Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
Of course she is a victim. She believed she was on a mission from God to travel to Syria and have babies with God's chosen fighters ousting the infadel from God's lands. She didn't think that until after her grooming.
I am not in that camp either. There is such a thing as automony and personal responsibility. I think the evidence is mixed at best. But I remain uncomfortable with the powers given to the Home Secretary in this regard and do not think that the UK can simply wash its hands of her.
She was groomed. She then committed serious offences. She is ours to bring to justice.
Why don’t the Syrians and Iraqis have the right to bring her to justice?
It was Syrians and Iraqis that she helped to enslave, torture and kill
They don't seem to be rushing to do so - why is that?
I believe it’s lack of money and stability. So let’s help to provide that. Sorting our problems AND theirs
Good, lets move on from the Begum argument. "Money and Stability" is the way to resolve not just her and the rest of the ISIS lunacy, its the way to stop rich countries being swamped by refugees from warzones and desperately poor countries and places which will be desperately hard to live in as the climate changes.
It strikes me that there is something we can do with chunks of Africa and the Middle East to help them and help us - enormous solar farms. Now that solar has become relatively cheap and efficient instead of fighting over Afghanistan for pipelines, just build solar and export cables. These countries grow wealthy, we get electricity, we avoid a refugee disaster as they all get air conditioning.
That all sounds great as in principle I agree but for it to work the wealth has to be shared out. The reality of oil has been it has destabilised the region not helped it. Mineral and other wealth has not helped nations.
Solar cannot be allowed to do the same.
Octopus Energy are going big on Moroccan solar.
Yes I know - its not an outlandish idea because it has already been started. Though an export cable direct from Morocco to the UK sounds fantastically expensive. Oil destabilises regions when country A has it and country B does not. That isn't a problem with solar when much of both countries is undeveloped wasteland.
Well that is a prime example of me being hoist with my own petard.
I bemoan the fact that we are talking about Shamima Begum, which we did only yesterday, and then I enter into a discussion about the merits or otherwise of the effing Iraq War.
We could always talk about Scottish Independence. I received this leaflet with 10 key facts about independence.
The leaflet seemed very confident there would be an independence referendum on 19th October 2023.
If only the SNP government had used any of its very considerable powers and budget to address any of these issues in the last 15 years.
Well that is a prime example of me being hoist with my own petard.
I bemoan the fact that we are talking about Shamima Begum, which we did only yesterday, and then I enter into a discussion about the merits or otherwise of the effing Iraq War.
We could always talk about Scottish Independence. I received this leaflet with 10 key facts about independence.
The leaflet seemed very confident there would be an independence referendum on 19th October 2023.
Yes. We need to talk more about Scottish independence and Indyref2 on here 👍
I think we need more perspective on Scottish independence and the evils of England from our neighbours... perhaps someone living in Sweden can give his view?
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
So anyone who joins the Hitler Youth aged 15, participates eagerly in the war, is an unprotesting witness to the Holocaust, and who gets arrested in 1946 in Chile and EVEN THEN can barely express regrets for anyone killed or enslaved by the Nazis is also “a victim”?
Give it a rest
At which point ignore that bit.
You can't remove someone's nationality on the basis that someone THINKS they have the right to citizenship elsewhere...
Especially when the other country categorically states that that person does not qualify for citizenship...
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
So anyone who joins the Hitler Youth aged 15, participates eagerly in the war, is an unprotesting witness to the Holocaust, and who gets arrested in 1946 in Chile and EVEN THEN can barely express regrets for anyone killed or enslaved by the Nazis is also “a victim”?
Give it a rest
At which point ignore that bit.
You can't remove someone's nationality on the basis that someone THINKS they have the right to citizenship elsewhere...
Especially when the other country categorically states that that person does not qualify for citizenship...
The courts said you can…
Indeed, which is why people will "keep going on" about it, because the courts are wrong and it needs changing.
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
Of course she is a victim. She believed she was on a mission from God to travel to Syria and have babies with God's chosen fighters ousting the infadel from God's lands. She didn't think that until after her grooming.
I am not in that camp either. There is such a thing as automony and personal responsibility. I think the evidence is mixed at best. But I remain uncomfortable with the powers given to the Home Secretary in this regard and do not think that the UK can simply wash its hands of her.
She was groomed. She then committed serious offences. She is ours to bring to justice.
Why don’t the Syrians and Iraqis have the right to bring her to justice?
It was Syrians and Iraqis that she helped to enslave, torture and kill
They don't seem to be rushing to do so - why is that?
They certainly have done so to others, and have held her for years. Being British doesn't prevent prosecution.
Indeed is there any evidence that she was involved in ISIS crimes? Being a sympathiser is not itself a crime, neither is being married to an ISIS fighter.
She’s a self confessed member of ISIS and that alone is a capital crime in Syria and Iraq
Either you are wrong about that or despite holding her 6 years they have no evidence she is a member, or for reasons of their own are not enforcing that law.
I’m not wrong
Yet they have chosen not to prosecute. A British passport is no protection from prosecution abroad, just Consular support, so why do you think the locals have not prosecuted her? Or indeed the many others in the camps?
Whatever their reasons are shouldn't impact on her citizenship.
If we have evidence of crimes we could always prosecute her here, in any case she will certainly be monitored by our spooks.
Is this the Finland claim? Seems odd to have saved it up for now unless the cabinet minister is likely to be in Truss cabinet
There's also the Kwarteng issue, we may all know about Truss n him, the electorate at large don't. What happens when she makes him Chancellor?
No idea what you're insinuating on Kwarteng, but whatever it is, we'll just call anyone who ever brings it up a racist, which should kneecap both the Opposition and the media on the subject.
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
So anyone who joins the Hitler Youth aged 15, participates eagerly in the war, is an unprotesting witness to the Holocaust, and who gets arrested in 1946 in Chile and EVEN THEN can barely express regrets for anyone killed or enslaved by the Nazis is also “a victim”?
Give it a rest
At which point ignore that bit.
You can't remove someone's nationality on the basis that someone THINKS they have the right to citizenship elsewhere...
Especially when the other country categorically states that that person does not qualify for citizenship...
The courts said you can…
Based on the baseless lie from the Home Office that she was eligible for citizenship elsewhere.
Had the court been presented with the truth how would it have ruled?
The equitable way round the Begum problem is this.
Pass a law that states if anyone's ancestry can be traced up the chain such that a n-grandparent is from elsewhere they can be deemed a citizen of that country at the pleasure of the HS. Since that'll include absolubtely everyone...
The equitable way round the Begum problem is this.
Pass a law that states if anyone's ancestry can be traced up the chain such that a n-grandparent is from elsewhere they can be deemed a citizen of that country at the pleasure of the HS. Since that'll include absolubtely everyone...
