wind up Starmer
Also, your reputation as a Tory soothsayer has taken a bit of a dent, I am afraid. You backed Wallace as leader (even as we told you he wouldn't even run). He didn't even run. Then you backed the dull pointless Tugendhat. Now you're on to Sunak. You've backed the loser every time. Perhaps your political antennae need a reboot
I backed them because I thought they could win and were also always conservatives, Truss in my view was the least electable of all the candidates who stood for the leadership.
Yes Truss might win the leadership but if she loses the next general election and badly I will not have been wrong. If Truss beats Starmer then yes I will happily admit I was wrong.
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
Penny's time, as with Rishi, has been and gone. After Liz the next leadership election will be all about Kemi.
Last night, idly surfing, I came across the possible first female president of the USA, and, fuck me, she is scary
Her name is Kari Lake, she's a Trumpite running for the Arizona governorship. She's also an ex TV news anchor. Her views are extreme (to me) and often ugly. Yet she has an undeniable charisma and confidence
One thing that might tell against her is her age. She's in her mid 50s and when might she get a run at the White House? But she is good. She actually talks like Trump - identical cadences - yet delivered by an attractive, eloquent woman with presence, it is unsettling as heck
I recall reading something twenty years ago by a political analyst saying that America was basically a "pre-fascist" state. I think George W Bush was in office at the time. I can't recall what his logic was, but seems to me to have been eerily prescient.
When Trump wins in 2024 there will be no way of getting him out again as his fascist cult followers take all the levers of government and administration.
The country will tear itself apart and it will certainly be an extraordinarily dangerous time for the rest of the world.
Incredibly 40% or so of Americans seem to want this.
She reminds me of the British Hard Right demagogue - Vivienne Rook - played by Emma Thompson in the dystopian drama Years and Years. Except Kari Lake is real, and better at the demagoguery
A few days ago, on here, I said that I could envisage America voting for something close to Fascism. I believe I am looking at a woman who could deliver that
Kari Lake trails likely Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs 43% to 38% in the latest Arizona governor poll and was 9% behind in the poll before that
No polling data in either of them though unlike what I posted.
In 2020 Biden also became the first Democrat to win Arizona in a presidential election since Bill Clinton in 1996, who in turn was the first Democrat to win it since Truman in 1948.
Arizona is normally solid red but it does not like Trump's nationalism, it is more a libertarian state
But if that is the case why is the Trump candidate, Kari Lake, running away with the GOP primary?
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Whatever happens at the next election will, for better or worse, only partly be about whatever Truss does. She will carry the legacy of Brexit and the Johnson premiership (whether you think those are good or bad legacies). She could partly repair the Conservative coalition, but still lose.
However, I suspect, she’ll be shit on top of a shit legacy, the Tories will lose, and then they’ll pick an even shitter new leader.
I may be wrong but I expect the Tories will suffer a heavier defeat under Truss than they would have done under Boris.
She will have less appeal to the redwall white working class than Boris did and lose voters there to Labour and RefUK while still proving just as much of a turnoff for Remainers in London and the South who don't fear Starmer as they did Corbyn and have been moving Labour or LD.
The Telegraph headline today is 'Truss plans Thatcherite shake-up of the Treasury' including bringing back John Redwood, very bright but equally toxic in the redwall and Remain voting areas of the bluewall
I think you might be right, but OTOH we shouldn’t underestimate how much Boris trashed his own legacy and she has the one advantage of not being Johnson.
It was Boris who had the reach in the redwall, Truss won't have the same reach especially with her more Thatcherite economics and in the bluewall she has tied herself so much to his legacy and hard Brexit agenda she will be just as toxic anyway.
Dunno. Truss is unpredictable. We all thought she was finished after that dreadful first debate and yet here we are. And she has got seriously better at this, in a few short weeks. Perhaps she will grow in stature, in a similar way, once in office. And she might put the wind up Starmer
Also, your reputation as a Tory soothsayer has taken a bit of a dent, I am afraid. You backed Wallace as leader (even as we told you he wouldn't even run). He didn't even run. Then you backed the dull pointless Tugendhat. Now you're on to Sunak. You've backed the loser every time. Perhaps your political antennae need a reboot
I backed them because I thought they could win and were also always conservatives, Truss in my view was the least electable of all the candidates who stood for the leadership.
Yes Truss might win the leadership but if she loses the next general election and badly I will not have been wrong. If Truss beats Starmer then yes I will happily admit I was wrong.
If she loses the next election badly it might be because the economy's in the shitter and no one could have won. We will never know
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
Penny's time, as with Rishi, has been and gone. After Liz the next leadership election will be all about Kemi.
Last night, idly surfing, I came across the possible first female president of the USA, and, fuck me, she is scary
Her name is Kari Lake, she's a Trumpite running for the Arizona governorship. She's also an ex TV news anchor. Her views are extreme (to me) and often ugly. Yet she has an undeniable charisma and confidence
One thing that might tell against her is her age. She's in her mid 50s and when might she get a run at the White House? But she is good. She actually talks like Trump - identical cadences - yet delivered by an attractive, eloquent woman with presence, it is unsettling as heck
I recall reading something twenty years ago by a political analyst saying that America was basically a "pre-fascist" state. I think George W Bush was in office at the time. I can't recall what his logic was, but seems to me to have been eerily prescient.
When Trump wins in 2024 there will be no way of getting him out again as his fascist cult followers take all the levers of government and administration.
The country will tear itself apart and it will certainly be an extraordinarily dangerous time for the rest of the world.
Incredibly 40% or so of Americans seem to want this.
She reminds me of the British Hard Right demagogue - Vivienne Rook - played by Emma Thompson in the dystopian drama Years and Years. Except Kari Lake is real, and better at the demagoguery
A few days ago, on here, I said that I could envisage America voting for something close to Fascism. I believe I am looking at a woman who could deliver that
Kari Lake trails likely Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs 43% to 38% in the latest Arizona governor poll and was 9% behind in the poll before that
No polling data in either of them though unlike what I posted.
In 2020 Biden also became the first Democrat to win Arizona in a presidential election since Bill Clinton in 1996, who in turn was the first Democrat to win it since Truman in 1948.
Arizona is normally solid red but it does not like Trump's nationalism, it is more a libertarian state
But if that is the case why is the Trump candidate, Kari Lake, running away with the GOP primary?
The primary is on August 2nd and she is a near-certainty to win
She is running away with the primary as she is telling the Trump loving GOP primary voters what they want to hear, much like Truss is doing to Tory members to win the leadership.
It does not mean either will be able to win over swing voters in the suburbs in the main election
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
In a way it is. There's no rational basis to believe someone can be in the 'wrong' body.
That's the same as saying the concept of gender is irrational. It's meaningful only if it can differ (in an individual) from biological sex. If it can't it means gender is null and void for all practical purposes hence so is the notion of transgender. I reckon this view is quite widely held.
I don't think it's the same. Even if you accept the theory of gender as something socially constructed, it doesn't automatically follow that someone who identifies as the opposite gender to their biological sex literally is a man/woman trapped in a woman/man's body.
Kind of does though. "Trapped in wrong body" is code for "My sex is different to my gender."
If the concept of gender is meaningful it follows it is different to sex. If it isn't we don't need the term.
And if the 2 things are different a person can have their sex and gender misaligned - ie be trapped in the wrong body.
This is only irrational to somebody who thinks the notion of gender is bollox.
I would argue we don't need the term gender. It used to just be a euphemism for sex. Are you male or female? What is your body? Do you have a willy or not? That is a meaningful question with a meaningful answer. But gender - do you feel like a man or a woman - how do you define what someone of the female gender is without getting into the circular logic of 'someone who identifies as a woman'? I'd argue that the term is redundant.
Yep. I don't agree with you but I think lots of those whose heckles rise at the notion of "trans rights" do feel this way.
This is the point I was making actually.
Aaaaaand there you go again. The point is a pretty metaphysical one. The concept of "gender" in this case is probably bollocks (and rejecting it is a rare example of the correct application of Occam's razor), but you can think that and still think that if people want to be thought of, treated as and identified as the opposite sex, good luck to them and go for it. Nobody here overtly "has their hackles rising" at the thought of trans rights, and to the best of my reading of it nobody secretly feels like that and is cloaking it under cover of quibbles about what gender is or whether there should be single sex loos. These people share their inherent non existence with the Beast in Lord Of the Flies, and capitalist saboteurs in Stalinist Russia.
They are playing League Football on the Saturday of Glorious Goodwood - it is truly the end of days.
It's interesting to look at Kari Lake's endorsements and those for her opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson.
Trump and his acolytes are as we know backing Lake but Mike Pence and Newt Gingrich are among those endorsing Karrin Robson.
It's another sign of the end of days that Gingrich now looks moderate and reasonable in the GOP - it's clear there is an anti-Trump rear-guard being fought by an eclectic grouping - perhaps Pence may yet be a big player in the 2024 GOP nomination.
rottenborough said: "I recall reading something twenty years ago by a political analyst saying that America was basically a "pre-fascist" state. I think George W Bush was in office at the time. I can't recall what his logic was, but seems to me to have been eerily prescient."
The person who said that wasn't original, for, as Tom Wolfe observed years ago: “The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.”
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Whatever happens at the next election will, for better or worse, only partly be about whatever Truss does. She will carry the legacy of Brexit and the Johnson premiership (whether you think those are good or bad legacies). She could partly repair the Conservative coalition, but still lose.
However, I suspect, she’ll be shit on top of a shit legacy, the Tories will lose, and then they’ll pick an even shitter new leader.
I may be wrong but I expect the Tories will suffer a heavier defeat under Truss than they would have done under Boris.
She will have less appeal to the redwall white working class than Boris did and lose voters there to Labour and RefUK while still proving just as much of a turnoff for Remainers in London and the South who don't fear Starmer as they did Corbyn and have been moving Labour or LD.
The Telegraph headline today is 'Truss plans Thatcherite shake-up of the Treasury' including bringing back John Redwood, very bright but equally toxic in the redwall and Remain voting areas of the bluewall
I think you might be right, but OTOH we shouldn’t underestimate how much Boris trashed his own legacy and she has the one advantage of not being Johnson.
It was Boris who had the reach in the redwall, Truss won't have the same reach especially with her more Thatcherite economics and in the bluewall she has tied herself so much to his legacy and hard Brexit agenda she will be just as toxic anyway.
Genuine question, Hyufd.
What do you make of Thatcher, the person - and, more importantly, her political legacy.
In the past year or so, you’ve posted extensively on here about how you (if I’ve read you correctly) define yourself quite strongly against the libertarian tories - who hold Thatcher in very high regard.
Do you think these libertarian tories misunderstand the true Thatcher? Or do they have her right - ie, that they own the Thatcherite legacy - taking it to its logical conclusion, and you (and your wing of the tories) therefore reject her and her legacy?
I’m genuinely interested in how you see things.
Thatcher was necessary for her time given the dismal economic situation of the 1970s but I am not an ideological Thatcherite Tory and never have been. Plus even Thatcher always respected the core value of our institutions like the monarchy and never went as far as Truss previously did backing legalisation of cannabis for instance
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Whatever happens at the next election will, for better or worse, only partly be about whatever Truss does. She will carry the legacy of Brexit and the Johnson premiership (whether you think those are good or bad legacies). She could partly repair the Conservative coalition, but still lose.
However, I suspect, she’ll be shit on top of a shit legacy, the Tories will lose, and then they’ll pick an even shitter new leader.
I may be wrong but I expect the Tories will suffer a heavier defeat under Truss than they would have done under Boris.
She will have less appeal to the redwall white working class than Boris did and lose voters there to Labour and RefUK while still proving just as much of a turnoff for Remainers in London and the South who don't fear Starmer as they did Corbyn and have been moving Labour or LD.
The Telegraph headline today is 'Truss plans Thatcherite shake-up of the Treasury' including bringing back John Redwood, very bright but equally toxic in the redwall and Remain voting areas of the bluewall
I think you might be right, but OTOH we shouldn’t underestimate how much Boris trashed his own legacy and she has the one advantage of not being Johnson.
It was Boris who had the reach in the redwall, Truss won't have the same reach especially with her more Thatcherite economics and in the bluewall she has tied herself so much to his legacy and hard Brexit agenda she will be just as toxic anyway.
For instance she co-authored Britannia Unchained, a pamphlet that described the British as “among the worst idlers in the world”. I am sure the red wall will love that and Labour will make sure they are fully aware of it
Though, as she retorted effectively, that chapter was written by Dominic Raab, who is supporting Sunak (he's having a meeting locally this evening and I'll be there, albeit more in synpathy now).
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
In the US, there's a strong correlation between parental income and trans teenagers.
Perhaps that is to an extent via an intermediate metric of "liberalness"?
ie wealthy family background more likely to be liberal and in turn more likely to be accepting of difference in their kids.
I'd imagine it's more due to the ability to access health services
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
In a way it is. There's no rational basis to believe someone can be in the 'wrong' body.
That's the same as saying the concept of gender is irrational. It's meaningful only if it can differ (in an individual) from biological sex. If it can't it means gender is null and void for all practical purposes hence so is the notion of transgender. I reckon this view is quite widely held.
I don't think it's the same. Even if you accept the theory of gender as something socially constructed, it doesn't automatically follow that someone who identifies as the opposite gender to their biological sex literally is a man/woman trapped in a woman/man's body.
Kind of does though. "Trapped in wrong body" is code for "My sex is different to my gender."
If the concept of gender is meaningful it follows it is different to sex. If it isn't we don't need the term.
And if the 2 things are different a person can have their sex and gender misaligned - ie be trapped in the wrong body.
This is only irrational to somebody who thinks the notion of gender is bollox.
