O/T: John Cleese says Fawlty Towers couldn't be made today. Good thing too. The way the Spanish character Manuel is written and related to by other characters is disgustingly racist.
A typical laugh with Manuel: he doesn't know English properly, he says "Que" in Spanish when he doesn't understand something, and - haha - here's his tall English employer whopping him around the head. As if Basil doesn't have enough problems!
PS Agreeing with the above does not suggest support for allowing rapists into women's changing rooms just because they've decided to call themselves women.
The Beggar King is in a Ford Galaxy on the M11 so pb's 101st Chairborne will be getting excited over that providing a welcome change from the trans shit and HS2 minutiae very soon.
We - and Russia to, for that matter - are a nation that survived WWII only because of US aid, so it's a bit charmless to get sniffy about someone else in a comparable situation.
So the Russian nation would have ceased to exist during WW2 had it not been for US aid? What a loony.
PS Would it be gazetted somewhere if Johnson were to receive his US citizenship back, or is it only renunciations that get publicly noted?
PPS Some Ford Galaxies from the mid-noughties had front seats that could turn round and face the back. Now that's what I call a cool car.
The Germans made it to the Moscow suburbs in WWII. It doesn't take much changes to the timeline to them making it a bit further...
For example, the US and UK provided *all* the hi octane aviation gasoline for the USSR. It was only postwar that they got their cracking plants lined up to make it.
Vast amount of machine tools - in some categories, 100% of the tools and 100% of the tooling was Lendlease supplied. Without that, Soviet production would have crawled to a halt.
And so on in many categories - the % of USSR GDP was small, but LendLease was about supplying materials and equipment they were short of. Or literally didn't have.
The fall of Moscow, or even of both Moscow and Leningrad as it then was, would not in itself have come anywhere near making the Soviet government seek to agree terms with Germany. More than 1000 large factories were shipped eastwards. The USSR would certainly have continued fighting. Sure, they could have been defeated but the fall of Moscow wouldn't have done for them.
Do you regret that the USA and Britain gave such substantial assistance to their Soviet ally during WW2/the GPW? Or is it a very different Germany now but a very similar Russia, so western policy was good then (fight with Russia against Germany) and western policy is also good now (pointing towards fighting with Germany against Russia this time round)?
Stalin was evil, but less evil than Hitler.
"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference of the Devil in the House of Commons."
I'm not convinced there was a great deal in it between Stalin and Hitler.
Hitler, however, was a much greater direct threat to Britain in the 30s and early 40s than Stalin. That was more important than who was the most evil.
The Beggar King is in a Ford Galaxy on the M11 so pb's 101st Chairborne will be getting excited over that providing a welcome change from the trans shit and HS2 minutiae very soon.
We - and Russia to, for that matter - are a nation that survived WWII only because of US aid, so it's a bit charmless to get sniffy about someone else in a comparable situation.
So the Russian nation would have ceased to exist during WW2 had it not been for US aid? What a loony.
PS Would it be gazetted somewhere if Johnson were to receive his US citizenship back, or is it only renunciations that get publicly noted?
PPS Some Ford Galaxies from the mid-noughties had front seats that could turn round and face the back. Now that's what I call a cool car.
The Germans made it to the Moscow suburbs in WWII. It doesn't take much changes to the timeline to them making it a bit further...
For example, the US and UK provided *all* the hi octane aviation gasoline for the USSR. It was only postwar that they got their cracking plants lined up to make it.
Vast amount of machine tools - in some categories, 100% of the tools and 100% of the tooling was Lendlease supplied. Without that, Soviet production would have crawled to a halt.
And so on in many categories - the % of USSR GDP was small, but LendLease was about supplying materials and equipment they were short of. Or literally didn't have.
The fall of Moscow, or even of both Moscow and Leningrad as it then was, would not in itself have come anywhere near making the Soviet government seek to agree terms with Germany. More than 1000 large factories were shipped eastwards. The USSR would certainly have continued fighting. Sure, they could have been defeated but the fall of Moscow wouldn't have done for them.
Do you regret that the USA and Britain gave such substantial assistance to their Soviet ally during WW2/the GPW? Or is it a very different Germany now but a very similar Russia, so western policy was good then (fight with Russia against Germany) and western policy is also good now (pointing towards fighting with Germany against Russia this time round)?
Stalin was evil, but less evil than Hitler.
"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference of the Devil in the House of Commons."
So here's the thing - I am less sure of this than I used to be. Hitler evil, absolutely. He started the war that saw millions dead and initiated the holocaust.
But how many did Stalin kill? The famine in Ukraine, the gulags, the show trials, all of it. Why does Uncle Joe get a pass to be less evil than Hitler?
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
I wonder which kuntibula you're referring to. It can't be the one who on this very thread was at pains to stress that many of the GRR opponents are driven by sincere, non-cynical, non-bigoted concerns.
The Beggar King is in a Ford Galaxy on the M11 so pb's 101st Chairborne will be getting excited over that providing a welcome change from the trans shit and HS2 minutiae very soon.
We - and Russia to, for that matter - are a nation that survived WWII only because of US aid, so it's a bit charmless to get sniffy about someone else in a comparable situation.
So the Russian nation would have ceased to exist during WW2 had it not been for US aid? What a loony.
PS Would it be gazetted somewhere if Johnson were to receive his US citizenship back, or is it only renunciations that get publicly noted?
PPS Some Ford Galaxies from the mid-noughties had front seats that could turn round and face the back. Now that's what I call a cool car.
The Germans made it to the Moscow suburbs in WWII. It doesn't take much changes to the timeline to them making it a bit further...
For example, the US and UK provided *all* the hi octane aviation gasoline for the USSR. It was only postwar that they got their cracking plants lined up to make it.
Vast amount of machine tools - in some categories, 100% of the tools and 100% of the tooling was Lendlease supplied. Without that, Soviet production would have crawled to a halt.
And so on in many categories - the % of USSR GDP was small, but LendLease was about supplying materials and equipment they were short of. Or literally didn't have.