Back when my half Spanish quarter Irish Brothers-in-Law were young and stupid, they expressed a lot of support for the BNP. I asked whether they preferred to be deported to Spain or Ireland. "You what?" And then had to explain that the repatriation policy they support explicitly includes first generation migrants like them.
People are quick to support outrageous policies when they only apply to Other People. Less popular once they understand it applies to them.
The equitable way round the Begum problem is this.
Pass a law that states if anyone's ancestry can be traced up the chain such that a n-grandparent is from elsewhere they can be deemed a citizen of that country at the pleasure of the HS. Since that'll include absolubtely everyone...
I think I've got a great great grandmother who was Swedish; are you suggesting that means I could be sent there?
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
Of course she is a victim. She believed she was on a mission from God to travel to Syria and have babies with God's chosen fighters ousting the infadel from God's lands. She didn't think that until after her grooming.
I am not in that camp either. There is such a thing as automony and personal responsibility. I think the evidence is mixed at best. But I remain uncomfortable with the powers given to the Home Secretary in this regard and do not think that the UK can simply wash its hands of her.
She was groomed. She then committed serious offences. She is ours to bring to justice.
Why don’t the Syrians and Iraqis have the right to bring her to justice?
It was Syrians and Iraqis that she helped to enslave, torture and kill
They don't seem to be rushing to do so - why is that?
I believe it’s lack of money and stability. So let’s help to provide that. Sorting our problems AND theirs
Good, lets move on from the Begum argument. "Money and Stability" is the way to resolve not just her and the rest of the ISIS lunacy, its the way to stop rich countries being swamped by refugees from warzones and desperately poor countries and places which will be desperately hard to live in as the climate changes.
It strikes me that there is something we can do with chunks of Africa and the Middle East to help them and help us - enormous solar farms. Now that solar has become relatively cheap and efficient instead of fighting over Afghanistan for pipelines, just build solar and export cables. These countries grow wealthy, we get electricity, we avoid a refugee disaster as they all get air conditioning.
That all sounds great as in principle I agree but for it to work the wealth has to be shared out. The reality of oil has been it has destabilised the region not helped it. Mineral and other wealth has not helped nations.
Solar cannot be allowed to do the same.
Octopus Energy are going big on Moroccan solar.
Yes I know - its not an outlandish idea because it has already been started. Though an export cable direct from Morocco to the UK sounds fantastically expensive. Oil destabilises regions when country A has it and country B does not. That isn't a problem with solar when much of both countries is undeveloped wasteland.
The problem with a cable from Morocco to the UK isn't that it's expensive - though it is. Gas pipelines are expensive yet manage to justify their costs easily by the volume of gas they transport. The problem is that electricity cables lose so much of their electricity (I'm sure this could be better put, but it will do for now) over the length of the cable- and this will be a very long cable. However, my understanding is that this project has come about as a result of a major step forward in how much electricty a cable can retain. It does still have the major problem of power dependency on a third party country whose values risk being very different to ours. But it's considerably better than getting oil or gas from such sources.
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
Of course she is a victim. She believed she was on a mission from God to travel to Syria and have babies with God's chosen fighters ousting the infadel from God's lands. She didn't think that until after her grooming.
I am not in that camp either. There is such a thing as automony and personal responsibility. I think the evidence is mixed at best. But I remain uncomfortable with the powers given to the Home Secretary in this regard and do not think that the UK can simply wash its hands of her.
She was groomed. She then committed serious offences. She is ours to bring to justice.
Her offences were mainly committed overseas. Why should we bring her to justice and imprison her, if guilty. for offences committed on Syrian soil ? Let her stand trial there.
They are offences here. Would be yet another example of British exceptionalism if we have our citizens commit offences abroad then remove their citizenship so they become Someone Else's Problem.
I do not agree with removing her citizenship but she has allegedly committed offences in Syria so should account for them there.
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
Of course she is a victim. She believed she was on a mission from God to travel to Syria and have babies with God's chosen fighters ousting the infadel from God's lands. She didn't think that until after her grooming.
I am not in that camp either. There is such a thing as automony and personal responsibility. I think the evidence is mixed at best. But I remain uncomfortable with the powers given to the Home Secretary in this regard and do not think that the UK can simply wash its hands of her.
She was groomed. She then committed serious offences. She is ours to bring to justice.
Her offences were mainly committed overseas. Why should we bring her to justice and imprison her, if guilty. for offences committed on Syrian soil ? Let her stand trial there.
They are offences here. Would be yet another example of British exceptionalism if we have our citizens commit offences abroad then remove their citizenship so they become Someone Else's Problem.
I do not agree with removing her citizenship but she has allegedly committed offences in Syria so should account for them there.
Should be: "I do not agree with removing her citizenship and she has allegedly committed offences in Syria so should account for them there."
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
Of course she is a victim. She believed she was on a mission from God to travel to Syria and have babies with God's chosen fighters ousting the infadel from God's lands. She didn't think that until after her grooming.
I am not in that camp either. There is such a thing as automony and personal responsibility. I think the evidence is mixed at best. But I remain uncomfortable with the powers given to the Home Secretary in this regard and do not think that the UK can simply wash its hands of her.
She was groomed. She then committed serious offences. She is ours to bring to justice.
Her offences were mainly committed overseas. Why should we bring her to justice and imprison her, if guilty. for offences committed on Syrian soil ? Let her stand trial there.
They are offences here. Would be yet another example of British exceptionalism if we have our citizens commit offences abroad then remove their citizenship so they become Someone Else's Problem.
I do not agree with removing her citizenship but she has allegedly committed offences in Syria so should account for them there.
In the first instance, absolutely. Yet they are not prosecuting most of them. Which is up to them of course. But we are able to extradite people...
The equitable way round the Begum problem is this.
Pass a law that states if anyone's ancestry can be traced up the chain such that a n-grandparent is from elsewhere they can be deemed a citizen of that country at the pleasure of the HS. Since that'll include absolubtely everyone...
Slight problem with that. It would mean that the Tories would recognise Scotland as a separate country with separate citizenship?
Voters elected Tony Blair after he lied through his teeth to get Britain into a war which saw 175vfamillies lose a loved one and hundreds of others have loved ones return physically or mentally maimed.
At the time of the 2005 election most people still regarded the 2003 invasion as valid. You have made the mistake of looking at things from a 2022 viewpoint rather than the viewpoints of 2005.
if i remember rightly the bulk of the tories were in favour of this. it was only Kennedy against, and him and the libdems were pilloried for it.
Yeah this old one. If the government (which has access to more intelligence than the opposition) says that there is a real and credible threat to the nation the Opposition has no option but to go along with it.
The problem in that case was that the Opposition support was based upon a lie, a government lie.