I would argue we don't need the term gender. It used to just be a euphemism for sex. Are you male or female? What is your body? Do you have a willy or not? That is a meaningful question with a meaningful answer. But gender - do you feel like a man or a woman - how do you define what someone of the female gender is without getting into the circular logic of 'someone who identifies as a woman'? I'd argue that the term is redundant.
You might like to read some Judith Butler Cookie.
Not saying it will change your mind, but it will definitely challenge you to think harder about your position, which can only be a good thing.
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Whatever happens at the next election will, for better or worse, only partly be about whatever Truss does. She will carry the legacy of Brexit and the Johnson premiership (whether you think those are good or bad legacies). She could partly repair the Conservative coalition, but still lose.
However, I suspect, she’ll be shit on top of a shit legacy, the Tories will lose, and then they’ll pick an even shitter new leader.
I may be wrong but I expect the Tories will suffer a heavier defeat under Truss than they would have done under Boris.
She will have less appeal to the redwall white working class than Boris did and lose voters there to Labour and RefUK while still proving just as much of a turnoff for Remainers in London and the South who don't fear Starmer as they did Corbyn and have been moving Labour or LD.
The Telegraph headline today is 'Truss plans Thatcherite shake-up of the Treasury' including bringing back John Redwood, very bright but equally toxic in the redwall and Remain voting areas of the bluewall
I think you might be right, but OTOH we shouldn’t underestimate how much Boris trashed his own legacy and she has the one advantage of not being Johnson.
It was Boris who had the reach in the redwall, Truss won't have the same reach especially with her more Thatcherite economics and in the bluewall she has tied herself so much to his legacy and hard Brexit agenda she will be just as toxic anyway.
Genuine question, Hyufd.
What do you make of Thatcher, the person - and, more importantly, her political legacy.
In the past year or so, you’ve posted extensively on here about how you (if I’ve read you correctly) define yourself quite strongly against the libertarian tories - who hold Thatcher in very high regard.
Do you think these libertarian tories misunderstand the true Thatcher? Or do they have her right - ie, that they own the Thatcherite legacy - taking it to its logical conclusion, and you (and your wing of the tories) therefore reject her and her legacy?
I’m genuinely interested in how you see things.
Thatcher was necessary for her time given the dismal economic situation of the 1970s but I am not an ideological Thatcherite Tory and never have been. Plus even Thatcher always respected the core value of our institutions like the monarchy and never went as far as Truss previously did backing legalisation of cannabis for instance
The damaging revelations of the Jan. 6 committee hearings are fueling skepticism among Senate Republicans that former President Trump can win the GOP nomination in 2024 or even run for another term in the White House.
rottenborough said: "I recall reading something twenty years ago by a political analyst saying that America was basically a "pre-fascist" state. I think George W Bush was in office at the time. I can't recall what his logic was, but seems to me to have been eerily prescient."
The person who said that wasn't original, for, as Tom Wolfe observed years ago: “The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.”
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
In a way it is. There's no rational basis to believe someone can be in the 'wrong' body.
That's the same as saying the concept of gender is irrational. It's meaningful only if it can differ (in an individual) from biological sex. If it can't it means gender is null and void for all practical purposes hence so is the notion of transgender. I reckon this view is quite widely held.
I don't think it's the same. Even if you accept the theory of gender as something socially constructed, it doesn't automatically follow that someone who identifies as the opposite gender to their biological sex literally is a man/woman trapped in a woman/man's body.
Kind of does though. "Trapped in wrong body" is code for "My sex is different to my gender."
If the concept of gender is meaningful it follows it is different to sex. If it isn't we don't need the term.
And if the 2 things are different a person can have their sex and gender misaligned - ie be trapped in the wrong body.
This is only irrational to somebody who thinks the concept of gender is irrational.
Arguably it's the other way round. If you see social gender and biological sex as two independent things, then even if they are misaligned, your body is your body; you are you.
If you say that someone has the 'wrong' body then you're actually denying that gender is separable from sex.
"Wrong body" in this context doesn't mean a denial of sex on birth. This remains a fact but it doesn't match gender. So, a transgender person is "trapped" in a body which differs from their gender. I'd only see irrationality there if I thought the whole notion of gender as something different to sex was irrational. Eg like Cookie does. And you too maybe?
Oh for goodness sake! Could the Tory leadership race get any dumber? It’s not the Equality Act that’s the problem! 🤦♀️ It acknowledges the biological reality of sex as Scotland’s Supreme Court held recently thanx to @ForWomenScot
Let's choose. He is either - a) an idiot b) badly informed c) well-informed but pandering to the gallery d) panicking e) using this issue to attack equalities law more generally.
The possibility of (e) worries me, especially given the nonsense Suella Braverman has been coming out with. Yet even now the Labour Party cannot be relied on to protect womens' rights or the rights of troubled children to have the best possible medical care.
Is it beyond them to get advice from well-informed equalities lawyers?
I did tell you that your anti-trans activism would rebound on you Cyclefree in exactly this way, with a rolling back of all the advances made for women and other minorities in the C20th but you wouldn’t have it.
What a pile of fat hairy bollocks
The truth is often unpalatable, I agree.
You’re literally claiming that the right to vote will be taken away from women. Get a grip
Well, I wouldn’t put that past some of the people involved, sure. But the most recent stuff will go first, if they get their way.
My personal belief is that Cyclefree et al have been used by people with a much wider agenda: They don’t give a stuff about trans people particularly, (I mean, they believe them to be degenerate perverts who have rejected God’s mercy, but they hardly limit that attitude to trans people...) they’re really after the unrolling of the liberal project. Gay rights, women’s rights, the whole lot.
I am quite certain that there are people with precisely that agenda. Especially in the US. And groups in Europe too.
But the problem we have - and I genuinely wish you would engage with it rather than dismissing it - is this: TRAs also have an agenda and it is very explicitly and openly to replace sex with gender and to limit or remove existing rights for women. Stonewall, for instance, has openly called for the single sex exemptions in the Equality Act to be removed, for the offence of rape by deception to be removed. These proposals and self-ID will diminish the position of women, not simply in relation to single sex spaces but in relation to equal pay (the use of a comparator is rendered meaningless if self-ID is permitted). Abolition of one of the crimes of rape is in no sense a progressive cause.
Your position seems to be that women should not campaign against this but accept it because otherwise they might possibly give succour to some right-wing groups. It assumes that Stonewall and others supporting their stance are progressive because they say they are. I judge them on what they advocate. And there is nothing progressive about what they are advocating.
So why should women not campaign against something that will harm them?That is an absurd and immoral view IMO. And, frankly, sexist because it is saying - whether you mean to or not - that women should never put their interests first.
My position is that you & people like you are taking sides in a culture war that will rebound on you in ways that you will find deeply unconformable if you “win”.
Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it & more besides.
It's a case of deciding issues on their merits. It's a false choice to say that either one must be on the side of trans activists or on the side of the hard right of the US Republican party.
Otherwise it is simply “Shut up and sit at the back of the bus.”
The argument that “X is supported by bad people, therefore X cannot be supported” is ignorant shit.
The Nazis were anti-smoking. Should we all get a 60 a day habit to prove our moral purity?
Totally, but OTOH it is not a sign of intelligent free thinking to pay no regard whatsoever to the type of people who agree or disagree with you on a topic. Eg if lots of palpable bigots are on the same side as you on an issue it merits a think about why this is. If having done so you remain happy with your position, fine, but to not bother with that step at all is vice not virtue. It's like skipping due diligence before buying something.
Perhaps. But then you are tthering your moral position to ugliest exponents of an idea....
The blanket idea that "You must think x to be progressive" is as much garbage as "You must think x to be a loyal follower of the Kaiser*".
Among other things, some groups play the game of maliciously supporting causes and candidates.
*The Kaiser did tell one funny joke. Some say that this balanced out the whole WWI thing.
The best thing that can be said for Truss is she will back Zelensky to the hilt and ensure he continues to get the arms and supplies to take advantage of situations like the above
The damaging revelations of the Jan. 6 committee hearings are fueling skepticism among Senate Republicans that former President Trump can win the GOP nomination in 2024 or even run for another term in the White House.
Trump at evens for the nomination does seem, possibly for the first time is his miserable existence, an extremely attractive lay.
Yep - and I'm doing it even though I'm already short as hell. Getting my average lay price down quite nicely now.
But confession: I've backed him quite large at average 1.4 to run. Bit of a hedge cushion there and just possibly double quids in if he goes for it and for some reason doesn't get it.
Look how she works that crowd. Total confidence. USA! USA!
I love her and she gives me Teh TINGLEZ
WHY do you love her?
What is about her and what's she saying that you find so wonderful? I realise as someone who seems to naturally gravitate to right-wing politicians and enjoys antagonising "lefties" she probably pushes a few buttons for you but as someone who seems to have a modicum of intelligence and objectivity, are you not able to see this is nonsense and rabble-rousing shite?
We know from history of course the most intelligent (or those who claim it) seem to be the most susceptible to this kind of thing.
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Whatever happens at the next election will, for better or worse, only partly be about whatever Truss does. She will carry the legacy of Brexit and the Johnson premiership (whether you think those are good or bad legacies). She could partly repair the Conservative coalition, but still lose.
However, I suspect, she’ll be shit on top of a shit legacy, the Tories will lose, and then they’ll pick an even shitter new leader.
I may be wrong but I expect the Tories will suffer a heavier defeat under Truss than they would have done under Boris.
She will have less appeal to the redwall white working class than Boris did and lose voters there to Labour and RefUK while still proving just as much of a turnoff for Remainers in London and the South who don't fear Starmer as they did Corbyn and have been moving Labour or LD.
The Telegraph headline today is 'Truss plans Thatcherite shake-up of the Treasury' including bringing back John Redwood, very bright but equally toxic in the redwall and Remain voting areas of the bluewall
I think you might be right, but OTOH we shouldn’t underestimate how much Boris trashed his own legacy and she has the one advantage of not being Johnson.
It was Boris who had the reach in the redwall, Truss won't have the same reach especially with her more Thatcherite economics and in the bluewall she has tied herself so much to his legacy and hard Brexit agenda she will be just as toxic anyway.
For instance she co-authored Britannia Unchained, a pamphlet that described the British as “among the worst idlers in the world”. I am sure the red wall will love that and Labour will make sure they are fully aware of it
Though, as she retorted effectively, that chapter was written by Dominic Raab, who is supporting Sunak (he's having a meeting locally this evening and I'll be there, albeit more in synpathy now).
Hmm. The Graun has a rather different take, attempting to correct Ms Truss's memory:
'Sunak said he recalled that the authors of the book took collective responsibility for its contents, a reasonable point given the way the five self-consciously offered their ideas at the time as a decisive alternative to the mushy coalition Conservatism being offered by David Cameron in harness with Nick Clegg.
They were all members of the Free Enterprise Group, wrote a collective introduction to the book, authored a second, more policy-prescriptive second volume, After the Coalition, and altogether gave the impression of offering a cohesive tour d’horizon of where Britain needed to look for renewal.'
The best thing that can be said for Truss is she will back Zelensky to the hilt and ensure he continues to get the arms and supplies to take advantage of situations like the above
Even better if she also frees the weed and sacks the royal family!
If my Dad decides he's in the wrong body and starts dressing and living as a lady, do I have to start calling Dad "Mum" to not be transphobic?
Is he likely to?
If they wish for you to call them 'mum' (and they may not), then at least try to respect their wishes. Make the effort.
I've been through this with colleagues and a friend. IMV it's quite simple: from their pov, it's unrealistic to expect someone that they've known for years to suddenly call them by a new name or title all the time. Even if you really wish to do it all the time, the 'old' name slips out occasionally. The longer you've known someone, the harder it is to always call them by that name. If you're in a meeting, thinking about an issue, it's easy to refer to someone by their 'old' name. At least for me.
In this case: if they ask you to call them 'mum', and you always call them 'dad', then you've being a bit of a sh*t. If you really try to call them 'mum', and they get angry when you once accidentally call you 'dad', they are being a bit of a sh*t.
It's a case of respect. If you love your dad, why not respect their wishes in something that doesn't really matter one bit?
On last nights news. Hard to understand the criticism of Wallace and Tugendhat. It’s clear that they’ve timed this public endorsement for the weekend papers before ballots go out for maximum impact. They didn’t (publicly) enter the blue on blue fray when there were still multiple candidates but who is to say they didn’t nudge wavering MPs one way or another in that phase?
Likely they are endorsing Truss AND endorsing against Rishi, given the primary policy interest of both is a strong defence against both Russia and China.
Finally it will help unify the party and hopefully allow Truss cover to build a bigger tent in Cabinet. When the likes of Rees Mogg ask for their favoured job, Truss will be able to legitimately say she also has to make room for the moderates who helped her win. I would be very happy indeed if these two fill the Defence and Foreign Sec jobs, providing a strong national security voice around the crowded Cabinet table.
I hope anyone who followed my Sainz tip for qualifying managed to trade out for a small profit. I definitely did not see Russell taking pole (though I did note that rain might be a factor). The other bet for the race can definitely be cashed out for a decent profit, though I’m tempted to let half of it ride.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
In a way it is. There's no rational basis to believe someone can be in the 'wrong' body.
That's the same as saying the concept of gender is irrational. It's meaningful only if it can differ (in an individual) from biological sex. If it can't it means gender is null and void for all practical purposes hence so is the notion of transgender. I reckon this view is quite widely held.
I don't think it's the same. Even if you accept the theory of gender as something socially constructed, it doesn't automatically follow that someone who identifies as the opposite gender to their biological sex literally is a man/woman trapped in a woman/man's body.
Kind of does though. "Trapped in wrong body" is code for "My sex is different to my gender."
If the concept of gender is meaningful it follows it is different to sex. If it isn't we don't need the term.
And if the 2 things are different a person can have their sex and gender misaligned - ie be trapped in the wrong body.
This is only irrational to somebody who thinks the concept of gender is irrational.