The fall of Moscow, or even of both Moscow and Leningrad as it then was, would not in itself have come anywhere near making the Soviet government seek to agree terms with Germany. More than 1000 large factories were shipped eastwards. The USSR would certainly have continued fighting. Sure, they could have been defeated but the fall of Moscow wouldn't have done for them.
Do you regret that the USA and Britain gave such substantial assistance to their Soviet ally during WW2/the GPW? Or is it a very different Germany now but a very similar Russia, so western policy was good then (fight with Russia against Germany) and western policy is also good now (pointing towards fighting with Germany against Russia this time round)?
Stalin was evil, but less evil than Hitler.
"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference of the Devil in the House of Commons."
I'm not convinced there was a great deal in it between Stalin and Hitler.
Hitler, however, was a much greater direct threat to Britain in the 30s and early 40s than Stalin. That was more important than who was the most evil.
Some of it comes down to ideology too. Nazism is particularly bleak and disturbing in its full-throated embracing of the eradication of the weak and the minority, for the simple fact that these Are Not Proper Humans Like Us.
Communism (aside from all that eradication of the upper and middle classes stuff that often gets conveniently paved over) dines out more on its desire for a utopian society.
In reality however give a dictator enough control and they’ll perpetrate atrocity no matter what ideology sits behind them.
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
Whilst people like you refuse to ever admit that there is ever anything awry. Nothing to apologise for.
I have lived with a Scot for 30 years. It would seem "sorry" is not a word north of the border. Instead, there is a third person in our marriage, myself, my wife - and the mysterious damage fairy, who has to take responsibility for all unexplained incidents that might otherwise point to the Good Lady Wife.
The Beggar King is in a Ford Galaxy on the M11 so pb's 101st Chairborne will be getting excited over that providing a welcome change from the trans shit and HS2 minutiae very soon.
We - and Russia to, for that matter - are a nation that survived WWII only because of US aid, so it's a bit charmless to get sniffy about someone else in a comparable situation.
So the Russian nation would have ceased to exist during WW2 had it not been for US aid? What a loony.
PS Would it be gazetted somewhere if Johnson were to receive his US citizenship back, or is it only renunciations that get publicly noted?
PPS Some Ford Galaxies from the mid-noughties had front seats that could turn round and face the back. Now that's what I call a cool car.
The Germans made it to the Moscow suburbs in WWII. It doesn't take much changes to the timeline to them making it a bit further...
For example, the US and UK provided *all* the hi octane aviation gasoline for the USSR. It was only postwar that they got their cracking plants lined up to make it.
Vast amount of machine tools - in some categories, 100% of the tools and 100% of the tooling was Lendlease supplied. Without that, Soviet production would have crawled to a halt.
And so on in many categories - the % of USSR GDP was small, but LendLease was about supplying materials and equipment they were short of. Or literally didn't have.
The fall of Moscow, or even of both Moscow and Leningrad as it then was, would not in itself have come anywhere near making the Soviet government seek to agree terms with Germany. More than 1000 large factories were shipped eastwards. The USSR would certainly have continued fighting. Sure, they could have been defeated but the fall of Moscow wouldn't have done for them.
Do you regret that the USA and Britain gave such substantial assistance to their Soviet ally during WW2/the GPW? Or is it a very different Germany now but a very similar Russia, so western policy was good then (fight with Russia against Germany) and western policy is also good now (pointing towards fighting with Germany against Russia this time round)?
Presumably Boris's recent visit to Ukraine was part of the set up for Zelemsky's visit to the UK.
At any event, glad he is here. Britain's help for Ukraine is something to be proud about.
Is the Ukrainian leader shorter than Sunak? He certainly looks like it in the picture of them in the Graun, or is this from the PM's official photographer, who seems to have been selected specifically for his skills in this area?
They are both pretty short. Zelensky doesn't seem to care about it, though.
Z is short but stocky - the Oates in Hall & Oates template. Rishi is just very very tiny, which is harder to get yourself positive about as a man, I think. Still, it's far from his most pressing concern. That would be the ERG, I think.
Today was Johnson's day. Hats off to him if he laid the groundwork for Zelenskiy's visit. Johnson is standing loud and proud, he has with Zelenskiy's assistance overshadowed and further weakened the hapless Sunak. He's coming back, and he could contest the next election as the victorious Ukraine's Churchillian wing man.
"After the G-20 sessions were over there was a party at the West Lake. The Chinese had laid a transparent sheet over the water and ballerinas performed Swan Lake on the water. Theresa May repeated that it was so wonderful and that it was 'only possible in a dictatorship'"
Because a democracy would require a strong and stable platform for the dancers?
My daughter has been accepted for a job but the employer wants a medical form signed by her GP.
My wife calls the Surgery:
Receptionist: Ok bring it in and we'll take a look Mrs Stocky: Do you know when we'll get it back? Receptionist: Can't say. The doctor is not obliged to sign it. Mrs Stocky: If he won't sign it where else can we get it signed? Receptionist: Err. Not sure. Mrs Stocky: you realise that if he doesn't sign it she doesn't get the job? Receptionist: well the doctor might charge Mrs Stocky: that's fine, we are happy to pay a fee Receptionist: but he's not obliged to sign it Mrs Stocky: It will take him less that ten seconds. This conversation has lasted much longer than that.
Good grief.
The employer is being ridiculous and intrusive.
Can't see what is wrong with how the receptionist handled it to be honest. They said twice upfront they were unsure if and when it would be signed, so it is unsurprising the follow up questions did not produce the answer desired.
It is not the receptionists job to commit a doctor to signing something they have not seen and may not be appropriate to share with an employer.
Parakeet update: Just had three of them in the hedge at the back of the garden, feeding from one of the seed feeders.
Rose-ringed parakeets are a common sight in some parts of England including in several parks within a few miles of Richmond Park and in Ramsgate. For some reason, sometimes hundreds of them all spend the night in the same tree.
Boris, for all his flaws, has been fantastic on Ukraine.