Bollocks. Anyone with half an active brain cell could tell that the whole thing was illegal, immoral, irresponsible and ill-conceived. Bleedin' obvious in 2003, and bleeding obvious in 2022.
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
I doubt this ‘revelation’ changes much, even if it is true and it seems to be accepted as true by Begums supporters in the media.
She was unrepentant as you say and her comments about the Manchester Arena bombing were appalling and made well after IS had fallen.
She seems to have a well funded and slick PR campaign advocating for her. She doesn’t deserve it. I would let her be subject to the justice of the domain she committed her offences in.
As Nick Palmer, iirc, said. There are far more deserving cases of our help.
Well, not exactly. I prioritise unproblematic immigrants (for example, Afghans who actually helped us - why the hell are they STILL in B&Bs awaiting rehoming??) over immigrants with dodgy backgrounds. The issue with Begum is that she's as British as I am - rather more, in fact, as I'm spent half my life abroad. Her opinions are irrelevant - she was entitled to think whatever she liked about ISIS, we're a country where we have freedom of opinion. The issue is whether the exercise of power to remove nationality is appropriate in thsi case (if it ever is), and I don't think it is, because of the grooming and the weakness of the claim that she could be Bangladeshi if she chose.
As a cause celebre it's awkward as her opinions were repellent. But justice should not hinge on whether its application is awkward.
Like you I dislike removing nationality. It’s the start of a slippery slope.
Against that the fundamental sanction that a society has is to remove access to the benefits of membership of that society
This can either be internal exile (to prison) or external exile (in this case to Syria).
She doesn’t share our values. Why should she benefit from our society?
Kevin Hollinrake - a Sunak supporter - has been on Sky saying the leadership is "neck and neck":
"I’ve seen some of the polls and national polls. I think it’s quite hard for pollsters to determine who is a Conservative member and who is not because there’s not an open database.
But I know who mine are. I polled my 700 members, 239 of them responded, so about a third of them responded, and Rishi got an eight-point lead.
And I’ve seen similar kind of polls around different constituencies around the country. So I don’t think he’s cut and dried. I think he’s probably neck and neck."
We've all asked why the Sunak campaign has fought on and one when supposedly it was all over weeks ago. Outrageous thought, but what if the pollsters have it wrong? Is there something about the Tory membership where its possible to end up sampling the same small group of biddies saying "Truss" when there's a load not being asked saying "Sunak"?
Its not *completely* impossible. The bookies said leave had no chance on the evening of polling day...
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
I doubt this ‘revelation’ changes much, even if it is true and it seems to be accepted as true by Begums supporters in the media.
She was unrepentant as you say and her comments about the Manchester Arena bombing were appalling and made well after IS had fallen.
She seems to have a well funded and slick PR campaign advocating for her. She doesn’t deserve it. I would let her be subject to the justice of the domain she committed her offences in.
As Nick Palmer, iirc, said. There are far more deserving cases of our help.
Well, not exactly. I prioritise unproblematic immigrants (for example, Afghans who actually helped us - why the hell are they STILL in B&Bs awaiting rehoming??) over immigrants with dodgy backgrounds. The issue with Begum is that she's as British as I am - rather more, in fact, as I'm spent half my life abroad. Her opinions are irrelevant - she was entitled to think whatever she liked about ISIS, we're a country where we have freedom of opinion. The issue is whether the exercise of power to remove nationality is appropriate in thsi case (if it ever is), and I don't think it is, because of the grooming and the weakness of the claim that she could be Bangladeshi if she chose.
As a cause celebre it's awkward as her opinions were repellent. But justice should not hinge on whether its application is awkward.
Like you I dislike removing nationality. It’s the start of a slippery slope.
Against that the fundamental sanction that a society has is to remove access to the benefits of membership of that society
This can either be internal exile (to prison) or external exile (in this case to Syria).
She doesn’t share our values. Why should she benefit from our society?
Define "our values". Then define "share". Britain is a broad church, but there an awful lot of different views ideals and perspectives within that. Which ones do we want to define as core, and which are so beyond the line that expulsion is required? We don't expel people who do the worst murders and rapes and terrorism, so where is the line you want to draw?
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
Of course she is a victim. She believed she was on a mission from God to travel to Syria and have babies with God's chosen fighters ousting the infadel from God's lands. She didn't think that until after her grooming.
I am not in that camp either. There is such a thing as automony and personal responsibility. I think the evidence is mixed at best. But I remain uncomfortable with the powers given to the Home Secretary in this regard and do not think that the UK can simply wash its hands of her.
She was groomed. She then committed serious offences. She is ours to bring to justice.
Her offences were mainly committed overseas. Why should we bring her to justice and imprison her, if guilty. for offences committed on Syrian soil ? Let her stand trial there.
They are offences here. Would be yet another example of British exceptionalism if we have our citizens commit offences abroad then remove their citizenship so they become Someone Else's Problem.
I do not agree with removing her citizenship but she has allegedly committed offences in Syria so should account for them there.
In the first instance, absolutely. Yet they are not prosecuting most of them. Which is up to them of course. But we are able to extradite people...
We wouldn’t need to, the camp are quite happy to return people to their nations and have done so with several
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
Of course she is a victim. She believed she was on a mission from God to travel to Syria and have babies with God's chosen fighters ousting the infadel from God's lands. She didn't think that until after her grooming.
I am not in that camp either. There is such a thing as automony and personal responsibility. I think the evidence is mixed at best. But I remain uncomfortable with the powers given to the Home Secretary in this regard and do not think that the UK can simply wash its hands of her.
She was groomed. She then committed serious offences. She is ours to bring to justice.
Why don’t the Syrians and Iraqis have the right to bring her to justice?
It was Syrians and Iraqis that she helped to enslave, torture and kill
They don't seem to be rushing to do so - why is that?
I believe it’s lack of money and stability. So let’s help to provide that. Sorting our problems AND theirs
Good, lets move on from the Begum argument. "Money and Stability" is the way to resolve not just her and the rest of the ISIS lunacy, its the way to stop rich countries being swamped by refugees from warzones and desperately poor countries and places which will be desperately hard to live in as the climate changes.
It strikes me that there is something we can do with chunks of Africa and the Middle East to help them and help us - enormous solar farms. Now that solar has become relatively cheap and efficient instead of fighting over Afghanistan for pipelines, just build solar and export cables. These countries grow wealthy, we get electricity, we avoid a refugee disaster as they all get air conditioning.
That all sounds great as in principle I agree but for it to work the wealth has to be shared out. The reality of oil has been it has destabilised the region not helped it. Mineral and other wealth has not helped nations.
Solar cannot be allowed to do the same.
Octopus Energy are going big on Moroccan solar.
Yes I know - its not an outlandish idea because it has already been started. Though an export cable direct from Morocco to the UK sounds fantastically expensive. Oil destabilises regions when country A has it and country B does not. That isn't a problem with solar when much of both countries is undeveloped wasteland.