Arguably it's the other way round. If you see social gender and biological sex as two independent things, then even if they are misaligned, your body is your body; you are you.
If you say that someone has the 'wrong' body then you're actually denying that gender is separable from sex.
"Wrong body" in this context doesn't mean a denial of sex on birth. This remains a fact but it doesn't match gender. So, a transgender person is "trapped" in a body which differs from their gender. I'd only see irrationality there if I thought the whole notion of gender as something different to sex was irrational. Eg like Cookie does. And you too maybe?
If something is 'wrong' in that configuration, why is it the body and not the psyche? And if nothing is wrong, why is the progressive approach to change the person's body to bring it into conformity with social expectations, rather than to change social attitudes to gender roles?
The Telegraph headline today is 'Truss plans Thatcherite shake-up of the Treasury' including bringing back John Redwood, very bright but equally toxic in the redwall and Remain voting areas of the bluewall
Redwood "bright"?
Socially he's as thick as pea soup. That All Souls brain may have impressed Wokingham voters in the days of Thames Valley deference. But, with LibDems now running most local councils in his constituency, his gross insensitivity is completely toxic. And it's his personal insufferableness that irks voters most. A few of the nastier Tories in the area - like David Johnston in Wantage - may survive because they've got decent records or are at affable at least to other Tories
But Redwood? Probably the most likely Thames Valley Tory to be decapitated in 24/25
Look how she works that crowd. Total confidence. USA! USA!
I love her and she gives me Teh TINGLEZ
WHY do you love her?
What is about her and what's she saying that you find so wonderful? I realise as someone who seems to naturally gravitate to right-wing politicians and enjoys antagonising "lefties" she probably pushes a few buttons for you but as someone who seems to have a modicum of intelligence and objectivity, are you not able to see this is nonsense and rabble-rousing shite?
We know from history of course the most intelligent (or those who claim it) seem to be the most susceptible to this kind of thing.
Of course it's nonsense and rabble-rousing shite. She's anti vax FFS, she apparently wants to ban all abortions, she's insane about guns, she believes the 2020 election was stolen - on and on
But she IS fascinating. Because she is very good at the "rabble rousing shite". She has a great skill set. And it's quite something to hear mad, awful Trumpite lines delivered by an articulate, confident, attractive woman. The cognitive dissonance it evokes is intense
And I like politics, and it is really quite rare to find a politician who is arresting. Who makes you stop and think Hey, this is good (in terms of pure politics). They are usually so boring
Will she go far? Or go anywhere? Her age is somewhat against her, as I have said. She is extreme. Are Americans ready for this? Dunno. But if ALL the dice fall in her favour I could see her in the White House and that is a genuinely scary thought - if she means what she says (she was until recently a Democrat!)
I don't love her. I just say that to tease @kinabalu who is desperate to think I'm a Nazi, and when he sees "evidence" he hugs himself with secret joy
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
In a way it is. There's no rational basis to believe someone can be in the 'wrong' body.
That's the same as saying the concept of gender is irrational. It's meaningful only if it can differ (in an individual) from biological sex. If it can't it means gender is null and void for all practical purposes hence so is the notion of transgender. I reckon this view is quite widely held.
I don't think it's the same. Even if you accept the theory of gender as something socially constructed, it doesn't automatically follow that someone who identifies as the opposite gender to their biological sex literally is a man/woman trapped in a woman/man's body.
Kind of does though. "Trapped in wrong body" is code for "My sex is different to my gender."
If the concept of gender is meaningful it follows it is different to sex. If it isn't we don't need the term.
And if the 2 things are different a person can have their sex and gender misaligned - ie be trapped in the wrong body.
This is only irrational to somebody who thinks the notion of gender is bollox.
I would argue we don't need the term gender. It used to just be a euphemism for sex. Are you male or female? What is your body? Do you have a willy or not? That is a meaningful question with a meaningful answer. But gender - do you feel like a man or a woman - how do you define what someone of the female gender is without getting into the circular logic of 'someone who identifies as a woman'? I'd argue that the term is redundant.
Yep. I don't agree with you but I think lots of those whose heckles rise at the notion of "trans rights" do feel this way.
This is the point I was making actually.
Aaaaaand there you go again. The point is a pretty metaphysical one. The concept of "gender" in this case is probably bollocks (and rejecting it is a rare example of the correct application of Occam's razor), but you can think that and still think that if people want to be thought of, treated as and identified as the opposite sex, good luck to them and go for it. Nobody here overtly "has their hackles rising" at the thought of trans rights, and to the best of my reading of it nobody secretly feels like that and is cloaking it under cover of quibbles about what gender is or whether there should be single sex loos. These people share their inherent non existence with the Beast in Lord Of the Flies, and capitalist saboteurs in Stalinist Russia.
I wasn't specifically meaning people on here but now you mention it I bet some of our posters DO feel as I described.
Sentiment being -
"Oh god, this is so fucking tiresome. So much fuss over this tiny minority and it's all tosh anyway. Men are men, they have a dick, women are women, they don't. End of."
I'd be surprised if there aren't some PBers who feel this - and I'm surprised you're so confident there aren't.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
In a way it is. There's no rational basis to believe someone can be in the 'wrong' body.
That's the same as saying the concept of gender is irrational. It's meaningful only if it can differ (in an individual) from biological sex. If it can't it means gender is null and void for all practical purposes hence so is the notion of transgender. I reckon this view is quite widely held.
I don't think it's the same. Even if you accept the theory of gender as something socially constructed, it doesn't automatically follow that someone who identifies as the opposite gender to their biological sex literally is a man/woman trapped in a woman/man's body.
Kind of does though. "Trapped in wrong body" is code for "My sex is different to my gender."
If the concept of gender is meaningful it follows it is different to sex. If it isn't we don't need the term.
And if the 2 things are different a person can have their sex and gender misaligned - ie be trapped in the wrong body.
This is only irrational to somebody who thinks the notion of gender is bollox.
I would argue we don't need the term gender. It used to just be a euphemism for sex. Are you male or female? What is your body? Do you have a willy or not? That is a meaningful question with a meaningful answer. But gender - do you feel like a man or a woman - how do you define what someone of the female gender is without getting into the circular logic of 'someone who identifies as a woman'? I'd argue that the term is redundant.
Yep. I don't agree with you but I think lots of those whose heckles rise at the notion of "trans rights" do feel this way.
This is the point I was making actually.
Aaaaaand there you go again. The point is a pretty metaphysical one. The concept of "gender" in this case is probably bollocks (and rejecting it is a rare example of the correct application of Occam's razor), but you can think that and still think that if people want to be thought of, treated as and identified as the opposite sex, good luck to them and go for it. Nobody here overtly "has their hackles rising" at the thought of trans rights, and to the best of my reading of it nobody secretly feels like that and is cloaking it under cover of quibbles about what gender is or whether there should be single sex loos. These people share their inherent non existence with the Beast in Lord Of the Flies, and capitalist saboteurs in Stalinist Russia.
I wasn't specifically meaning people on here but now you mention it I bet some of our posters DO feel as I described.
Sentiment being -
"Oh god, this is so fucking tiresome. So much fuss over this tiny minority and it's all tosh anyway. Men are men, they have a dick, women are women, they don't. End of."
I'd be surprised if there aren't some PBers who feel this - and I'm surprised you're so confident there aren't.
Looking at that YouGov poll there are tens of millions of Brits who, when they hear about the trans issue, likely think "Oh my God this is so fucking tiresome"
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Whatever happens at the next election will, for better or worse, only partly be about whatever Truss does. She will carry the legacy of Brexit and the Johnson premiership (whether you think those are good or bad legacies). She could partly repair the Conservative coalition, but still lose.
However, I suspect, she’ll be shit on top of a shit legacy, the Tories will lose, and then they’ll pick an even shitter new leader.
I may be wrong but I expect the Tories will suffer a heavier defeat under Truss than they would have done under Boris.
She will have less appeal to the redwall white working class than Boris did and lose voters there to Labour and RefUK while still proving just as much of a turnoff for Remainers in London and the South who don't fear Starmer as they did Corbyn and have been moving Labour or LD.
The Telegraph headline today is 'Truss plans Thatcherite shake-up of the Treasury' including bringing back John Redwood, very bright but equally toxic in the redwall and Remain voting areas of the bluewall
I think you might be right, but OTOH we shouldn’t underestimate how much Boris trashed his own legacy and she has the one advantage of not being Johnson.
It was Boris who had the reach in the redwall, Truss won't have the same reach especially with her more Thatcherite economics and in the bluewall she has tied herself so much to his legacy and hard Brexit agenda she will be just as toxic anyway.
For instance she co-authored Britannia Unchained, a pamphlet that described the British as “among the worst idlers in the world”. I am sure the red wall will love that and Labour will make sure they are fully aware of it
Though, as she retorted effectively, that chapter was written by Dominic Raab, who is supporting Sunak (he's having a meeting locally this evening and I'll be there, albeit more in synpathy now).
Hmm. The Graun has a rather different take, attempting to correct Ms Truss's memory:
'Sunak said he recalled that the authors of the book took collective responsibility for its contents, a reasonable point given the way the five self-consciously offered their ideas at the time as a decisive alternative to the mushy coalition Conservatism being offered by David Cameron in harness with Nick Clegg.
They were all members of the Free Enterprise Group, wrote a collective introduction to the book, authored a second, more policy-prescriptive second volume, After the Coalition, and altogether gave the impression of offering a cohesive tour d’horizon of where Britain needed to look for renewal.'
Labour's job now is to portray Truss as a grotesque caricature of Thatcher - none of the good bits and all of the evil bits. They will have a wealth of material from Britannia Unhinged to her own publicity shots. This could get bloody.
Awesome if confirmed. Those troops can either retreat from Kherson in small cars back over the river - or run out of supplies and be subject to nightly attacks on their positions, command structures and supply convoys.
If my Dad decides he's in the wrong body and starts dressing and living as a lady, do I have to start calling Dad "Mum" to not be transphobic?
It would be between you and him but if my dad was still alive I would call him whatever he wanted me to call him. Whatever he self identified as is what I'd call him to make him as comfortable as I can.
(Note that's an entirely different scenario to changing law to accommodate him, allowing him in to women only spaces and even changing our understanding of biology/cellular biology to say that he is female when the chromosomes in every cell in his body say he is in fact male)
Look how she works that crowd. Total confidence. USA! USA!
I love her and she gives me Teh TINGLEZ
WHY do you love her?
What is about her and what's she saying that you find so wonderful? I realise as someone who seems to naturally gravitate to right-wing politicians and enjoys antagonising "lefties" she probably pushes a few buttons for you but as someone who seems to have a modicum of intelligence and objectivity, are you not able to see this is nonsense and rabble-rousing shite?
We know from history of course the most intelligent (or those who claim it) seem to be the most susceptible to this kind of thing.
Of course it's nonsense and rabble-rousing shite. She's anti vax FFS, she apparently wants to ban all abortions, she's insane about guns, she believes the 2020 election was stolen - on and on
But she IS fascinating. Because she is very good at the "rabble rousing shite". She has a great skill set. And it's quite something to hear mad, awful Trumpite lines delivered by an articulate, confident, attractive woman. The cognitive dissonance it evokes is intense
And I like politics, and it is really quite rare to find a politician who is arresting. Who makes you stop and think Hey, this is good (in terms of pure politics). They are usually so boring
Will she go far? Or go anywhere? Her age is somewhat against her, as I have said. She is extreme. Are Americans ready for this? Dunno. But if ALL the dice fall in her favour I could see her in the White House and that is a genuinely scary thought - if she means what she says (she was until recently a Democrat!)
I don't love her. I just say that to tease @kinabalu who is desperate to think I'm a Nazi, and when he sees "evidence" he hugs himself with secret joy
Not a Nazi. Less of that disreputable technique. You are - precisely - a British Patriot of the nationalistic sentimental type. We established this the other day. You self-identified.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
In a way it is. There's no rational basis to believe someone can be in the 'wrong' body.
That's the same as saying the concept of gender is irrational. It's meaningful only if it can differ (in an individual) from biological sex. If it can't it means gender is null and void for all practical purposes hence so is the notion of transgender. I reckon this view is quite widely held.
I don't think it's the same. Even if you accept the theory of gender as something socially constructed, it doesn't automatically follow that someone who identifies as the opposite gender to their biological sex literally is a man/woman trapped in a woman/man's body.
Kind of does though. "Trapped in wrong body" is code for "My sex is different to my gender."
If the concept of gender is meaningful it follows it is different to sex. If it isn't we don't need the term.
And if the 2 things are different a person can have their sex and gender misaligned - ie be trapped in the wrong body.
This is only irrational to somebody who thinks the notion of gender is bollox.
I would argue we don't need the term gender. It used to just be a euphemism for sex. Are you male or female? What is your body? Do you have a willy or not? That is a meaningful question with a meaningful answer. But gender - do you feel like a man or a woman - how do you define what someone of the female gender is without getting into the circular logic of 'someone who identifies as a woman'? I'd argue that the term is redundant.
Yep. I don't agree with you but I think lots of those whose heckles rise at the notion of "trans rights" do feel this way.
This is the point I was making actually.
Aaaaaand there you go again. The point is a pretty metaphysical one. The concept of "gender" in this case is probably bollocks (and rejecting it is a rare example of the correct application of Occam's razor), but you can think that and still think that if people want to be thought of, treated as and identified as the opposite sex, good luck to them and go for it. Nobody here overtly "has their hackles rising" at the thought of trans rights, and to the best of my reading of it nobody secretly feels like that and is cloaking it under cover of quibbles about what gender is or whether there should be single sex loos. These people share their inherent non existence with the Beast in Lord Of the Flies, and capitalist saboteurs in Stalinist Russia.
I wasn't specifically meaning people on here but now you mention it I bet some of our posters DO feel as I described.