Given his extensive - and still mostly unrevealed - financial links with Russia in the lead up to the war, he had no choice other than to be.
History may well be less sympathetic.
Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still better than doing the wrong thing for the right reason.
I do find it quite amusing that the Russians spent years bribing & co-opting UK governance, successfully buying their way into the highest levels & it achieved the square root of fuck all for them.
Probably would have helped if they hadn’t put their bribe-takers in an impossible position where supporting Russia would instantly out them as quislings & traitors to the nation of course.
If someone from Russia is trying to bribe you, the logical thing to do is take the money then stab them in the back when the balloon goes up.
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
Don’t think Carlotta or anyone else is saying that. What is clear is that an easy right to change gender needs safeguards to protect vulnerable women and ensure that their existing protections continue to operate.
Put those safeguards in place and I for one have absolutely no problem with the bill.
You don't think anyone is saying "see, look at that rapist trying to get into a female prison, just shows how gender transition is a rapists charter" ??
I wish you were right about that.
Re safeguards, yes. There are certain things where imo biological sex is more important than gender identity.
BTW, the proposed GRC process, does it include a criminal records check, do you know?
"biological sex is more important than gender identity" - sorry, I don't think you would have said that a year ago. Having promoted the use of gender to describe what a person identifies as, the trans lobby has realised the error and is now conflating gender with sex (or even denying that sex exists). I think you are backing away on this issue a tad - good to see.
I heard that if a person changes gender a criminal record check does not go back further than the point at which the change took place - and so could at least in theory be used to hide prior crimes. I don't know for sure that this is true. If it is true this point alone IMO should force Sturgeon's resignation.
I have changed my thinking a bit on this but not quite like that. Thing is, I'm now persuaded by the case for self-id (which I didn't used to be) but imo an easier gender change process makes it all the more important that single sex spaces remain legal for certain things, eg sports, prisons, refuges, each depending on the specifics. The GRR, combined with clarification on its interaction with the EA, can achieve this imo. I also think the UKG is wrong to use s35 to try and block it.
Parakeet update: Just had three of them in the hedge at the back of the garden, feeding from one of the seed feeders.
Rose-ringed parakeets are a common sight in some parts of England including in several parks within a few miles of Richmond Park and in Ramsgate. For some reason, sometimes hundreds of them all spend the night in the same tree.
Back in the 90's, 600 plus would roost at Esher rugby club. Wonderful looking exotica in suburbbia - but they don't half make a din!
My daughter has been accepted for a job but the employer wants a medical form signed by her GP.
My wife calls the Surgery:
Receptionist: Ok bring it in and we'll take a look Mrs Stocky: Do you know when we'll get it back? Receptionist: Can't say. The doctor is not obliged to sign it. Mrs Stocky: If he won't sign it where else can we get it signed? Receptionist: Err. Not sure. Mrs Stocky: you realise that if he doesn't sign it she doesn't get the job? Receptionist: well the doctor might charge Mrs Stocky: that's fine, we are happy to pay a fee Receptionist: but he's not obliged to sign it Mrs Stocky: It will take him less that ten seconds. This conversation has lasted much longer than that.
Good grief.
The problem here is the third party issue. A offers B something on condition that C does something. C is under no such obligation. But if C accepts the (non) obligation then they are liable to A in tort if they get something wrong. If they don't accept it, B suffers.
C (who has 2000 patients, each of whom may be in this position in multiple ways) is already spending all day checking that 2 year olds don't have sepsis, meningitis, pneumonia and scarlet fever, and organising blood tests for people who would once have been dead - me for example.
I sympathise with C and C's receptionist. If A is serious A should organise and pay for a proper medical.
Boris, for all his flaws, has been fantastic on Ukraine.
Given his extensive - and still mostly unrevealed - financial links with Russia in the lead up to the war, he had no choice other than to be.
History may well be less sympathetic.
Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still better than doing the wrong thing for the right reason.
I do find it quite amusing that the Russians spent years bribing & co-opting UK governance, successfully buying their way into the highest levels & it achieved the square root of fuck all for them.
Probably would have helped if they hadn’t put their bribe-takers in an impossible position where supporting Russia would instantly out them as quislings & traitors to the nation of course.
If someone from Russia is trying to bribe you, the logical thing to do is take the money then stab them in the back when the balloon goes up.
O/T: John Cleese says Fawlty Towers couldn't be made today. Good thing too. The way the Spanish character Manuel is written and related to by other characters is disgustingly racist.
A typical laugh with Manuel: he doesn't know English properly, he says "Que" in Spanish when he doesn't understand something, and - haha - here's his tall English employer whopping him around the head. As if Basil doesn't have enough problems!
PS Agreeing with the above does not suggest support for allowing rapists into women's changing rooms just because they've decided to call themselves women.
I love FT but the presentation and abuse of Manuel is the one thing I don't love about it. I find that unpleasant to watch and not funny.
O/T: John Cleese says Fawlty Towers couldn't be made today. Good thing too. The way the Spanish character Manuel is written and related to by other characters is disgustingly racist.
A typical laugh with Manuel: he doesn't know English properly, he says "Que" in Spanish when he doesn't understand something, and - haha - here's his tall English employer whopping him around the head. As if Basil doesn't have enough problems!
PS Agreeing with the above does not suggest support for allowing rapists into women's changing rooms just because they've decided to call themselves women.
I don't think the snobbery and middle class angst about loss of status would be recognisable these days. Most comedy dates quite swiftly.
The Beggar King is in a Ford Galaxy on the M11 so pb's 101st Chairborne will be getting excited over that providing a welcome change from the trans shit and HS2 minutiae very soon.
We - and Russia to, for that matter - are a nation that survived WWII only because of US aid, so it's a bit charmless to get sniffy about someone else in a comparable situation.
So the Russian nation would have ceased to exist during WW2 had it not been for US aid? What a loony.
PS Would it be gazetted somewhere if Johnson were to receive his US citizenship back, or is it only renunciations that get publicly noted?