The problem with a cable from Morocco to the UK isn't that it's expensive - though it is. Gas pipelines are expensive yet manage to justify their costs easily by the volume of gas they transport. The problem is that electricity cables lose so much of their electricity (I'm sure this could be better put, but it will do for now) over the length of the cable- and this will be a very long cable. However, my understanding is that this project has come about as a result of a major step forward in how much electricty a cable can retain. It does still have the major problem of power dependency on a third party country whose values risk being very different to ours. But it's considerably better than getting oil or gas from such sources.
The big worry I have about an electricity cable supplying electricity to us from a long distance is that we don't have control over the other end of the cable. We're more vulnerable to terrorists attacking the North African end of such a cable than we are to terrorists attacking a British power plant.
Also, any attack or fault that brings down such a cable instantly takes electricity off our grid, whereas a terrorist attack on a Middle East gas port gives us some time to react before it results in blackouts.
Event though it would introduce considerable inefficiencies, and further points of failure, there are ways in which using the solar electricity to manufacture gas for LNG export would be a more reliable way of supplying that energy.
One of the problems with Germany's dependency on Russian gas is that the gas was supplied through a pipeline, and you can't quickly replace such supply from a different source, because you can't easily move the pipeline. It's the same with a point-to-point interconnector. It's a big vulnerable single point of failure.
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
I doubt this ‘revelation’ changes much, even if it is true and it seems to be accepted as true by Begums supporters in the media.
She was unrepentant as you say and her comments about the Manchester Arena bombing were appalling and made well after IS had fallen.
She seems to have a well funded and slick PR campaign advocating for her. She doesn’t deserve it. I would let her be subject to the justice of the domain she committed her offences in.
As Nick Palmer, iirc, said. There are far more deserving cases of our help.
Well, not exactly. I prioritise unproblematic immigrants (for example, Afghans who actually helped us - why the hell are they STILL in B&Bs awaiting rehoming??) over immigrants with dodgy backgrounds. The issue with Begum is that she's as British as I am - rather more, in fact, as I'm spent half my life abroad. Her opinions are irrelevant - she was entitled to think whatever she liked about ISIS, we're a country where we have freedom of opinion. The issue is whether the exercise of power to remove nationality is appropriate in thsi case (if it ever is), and I don't think it is, because of the grooming and the weakness of the claim that she could be Bangladeshi if she chose.
As a cause celebre it's awkward as her opinions were repellent. But justice should not hinge on whether its application is awkward.
Like you I dislike removing nationality. It’s the start of a slippery slope.
Against that the fundamental sanction that a society has is to remove access to the benefits of membership of that society
This can either be internal exile (to prison) or external exile (in this case to Syria).
She doesn’t share our values. Why should she benefit from our society?
She was born here as a British citizen.
Who gets to define "British values" and police them by banishment?
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
Of course she is a victim. She believed she was on a mission from God to travel to Syria and have babies with God's chosen fighters ousting the infadel from God's lands. She didn't think that until after her grooming.
I am not in that camp either. There is such a thing as automony and personal responsibility. I think the evidence is mixed at best. But I remain uncomfortable with the powers given to the Home Secretary in this regard and do not think that the UK can simply wash its hands of her.
She was groomed. She then committed serious offences. She is ours to bring to justice.
Her offences were mainly committed overseas. Why should we bring her to justice and imprison her, if guilty. for offences committed on Syrian soil ? Let her stand trial there.
They are offences here. Would be yet another example of British exceptionalism if we have our citizens commit offences abroad then remove their citizenship so they become Someone Else's Problem.
I do not agree with removing her citizenship but she has allegedly committed offences in Syria so should account for them there.
Should be: "I do not agree with removing her citizenship and she has allegedly committed offences in Syria so should account for them there."
Though the legal advice from Lord Pannick QC was commissioned by the Number 10 unit within the Cabinet Office which might be distancing itself from the report, which also raises the question of parliamentary sovereignty. Popcorn time.
Like everything else to do with Boris, it's unadulterated bollocks.
But it is now a sign of how the politics of this has changed - the Mail and Express have been campaigning for months this is a witch hunt and completely wrong. As it is no longer about removing a Primeminister still very popular in the Tory Party, in the last few weeks Labour and Libdems now minded to sign the same Daily Mail petition to keep the beautiful blonde troublemaker in Tory politics.
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
So anyone who joins the Hitler Youth aged 15, participates eagerly in the war, is an unprotesting witness to the Holocaust, and who gets arrested in 1946 in Chile and EVEN THEN can barely express regrets for anyone killed or enslaved by the Nazis is also “a victim”?
Give it a rest
As I say the evidence is mixed at best for her. But giving the HS the power to strip someone who is born in this country of their citizenship? Not for me.
Yes I agree on that small particular point. I find it questionable - but let the lawyers argue it out...t
You've got that backwards. The small particular point is the fate of this individual.
Giving the Home Secretary such power to strip citizenship by executive fiat is general, not particular, and rather a large point.
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
Of course she is a victim. She believed she was on a mission from God to travel to Syria and have babies with God's chosen fighters ousting the infadel from God's lands. She didn't think that until after her grooming.
I am not in that camp either. There is such a thing as automony and personal responsibility. I think the evidence is mixed at best. But I remain uncomfortable with the powers given to the Home Secretary in this regard and do not think that the UK can simply wash its hands of her.
She was groomed. She then committed serious offences. She is ours to bring to justice.
Why don’t the Syrians and Iraqis have the right to bring her to justice?
It was Syrians and Iraqis that she helped to enslave, torture and kill
They don't seem to be rushing to do so - why is that?
I believe it’s lack of money and stability. So let’s help to provide that. Sorting our problems AND theirs
Good, lets move on from the Begum argument. "Money and Stability" is the way to resolve not just her and the rest of the ISIS lunacy, its the way to stop rich countries being swamped by refugees from warzones and desperately poor countries and places which will be desperately hard to live in as the climate changes.
It strikes me that there is something we can do with chunks of Africa and the Middle East to help them and help us - enormous solar farms. Now that solar has become relatively cheap and efficient instead of fighting over Afghanistan for pipelines, just build solar and export cables. These countries grow wealthy, we get electricity, we avoid a refugee disaster as they all get air conditioning.
That all sounds great as in principle I agree but for it to work the wealth has to be shared out. The reality of oil has been it has destabilised the region not helped it. Mineral and other wealth has not helped nations.
Solar cannot be allowed to do the same.
Octopus Energy are going big on Moroccan solar.
Yes I know - its not an outlandish idea because it has already been started. Though an export cable direct from Morocco to the UK sounds fantastically expensive. Oil destabilises regions when country A has it and country B does not. That isn't a problem with solar when much of both countries is undeveloped wasteland.