Sentiment being -
"Oh god, this is so fucking tiresome. So much fuss over this tiny minority and it's all tosh anyway. Men are men, they have a dick, women are women, they don't. End of."
I'd be surprised if there aren't some PBers who feel this - and I'm surprised you're so confident there aren't.
But the right to be bored is inalienable, surely? Anti trans sounds to me like someone who wishes to prevent adults from dressing, describing themselves, and having approved medical procedures exactly as they wish, and/or wishes to insult, humiliate or physically assault them. I don't see any sign of that.
Also on Spectator out loud podcast, although I warn you against listening through to the end. You’ll be subjected to a terrible piece by the awful Toby Young.
The Speccie is, these days, just about worth wading through the swamp of bullshit to find the occasional nugget of genius, imo. The magazine for right wing rich kids, written by right wing rich kids is occasionally insightful and often entertaining, at least. Also, quite why anyone would pay for a subscription when they give out almost all of their content for free, is beyond me. Does anyone on here sub?
Why?
I did. I enjoyed reading Tanya Gold's restaurant reviews in the bath. I was reading them in the bath, she wasn't reviewing restaurants in a bath. Sadly I wasn't ending up reading it and I was just stacking up physical issues in their plastic, so I cancelled the subscription.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
Until about 10 years ago these difficult issues weren't politicised in the way they are today. We need to return to that state of affairs in my opinion.
It is hard to see how the genie goes back in the bottle.
It is why I caution the view that the next election is lost for the Tories purely because of the economic disaster we’re seeing.
Identity and cultural issues do matter and the more entrenched people get into their positions the more this is going to be harder to unwind.
I don't see any UK polling suggesting it is a top issue for many people. I fully respect that it is a top issue for some people and governments have to deal with all issues, whether the bulk of the electorate cares much about them or not. But for it to be an election campaign decider, one would expect polling suggesting people prioritised such issues more than they currently do.
It’s a potent wedge issue.
At on some level, people expect the government not to be funding what looks to be quite odd medical experiments on vulnerable teenagers.
What is your evidence that it is a potent wedge issue? If it is so potent, surely some sort of polling would pick that up. Do you have any examples of polling you're drawing on here?
I don’t think it’s been deployed in an actual campaign yet, although it has in the US.
I don’t think people put it above “cost of living” etc, but look at the heat it inspires on here.
My theory is that high-income people who don't feel cost of living, and don't get offended by people from European or other heritages, are easier to get worked up over trans.
In the US, there's a strong correlation between parental income and trans teenagers.
How reliable are the stats, though ?
We don’t have a very good idea of how many people are trans in the UK. I would imagine the figures in the US are sketchier still.
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Whatever happens at the next election will, for better or worse, only partly be about whatever Truss does. She will carry the legacy of Brexit and the Johnson premiership (whether you think those are good or bad legacies). She could partly repair the Conservative coalition, but still lose.
However, I suspect, she’ll be shit on top of a shit legacy, the Tories will lose, and then they’ll pick an even shitter new leader.
I may be wrong but I expect the Tories will suffer a heavier defeat under Truss than they would have done under Boris.
She will have less appeal to the redwall white working class than Boris did and lose voters there to Labour and RefUK while still proving just as much of a turnoff for Remainers in London and the South who don't fear Starmer as they did Corbyn and have been moving Labour or LD.
The Telegraph headline today is 'Truss plans Thatcherite shake-up of the Treasury' including bringing back John Redwood, very bright but equally toxic in the redwall and Remain voting areas of the bluewall
I think you might be right, but OTOH we shouldn’t underestimate how much Boris trashed his own legacy and she has the one advantage of not being Johnson.
It was Boris who had the reach in the redwall, Truss won't have the same reach especially with her more Thatcherite economics and in the bluewall she has tied herself so much to his legacy and hard Brexit agenda she will be just as toxic anyway.
For instance she co-authored Britannia Unchained, a pamphlet that described the British as “among the worst idlers in the world”. I am sure the red wall will love that and Labour will make sure they are fully aware of it
Yes, the red wall will love that. Nobody will think it refers to them.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
In a way it is. There's no rational basis to believe someone can be in the 'wrong' body.
That's the same as saying the concept of gender is irrational. It's meaningful only if it can differ (in an individual) from biological sex. If it can't it means gender is null and void for all practical purposes hence so is the notion of transgender. I reckon this view is quite widely held.
I don't think it's the same. Even if you accept the theory of gender as something socially constructed, it doesn't automatically follow that someone who identifies as the opposite gender to their biological sex literally is a man/woman trapped in a woman/man's body.
Kind of does though. "Trapped in wrong body" is code for "My sex is different to my gender."
If the concept of gender is meaningful it follows it is different to sex. If it isn't we don't need the term.
And if the 2 things are different a person can have their sex and gender misaligned - ie be trapped in the wrong body.
This is only irrational to somebody who thinks the concept of gender is irrational.
Arguably it's the other way round. If you see social gender and biological sex as two independent things, then even if they are misaligned, your body is your body; you are you.
If you say that someone has the 'wrong' body then you're actually denying that gender is separable from sex.
"Wrong body" in this context doesn't mean a denial of sex on birth. This remains a fact but it doesn't match gender. So, a transgender person is "trapped" in a body which differs from their gender. I'd only see irrationality there if I thought the whole notion of gender as something different to sex was irrational. Eg like Cookie does. And you too maybe?
If something is 'wrong' in that configuration, why is it the body and not the psyche? And if nothing is wrong, why is the progressive approach to change the person's body to bring it into conformity with social expectations, rather than to change social attitudes to gender roles?
Answer my question maybe before posing more for me?
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
In a way it is. There's no rational basis to believe someone can be in the 'wrong' body.
That's the same as saying the concept of gender is irrational. It's meaningful only if it can differ (in an individual) from biological sex. If it can't it means gender is null and void for all practical purposes hence so is the notion of transgender. I reckon this view is quite widely held.
I don't think it's the same. Even if you accept the theory of gender as something socially constructed, it doesn't automatically follow that someone who identifies as the opposite gender to their biological sex literally is a man/woman trapped in a woman/man's body.
Kind of does though. "Trapped in wrong body" is code for "My sex is different to my gender."
If the concept of gender is meaningful it follows it is different to sex. If it isn't we don't need the term.
And if the 2 things are different a person can have their sex and gender misaligned - ie be trapped in the wrong body.
This is only irrational to somebody who thinks the notion of gender is bollox.
I would argue we don't need the term gender. It used to just be a euphemism for sex. Are you male or female? What is your body? Do you have a willy or not? That is a meaningful question with a meaningful answer. But gender - do you feel like a man or a woman - how do you define what someone of the female gender is without getting into the circular logic of 'someone who identifies as a woman'? I'd argue that the term is redundant.
Yep. I don't agree with you but I think lots of those whose heckles rise at the notion of "trans rights" do feel this way.
This is the point I was making actually.
Aaaaaand there you go again. The point is a pretty metaphysical one. The concept of "gender" in this case is probably bollocks (and rejecting it is a rare example of the correct application of Occam's razor), but you can think that and still think that if people want to be thought of, treated as and identified as the opposite sex, good luck to them and go for it. Nobody here overtly "has their hackles rising" at the thought of trans rights, and to the best of my reading of it nobody secretly feels like that and is cloaking it under cover of quibbles about what gender is or whether there should be single sex loos. These people share their inherent non existence with the Beast in Lord Of the Flies, and capitalist saboteurs in Stalinist Russia.
I wasn't specifically meaning people on here but now you mention it I bet some of our posters DO feel as I described.
Sentiment being -
"Oh god, this is so fucking tiresome. So much fuss over this tiny minority and it's all tosh anyway. Men are men, they have a dick, women are women, they don't. End of."
I'd be surprised if there aren't some PBers who feel this - and I'm surprised you're so confident there aren't.
But the right to be bored is inalienable, surely? Anti trans sounds to me like someone who wishes to prevent adults from dressing, describing themselves, and having approved medical procedures exactly as they wish, and/or wishes to insult, humiliate or physically assault them. I don't see any sign of that.
I’m not sure many people are opposed to *adults* choosing to do what they want to do with their bodies and their lives. The complaints are about *children*, and the people talking to them.
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Whatever happens at the next election will, for better or worse, only partly be about whatever Truss does. She will carry the legacy of Brexit and the Johnson premiership (whether you think those are good or bad legacies). She could partly repair the Conservative coalition, but still lose.
However, I suspect, she’ll be shit on top of a shit legacy, the Tories will lose, and then they’ll pick an even shitter new leader.
I may be wrong but I expect the Tories will suffer a heavier defeat under Truss than they would have done under Boris.
She will have less appeal to the redwall white working class than Boris did and lose voters there to Labour and RefUK while still proving just as much of a turnoff for Remainers in London and the South who don't fear Starmer as they did Corbyn and have been moving Labour or LD.
The Telegraph headline today is 'Truss plans Thatcherite shake-up of the Treasury' including bringing back John Redwood, very bright but equally toxic in the redwall and Remain voting areas of the bluewall
I think you might be right, but OTOH we shouldn’t underestimate how much Boris trashed his own legacy and she has the one advantage of not being Johnson.
It was Boris who had the reach in the redwall, Truss won't have the same reach especially with her more Thatcherite economics and in the bluewall she has tied herself so much to his legacy and hard Brexit agenda she will be just as toxic anyway.
For instance she co-authored Britannia Unchained, a pamphlet that described the British as “among the worst idlers in the world”. I am sure the red wall will love that and Labour will make sure they are fully aware of it
Though, as she retorted effectively, that chapter was written by Dominic Raab, who is supporting Sunak (he's having a meeting locally this evening and I'll be there, albeit more in synpathy now).
Hmm. The Graun has a rather different take, attempting to correct Ms Truss's memory:
'Sunak said he recalled that the authors of the book took collective responsibility for its contents, a reasonable point given the way the five self-consciously offered their ideas at the time as a decisive alternative to the mushy coalition Conservatism being offered by David Cameron in harness with Nick Clegg.
They were all members of the Free Enterprise Group, wrote a collective introduction to the book, authored a second, more policy-prescriptive second volume, After the Coalition, and altogether gave the impression of offering a cohesive tour d’horizon of where Britain needed to look for renewal.'
Labour's job now is to portray Truss as a grotesque caricature of Thatcher - none of the good bits and all of the evil bits. They will have a wealth of material from Britannia Unhinged to her own publicity shots. This could get bloody.
A. that would entail Labour conceding she had good bits
B. Ancient history is ancient. It's 33 years since her demise. As long as from the start of WW1, to the end of WW2. Nobody under 50 has any recollection of the Reign of Terror.
Also on Spectator out loud podcast, although I warn you against listening through to the end. You’ll be subjected to a terrible piece by the awful Toby Young.
The Speccie is, these days, just about worth wading through the swamp of bullshit to find the occasional nugget of genius, imo. The magazine for right wing rich kids, written by right wing rich kids is occasionally insightful and often entertaining, at least. Also, quite why anyone would pay for a subscription when they give out almost all of their content for free, is beyond me. Does anyone on here sub?
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Liz Truss will have about 12 months to improve the Tories' position in the opinion polls. If things actually gets worse for the party during that time she could be unceremoniously replaced as leader. The days of parties going into an election with a leader they know will drag them down to defeat are probably over. In that respect we're becoming more like Australia.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
In a way it is. There's no rational basis to believe someone can be in the 'wrong' body.
That's the same as saying the concept of gender is irrational. It's meaningful only if it can differ (in an individual) from biological sex. If it can't it means gender is null and void for all practical purposes hence so is the notion of transgender. I reckon this view is quite widely held.
I don't think it's the same. Even if you accept the theory of gender as something socially constructed, it doesn't automatically follow that someone who identifies as the opposite gender to their biological sex literally is a man/woman trapped in a woman/man's body.
Kind of does though. "Trapped in wrong body" is code for "My sex is different to my gender."
If the concept of gender is meaningful it follows it is different to sex. If it isn't we don't need the term.
And if the 2 things are different a person can have their sex and gender misaligned - ie be trapped in the wrong body.
This is only irrational to somebody who thinks the notion of gender is bollox.
I would argue we don't need the term gender. It used to just be a euphemism for sex. Are you male or female? What is your body? Do you have a willy or not? That is a meaningful question with a meaningful answer. But gender - do you feel like a man or a woman - how do you define what someone of the female gender is without getting into the circular logic of 'someone who identifies as a woman'? I'd argue that the term is redundant.
Yep. I don't agree with you but I think lots of those whose heckles rise at the notion of "trans rights" do feel this way.
This is the point I was making actually.
Aaaaaand there you go again. The point is a pretty metaphysical one. The concept of "gender" in this case is probably bollocks (and rejecting it is a rare example of the correct application of Occam's razor), but you can think that and still think that if people want to be thought of, treated as and identified as the opposite sex, good luck to them and go for it. Nobody here overtly "has their hackles rising" at the thought of trans rights, and to the best of my reading of it nobody secretly feels like that and is cloaking it under cover of quibbles about what gender is or whether there should be single sex loos. These people share their inherent non existence with the Beast in Lord Of the Flies, and capitalist saboteurs in Stalinist Russia.
I wasn't specifically meaning people on here but now you mention it I bet some of our posters DO feel as I described.
Sentiment being -
"Oh god, this is so fucking tiresome. So much fuss over this tiny minority and it's all tosh anyway. Men are men, they have a dick, women are women, they don't. End of."
I'd be surprised if there aren't some PBers who feel this - and I'm surprised you're so confident there aren't.
But the right to be bored is inalienable, surely? Anti trans sounds to me like someone who wishes to prevent adults from dressing, describing themselves, and having approved medical procedures exactly as they wish, and/or wishes to insult, humiliate or physically assault them. I don't see any sign of that.