PPS Some Ford Galaxies from the mid-noughties had front seats that could turn round and face the back. Now that's what I call a cool car.
The Germans made it to the Moscow suburbs in WWII. It doesn't take much changes to the timeline to them making it a bit further...
For example, the US and UK provided *all* the hi octane aviation gasoline for the USSR. It was only postwar that they got their cracking plants lined up to make it.
Vast amount of machine tools - in some categories, 100% of the tools and 100% of the tooling was Lendlease supplied. Without that, Soviet production would have crawled to a halt.
And so on in many categories - the % of USSR GDP was small, but LendLease was about supplying materials and equipment they were short of. Or literally didn't have.
The fall of Moscow, or even of both Moscow and Leningrad as it then was, would not in itself have come anywhere near making the Soviet government seek to agree terms with Germany. More than 1000 large factories were shipped eastwards. The USSR would certainly have continued fighting. Sure, they could have been defeated but the fall of Moscow wouldn't have done for them.
Do you regret that the USA and Britain gave such substantial assistance to their Soviet ally during WW2/the GPW? Or is it a very different Germany now but a very similar Russia, so western policy was good then (fight with Russia against Germany) and western policy is also good now (pointing towards fighting with Germany against Russia this time round)?
Stalin was evil, but less evil than Hitler.
"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference of the Devil in the House of Commons."
So here's the thing - I am less sure of this than I used to be. Hitler evil, absolutely. He started the war that saw millions dead and initiated the holocaust.
But how many did Stalin kill? The famine in Ukraine, the gulags, the show trials, all of it. Why does Uncle Joe get a pass to be less evil than Hitler?
Perhaps because the gulags were Russians treating Russians with extreme brutality - peasant lives are cheap, kill them cheaply. Let starvation and the cold do the job.
The Germans were far more modern, implementing the latest killing technologies in disposing of their millions. They made much more of an effort to be efficiently evil.
Boris, for all his flaws, has been fantastic on Ukraine.
Given his extensive - and still mostly unrevealed - financial links with Russia in the lead up to the war, he had no choice other than to be.
History may well be less sympathetic.
Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still better than doing the wrong thing for the right reason.
I do find it quite amusing that the Russians spent years bribing & co-opting UK governance, successfully buying their way into the highest levels & it achieved the square root of fuck all for them.
Probably would have helped if they hadn’t put their bribe-takers in an impossible position where supporting Russia would instantly out them as quislings & traitors to the nation of course.
At least Kolomoisky's trial for fraud has been mothballed by an English judge for irreproachably sound moral reasons.
What a change it will make not to have anyone from Russia in the royal enclosure at Ascot this year.
Remind me who owns the Evening Standard and the Independent. A traitor? An enemy agent? Or someone who bravely chose the side of goodness and propriety and that's all there is to it?
Parakeet update: Just had three of them in the hedge at the back of the garden, feeding from one of the seed feeders.
Rose-ringed parakeets are a common sight in some parts of England including in several parks within a few miles of Richmond Park and in Ramsgate. For some reason, sometimes hundreds of them all spend the night in the same tree.
They have spread their wings (sorry!) further north. So here they are in Yorkshire. The British winters aren't too much of a challenge for them. Unlike, for example, the harsh winter weather in Moscow.
The Beggar King is in a Ford Galaxy on the M11 so pb's 101st Chairborne will be getting excited over that providing a welcome change from the trans shit and HS2 minutiae very soon.
We - and Russia to, for that matter - are a nation that survived WWII only because of US aid, so it's a bit charmless to get sniffy about someone else in a comparable situation.
So the Russian nation would have ceased to exist during WW2 had it not been for US aid? What a loony.
PS Would it be gazetted somewhere if Johnson were to receive his US citizenship back, or is it only renunciations that get publicly noted?
PPS Some Ford Galaxies from the mid-noughties had front seats that could turn round and face the back. Now that's what I call a cool car.
The Germans made it to the Moscow suburbs in WWII. It doesn't take much changes to the timeline to them making it a bit further...
For example, the US and UK provided *all* the hi octane aviation gasoline for the USSR. It was only postwar that they got their cracking plants lined up to make it.
Vast amount of machine tools - in some categories, 100% of the tools and 100% of the tooling was Lendlease supplied. Without that, Soviet production would have crawled to a halt.
And so on in many categories - the % of USSR GDP was small, but LendLease was about supplying materials and equipment they were short of. Or literally didn't have.
The fall of Moscow, or even of both Moscow and Leningrad as it then was, would not in itself have come anywhere near making the Soviet government seek to agree terms with Germany. More than 1000 large factories were shipped eastwards. The USSR would certainly have continued fighting. Sure, they could have been defeated but the fall of Moscow wouldn't have done for them.
Do you regret that the USA and Britain gave such substantial assistance to their Soviet ally during WW2/the GPW? Or is it a very different Germany now but a very similar Russia, so western policy was good then (fight with Russia against Germany) and western policy is also good now (pointing towards fighting with Germany against Russia this time round)?
Stalin was evil, but less evil than Hitler.
"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference of the Devil in the House of Commons."
So here's the thing - I am less sure of this than I used to be. Hitler evil, absolutely. He started the war that saw millions dead and initiated the holocaust.
But how many did Stalin kill? The famine in Ukraine, the gulags, the show trials, all of it. Why does Uncle Joe get a pass to be less evil than Hitler?
The main distinction I would draw would be that Stalin came to power in the USSR on a platform of "Socialism in one country" - a recognition that the attempt to spread communist revolution to the rest of the world had failed, and there was a need for the Bolsheviks to consolidate their power within their borders.
By contrast, the core of Hitler's ideology was the idea of the German need for Lebensraum, and consequently aggressive military expansion.
Bluntly, Stalin was content to kill people within his borders, while Hitler sought to kill people in the lands outside Germany's borders. The latter is more dangerous than the former.
This distinction might be more a consequence of the different levels of capability than ideology, but it's also true that the strong evil guy is more of a threat than the weak evil guy.