The problem with a cable from Morocco to the UK isn't that it's expensive - though it is. Gas pipelines are expensive yet manage to justify their costs easily by the volume of gas they transport. The problem is that electricity cables lose so much of their electricity (I'm sure this could be better put, but it will do for now) over the length of the cable- and this will be a very long cable. However, my understanding is that this project has come about as a result of a major step forward in how much electricty a cable can retain. It does still have the major problem of power dependency on a third party country whose values risk being very different to ours. But it's considerably better than getting oil or gas from such sources.
High Voltage DC cables don't lose all that much (about 3% per 1000km). And have been used for decades.
Voters elected Tony Blair after he lied through his teeth to get Britain into a war which saw 175vfamillies lose a loved one and hundreds of others have loved ones return physically or mentally maimed.
At the time of the 2005 election most people still regarded the 2003 invasion as valid. You have made the mistake of looking at things from a 2022 viewpoint rather than the viewpoints of 2005.
if i remember rightly the bulk of the tories were in favour of this. it was only Kennedy against, and him and the libdems were pilloried for it.
Yeah this old one. If the government (which has access to more intelligence than the opposition) says that there is a real and credible threat to the nation the Opposition has no option but to go along with it.
The problem in that case was that the Opposition support was based upon a lie, a government lie.
Bollocks. Anyone with half an active brain cell could tell that the whole thing was illegal, immoral, irresponsible and ill-conceived. Bleedin' obvious in 2003, and bleeding obvious in 2022.
I'm very much in the minority from this survey. I rate Lloyd George highest of all post-Victorian Prime Ministers; in my view he achieved the most, was a great wartime Prime Minister and a successful Prime Minister of the peace. He was dishonest and shockingly corrupt, but in my view he outranks Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher in terms of sheer achievement and impact. It turns out that a bit of a scoundrel was what was needed to handle multiple national crises.
I don't know which of these traits I would value the most in a Prime Minister. I think the priorities would change depending on the cricumstances. 'Good in a crisis' is probably best all-round; 'strong leader' would be important in a time of total war but not required but not in a period of peace and prosperity, when 'attention to detail' may be more valuable.
The prioritisation here of 'honesty' is coloured by the present circumstances; it is a reaction against Johnson and his downfall. It would be interesting if this poll could be taken regularly and see if the priorities change.
Though the legal advice from Lord Pannick QC was commissioned by the Number 10 unit within the Cabinet Office which might be distancing itself from the report, which also raises the question of parliamentary sovereignty. Popcorn time.
Like everything else to do with Boris, it's unadulterated bollocks.
But it is now a sign of how the politics of this has changed - the Mail and Express have been campaigning for months this is a witch hunt and completely wrong. As it is no longer about removing a Primeminister still very popular in the Tory Party, in the last few weeks Labour and Libdems now minded to sign the same Daily Mail petition to keep the beautiful blonde troublemaker in Tory politics.
The story gets worse. Did taxpayers fund this 'opinion' ? Which hasn't been published.
https://twitter.com/peterwalker99/status/1565619522241003520 Downing Street are so far declining to say when and how this legal opinion from Lord Pannick on the standards committee report into Boris Johnson will be published, or who commissioned it, or why. Yet somehow it was briefed to two friendly newspapers overnight.
Kevin Hollinrake - a Sunak supporter - has been on Sky saying the leadership is "neck and neck":
"I’ve seen some of the polls and national polls. I think it’s quite hard for pollsters to determine who is a Conservative member and who is not because there’s not an open database.
But I know who mine are. I polled my 700 members, 239 of them responded, so about a third of them responded, and Rishi got an eight-point lead.
And I’ve seen similar kind of polls around different constituencies around the country. So I don’t think he’s cut and dried. I think he’s probably neck and neck."
We've all asked why the Sunak campaign has fought on and one when supposedly it was all over weeks ago. Outrageous thought, but what if the pollsters have it wrong? Is there something about the Tory membership where its possible to end up sampling the same small group of biddies saying "Truss" when there's a load not being asked saying "Sunak"?
Its not *completely* impossible. The bookies said leave had no chance on the evening of polling day...
It's absolutely definitely not over until the votes have been counted.
But ...
The pollsters said leave had a chance, leave led lots of the polls and the bookies odds didn't match the polls.
A voodoo poll by a Sunak supporter isn't really evidence.
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
I doubt this ‘revelation’ changes much, even if it is true and it seems to be accepted as true by Begums supporters in the media.
She was unrepentant as you say and her comments about the Manchester Arena bombing were appalling and made well after IS had fallen.
She seems to have a well funded and slick PR campaign advocating for her. She doesn’t deserve it. I would let her be subject to the justice of the domain she committed her offences in.
As Nick Palmer, iirc, said. There are far more deserving cases of our help.
Well, not exactly. I prioritise unproblematic immigrants (for example, Afghans who actually helped us - why the hell are they STILL in B&Bs awaiting rehoming??) over immigrants with dodgy backgrounds. The issue with Begum is that she's as British as I am - rather more, in fact, as I'm spent half my life abroad. Her opinions are irrelevant - she was entitled to think whatever she liked about ISIS, we're a country where we have freedom of opinion. The issue is whether the exercise of power to remove nationality is appropriate in thsi case (if it ever is), and I don't think it is, because of the grooming and the weakness of the claim that she could be Bangladeshi if she chose.
As a cause celebre it's awkward as her opinions were repellent. But justice should not hinge on whether its application is awkward.
Like you I dislike removing nationality. It’s the start of a slippery slope.
Against that the fundamental sanction that a society has is to remove access to the benefits of membership of that society
This can either be internal exile (to prison) or external exile (in this case to Syria).
She doesn’t share our values. Why should she benefit from our society?
A prisoner in Gaol does not lose his citizenship, only his privelidges of being free to move about.
Though the legal advice from Lord Pannick QC was commissioned by the Number 10 unit within the Cabinet Office which might be distancing itself from the report, which also raises the question of parliamentary sovereignty. Popcorn time.
Like everything else to do with Boris, it's unadulterated bollocks.
But it is now a sign of how the politics of this has changed - the Mail and Express have been campaigning for months this is a witch hunt and completely wrong. As it is no longer about removing a Primeminister still very popular in the Tory Party, in the last few weeks Labour and Libdems now minded to sign the same Daily Mail petition to keep the beautiful blonde troublemaker in Tory politics.
The story gets worse. Did taxpayers fund this 'opinion' ? Which hasn't been published.
https://twitter.com/peterwalker99/status/1565619522241003520 Downing Street are so far declining to say when and how this legal opinion from Lord Pannick on the standards committee report into Boris Johnson will be published, or who commissioned it, or why. Yet somehow it was briefed to two friendly newspapers overnight.