I’m not sure many people are opposed to *adults* choosing to do what they want to do with their bodies and their lives. The complaints are about *children*, and the people talking to them.
Sure. But nobody sane would describe a stipulation that medical advice to children should be closely regulated as "anti trans."
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
In a way it is. There's no rational basis to believe someone can be in the 'wrong' body.
That's the same as saying the concept of gender is irrational. It's meaningful only if it can differ (in an individual) from biological sex. If it can't it means gender is null and void for all practical purposes hence so is the notion of transgender. I reckon this view is quite widely held.
I don't think it's the same. Even if you accept the theory of gender as something socially constructed, it doesn't automatically follow that someone who identifies as the opposite gender to their biological sex literally is a man/woman trapped in a woman/man's body.
Kind of does though. "Trapped in wrong body" is code for "My sex is different to my gender."
If the concept of gender is meaningful it follows it is different to sex. If it isn't we don't need the term.
And if the 2 things are different a person can have their sex and gender misaligned - ie be trapped in the wrong body.
This is only irrational to somebody who thinks the concept of gender is irrational.
Arguably it's the other way round. If you see social gender and biological sex as two independent things, then even if they are misaligned, your body is your body; you are you.
If you say that someone has the 'wrong' body then you're actually denying that gender is separable from sex.
"Wrong body" in this context doesn't mean a denial of sex on birth. This remains a fact but it doesn't match gender. So, a transgender person is "trapped" in a body which differs from their gender. I'd only see irrationality there if I thought the whole notion of gender as something different to sex was irrational. Eg like Cookie does. And you too maybe?
If something is 'wrong' in that configuration, why is it the body and not the psyche? And if nothing is wrong, why is the progressive approach to change the person's body to bring it into conformity with social expectations, rather than to change social attitudes to gender roles?
Answer my question maybe before posing more for me?
Oh for goodness sake! Could the Tory leadership race get any dumber? It’s not the Equality Act that’s the problem! 🤦♀️ It acknowledges the biological reality of sex as Scotland’s Supreme Court held recently thanx to @ForWomenScot
Let's choose. He is either - a) an idiot b) badly informed c) well-informed but pandering to the gallery d) panicking e) using this issue to attack equalities law more generally.
The possibility of (e) worries me, especially given the nonsense Suella Braverman has been coming out with. Yet even now the Labour Party cannot be relied on to protect womens' rights or the rights of troubled children to have the best possible medical care.
Is it beyond them to get advice from well-informed equalities lawyers?
I did tell you that your anti-trans activism would rebound on you Cyclefree in exactly this way, with a rolling back of all the advances made for women and other minorities in the C20th but you wouldn’t have it.
What a pile of fat hairy bollocks
The truth is often unpalatable, I agree.
You’re literally claiming that the right to vote will be taken away from women. Get a grip
Well, I wouldn’t put that past some of the people involved, sure. But the most recent stuff will go first, if they get their way.
My personal belief is that Cyclefree et al have been used by people with a much wider agenda: They don’t give a stuff about trans people particularly, (I mean, they believe them to be degenerate perverts who have rejected God’s mercy, but they hardly limit that attitude to trans people...) they’re really after the unrolling of the liberal project. Gay rights, women’s rights, the whole lot.
I am quite certain that there are people with precisely that agenda. Especially in the US. And groups in Europe too.
But the problem we have - and I genuinely wish you would engage with it rather than dismissing it - is this: TRAs also have an agenda and it is very explicitly and openly to replace sex with gender and to limit or remove existing rights for women. Stonewall, for instance, has openly called for the single sex exemptions in the Equality Act to be removed, for the offence of rape by deception to be removed. These proposals and self-ID will diminish the position of women, not simply in relation to single sex spaces but in relation to equal pay (the use of a comparator is rendered meaningless if self-ID is permitted). Abolition of one of the crimes of rape is in no sense a progressive cause.
Your position seems to be that women should not campaign against this but accept it because otherwise they might possibly give succour to some right-wing groups. It assumes that Stonewall and others supporting their stance are progressive because they say they are. I judge them on what they advocate. And there is nothing progressive about what they are advocating.
So why should women not campaign against something that will harm them?That is an absurd and immoral view IMO. And, frankly, sexist because it is saying - whether you mean to or not - that women should never put their interests first.
My position is that you & people like you are taking sides in a culture war that will rebound on you in ways that you will find deeply unconformable if you “win”.
Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it & more besides.
It's a case of deciding issues on their merits. It's a false choice to say that either one must be on the side of trans activists or on the side of the hard right of the US Republican party.
Otherwise it is simply “Shut up and sit at the back of the bus.”
The argument that “X is supported by bad people, therefore X cannot be supported” is ignorant shit.
The Nazis were anti-smoking. Should we all get a 60 a day habit to prove our moral purity?
Totally, but OTOH it is not a sign of intelligent free thinking to pay no regard whatsoever to the type of people who agree or disagree with you on a topic. Eg if lots of palpable bigots are on the same side as you on an issue it merits a think about why this is. If having done so you remain happy with your position, fine, but to not bother with that step at all is vice not virtue. It's like skipping due diligence before buying something.
Perhaps. But then you are tthering your moral position to ugliest exponents of an idea....
The blanket idea that "You must think x to be progressive" is as much garbage as "You must think x to be a loyal follower of the Kaiser*".
Among other things, some groups play the game of maliciously supporting causes and candidates.
*The Kaiser did tell one funny joke. Some say that this balanced out the whole WWI thing.
You're not doing that. As explained you're doing due diligence.
And yes I've already agreed - and I still agree - that "you must think X to be progressive" is nonsense.
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Liz Truss will have about 12 months to improve the Tories' position in the opinion polls. If things actually gets worse for the party during that time she could be unceremoniously replaced as leader. The days of parties going into an election with a leader they know will drag them down to defeat are probably over. In that respect we're becoming more like Australia.
Shortest serving PM of the twentieth century - A. Bonar Law, 209 days.
Shortest serving since the age of universal suffrage - Alec Douglas-Home, 362 days.
Could Truss beat either record?
I'm confident she'd beat the 48 hours set by the Earl of Bath.
Watch that MAGA speech by Kari Lake. She is incredibly good: a natural-born populist politician. She whips up the crowd, and they love her right back
Frightening
"Thrilling" is what I think at least a part of you means?
Yes. Hitler could also be thrilling. He was a great orator in his own florid way. And yet I manage to hold this opinion without being a Nazi, and while wishing Hitler had never existed
Another speaker I find thrilling is the young Hugo Chavez. He has the same quality as Kari Lake: he commands your attention and it is difficult to look away. This is pure charisma. It is rare. Pay attention when you see it
I've watched speeches by Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. Stalin's style was similar to that of a BBC announcer: "This is the news." Hitler is the one who stands out. What distinguished his style of public speaking was that he spoke as if he was in great emotional pain. His speeches were practically shamanic. Lenin was between the other two. His style was similar to Hitler's, but he operated at a far lower level of skill and intensity. Comparing the two speakers would be like comparing a county-level athlete with a world champion.
Agreed, Hugo Chavez's 1994 speech in Havana was a masterpiece. But I don't know of any speech in the last 50 years by anyone that could top his "por ahora" speech of 1992.
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
In a way it is. There's no rational basis to believe someone can be in the 'wrong' body.
That's the same as saying the concept of gender is irrational. It's meaningful only if it can differ (in an individual) from biological sex. If it can't it means gender is null and void for all practical purposes hence so is the notion of transgender. I reckon this view is quite widely held.
I don't think it's the same. Even if you accept the theory of gender as something socially constructed, it doesn't automatically follow that someone who identifies as the opposite gender to their biological sex literally is a man/woman trapped in a woman/man's body.
Kind of does though. "Trapped in wrong body" is code for "My sex is different to my gender."
If the concept of gender is meaningful it follows it is different to sex. If it isn't we don't need the term.
And if the 2 things are different a person can have their sex and gender misaligned - ie be trapped in the wrong body.
This is only irrational to somebody who thinks the concept of gender is irrational.
Arguably it's the other way round. If you see social gender and biological sex as two independent things, then even if they are misaligned, your body is your body; you are you.
If you say that someone has the 'wrong' body then you're actually denying that gender is separable from sex.
"Wrong body" in this context doesn't mean a denial of sex on birth. This remains a fact but it doesn't match gender. So, a transgender person is "trapped" in a body which differs from their gender. I'd only see irrationality there if I thought the whole notion of gender as something different to sex was irrational. Eg like Cookie does. And you too maybe?
If something is 'wrong' in that configuration, why is it the body and not the psyche? And if nothing is wrong, why is the progressive approach to change the person's body to bring it into conformity with social expectations, rather than to change social attitudes to gender roles?
Answer my question maybe before posing more for me?
Not sure why you think it is such a gotcha. It's a very difficult concept. I assume you don't identify it as physical. If it is mental, are there any other mental qualities which are as binary, boolean either/or as this? Can't think of any. Why can't we just talk about people who to a greater or lesser extent would like to be the other sex, to the extent that is possible?
Awesome if confirmed. Those troops can either retreat from Kherson in small cars back over the river - or run out of supplies and be subject to nightly attacks on their positions, command structures and supply convoys.
The video on that thread showing the damage to the railway bridge looks 'interesting'. Certainly needs some work, given a beam has heavy top-flange damage.
There are, of course, a few unfortunates who are physically intersex, such as those suffering from complete https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome . (A geneticist would look at their chromosomes, see the Y, and say that's a male. Were you to see one in a shower, you'd say that's a female. And a technician doing a scan would be shocked, because they are born with testicles, rather than ovaries.)
Again, I will say such rare individuals deserve our sympathy, and, where possible, our help. But they aren't going to have children.
So there aren't many of them -- as the theory of evolution predicts.
And homosexuals? Is there an Evolution angle there iyo?
I've seen a theory before that yes there is an evolutionary advantage to it.
Not everyone breeds and it's a myth that evolution means you need to pass on your genes directly to have an evolutionary impact.
Theory I saw goes that having childless aunts and uncles could in the past be an advantage to ensuring that the line continued. So families with basically recessive gay genes would have a biological advantage and they could be passed on via the none gay family members with their gay relatives helping to ensure their success and their propagation of the line.
If having a gay sibling aids your line continuing via you, then that is an evolutionary advantage for you to be carrying such genetics even if you're not personally gay.
What is about her and what's she saying that you find so wonderful? I realise as someone who seems to naturally gravitate to right-wing politicians and enjoys antagonising "lefties" she probably pushes a few buttons for you but as someone who seems to have a modicum of intelligence and objectivity, are you not able to see this is nonsense and rabble-rousing shite?
We know from history of course the most intelligent (or those who claim it) seem to be the most susceptible to this kind of thing.
Of course it's nonsense and rabble-rousing shite. She's anti vax FFS, she apparently wants to ban all abortions, she's insane about guns, she believes the 2020 election was stolen - on and on
But she IS fascinating. Because she is very good at the "rabble rousing shite". She has a great skill set. And it's quite something to hear mad, awful Trumpite lines delivered by an articulate, confident, attractive woman. The cognitive dissonance it evokes is intense
And I like politics, and it is really quite rare to find a politician who is arresting. Who makes you stop and think Hey, this is good (in terms of pure politics). They are usually so boring
Will she go far? Or go anywhere? Her age is somewhat against her, as I have said. She is extreme. Are Americans ready for this? Dunno. But if ALL the dice fall in her favour I could see her in the White House and that is a genuinely scary thought - if she means what she says (she was until recently a Democrat!)
I don't love her. I just say that to tease @kinabalu who is desperate to think I'm a Nazi, and when he sees "evidence" he hugs himself with secret joy
There is something intoxicating about the zeal of the new convert. Liz Truss joined the Conservative Party over 25 years ago yet you'd think she's only just found out what it is to be a Conservative.
We see it in the Brexit debate - those who were passionately for one side now argue with greater passion for the other.
I've never experienced such an epiphany, such a damascene moment - my loss I suppose.
What is about her and what's she saying that you find so wonderful? I realise as someone who seems to naturally gravitate to right-wing politicians and enjoys antagonising "lefties" she probably pushes a few buttons for you but as someone who seems to have a modicum of intelligence and objectivity, are you not able to see this is nonsense and rabble-rousing shite?
We know from history of course the most intelligent (or those who claim it) seem to be the most susceptible to this kind of thing.
Of course it's nonsense and rabble-rousing shite. She's anti vax FFS, she apparently wants to ban all abortions, she's insane about guns, she believes the 2020 election was stolen - on and on
But she IS fascinating. Because she is very good at the "rabble rousing shite". She has a great skill set. And it's quite something to hear mad, awful Trumpite lines delivered by an articulate, confident, attractive woman. The cognitive dissonance it evokes is intense
And I like politics, and it is really quite rare to find a politician who is arresting. Who makes you stop and think Hey, this is good (in terms of pure politics). They are usually so boring
Will she go far? Or go anywhere? Her age is somewhat against her, as I have said. She is extreme. Are Americans ready for this? Dunno. But if ALL the dice fall in her favour I could see her in the White House and that is a genuinely scary thought - if she means what she says (she was until recently a Democrat!)
I don't love her. I just say that to tease @kinabalu who is desperate to think I'm a Nazi, and when he sees "evidence" he hugs himself with secret joy
There is something intoxicating about the zeal of the new convert. Liz Truss joined the Conservative Party over 25 years ago yet you'd think she's only just found out what it is to be a Conservative.
We see it in the Brexit debate - those who were passionately for one side now argue with greater passion for the other.
I've never experienced such an epiphany, such a damascene moment - my loss I suppose.
Far better to be a grounded and sceptical observer of political events, like you, than be a sucker for every passing proto-dictator like our Leon. We should just be grateful that we live in a time and place where his nascent collaboration has no outlet.