O/T: John Cleese says Fawlty Towers couldn't be made today. Good thing too. The way the Spanish character Manuel is written and related to by other characters is disgustingly racist.
A typical laugh with Manuel: he doesn't know English properly, he says "Que" in Spanish when he doesn't understand something, and - haha - here's his tall English employer whopping him around the head. As if Basil doesn't have enough problems!
PS Agreeing with the above does not suggest support for allowing rapists into women's changing rooms just because they've decided to call themselves women.
It can't be racist because Spanish and British people are the same race - Europeans.
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
Whilst people like you refuse to ever admit that there is ever anything awry. Nothing to apologise for.
I have lived with a Scot for 30 years. It would seem "sorry" is not a word north of the border. Instead, there is a third person in our marriage, myself, my wife - and the mysterious damage fairy, who has to take responsibility for all unexplained incidents that might otherwise point to the Good Lady Wife.
I confess I don't feel the slightest need to apologise to you for anything.
If anyone had any doubt about the importance of complete defeat of Russia, Putin's circle are now talking about Poland needing to be "denazified" through Russian intervention. Poland!
It is critical that the Ukrainian war is seen as nothing but a massive mistake by the Russian elite and people. It has to bring about disaster for them. A ceasefire, small gains and anything they can spin as a victory will leave the bear intact and hungry for more victims.
This, of course, isn't new rhetoric. This is just maintaining the line that Russia's "natural" sphere of influence extends to the lines established in 1945, and anything else is the West going back on its recognition of the natural order of things at Yalta.
The only way Eastern Europe is ever going to be safe from Russian brutality is either (a) a spiritual renewal similar to Germany post-45 or (b) the breakup of Russia into smaller states. For either to have a hope of happening, they must lost this war badly. It needs to be seen as a disaster that Russians want to distance themselves from and blame on a handful of evil nationalists in Moscow.
Indeed. However, I don't see a form of (b) that doesn't leave a rump state that harbours the ambition (and capability) to restore its influence. In either case, therefore, it requires a cultural change that seems unlikely.
The Beggar King is in a Ford Galaxy on the M11 so pb's 101st Chairborne will be getting excited over that providing a welcome change from the trans shit and HS2 minutiae very soon.
We - and Russia to, for that matter - are a nation that survived WWII only because of US aid, so it's a bit charmless to get sniffy about someone else in a comparable situation.
So the Russian nation would have ceased to exist during WW2 had it not been for US aid? What a loony.
PS Would it be gazetted somewhere if Johnson were to receive his US citizenship back, or is it only renunciations that get publicly noted?
PPS Some Ford Galaxies from the mid-noughties had front seats that could turn round and face the back. Now that's what I call a cool car.
The Germans made it to the Moscow suburbs in WWII. It doesn't take much changes to the timeline to them making it a bit further...
For example, the US and UK provided *all* the hi octane aviation gasoline for the USSR. It was only postwar that they got their cracking plants lined up to make it.
Vast amount of machine tools - in some categories, 100% of the tools and 100% of the tooling was Lendlease supplied. Without that, Soviet production would have crawled to a halt.
And so on in many categories - the % of USSR GDP was small, but LendLease was about supplying materials and equipment they were short of. Or literally didn't have.
The fall of Moscow, or even of both Moscow and Leningrad as it then was, would not in itself have come anywhere near making the Soviet government seek to agree terms with Germany. More than 1000 large factories were shipped eastwards. The USSR would certainly have continued fighting. Sure, they could have been defeated but the fall of Moscow wouldn't have done for them.
Do you regret that the USA and Britain gave such substantial assistance to their Soviet ally during WW2/the GPW? Or is it a very different Germany now but a very similar Russia, so western policy was good then (fight with Russia against Germany) and western policy is also good now (pointing towards fighting with Germany against Russia this time round)?
Stalin was evil, but less evil than Hitler.
"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference of the Devil in the House of Commons."
I'm not convinced there was a great deal in it between Stalin and Hitler.
Hitler, however, was a much greater direct threat to Britain in the 30s and early 40s than Stalin. That was more important than who was the most evil.
Stalin was open to diplomacy, Hitler wasn't or was anyway ruled out.
Here's a Brexit benefit nobody is shouting about. A daft CJEU decision has forced the EU to drop open registers of beneficial ownership of companies. The UK can ignore it, and keep open registers - and the Government has confirmed that's precisely what they'll do: https://twitter.com/danneidle/status/1623333868139909121
This study argues that a new women's cooperative constellation has been established in Scotland around the issue of the Scottish Government's proposed reforms of the Gender Recognition Act. This constellation includes women politicians, researchers, journalists, writers, and activists from all sides of mainstream political opinion in Scotland. The constellation works together to support its politician members, share information and form a supportive community. The constellation acts together to show support for those in the public eye, such as politicians or members being publicly attacked, to make them aware they have ‘an army of women behind them’. The role social media plays has been an important one for the formation and continuance of the constellation, particularly during the pandemic. It has been game-changing in allowing women to identify each other, communicate, arrange to work together and show public support for others. It has also been important in raising awareness of the issues, both with politicians and the general public because, unlike previously identified constellations, this network has needed to generate broad public awareness and support because they have not been working as Government insiders. However, all interviewees were aware that it was not enough to engage in online activism and that they needed to be ‘in the room’ with politicians in order to make any impact.
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
A ... figment of your imagination?
I've literally never done that. Not only do I not like to do that, I've never pointed out dubious fellow travellers as I think it's a bloody stupid thing to do, as there are dubious people on all sides.
The Beggar King is in a Ford Galaxy on the M11 so pb's 101st Chairborne will be getting excited over that providing a welcome change from the trans shit and HS2 minutiae very soon.
We - and Russia to, for that matter - are a nation that survived WWII only because of US aid, so it's a bit charmless to get sniffy about someone else in a comparable situation.
So the Russian nation would have ceased to exist during WW2 had it not been for US aid? What a loony.
PS Would it be gazetted somewhere if Johnson were to receive his US citizenship back, or is it only renunciations that get publicly noted?