Is JRM not on the lookout for government spending waste to cut? Should start with this report, and then finish the job off by looking in the mirror.
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
Of course she is a victim. She believed she was on a mission from God to travel to Syria and have babies with God's chosen fighters ousting the infadel from God's lands. She didn't think that until after her grooming.
I am not in that camp either. There is such a thing as automony and personal responsibility. I think the evidence is mixed at best. But I remain uncomfortable with the powers given to the Home Secretary in this regard and do not think that the UK can simply wash its hands of her.
She was groomed. She then committed serious offences. She is ours to bring to justice.
Why don’t the Syrians and Iraqis have the right to bring her to justice?
It was Syrians and Iraqis that she helped to enslave, torture and kill
They don't seem to be rushing to do so - why is that?
I believe it’s lack of money and stability. So let’s help to provide that. Sorting our problems AND theirs
Good, lets move on from the Begum argument. "Money and Stability" is the way to resolve not just her and the rest of the ISIS lunacy, its the way to stop rich countries being swamped by refugees from warzones and desperately poor countries and places which will be desperately hard to live in as the climate changes.
It strikes me that there is something we can do with chunks of Africa and the Middle East to help them and help us - enormous solar farms. Now that solar has become relatively cheap and efficient instead of fighting over Afghanistan for pipelines, just build solar and export cables. These countries grow wealthy, we get electricity, we avoid a refugee disaster as they all get air conditioning.
That all sounds great as in principle I agree but for it to work the wealth has to be shared out. The reality of oil has been it has destabilised the region not helped it. Mineral and other wealth has not helped nations.
Solar cannot be allowed to do the same.
Octopus Energy are going big on Moroccan solar.
Yes I know - its not an outlandish idea because it has already been started. Though an export cable direct from Morocco to the UK sounds fantastically expensive. Oil destabilises regions when country A has it and country B does not. That isn't a problem with solar when much of both countries is undeveloped wasteland.
The problem with a cable from Morocco to the UK isn't that it's expensive - though it is. Gas pipelines are expensive yet manage to justify their costs easily by the volume of gas they transport. The problem is that electricity cables lose so much of their electricity (I'm sure this could be better put, but it will do for now) over the length of the cable- and this will be a very long cable. However, my understanding is that this project has come about as a result of a major step forward in how much electricty a cable can retain. It does still have the major problem of power dependency on a third party country whose values risk being very different to ours. But it's considerably better than getting oil or gas from such sources.
The big worry I have about an electricity cable supplying electricity to us from a long distance is that we don't have control over the other end of the cable. We're more vulnerable to terrorists attacking the North African end of such a cable than we are to terrorists attacking a British power plant.
Also, any attack or fault that brings down such a cable instantly takes electricity off our grid, whereas a terrorist attack on a Middle East gas port gives us some time to react before it results in blackouts.
Event though it would introduce considerable inefficiencies, and further points of failure, there are ways in which using the solar electricity to manufacture gas for LNG export would be a more reliable way of supplying that energy.
One of the problems with Germany's dependency on Russian gas is that the gas was supplied through a pipeline, and you can't quickly replace such supply from a different source, because you can't easily move the pipeline. It's the same with a point-to-point interconnector. It's a big vulnerable single point of failure.
It would represent around 7.5% of current consumption. That's not a huge amount to rely on. The point about these interconnects is that there will be dozens of them across the European continent - it is one of the factors which make reliance on a high percentage of renewables technically feasible.
And the argument that trading with North African nations would tend to increase stability is perhaps slightly more persuasive than that made for Russia.
The energy resilience argument is a fair one to make, though. It justifies having a number of nuclear power stations producing what will be rather more expensive electricity.
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
I doubt this ‘revelation’ changes much, even if it is true and it seems to be accepted as true by Begums supporters in the media.
She was unrepentant as you say and her comments about the Manchester Arena bombing were appalling and made well after IS had fallen.
She seems to have a well funded and slick PR campaign advocating for her. She doesn’t deserve it. I would let her be subject to the justice of the domain she committed her offences in.
As Nick Palmer, iirc, said. There are far more deserving cases of our help.
Well, not exactly. I prioritise unproblematic immigrants (for example, Afghans who actually helped us - why the hell are they STILL in B&Bs awaiting rehoming??) over immigrants with dodgy backgrounds. The issue with Begum is that she's as British as I am - rather more, in fact, as I'm spent half my life abroad. Her opinions are irrelevant - she was entitled to think whatever she liked about ISIS, we're a country where we have freedom of opinion. The issue is whether the exercise of power to remove nationality is appropriate in thsi case (if it ever is), and I don't think it is, because of the grooming and the weakness of the claim that she could be Bangladeshi if she chose.
As a cause celebre it's awkward as her opinions were repellent. But justice should not hinge on whether its application is awkward.
Like you I dislike removing nationality. It’s the start of a slippery slope.
Against that the fundamental sanction that a society has is to remove access to the benefits of membership of that society
This can either be internal exile (to prison) or external exile (in this case to Syria).
She doesn’t share our values. Why should she benefit from our society?
A prisoner in Gaol does not lose his citizenship, only his privelidges of being free to move about.
Voting powers, too, in certain circs, though I have not been keeping up with that.
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
So anyone who joins the Hitler Youth aged 15, participates eagerly in the war, is an unprotesting witness to the Holocaust, and who gets arrested in 1946 in Chile and EVEN THEN can barely express regrets for anyone killed or enslaved by the Nazis is also “a victim”?
Give it a rest
At which point ignore that bit.
You can't remove someone's nationality on the basis that someone THINKS they have the right to citizenship elsewhere...
Especially when the other country categorically states that that person does not qualify for citizenship...
The courts said you can…
Based on the baseless lie from the Home Office that she was eligible for citizenship elsewhere.
Had the court been presented with the truth how would it have ruled?
That was the truth. As the child of a Bangladeshi citizen she was eligible for Bangladeshi citizenship. The appeal, in which Begum was represented by Lord Pannick QC, proceeded on that basis. Suggesting that he might have missed something like that is, with respect, a bit absurd.
The Supreme Court decision is something of a masterpiece by Lord Reed. It explains that the right to appeal the decision of the HS was not a review on the merits; that the Court of Appeal had been wrong to feel that it was entitled to come to a different view on national security or the public good and that the legislation, as amended with astonishing complexity, had restricted an appeal to human rights grounds only. That meant the appeal was more like a judicial review: was the decision of the HS so unreasonable that no HS, having regard to the relevant facts at his disposal, could have reached it with regard to those facts? The answer, almost inevitably, was no.
The case restated the separation of powers and, implicitly, rolled back much of the more interventionist decisions of the Hale Court by defining the role of the court much more narrowly. It is the source of much of the mumbling about the Supreme Court's conservatism which has been touched on here from time to time.