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Liz Truss will have about 12 months to improve the Tories' position in the opinion polls. If things actually gets worse for the party during that time she could be unceremoniously replaced as leader. The days of parties going into an election with a leader they know will drag them down to defeat are probably over. In that respect we're becoming more like Australia.
Is that really right?
The only party leader I can think of in my lifetime ousted before getting to face an election is IDS, and even the quiet man got more than 12 months. If there's anyone else, I've forgotten them. Discounting Smith as he was replaced due to mortality not being ousted.
I can think of more leaders that have lost two consecutive general elections (Kinnock and Corbyn) than to have not faced any but still been pushed out.
Watch that MAGA speech by Kari Lake. She is incredibly good: a natural-born populist politician. She whips up the crowd, and they love her right back
Frightening
"Thrilling" is what I think at least a part of you means?
Yes. Hitler could also be thrilling. He was a great orator in his own florid way. And yet I manage to hold this opinion without being a Nazi, and while wishing Hitler had never existed
Another speaker I find thrilling is the young Hugo Chavez. He has the same quality as Kari Lake: he commands your attention and it is difficult to look away. This is pure charisma. It is rare. Pay attention when you see it
I've watched speeches by Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. Stalin's style was similar to that of a BBC announcer: "This is the news." Hitler is the one who stands out. What distinguished his style of public speaking was that he spoke as if he was in great emotional pain. His speeches were practically shamanic. Lenin was between the other two. His style was similar to Hitler's, but he operated at a far lower level of skill and intensity. Comparing the two speakers would be like comparing a county-level athlete with a world champion.
Agreed, Hugo Chavez's 1994 speech in Havana was a masterpiece. But I don't know of any speech in the last 50 years by anyone that could top his "por ahora" speech of 1992.
No love for John Major announcing the Cone Hotline?
Watch that MAGA speech by Kari Lake. She is incredibly good: a natural-born populist politician. She whips up the crowd, and they love her right back
Frightening
"Thrilling" is what I think at least a part of you means?
Yes. Hitler could also be thrilling. He was a great orator in his own florid way. And yet I manage to hold this opinion without being a Nazi, and while wishing Hitler had never existed
Another speaker I find thrilling is the young Hugo Chavez. He has the same quality as Kari Lake: he commands your attention and it is difficult to look away. This is pure charisma. It is rare. Pay attention when you see it
I've watched speeches by Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. Stalin's style was similar to that of a BBC announcer: "This is the news." Hitler is the one who stands out. What distinguished his style of public speaking was that he spoke as if he was in great emotional pain. His speeches were practically shamanic. Lenin was between the other two. His style was similar to Hitler's, but he operated at a far lower level of skill and intensity. Comparing the two speakers would be like comparing a county-level athlete with a world champion.
Agreed, Hugo Chavez's 1994 speech in Havana was a masterpiece. But I don't know of any speech in the last 50 years by anyone that could top his "por ahora" speech of 1992.
No love for John Major announcing the Cone Hotline?
If my Dad decides he's in the wrong body and starts dressing and living as a lady, do I have to start calling Dad "Mum" to not be transphobic?
It would be between you and him but if my dad was still alive I would call him whatever he wanted me to call him. Whatever he self identified as is what I'd call him to make him as comfortable as I can.
(Note that's an entirely different scenario to changing law to accommodate him, allowing him in to women only spaces and even changing our understanding of biology/cellular biology to say that he is female when the chromosomes in every cell in his body say he is in fact male)
Obviously excluding all the red blood cells, which don’t contain chromosomes.
There are, of course, a few unfortunates who are physically intersex, such as those suffering from complete https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome . (A geneticist would look at their chromosomes, see the Y, and say that's a male. Were you to see one in a shower, you'd say that's a female. And a technician doing a scan would be shocked, because they are born with testicles, rather than ovaries.)
Again, I will say such rare individuals deserve our sympathy, and, where possible, our help. But they aren't going to have children.
So there aren't many of them -- as the theory of evolution predicts.
And homosexuals? Is there an Evolution angle there iyo?
I've seen a theory before that yes there is an evolutionary advantage to it.
Not everyone breeds and it's a myth that evolution means you need to pass on your genes directly to have an evolutionary impact.
Theory I saw goes that having childless aunts and uncles could in the past be an advantage to ensuring that the line continued. So families with basically recessive gay genes would have a biological advantage and they could be passed on via the none gay family members with their gay relatives helping to ensure their success and their propagation of the line.
If having a gay sibling aids your line continuing via you, then that is an evolutionary advantage for you to be carrying such genetics even if you're not personally gay.
Indeed. There’s also the obvious point that being gay doesn’t actually stop you having children, regardless of your sex.
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Whatever happens at the next election will, for better or worse, only partly be about whatever Truss does. She will carry the legacy of Brexit and the Johnson premiership (whether you think those are good or bad legacies). She could partly repair the Conservative coalition, but still lose.
However, I suspect, she’ll be shit on top of a shit legacy, the Tories will lose, and then they’ll pick an even shitter new leader.
I may be wrong but I expect the Tories will suffer a heavier defeat under Truss than they would have done under Boris.
She will have less appeal to the redwall white working class than Boris did and lose voters there to Labour and RefUK while still proving just as much of a turnoff for Remainers in London and the South who don't fear Starmer as they did Corbyn and have been moving Labour or LD.
The Telegraph headline today is 'Truss plans Thatcherite shake-up of the Treasury' including bringing back John Redwood, very bright but equally toxic in the redwall and Remain voting areas of the bluewall
I think you might be right, but OTOH we shouldn’t underestimate how much Boris trashed his own legacy and she has the one advantage of not being Johnson.
It was Boris who had the reach in the redwall, Truss won't have the same reach especially with her more Thatcherite economics and in the bluewall she has tied herself so much to his legacy and hard Brexit agenda she will be just as toxic anyway.
For instance she co-authored Britannia Unchained, a pamphlet that described the British as “among the worst idlers in the world”. I am sure the red wall will love that and Labour will make sure they are fully aware of it
Though, as she retorted effectively, that chapter was written by Dominic Raab, who is supporting Sunak (he's having a meeting locally this evening and I'll be there, albeit more in synpathy now).
Hmm. The Graun has a rather different take, attempting to correct Ms Truss's memory:
'Sunak said he recalled that the authors of the book took collective responsibility for its contents, a reasonable point given the way the five self-consciously offered their ideas at the time as a decisive alternative to the mushy coalition Conservatism being offered by David Cameron in harness with Nick Clegg.
They were all members of the Free Enterprise Group, wrote a collective introduction to the book, authored a second, more policy-prescriptive second volume, After the Coalition, and altogether gave the impression of offering a cohesive tour d’horizon of where Britain needed to look for renewal.'
There are, of course, a few unfortunates who are physically intersex, such as those suffering from complete https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome . (A geneticist would look at their chromosomes, see the Y, and say that's a male. Were you to see one in a shower, you'd say that's a female. And a technician doing a scan would be shocked, because they are born with testicles, rather than ovaries.)
Again, I will say such rare individuals deserve our sympathy, and, where possible, our help. But they aren't going to have children.
So there aren't many of them -- as the theory of evolution predicts.
And homosexuals? Is there an Evolution angle there iyo?
I've seen a theory before that yes there is an evolutionary advantage to it.
Not everyone breeds and it's a myth that evolution means you need to pass on your genes directly to have an evolutionary impact.
Theory I saw goes that having childless aunts and uncles could in the past be an advantage to ensuring that the line continued. So families with basically recessive gay genes would have a biological advantage and they could be passed on via the none gay family members with their gay relatives helping to ensure their success and their propagation of the line.
If having a gay sibling aids your line continuing via you, then that is an evolutionary advantage for you to be carrying such genetics even if you're not personally gay.
Another theory is that gays have a genetic condition that prevents them from becoming fully male in the womb. Not everyone with this condition becomes gay, and the straight ones tend to be more attractive to women (being more like them) so have more sex and produce more kids, so the disadvantage is cancelled out.
Watch that MAGA speech by Kari Lake. She is incredibly good: a natural-born populist politician. She whips up the crowd, and they love her right back
Frightening
"Thrilling" is what I think at least a part of you means?
Yes. Hitler could also be thrilling. He was a great orator in his own florid way. And yet I manage to hold this opinion without being a Nazi, and while wishing Hitler had never existed
Another speaker I find thrilling is the young Hugo Chavez. He has the same quality as Kari Lake: he commands your attention and it is difficult to look away. This is pure charisma. It is rare. Pay attention when you see it
I've watched speeches by Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. Stalin's style was similar to that of a BBC announcer: "This is the news." Hitler is the one who stands out. What distinguished his style of public speaking was that he spoke as if he was in great emotional pain. His speeches were practically shamanic. Lenin was between the other two. His style was similar to Hitler's, but he operated at a far lower level of skill and intensity. Comparing the two speakers would be like comparing a county-level athlete with a world champion.
Agreed, Hugo Chavez's 1994 speech in Havana was a masterpiece. But I don't know of any speech in the last 50 years by anyone that could top his "por ahora" speech of 1992.
Hitler is TOO flamboyant and hyperbolic for British tastes. But it clearly resonated with a lot of Germans. As Susan Sontag said (IIRC) "he brought Germany to orgasm with his speeches". And it is almost literally true. If you see footage of a famous Hitler speech, the people in the crowd look at him with bright, wet eyes, mesmerised, thrilled, moved, even aroused
Chavez is an intriguing contrast. He's nothing like Hitler but just as "good". That quiet hypnotic intensity. He is erudite without being pompous, his emotions are profound rather than raw
I can't think of a single British politician since Churchill with these skills: great oratory combined with great charisma. Obama could be excellent at his best but again not at this world class standard
It is unfortunate that these talents often seem to be gifted to demagogues rather than democrats
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Liz Truss will have about 12 months to improve the Tories' position in the opinion polls. If things actually gets worse for the party during that time she could be unceremoniously replaced as leader. The days of parties going into an election with a leader they know will drag them down to defeat are probably over. In that respect we're becoming more like Australia.
Is that really right?
The only party leader I can think of in my lifetime ousted before getting to face an election is IDS, and even the quiet man got more than 12 months. If there's anyone else, I've forgotten them. Discounting Smith as he was replaced due to mortality not being ousted.
I can think of more leaders that have lost two consecutive general elections (Kinnock and Corbyn) than to have not faced any but still been pushed out.
Menzies Campbell and Vince Cable. Not sure if you count those?
Also among minor parties, Lord Pearson (among many other total nonentities to lead UKIP).
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Liz Truss will have about 12 months to improve the Tories' position in the opinion polls. If things actually gets worse for the party during that time she could be unceremoniously replaced as leader. The days of parties going into an election with a leader they know will drag them down to defeat are probably over. In that respect we're becoming more like Australia.
I really don't see Truss being defenestrated before the election. There were attempts to force Gordon Brown out that he brushed off, but that felt more like the tail end of the New Labour era, whereas Truss represents something new in her own right.
It's a start: "The United States has now met President Biden’s goal, announced in March, to legally admit “up to” 100,000 Ukrainians fleeing Vladimir Putin’s blood-soaked invasion. That admirable achievement shouldn’t mark the end of this country’s commitment to sharing the burden of the ongoing humanitarian nightmare in Europe. The administration has the means and programs in place to retain an open door for Ukrainians forced from their homes. It should prepare for another 100,000." source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/30/us-has-admitted-100000-ukrainian-migrants-it-must-keep-going/
(I don't always agree with the Washington Post editorial board, but I do on this issue.)
The best thing that can be said for Truss is she will back Zelensky to the hilt and ensure he continues to get the arms and supplies to take advantage of situations like the above
Even better if she also frees the weed and sacks the royal family!
If she did that I am off and would actively vote and campaign against her in the landslide defeat she would take the party to.
Though she would almost certainly have been deposed by the party first. The only way she will get elected leader is by having dumped most of her leftwing near anarchist past
Watch that MAGA speech by Kari Lake. She is incredibly good: a natural-born populist politician. She whips up the crowd, and they love her right back
Frightening
"Thrilling" is what I think at least a part of you means?
Yes. Hitler could also be thrilling. He was a great orator in his own florid way. And yet I manage to hold this opinion without being a Nazi, and while wishing Hitler had never existed
Another speaker I find thrilling is the young Hugo Chavez. He has the same quality as Kari Lake: he commands your attention and it is difficult to look away. This is pure charisma. It is rare. Pay attention when you see it
I've watched speeches by Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. Stalin's style was similar to that of a BBC announcer: "This is the news." Hitler is the one who stands out. What distinguished his style of public speaking was that he spoke as if he was in great emotional pain. His speeches were practically shamanic. Lenin was between the other two. His style was similar to Hitler's, but he operated at a far lower level of skill and intensity. Comparing the two speakers would be like comparing a county-level athlete with a world champion.
Agreed, Hugo Chavez's 1994 speech in Havana was a masterpiece. But I don't know of any speech in the last 50 years by anyone that could top his "por ahora" speech of 1992.
Hitler is TOO flamboyant and hyperbolic for British tastes. But it clearly resonated with a lot of Germans. As Susan Sontag said (IIRC) "he brought Germany to orgasm with his speeches". And it is almost literally true. If you see footage of a famous Hitler speech, the people in the crowd look at him with bright, wet eyes, mesmerised, thrilled, moved, even aroused
Chavez is an intriguing contrast. He's nothing like Hitler but just as "good". That quiet hypnotic intensity. He is erudite without being pompous, his emotions are profound rather than raw
I can't think of a single British politician since Churchill with these skills: great oratory combined with great charisma. Obama could be excellent at his best but again not at this world class standard
It is unfortunate that these talents often seem to be gifted to demagogues rather than democrats
I had a friend at university who would give speeches in half-remembered schoolboy German in the style of Hitler:
Ich habe [muffled sob, look of disappointment] ... keine ... Geschwister...[look of resolute determination, cranks up volume]... aber ... ICH HABE EINEN HUND!