PPS Some Ford Galaxies from the mid-noughties had front seats that could turn round and face the back. Now that's what I call a cool car.
The Germans made it to the Moscow suburbs in WWII. It doesn't take much changes to the timeline to them making it a bit further...
For example, the US and UK provided *all* the hi octane aviation gasoline for the USSR. It was only postwar that they got their cracking plants lined up to make it.
Vast amount of machine tools - in some categories, 100% of the tools and 100% of the tooling was Lendlease supplied. Without that, Soviet production would have crawled to a halt.
And so on in many categories - the % of USSR GDP was small, but LendLease was about supplying materials and equipment they were short of. Or literally didn't have.
The fall of Moscow, or even of both Moscow and Leningrad as it then was, would not in itself have come anywhere near making the Soviet government seek to agree terms with Germany. More than 1000 large factories were shipped eastwards. The USSR would certainly have continued fighting. Sure, they could have been defeated but the fall of Moscow wouldn't have done for them.
Do you regret that the USA and Britain gave such substantial assistance to their Soviet ally during WW2/the GPW? Or is it a very different Germany now but a very similar Russia, so western policy was good then (fight with Russia against Germany) and western policy is also good now (pointing towards fighting with Germany against Russia this time round)?
This study argues that a new women's cooperative constellation has been established in Scotland around the issue of the Scottish Government's proposed reforms of the Gender Recognition Act. This constellation includes women politicians, researchers, journalists, writers, and activists from all sides of mainstream political opinion in Scotland. The constellation works together to support its politician members, share information and form a supportive community. The constellation acts together to show support for those in the public eye, such as politicians or members being publicly attacked, to make them aware they have ‘an army of women behind them’. The role social media plays has been an important one for the formation and continuance of the constellation, particularly during the pandemic. It has been game-changing in allowing women to identify each other, communicate, arrange to work together and show public support for others. It has also been important in raising awareness of the issues, both with politicians and the general public because, unlike previously identified constellations, this network has needed to generate broad public awareness and support because they have not been working as Government insiders. However, all interviewees were aware that it was not enough to engage in online activism and that they needed to be ‘in the room’ with politicians in order to make any impact.
My daughter has been accepted for a job but the employer wants a medical form signed by her GP.
My wife calls the Surgery:
Receptionist: Ok bring it in and we'll take a look Mrs Stocky: Do you know when we'll get it back? Receptionist: Can't say. The doctor is not obliged to sign it. Mrs Stocky: If he won't sign it where else can we get it signed? Receptionist: Err. Not sure. Mrs Stocky: you realise that if he doesn't sign it she doesn't get the job? Receptionist: well the doctor might charge Mrs Stocky: that's fine, we are happy to pay a fee Receptionist: but he's not obliged to sign it Mrs Stocky: It will take him less that ten seconds. This conversation has lasted much longer than that.
Good grief.
The employer is being ridiculous and intrusive.
Can't see what is wrong with how the receptionist handled it to be honest. They said twice upfront they were unsure if and when it would be signed, so it is unsurprising the follow up questions did not produce the answer desired.
It is not the receptionists job to commit a doctor to signing something they have not seen and may not be appropriate to share with an employer.
Agreed. Too often (as an accountant) we are asked by a bank to sign something for a client. To say things like, "The client has sacks of money and will definitely pay back the loan. If they don't, then we (the accountant) will owe you lots of cash instead because we said they were great and they're not."
It's the bank not willing or wanting to do due diligence and instead hand over risk to someone else. Either they lend the money or they don't. They shouldn't drag third parties into this.
Same with the employer and your daughter. To me, it smacks of the employer not really wanting to give her the job anyway. What if your daughter replied with, "The doctor will not sign it." What would they do? Ring candidate number 2? What if their doctor won't sign it?
O/T: John Cleese says Fawlty Towers couldn't be made today. Good thing too. The way the Spanish character Manuel is written and related to by other characters is disgustingly racist.
A typical laugh with Manuel: he doesn't know English properly, he says "Que" in Spanish when he doesn't understand something, and - haha - here's his tall English employer whopping him around the head. As if Basil doesn't have enough problems!
PS Agreeing with the above does not suggest support for allowing rapists into women's changing rooms just because they've decided to call themselves women.
It can't be racist because Spanish and British people are the same race - Europeans.
Nah, Spanish and Brits are made up of many different "races".
This study argues that a new women's cooperative constellation has been established in Scotland around the issue of the Scottish Government's proposed reforms of the Gender Recognition Act. This constellation includes women politicians, researchers, journalists, writers, and activists from all sides of mainstream political opinion in Scotland. The constellation works together to support its politician members, share information and form a supportive community. The constellation acts together to show support for those in the public eye, such as politicians or members being publicly attacked, to make them aware they have ‘an army of women behind them’. The role social media plays has been an important one for the formation and continuance of the constellation, particularly during the pandemic. It has been game-changing in allowing women to identify each other, communicate, arrange to work together and show public support for others. It has also been important in raising awareness of the issues, both with politicians and the general public because, unlike previously identified constellations, this network has needed to generate broad public awareness and support because they have not been working as Government insiders. However, all interviewees were aware that it was not enough to engage in online activism and that they needed to be ‘in the room’ with politicians in order to make any impact.
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
But you're asserting that Sturgeon is using it as a wedge issue! I suppose you're doing it because she is rather than to delegitimize your opponents instead of listening to them, would that be right? Me, I think you're conflating disagreement with not listening. And you seem to be claiming this prisons case shows all of the fears of the antis about what the bill will lead to are justified - even though the bill isn't passed and where similar has passed there isn't the evidence to show any of the fears crystallized let alone all of them. So, you know, it's a pretty extreme position you're taking as far as I can see. But fair enough, you feel strongly and I don't agree with those who say you bang on about it too much.