My new Saudi mate that I met in Cairo reckons he and his other ISIS graduates were treated like minor celebs once they got back to the Kingdom. He shat it off before seeing combat against the Peshmerga and legged it home through Jordan.
He tried faking sickness to avoid combat first and came up with constipation as the mitigating condition. The ISIS doctor (from London) just stuck a garden hose up his arse and turned it on full.
Glad to see they have discovered the benefits of colonic irrigation
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
Of course she is a victim. She believed she was on a mission from God to travel to Syria and have babies with God's chosen fighters ousting the infadel from God's lands. She didn't think that until after her grooming.
I am not in that camp either. There is such a thing as automony and personal responsibility. I think the evidence is mixed at best. But I remain uncomfortable with the powers given to the Home Secretary in this regard and do not think that the UK can simply wash its hands of her.
She was groomed. She then committed serious offences. She is ours to bring to justice.
Why don’t the Syrians and Iraqis have the right to bring her to justice?
It was Syrians and Iraqis that she helped to enslave, torture and kill
They don't seem to be rushing to do so - why is that?
They certainly have done so to others, and have held her for years. Being British doesn't prevent prosecution.
Indeed is there any evidence that she was involved in ISIS crimes? Being a sympathiser is not itself a crime, neither is being married to an ISIS fighter.
She’s a self confessed member of ISIS and that alone is a capital crime in Syria and Iraq
Either you are wrong about that or despite holding her 6 years they have no evidence she is a member, or for reasons of their own are not enforcing that law.
What she has said on its own is evidence enough. A confession but not under duress.
So there must be other reasons.
I suspect that the UK government has made clear they will be unimpressed if she is executed
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
Of course she is a victim. She believed she was on a mission from God to travel to Syria and have babies with God's chosen fighters ousting the infadel from God's lands. She didn't think that until after her grooming.
I am not in that camp either. There is such a thing as automony and personal responsibility. I think the evidence is mixed at best. But I remain uncomfortable with the powers given to the Home Secretary in this regard and do not think that the UK can simply wash its hands of her.
She was trying to avoid the judicial process (such as it is) in Syria by claiming that she was a UK citizen so should face prosecution in the UK.
One answer would be “fine - after you have been prosecuted in Syria”
Another is “you’ve made your bed, now you get to lie in it - you’re no longer a UK citizen because you chose to leave the UK and team up with an enemy that was in conflict with the UK”
In no circumstance is the correct answer “oh dear, please come back to the Uk for tea and biscuits and avoid the consequences of your choices and crimes committed in Syria”
Naturally she (and her supporters in the press) want the last option
Were we actually in a state of war with Isis? Could it be described as a state?
Precisely why I said “an enemy that was in conflict with the UK”!
ISIS was not a state and hence we could not be at war with it
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
So anyone who joins the Hitler Youth aged 15, participates eagerly in the war, is an unprotesting witness to the Holocaust, and who gets arrested in 1946 in Chile and EVEN THEN can barely express regrets for anyone killed or enslaved by the Nazis is also “a victim”?
Give it a rest
At which point ignore that bit.
You can't remove someone's nationality on the basis that someone THINKS they have the right to citizenship elsewhere...
Especially when the other country categorically states that that person does not qualify for citizenship...
The courts said you can…
Indeed, which is why people will "keep going on" about it, because the courts are wrong and it needs changing.
I don’t think you can just say the Supreme Court is “wrong”?
You can say the law is wrong and should be changed but that’s not the same thing
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
There is certainly a line of argument that even if Shemima (and her mates) were groomed and trafficked at 15, they really ought to have figured out something was wrong six years later.
I think that you are missing the consequences of grooming. She joined a cult. An evil, vicious, monstrous cult that pretends to be a religion and brainwashes its adherents. I agree that we should be highly sceptical that she is fully recovered but I am still open to the idea that she is a victim.
So anyone who joins the Hitler Youth aged 15, participates eagerly in the war, is an unprotesting witness to the Holocaust, and who gets arrested in 1946 in Chile and EVEN THEN can barely express regrets for anyone killed or enslaved by the Nazis is also “a victim”?
Give it a rest
At which point ignore that bit.
You can't remove someone's nationality on the basis that someone THINKS they have the right to citizenship elsewhere...
Especially when the other country categorically states that that person does not qualify for citizenship...
The courts said you can…
Based on the baseless lie from the Home Office that she was eligible for citizenship elsewhere.
Had the court been presented with the truth how would it have ruled?
IIRC that claim was tested as part of the judgement
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
I doubt this ‘revelation’ changes much, even if it is true and it seems to be accepted as true by Begums supporters in the media.
She was unrepentant as you say and her comments about the Manchester Arena bombing were appalling and made well after IS had fallen.
She seems to have a well funded and slick PR campaign advocating for her. She doesn’t deserve it. I would let her be subject to the justice of the domain she committed her offences in.
As Nick Palmer, iirc, said. There are far more deserving cases of our help.
Well, not exactly. I prioritise unproblematic immigrants (for example, Afghans who actually helped us - why the hell are they STILL in B&Bs awaiting rehoming??) over immigrants with dodgy backgrounds. The issue with Begum is that she's as British as I am - rather more, in fact, as I'm spent half my life abroad. Her opinions are irrelevant - she was entitled to think whatever she liked about ISIS, we're a country where we have freedom of opinion. The issue is whether the exercise of power to remove nationality is appropriate in thsi case (if it ever is), and I don't think it is, because of the grooming and the weakness of the claim that she could be Bangladeshi if she chose.
As a cause celebre it's awkward as her opinions were repellent. But justice should not hinge on whether its application is awkward.
Like you I dislike removing nationality. It’s the start of a slippery slope.
Against that the fundamental sanction that a society has is to remove access to the benefits of membership of that society
This can either be internal exile (to prison) or external exile (in this case to Syria).
She doesn’t share our values. Why should she benefit from our society?
Define "our values". Then define "share". Britain is a broad church, but there an awful lot of different views ideals and perspectives within that. Which ones do we want to define as core, and which are so beyond the line that expulsion is required? We don't expel people who do the worst murders and rapes and terrorism, so where is the line you want to draw?
Joining an existential death cult dedicated to the overthrow of the west and plunging the world back into a medieval mindset is over the line…
Mr. JohnL, yet ISIS was in the news continuously, often as the headline, for barbaric atrocities. This is not an irrelevant point. It beggars belief that those who travelled thousands of miles to join a genocidal cult of master faith religious zealots that had dominated the news could not be aware of what it stood for.
Pretending that was not the case and those who travelled were just 'misguided' disregards that they willingly went to join a murderous cause of the utmost evil, and one which was widely known about and reported upon.