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Liz Truss will have about 12 months to improve the Tories' position in the opinion polls. If things actually gets worse for the party during that time she could be unceremoniously replaced as leader. The days of parties going into an election with a leader they know will drag them down to defeat are probably over. In that respect we're becoming more like Australia.
Is that really right?
The only party leader I can think of in my lifetime ousted before getting to face an election is IDS, and even the quiet man got more than 12 months. If there's anyone else, I've forgotten them. Discounting Smith as he was replaced due to mortality not being ousted.
I can think of more leaders that have lost two consecutive general elections (Kinnock and Corbyn) than to have not faced any but still been pushed out.
Menzies Campbell and Vince Cable. Not sure if you count those?
Also among minor parties, Lord Pearson (among many other total nonentities to lead UKIP).
Yeah I wasn't counting minor parties, so they don't count.
Once you start including minor parties it all goes out the window.
There are, of course, a few unfortunates who are physically intersex, such as those suffering from complete https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome . (A geneticist would look at their chromosomes, see the Y, and say that's a male. Were you to see one in a shower, you'd say that's a female. And a technician doing a scan would be shocked, because they are born with testicles, rather than ovaries.)
Again, I will say such rare individuals deserve our sympathy, and, where possible, our help. But they aren't going to have children.
So there aren't many of them -- as the theory of evolution predicts.
And homosexuals? Is there an Evolution angle there iyo?
I've seen a theory before that yes there is an evolutionary advantage to it.
Not everyone breeds and it's a myth that evolution means you need to pass on your genes directly to have an evolutionary impact.
Theory I saw goes that having childless aunts and uncles could in the past be an advantage to ensuring that the line continued. So families with basically recessive gay genes would have a biological advantage and they could be passed on via the none gay family members with their gay relatives helping to ensure their success and their propagation of the line.
If having a gay sibling aids your line continuing via you, then that is an evolutionary advantage for you to be carrying such genetics even if you're not personally gay.
Interesting. Although I must admit my main insight into the theory of evolution is it's one of the most popularly misunderstood bits of science around.
The best thing that can be said for Truss is she will back Zelensky to the hilt and ensure he continues to get the arms and supplies to take advantage of situations like the above
Even better if she also frees the weed and sacks the royal family!
If she did that I am off and would actively vote and campaign against her in the landslide defeat she would take the party to.
Though she would almost certainly have been deposed by the party first. The only way she will get elected leader is by having dumped most of her leftwing near anarchist past
You have not the first idea of the damage peggate has done to the Royal family, coming on top of baldy's attempt to suppress the "Three people in the marriage" bashir interview. she might be well advised to referret on this one.
Liz "Free The Weed" Truss is growing on me. Even if she doesn't want to free the weed anymore
"At one freshers’ week, Lib Dem members including Alan Renwick, a friend of Truss who is now an academic on constitutional affairs, were decorating a stall and Truss, then a believer in cannabis legalisation, had a particular vision of how it should look. “She wanted the whole stall to be covered with these posters saying: ‘Free the Weed’, so I was scurrying around after Liz, trying to take these down again and put up a variety of different messages rather than just having this one message all over the stall,” Renwick told BBC Radio 4. She was putting them up again just as quickly." https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/liz-truss-profile-ambition-charm-thick-skin-thatcher
Will Liz be the first PM in history to have publicly backed legalizing cannabis and getting rid of the monarchy (even if she claims she doesn't believe these things now) ?
She will probably be the most libertarian PM we have ever had. If the Tories elect her it is very high risk, she might do surprisingly well or she might collapse the Conservative coalition completely, losing the white working class and traditional Tories as well
Liz Truss will have about 12 months to improve the Tories' position in the opinion polls. If things actually gets worse for the party during that time she could be unceremoniously replaced as leader. The days of parties going into an election with a leader they know will drag them down to defeat are probably over. In that respect we're becoming more like Australia.
Is that really right?
The only party leader I can think of in my lifetime ousted before getting to face an election is IDS, and even the quiet man got more than 12 months. If there's anyone else, I've forgotten them. Discounting Smith as he was replaced due to mortality not being ousted.
I can think of more leaders that have lost two consecutive general elections (Kinnock and Corbyn) than to have not faced any but still been pushed out.
Menzies Campbell and Vince Cable. Not sure if you count those?
Also among minor parties, Lord Pearson (among many other total nonentities to lead UKIP).
Yeah I wasn't counting minor parties, so they don't count.
Once you start including minor parties it all goes out the window.
Campbell led a party of 63 MPs and was the second largest party in two of the four constituent nations of the UK. Hardly 'minor.'
There are, of course, a few unfortunates who are physically intersex, such as those suffering from complete https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome . (A geneticist would look at their chromosomes, see the Y, and say that's a male. Were you to see one in a shower, you'd say that's a female. And a technician doing a scan would be shocked, because they are born with testicles, rather than ovaries.)
Again, I will say such rare individuals deserve our sympathy, and, where possible, our help. But they aren't going to have children.
So there aren't many of them -- as the theory of evolution predicts.
And homosexuals? Is there an Evolution angle there iyo?
I've seen a theory before that yes there is an evolutionary advantage to it.
Not everyone breeds and it's a myth that evolution means you need to pass on your genes directly to have an evolutionary impact.
Theory I saw goes that having childless aunts and uncles could in the past be an advantage to ensuring that the line continued. So families with basically recessive gay genes would have a biological advantage and they could be passed on via the none gay family members with their gay relatives helping to ensure their success and their propagation of the line.
If having a gay sibling aids your line continuing via you, then that is an evolutionary advantage for you to be carrying such genetics even if you're not personally gay.
Interesting. Although I must admit my main insight into the theory of evolution is it's one of the most popularly misunderstood bits of science around.
'A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it' - Jacques Monod.
The "gay uncle" theory is basically sound though. Think about worker ants.
So far everyone who likes Truss seems to have been voting Tory anyway. Anyone being converted?
🙋♂️
You voted Tory in 2019 and had not switched to Labour or the LDs as far as I could see so don't really count
I stopped supporting the Tories when Rishi raised NI and my vote was up for grabs since and I've been leaning towards the LDs.
If Liz reverses the NI policy that got my to stop supporting the party, I'll be happy to start supporting it again. If she doesn't, or if Rishi wins, then I expect I'll vote LD next time instead.
Watch that MAGA speech by Kari Lake. She is incredibly good: a natural-born populist politician. She whips up the crowd, and they love her right back
Frightening
"Thrilling" is what I think at least a part of you means?
Yes. Hitler could also be thrilling. He was a great orator in his own florid way. And yet I manage to hold this opinion without being a Nazi, and while wishing Hitler had never existed
Another speaker I find thrilling is the young Hugo Chavez. He has the same quality as Kari Lake: he commands your attention and it is difficult to look away. This is pure charisma. It is rare. Pay attention when you see it
I've watched speeches by Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. Stalin's style was similar to that of a BBC announcer: "This is the news." Hitler is the one who stands out. What distinguished his style of public speaking was that he spoke as if he was in great emotional pain. His speeches were practically shamanic. Lenin was between the other two. His style was similar to Hitler's, but he operated at a far lower level of skill and intensity. Comparing the two speakers would be like comparing a county-level athlete with a world champion.
Agreed, Hugo Chavez's 1994 speech in Havana was a masterpiece. But I don't know of any speech in the last 50 years by anyone that could top his "por ahora" speech of 1992.
Hitler is TOO flamboyant and hyperbolic for British tastes. But it clearly resonated with a lot of Germans. As Susan Sontag said (IIRC) "he brought Germany to orgasm with his speeches". And it is almost literally true. If you see footage of a famous Hitler speech, the people in the crowd look at him with bright, wet eyes, mesmerised, thrilled, moved, even aroused
Chavez is an intriguing contrast. He's nothing like Hitler but just as "good". That quiet hypnotic intensity. He is erudite without being pompous, his emotions are profound rather than raw
I can't think of a single British politician since Churchill with these skills: great oratory combined with great charisma. Obama could be excellent at his best but again not at this world class standard
It is unfortunate that these talents often seem to be gifted to demagogues rather than democrats
I had a friend at university who would give speeches in half-remembered schoolboy German in the style of Hitler:
Ich habe [muffled sob, look of disappointment] ... keine ... Geschwister...[look of resolute determination, cranks up volume]... aber ... ICH HABE EINEN HUND!
You sort of had to be there, I suppose.
No that made me chuckle here in Primrose Hill borders!
I have just recalled Martin Luther King. He had both: the charisma and the oratory. Is the "I have a dream" speech the most powerful ever made in the modern era of recording? (at least in English, it might be). That incredible deep voice: that helped
However he was not a world class, front rank politician like Chavez, Churchill, and Hitler
The endless trans culture war - for that is what it is - saddens me. I have various irons in this particular fire - I am a bisexual man with a wife and a daughter, I have a non-binary adult offspring who has had several relationships with trans men, and I have an old friend who is a trans woman.
I keep coming back to basic beliefs like all things in moderation, treat as you want to be tret, your freedoms can't trample on other people's freedoms etc etc. Too many of the activists on both sides simply want to defeat the other side who aren't just wrong but morally degenerate.
We do need to be very careful though. The "anti-woke" foamers don't want to pull back what they see as the excesses of modern attitudes to people like my eldest and their exes. They want to put deviants like me back in our boxes where we can't be heard. And want to stop women from getting in the way of man things like football and voting.
So we have to take all of this in moderation. Promoting trans rights can't trample on the rights of women. Protecting the rights of women can't become the momentum to reduce the rights of women. But when the talk is of sides, and of activists calling the other side blind or stupid or ignorant for questioning their own position, we slide backwards as a society whether we roll back progress or not.
It needs to stop.
The culture war in the UK has only recently become a heated ‘war’ - or so it feels - because until a few years ago the *progressive left* won every battle with barely a shot fired. They simply conquered. It wasn’t a war
It’s only now that the ‘progressives’ have moved on to truly suspicious, objectionable causes - transgender toddlers, all whites are racist - that people have said Enough. And they are fighting back. And it really is a war
Of course it wasn't a war. Section 28 wasn't Thatcher bigotry, it was just a woke myth.
Given the concept of “transgender toddlers” etc, it is now quite easy to see how the Thatcher government kneejerked itself into introducing Section 28.
I have new “appreciation” for how people like Harriet Harman ended up pretty much unwittingly supporting the pro-paedophile lobby of the 70s, too.
I don't see a big difference between transgender toddlers and Christian or Muslim toddlers. It is a shorthand for the parent's beliefs and intentions.
Gender is not a matter of “faith”.
In a way it is. There's no rational basis to believe someone can be in the 'wrong' body.
That's the same as saying the concept of gender is irrational. It's meaningful only if it can differ (in an individual) from biological sex. If it can't it means gender is null and void for all practical purposes hence so is the notion of transgender. I reckon this view is quite widely held.
I don't think it's the same. Even if you accept the theory of gender as something socially constructed, it doesn't automatically follow that someone who identifies as the opposite gender to their biological sex literally is a man/woman trapped in a woman/man's body.
Kind of does though. "Trapped in wrong body" is code for "My sex is different to my gender."
If the concept of gender is meaningful it follows it is different to sex. If it isn't we don't need the term.
And if the 2 things are different a person can have their sex and gender misaligned - ie be trapped in the wrong body.
This is only irrational to somebody who thinks the concept of gender is irrational.
Arguably it's the other way round. If you see social gender and biological sex as two independent things, then even if they are misaligned, your body is your body; you are you.
If you say that someone has the 'wrong' body then you're actually denying that gender is separable from sex.
"Wrong body" in this context doesn't mean a denial of sex on birth. This remains a fact but it doesn't match gender. So, a transgender person is "trapped" in a body which differs from their gender. I'd only see irrationality there if I thought the whole notion of gender as something different to sex was irrational. Eg like Cookie does. And you too maybe?
If something is 'wrong' in that configuration, why is it the body and not the psyche? And if nothing is wrong, why is the progressive approach to change the person's body to bring it into conformity with social expectations, rather than to change social attitudes to gender roles?
Indeed, a girl playing with train sets and monster trucks doesn't mean she was born in the wrong sex. It's completely mad that we've got to a stage where these kinds of ideas are being used to perpetrate abuse against children.
Watch that MAGA speech by Kari Lake. She is incredibly good: a natural-born populist politician. She whips up the crowd, and they love her right back
Frightening
"Thrilling" is what I think at least a part of you means?
Yes. Hitler could also be thrilling. He was a great orator in his own florid way. And yet I manage to hold this opinion without being a Nazi, and while wishing Hitler had never existed
Another speaker I find thrilling is the young Hugo Chavez. He has the same quality as Kari Lake: he commands your attention and it is difficult to look away. This is pure charisma. It is rare. Pay attention when you see it
I've watched speeches by Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. Stalin's style was similar to that of a BBC announcer: "This is the news." Hitler is the one who stands out. What distinguished his style of public speaking was that he spoke as if he was in great emotional pain. His speeches were practically shamanic. Lenin was between the other two. His style was similar to Hitler's, but he operated at a far lower level of skill and intensity. Comparing the two speakers would be like comparing a county-level athlete with a world champion.
Agreed, Hugo Chavez's 1994 speech in Havana was a masterpiece. But I don't know of any speech in the last 50 years by anyone that could top his "por ahora" speech of 1992.