I'm not saying none of the fears are justified - I don't know enough to be saying that, and I'm no TRA, absurd thought! - but the specific prisons issue is wildly insufficient imo to conclude that all of them are. And I'm merely pointing out that both sides are using Trans/GRR as a wedge issue to some extent - and yes imo more so on the anti side. Evidence for this? Well for starters the number of reactionary right wing men we find there - blokes who in the normal way of things wouldn't piss on feminism or womens rights if they were on fire.
Some think that Sturgeon is using trans as a nationalist tactic to use as a wedge should the UK government intervene. I don't buy this myself, I think she's a true believer.
I agree. It’s a weird one to use as a wedge issue. I would have thought if she was playing 3D chess and choosing an issue on which to create a constitutional crisis it wouldn’t be this one.
The issue seems to me to be that she led herself down the garden path, utterly convinced this was popular and that everyone agreed with her [see: Twitter] and that the only people who'd object were dinosaur loons who could be dismissed for siding with other dinosaur loons [see: @Theuniondivvie ].
That feminists might have a serious point about concerns wasn't allowed to register until it was too late.
The amount of PB blokes that have a direct line on Sturgeon’s real motivations and principles is a wonder.
Especially when they differ radically on the matter.
Been out all day, and just realised I missed this. Brilliant picture.
"I'm fighting off attacks from an idiot in another country who claims we're mysoginist and racist but nonetheless all part of the same family." "Me too"
The Beggar King is in a Ford Galaxy on the M11 so pb's 101st Chairborne will be getting excited over that providing a welcome change from the trans shit and HS2 minutiae very soon.
We - and Russia to, for that matter - are a nation that survived WWII only because of US aid, so it's a bit charmless to get sniffy about someone else in a comparable situation.
So the Russian nation would have ceased to exist during WW2 had it not been for US aid? What a loony.
PS Would it be gazetted somewhere if Johnson were to receive his US citizenship back, or is it only renunciations that get publicly noted?
PPS Some Ford Galaxies from the mid-noughties had front seats that could turn round and face the back. Now that's what I call a cool car.
The Germans made it to the Moscow suburbs in WWII. It doesn't take much changes to the timeline to them making it a bit further...
For example, the US and UK provided *all* the hi octane aviation gasoline for the USSR. It was only postwar that they got their cracking plants lined up to make it.
Vast amount of machine tools - in some categories, 100% of the tools and 100% of the tooling was Lendlease supplied. Without that, Soviet production would have crawled to a halt.
And so on in many categories - the % of USSR GDP was small, but LendLease was about supplying materials and equipment they were short of. Or literally didn't have.
The fall of Moscow, or even of both Moscow and Leningrad as it then was, would not in itself have come anywhere near making the Soviet government seek to agree terms with Germany. More than 1000 large factories were shipped eastwards. The USSR would certainly have continued fighting. Sure, they could have been defeated but the fall of Moscow wouldn't have done for them.
Do you regret that the USA and Britain gave such substantial assistance to their Soviet ally during WW2/the GPW? Or is it a very different Germany now but a very similar Russia, so western policy was good then (fight with Russia against Germany) and western policy is also good now (pointing towards fighting with Germany against Russia this time round)?
Stalin was evil, but less evil than Hitler.
"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference of the Devil in the House of Commons."
So here's the thing - I am less sure of this than I used to be. Hitler evil, absolutely. He started the war that saw millions dead and initiated the holocaust.
But how many did Stalin kill? The famine in Ukraine, the gulags, the show trials, all of it. Why does Uncle Joe get a pass to be less evil than Hitler?
The main distinction I would draw would be that Stalin came to power in the USSR on a platform of "Socialism in one country" - a recognition that the attempt to spread communist revolution to the rest of the world had failed, and there was a need for the Bolsheviks to consolidate their power within their borders.
By contrast, the core of Hitler's ideology was the idea of the German need for Lebensraum, and consequently aggressive military expansion.
Bluntly, Stalin was content to kill people within his borders, while Hitler sought to kill people in the lands outside Germany's borders. The latter is more dangerous than the former.
This distinction might be more a consequence of the different levels of capability than ideology, but it's also true that the strong evil guy is more of a threat than the weak evil guy.
Also with Communism, for all the horrors enacted in its name, there was an arguably non-heinous idea at its core. This isn't the case with Hitler and the Nazis. The ideology there, the industrial scale subjugation of other people by a master race, is wholly abhorent in every sense and on every level.
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
Whilst people like you refuse to ever admit that there is ever anything awry. Nothing to apologise for.
I have lived with a Scot for 30 years. It would seem "sorry" is not a word north of the border. Instead, there is a third person in our marriage, myself, my wife - and the mysterious damage fairy, who has to take responsibility for all unexplained incidents that might otherwise point to the Good Lady Wife.
My wife never apologises for anything either (and why should she as she is infallible). And yet she isn't Scottish while I am. Go figure!
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
A ... figment of your imagination?
I've literally never done that. Not only do I not like to do that, I've never pointed out dubious fellow travellers as I think it's a bloody stupid thing to do, as there are dubious people on all sides.
Dashed unsporting to quote a chap's own words back at him, but you literally said 'When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes', which is a lie. Now you can either accept that's a lie or do the expressed yourself badly thing. Oh, you can also jog on of course.
The main distinction I would draw would be that Stalin came to power in the USSR on a platform of "Socialism in one country" - a recognition that the attempt to spread communist revolution to the rest of the world had failed, and there was a need for the Bolsheviks to consolidate their power within their borders.
By contrast, the core of Hitler's ideology was the idea of the German need for Lebensraum, and consequently aggressive military expansion.
Bluntly, Stalin was content to kill people within his borders, while Hitler sought to kill people in the lands outside Germany's borders. The latter is more dangerous than the former.
This distinction might be more a consequence of the different levels of capability than ideology, but it's also true that the strong evil guy is more of a threat than the weak evil guy.
I think Eddie Izzard, in one of his sketches in the 1990s basically said the same thing. We got upset with Hitler because he started killing other country's people. But just kill your own..... well, no one's bothered by that.....
Been out all day, and just realised I missed this. Brilliant picture.