Would a man be getting this sympathy?
Indeed
Moreover, Begum was unrepentant about ISIS a full SIX YEARS after she joined, in that famous TV interview in her tent. She just regretted the fact ISIS did not win
She was not 15 then. She was 21
This is like a Nazi being interviewed in Argentina in 1947, saying “Auschwitz was great, shame they closed it”. It was only when she realised this was catastrophic PR that she changed her tune
It beggars belief we waste this time on a piece of human trash. Let the Syrians execute her
I doubt this ‘revelation’ changes much, even if it is true and it seems to be accepted as true by Begums supporters in the media.
She was unrepentant as you say and her comments about the Manchester Arena bombing were appalling and made well after IS had fallen.
She seems to have a well funded and slick PR campaign advocating for her. She doesn’t deserve it. I would let her be subject to the justice of the domain she committed her offences in.
As Nick Palmer, iirc, said. There are far more deserving cases of our help.
Well, not exactly. I prioritise unproblematic immigrants (for example, Afghans who actually helped us - why the hell are they STILL in B&Bs awaiting rehoming??) over immigrants with dodgy backgrounds. The issue with Begum is that she's as British as I am - rather more, in fact, as I'm spent half my life abroad. Her opinions are irrelevant - she was entitled to think whatever she liked about ISIS, we're a country where we have freedom of opinion. The issue is whether the exercise of power to remove nationality is appropriate in thsi case (if it ever is), and I don't think it is, because of the grooming and the weakness of the claim that she could be Bangladeshi if she chose.
As a cause celebre it's awkward as her opinions were repellent. But justice should not hinge on whether its application is awkward.
Like you I dislike removing nationality. It’s the start of a slippery slope.
Against that the fundamental sanction that a society has is to remove access to the benefits of membership of that society
This can either be internal exile (to prison) or external exile (in this case to Syria).
She doesn’t share our values. Why should she benefit from our society?
She was born here as a British citizen.
Who gets to define "British values" and police them by banishment?
Comments
Is this the Finland claim? Seems odd to have saved it up for now unless the cabinet minister is likely to be in Truss cabinet
There's also the Kwarteng issue, we may all know about Truss n him, the electorate at large don't. What happens when she makes him Chancellor?
Whatever their reasons are shouldn't impact on her citizenship.
If we have evidence of crimes we could always prosecute her here, in any case she will certainly be monitored by our spooks.
Had the court been presented with the truth how would it have ruled?
Pass a law that states if anyone's ancestry can be traced up the chain such that a n-grandparent is from elsewhere they can be deemed a citizen of that country at the pleasure of the HS.
Since that'll include absolubtely everyone...
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/09/01/poland-to-demand-13-trillion-from-germany-in-wwii-reparations
People are quick to support outrageous policies when they only apply to Other People. Less popular once they understand it applies to them.
It does still have the major problem of power dependency on a third party country whose values risk being very different to ours. But it's considerably better than getting oil or gas from such sources.
This can either be internal exile (to prison) or external exile (in this case to Syria).
She doesn’t share our values. Why should she benefit from our society?
"I’ve seen some of the polls and national polls. I think it’s quite hard for pollsters to determine who is a Conservative member and who is not because there’s not an open database.
But I know who mine are. I polled my 700 members, 239 of them responded, so about a third of them responded, and Rishi got an eight-point lead.
And I’ve seen similar kind of polls around different constituencies around the country. So I don’t think he’s cut and dried. I think he’s probably neck and neck."
We've all asked why the Sunak campaign has fought on and one when supposedly it was all over weeks ago. Outrageous thought, but what if the pollsters have it wrong? Is there something about the Tory membership where its possible to end up sampling the same small group of biddies saying "Truss" when there's a load not being asked saying "Sunak"?
Its not *completely* impossible. The bookies said leave had no chance on the evening of polling day...
Also, any attack or fault that brings down such a cable instantly takes electricity off our grid, whereas a terrorist attack on a Middle East gas port gives us some time to react before it results in blackouts.
Event though it would introduce considerable inefficiencies, and further points of failure, there are ways in which using the solar electricity to manufacture gas for LNG export would be a more reliable way of supplying that energy.
One of the problems with Germany's dependency on Russian gas is that the gas was supplied through a pipeline, and you can't quickly replace such supply from a different source, because you can't easily move the pipeline. It's the same with a point-to-point interconnector. It's a big vulnerable single point of failure.
Who gets to define "British values" and police them by banishment?
Giving the Home Secretary such power to strip citizenship by executive fiat is general, not particular, and rather a large point.
And have been used for decades.
I don't know which of these traits I would value the most in a Prime Minister. I think the priorities would change depending on the cricumstances. 'Good in a crisis' is probably best all-round; 'strong leader' would be important in a time of total war but not required but not in a period of peace and prosperity, when 'attention to detail' may be more valuable.
The prioritisation here of 'honesty' is coloured by the present circumstances; it is a reaction against Johnson and his downfall. It would be interesting if this poll could be taken regularly and see if the priorities change.
The story gets worse.
Did taxpayers fund this 'opinion' ? Which hasn't been published.
https://twitter.com/peterwalker99/status/1565619522241003520
Downing Street are so far declining to say when and how this legal opinion from Lord Pannick on the standards committee report into Boris Johnson will be published, or who commissioned it, or why. Yet somehow it was briefed to two friendly newspapers overnight.
But ...
The pollsters said leave had a chance, leave led lots of the polls and the bookies odds didn't match the polls.
A voodoo poll by a Sunak supporter isn't really evidence.
That's not a huge amount to rely on.
The point about these interconnects is that there will be dozens of them across the European continent - it is one of the factors which make reliance on a high percentage of renewables technically feasible.
And the argument that trading with North African nations would tend to increase stability is perhaps slightly more persuasive than that made for Russia.
The energy resilience argument is a fair one to make, though. It justifies having a number of nuclear power stations producing what will be rather more expensive electricity.
The Supreme Court decision is something of a masterpiece by Lord Reed. It explains that the right to appeal the decision of the HS was not a review on the merits; that the Court of Appeal had been wrong to feel that it was entitled to come to a different view on national security or the public good and that the legislation, as amended with astonishing complexity, had restricted an appeal to human rights grounds only. That meant the appeal was more like a judicial review: was the decision of the HS so unreasonable that no HS, having regard to the relevant facts at his disposal, could have reached it with regard to those facts? The answer, almost inevitably, was no.
The case restated the separation of powers and, implicitly, rolled back much of the more interventionist decisions of the Hale Court by defining the role of the court much more narrowly. It is the source of much of the mumbling about the Supreme Court's conservatism which has been touched on here from time to time.
ISIS was not a state and hence we could not be at war with it
You can say the law is wrong and should be changed but that’s not the same thing