Hitler is TOO flamboyant and hyperbolic for British tastes. But it clearly resonated with a lot of Germans. As Susan Sontag said (IIRC) "he brought Germany to orgasm with his speeches". And it is almost literally true. If you see footage of a famous Hitler speech, the people in the crowd look at him with bright, wet eyes, mesmerised, thrilled, moved, even aroused
Chavez is an intriguing contrast. He's nothing like Hitler but just as "good". That quiet hypnotic intensity. He is erudite without being pompous, his emotions are profound rather than raw
I can't think of a single British politician since Churchill with these skills: great oratory combined with great charisma. Obama could be excellent at his best but again not at this world class standard
It is unfortunate that these talents often seem to be gifted to demagogues rather than democrats
I would say the party leader who has been the best speaker since Churchill was Kinnock. God knows I was no more left wing as a child than I am now, but I always thought he performed his art well. The Welsh accent too - best speaking accent for the job, I'd say. Most British accents, at least some of the audience will take against you immediately. Less so with Welsh. Less so also with NE English, Highland Scots and SW English, though I'd say Welsh is more persuasive.
The best thing that can be said for Truss is she will back Zelensky to the hilt and ensure he continues to get the arms and supplies to take advantage of situations like the above
Even better if she also frees the weed and sacks the royal family!
If she did that I am off and would actively vote and campaign against her in the landslide defeat she would take the party to.
Though she would almost certainly have been deposed by the party first. The only way she will get elected leader is by having dumped most of her leftwing near anarchist past
You have not the first idea of the damage peggate has done to the Royal family, coming on top of baldy's attempt to suppress the "Three people in the marriage" bashir interview. she might be well advised to referret on this one.
It hasn't done any damage at all, if anything it is damaged Markle more by showing the pathetic, tawdry nature of her fanatics on twitter, already leading to responses just as rude about the Sussexes from Cambridge supporters.
Most people were appalled by the Bashir allegations too.
Though the last thing the Tory party wants is to appeal to Britain hating, royal family hating, far left fanatics like you
So far everyone who likes Truss seems to have been voting Tory anyway. Anyone being converted?
If she leagalises weed and abolishes the monarchy I'd vote for her!
If she proposes that I will vote LD or RefUK for the first time ever at a general election. It would no longer be the Tory Party.
She would lead the party to its worst defeat ever and give Labour and the LDs a landslide victory, the Tories probably even falling behind RefUK led by a resurgent Farage.
Though I can't believe she would be that stupid. It would be Kim Campbell 1993 annihilation
So far everyone who likes Truss seems to have been voting Tory anyway. Anyone being converted?
If she leagalises weed and abolishes the monarchy I'd vote for her!
Could she take the Tory party with her is the question. At one time I'd have thought not, but Boris managed to make the party of law and order an apologist organization for criminality, so who knows?
Comments
For instance she co-authored Britannia Unchained, a pamphlet that described the British as “among the worst idlers in the world”. I am sure the red wall will love that and Labour will make sure they are fully aware of it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cross-dressing#United_States
This is the point I was making actually.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3580149-gop-senators-are-skeptical-damaged-trump-can-win-in-2024/
Thank you to former First Minister @AlexSalmond for coming to visit our Glasgow Soup Kitchen, Mr Salmond got his jacket off and apron on and ready to serve the most vulnerable in our city of Glasgow.
#alexsalmond #glasgow #soupkitchen #hotfood #vulnerable
https://twitter.com/hp_scotland/status/1553364161652047873
The current First Minister had to decline a Food Bank invite because she was “too busy” - at St Andrew’s, for the golf, as it turned out.
Also, your reputation as a Tory soothsayer has taken a bit of a dent, I am afraid. You backed Wallace as leader (even as we told you he wouldn't even run). He didn't even run. Then you backed the dull pointless Tugendhat. Now you're on to Sunak. You've backed the loser every time. Perhaps your political antennae need a reboot
In 2020 Biden also became the first Democrat to win Arizona in a presidential election since Bill Clinton in 1996, who in turn was the first Democrat to win it since Truman in 1948.
Arizona is normally solid red but it does not like Trump's nationalism, it is more a libertarian state
What do you make of Thatcher, the person - and, more importantly, her political legacy.
In the past year or so, you’ve posted extensively on here about how you (if I’ve read you correctly) define yourself quite strongly against the libertarian tories - who hold Thatcher in very high regard.
Do you think these libertarian tories misunderstand the true Thatcher? Or do they have her right - ie, that they own the Thatcherite legacy - taking it to its logical conclusion, and you (and your wing of the tories) therefore reject her and her legacy?
I’m genuinely interested in how you see things.
Yes Truss might win the leadership but if she loses the next general election and badly I will not have been wrong. If Truss beats Starmer then yes I will happily admit I was wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Arizona_gubernatorial_election
The primary is on August 2nd and she is a near-certainty to win
It does not mean either will be able to win over swing voters in the suburbs in the main election
They are playing League Football on the Saturday of Glorious Goodwood - it is truly the end of days.
It's interesting to look at Kari Lake's endorsements and those for her opponent, Karrin Taylor Robson.
Trump and his acolytes are as we know backing Lake but Mike Pence and Newt Gingrich are among those endorsing Karrin Robson.
It's another sign of the end of days that Gingrich now looks moderate and reasonable in the GOP - it's clear there is an anti-Trump rear-guard being fought by an eclectic grouping - perhaps Pence may yet be a big player in the 2024 GOP nomination.
This is significant, if verified, as it seals off Russian forces in Kherson from supplies originating in Crimea and Russian-occupied Donbas
https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1553397545757442055
The person who said that wasn't original, for, as Tom Wolfe observed years ago: “The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.”
(More here: https://volokh.com/posts/1139878045.shtml )
Trump is a con man, not a fascist.
https://twitter.com/KariLake/status/1552863263292919808?s=20&t=AcpwL5aOehLjhfY9YCvmVg
Look how she works that crowd. Total confidence. USA! USA!
I love her and she gives me Teh TINGLEZ
Not saying it will change your mind, but it will definitely challenge you to think harder about your position, which can only be a good thing.
Betfair next prime minister
1.11 Liz Truss 90%
10 Rishi Sunak 10%
Next Conservative leader
1.11 Liz Truss 90%
10 Rishi Sunak 10%
The blanket idea that "You must think x to be progressive" is as much garbage as "You must think x to be a loyal follower of the Kaiser*".
Among other things, some groups play the game of maliciously supporting causes and candidates.
*The Kaiser did tell one funny joke. Some say that this balanced out the whole WWI thing.
But confession: I've backed him quite large at average 1.4 to run. Bit of a hedge cushion there and just possibly double quids in if he goes for it and for some reason doesn't get it.
What is about her and what's she saying that you find so wonderful? I realise as someone who seems to naturally gravitate to right-wing politicians and enjoys antagonising "lefties" she probably pushes a few buttons for you but as someone who seems to have a modicum of intelligence and objectivity, are you not able to see this is nonsense and rabble-rousing shite?
We know from history of course the most intelligent (or those who claim it) seem to be the most susceptible to this kind of thing.
'Sunak said he recalled that the authors of the book took collective responsibility for its contents, a reasonable point given the way the five self-consciously offered their ideas at the time as a decisive alternative to the mushy coalition Conservatism being offered by David Cameron in harness with Nick Clegg.
They were all members of the Free Enterprise Group, wrote a collective introduction to the book, authored a second, more policy-prescriptive second volume, After the Coalition, and altogether gave the impression of offering a cohesive tour d’horizon of where Britain needed to look for renewal.'
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/30/british-idlers-how-a-2012-attack-on-uks-work-ethic-could-haunt-liz-truss
If they wish for you to call them 'mum' (and they may not), then at least try to respect their wishes. Make the effort.
I've been through this with colleagues and a friend. IMV it's quite simple: from their pov, it's unrealistic to expect someone that they've known for years to suddenly call them by a new name or title all the time. Even if you really wish to do it all the time, the 'old' name slips out occasionally. The longer you've known someone, the harder it is to always call them by that name. If you're in a meeting, thinking about an issue, it's easy to refer to someone by their 'old' name. At least for me.
In this case: if they ask you to call them 'mum', and you always call them 'dad', then you've being a bit of a sh*t. If you really try to call them 'mum', and they get angry when you once accidentally call you 'dad', they are being a bit of a sh*t.
It's a case of respect. If you love your dad, why not respect their wishes in something that doesn't really matter one bit?
Likely they are endorsing Truss AND endorsing against Rishi, given the primary policy interest of both is a strong defence against both Russia and China.
Finally it will help unify the party and hopefully allow Truss cover to build a bigger tent in Cabinet. When the likes of Rees Mogg ask for their favoured job, Truss will be able to legitimately say she also has to make room for the moderates who helped her win. I would be very happy indeed if these two fill the Defence and Foreign Sec jobs, providing a strong national security voice around the crowded Cabinet table.
The other bet for the race can definitely be cashed out for a decent profit, though I’m tempted to let half of it ride.
Socially he's as thick as pea soup. That All Souls brain may have impressed Wokingham voters in the days of Thames Valley deference. But, with LibDems now running most local councils in his constituency, his gross insensitivity is completely toxic. And it's his personal insufferableness that irks voters most. A few of the nastier Tories in the area - like David Johnston in Wantage - may survive because they've got decent records or are at affable at least to other Tories
But Redwood? Probably the most likely Thames Valley Tory to be decapitated in 24/25
But she IS fascinating. Because she is very good at the "rabble rousing shite". She has a great skill set. And it's quite something to hear mad, awful Trumpite lines delivered by an articulate, confident, attractive woman. The cognitive dissonance it evokes is intense
And I like politics, and it is really quite rare to find a politician who is arresting. Who makes you stop and think Hey, this is good (in terms of pure politics). They are usually so boring
Will she go far? Or go anywhere? Her age is somewhat against her, as I have said. She is extreme. Are Americans ready for this? Dunno. But if ALL the dice fall in her favour I could see her in the White House and that is a genuinely scary thought - if she means what she says (she was until recently a Democrat!)
I don't love her. I just say that to tease @kinabalu who is desperate to think I'm a Nazi, and when he sees "evidence" he hugs himself with secret joy
Sentiment being -
"Oh god, this is so fucking tiresome. So much fuss over this tiny minority and it's all tosh anyway. Men are men, they have a dick, women are women, they don't. End of."
I'd be surprised if there aren't some PBers who feel this - and I'm surprised you're so confident there aren't.
(Note that's an entirely different scenario to changing law to accommodate him, allowing him in to women only spaces and even changing our understanding of biology/cellular biology to say that he is female when the chromosomes in every cell in his body say he is in fact male)
We don’t have a very good idea of how many people are trans in the UK. I would imagine the figures in the US are sketchier still.
Lots of confounding factors.
B. Ancient history is ancient. It's 33 years since her demise. As long as from the start of WW1, to the end of WW2. Nobody under 50 has any recollection of the Reign of Terror.
And yes I've already agreed - and I still agree - that "you must think X to be progressive" is nonsense.
Shortest serving since the age of universal suffrage - Alec Douglas-Home, 362 days.
Could Truss beat either record?
I'm confident she'd beat the 48 hours set by the Earl of Bath.
Agreed, Hugo Chavez's 1994 speech in Havana was a masterpiece. But I don't know of any speech in the last 50 years by anyone that could top his "por ahora" speech of 1992.
Not everyone breeds and it's a myth that evolution means you need to pass on your genes directly to have an evolutionary impact.
Theory I saw goes that having childless aunts and uncles could in the past be an advantage to ensuring that the line continued. So families with basically recessive gay genes would have a biological advantage and they could be passed on via the none gay family members with their gay relatives helping to ensure their success and their propagation of the line.
If having a gay sibling aids your line continuing via you, then that is an evolutionary advantage for you to be carrying such genetics even if you're not personally gay.
We see it in the Brexit debate - those who were passionately for one side now argue with greater passion for the other.
I've never experienced such an epiphany, such a damascene moment - my loss I suppose.
The only party leader I can think of in my lifetime ousted before getting to face an election is IDS, and even the quiet man got more than 12 months. If there's anyone else, I've forgotten them. Discounting Smith as he was replaced due to mortality not being ousted.
I can think of more leaders that have lost two consecutive general elections (Kinnock and Corbyn) than to have not faced any but still been pushed out.
She really is Boris in a dress, isn't she?
Chavez is an intriguing contrast. He's nothing like Hitler but just as "good". That quiet hypnotic intensity. He is erudite without being pompous, his emotions are profound rather than raw
I can't think of a single British politician since Churchill with these skills: great oratory combined with great charisma. Obama could be excellent at his best but again not at this world class standard
It is unfortunate that these talents often seem to be gifted to demagogues rather than democrats
Also among minor parties, Lord Pearson (among many other total nonentities to lead UKIP).
source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/30/us-has-admitted-100000-ukrainian-migrants-it-must-keep-going/
(I don't always agree with the Washington Post editorial board, but I do on this issue.)
Though she would almost certainly have been deposed by the party first. The only way she will get elected leader is by having dumped most of her leftwing near anarchist past
Ich habe [muffled sob, look of disappointment] ... keine ... Geschwister...[look of resolute determination, cranks up volume]... aber ... ICH HABE EINEN HUND!
You sort of had to be there, I suppose.
Once you start including minor parties it all goes out the window.
The "gay uncle" theory is basically sound though. Think about worker ants.
If Liz reverses the NI policy that got my to stop supporting the party, I'll be happy to start supporting it again. If she doesn't, or if Rishi wins, then I expect I'll vote LD next time instead.
I have just recalled Martin Luther King. He had both: the charisma and the oratory. Is the "I have a dream" speech the most powerful ever made in the modern era of recording? (at least in English, it might be). That incredible deep voice: that helped
However he was not a world class, front rank politician like Chavez, Churchill, and Hitler
Most people were appalled by the Bashir allegations too.
Though the last thing the Tory party wants is to appeal to Britain hating, royal family hating, far left fanatics like you
Right now she’s not winning over people she needs to hold the Red Wall - let’s see what she offers them
She would lead the party to its worst defeat ever and give Labour and the LDs a landslide victory, the Tories probably even falling behind RefUK led by a resurgent Farage.
Though I can't believe she would be that stupid. It would be Kim Campbell 1993 annihilation