"I'm fighting off attacks from an idiot in another country who claims we're mysoginist and racist but nonetheless all part of the same family." "Me too"
“My people are tired cold and hungry” “Sorry to hear that, your majesty”
Jared O'Mara has been found guilty of six counts of fraud over expenses claims made while he was in office in 2019.
The former Sheffield Hallam MP was on trial at Leeds Crown Court for submitting fake invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to fund a cocaine habit.
He was convicted on Wednesday of six counts of fraud by false representation. The jury cleared him of two other fraud charges.
Gareth Arnold, a co-defendant, was found guilty of three out of six fraud charges, and a third defendant, John Woodliff, was found not guilty of one offence of fraud.
O'Mara and Arnold will be sentenced at the same court on Thursday.
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
Whilst people like you refuse to ever admit that there is ever anything awry. Nothing to apologise for.
I have lived with a Scot for 30 years. It would seem "sorry" is not a word north of the border. Instead, there is a third person in our marriage, myself, my wife - and the mysterious damage fairy, who has to take responsibility for all unexplained incidents that might otherwise point to the Good Lady Wife.
My wife never apologises for anything either (and why should she as she is infallible). And yet she isn't Scottish while I am. Go figure!
Does that mean that if I self ID as female, I will no longer need to apologise for anything?
Jared O'Mara has been found guilty of six counts of fraud over expenses claims made while he was in office in 2019.
The former Sheffield Hallam MP was on trial at Leeds Crown Court for submitting fake invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to fund a cocaine habit.
He was convicted on Wednesday of six counts of fraud by false representation. The jury cleared him of two other fraud charges.
Gareth Arnold, a co-defendant, was found guilty of three out of six fraud charges, and a third defendant, John Woodliff, was found not guilty of one offence of fraud.
O'Mara and Arnold will be sentenced at the same court on Thursday.
The Beggar King is in a Ford Galaxy on the M11 so pb's 101st Chairborne will be getting excited over that providing a welcome change from the trans shit and HS2 minutiae very soon.
We - and Russia to, for that matter - are a nation that survived WWII only because of US aid, so it's a bit charmless to get sniffy about someone else in a comparable situation.
So the Russian nation would have ceased to exist during WW2 had it not been for US aid? What a loony.
PS Would it be gazetted somewhere if Johnson were to receive his US citizenship back, or is it only renunciations that get publicly noted?
PPS Some Ford Galaxies from the mid-noughties had front seats that could turn round and face the back. Now that's what I call a cool car.
The Germans made it to the Moscow suburbs in WWII. It doesn't take much changes to the timeline to them making it a bit further...
For example, the US and UK provided *all* the hi octane aviation gasoline for the USSR. It was only postwar that they got their cracking plants lined up to make it.
Vast amount of machine tools - in some categories, 100% of the tools and 100% of the tooling was Lendlease supplied. Without that, Soviet production would have crawled to a halt.
And so on in many categories - the % of USSR GDP was small, but LendLease was about supplying materials and equipment they were short of. Or literally didn't have.
The fall of Moscow, or even of both Moscow and Leningrad as it then was, would not in itself have come anywhere near making the Soviet government seek to agree terms with Germany. More than 1000 large factories were shipped eastwards. The USSR would certainly have continued fighting. Sure, they could have been defeated but the fall of Moscow wouldn't have done for them.
Do you regret that the USA and Britain gave such substantial assistance to their Soviet ally during WW2/the GPW? Or is it a very different Germany now but a very similar Russia, so western policy was good then (fight with Russia against Germany) and western policy is also good now (pointing towards fighting with Germany against Russia this time round)?
Stalin was evil, but less evil than Hitler.
"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference of the Devil in the House of Commons."
So here's the thing - I am less sure of this than I used to be. Hitler evil, absolutely. He started the war that saw millions dead and initiated the holocaust.
But how many did Stalin kill? The famine in Ukraine, the gulags, the show trials, all of it. Why does Uncle Joe get a pass to be less evil than Hitler?
The main distinction I would draw would be that Stalin came to power in the USSR on a platform of "Socialism in one country" - a recognition that the attempt to spread communist revolution to the rest of the world had failed, and there was a need for the Bolsheviks to consolidate their power within their borders.
By contrast, the core of Hitler's ideology was the idea of the German need for Lebensraum, and consequently aggressive military expansion.
Bluntly, Stalin was content to kill people within his borders, while Hitler sought to kill people in the lands outside Germany's borders. The latter is more dangerous than the former.
This distinction might be more a consequence of the different levels of capability than ideology, but it's also true that the strong evil guy is more of a threat than the weak evil guy.
Also with Communism, for all the horrors enacted in its name, there was an arguably non-heinous idea at its core. This isn't the case with Hitler and the Nazis. The ideology there, the industrial scale subjugation of other people by a master race, is wholly abhorent in every sense and on every level.
Doesn't that make the Communist authoritarianism worse to some extent? It means that well-meaning people can go along with evil, "For The Greater Good," while the moral choice is a bit clearer under fascism. This might also explain why Communist dictatorships have tended to be more durable than fascist ones.
That said, having reflected, I think one can say that Hitler was a notch more evil than Stalin, because Hitler's intent with the Holocaust was to eradicate the Jewish people, and while there was a programme of Russification within the USSR, and particular ethnic groups like the Crimean Tartars were particularly targeted, the single-minded and ideological pursuit of the destruction of the Jewish people was, I think, on a distinctly more evil level.
Jared O'Mara has been found guilty of six counts of fraud over expenses claims made while he was in office in 2019.
The former Sheffield Hallam MP was on trial at Leeds Crown Court for submitting fake invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to fund a cocaine habit.
He was convicted on Wednesday of six counts of fraud by false representation. The jury cleared him of two other fraud charges.
Gareth Arnold, a co-defendant, was found guilty of three out of six fraud charges, and a third defendant, John Woodliff, was found not guilty of one offence of fraud.
O'Mara and Arnold will be sentenced at the same court on Thursday.
Are you not insanely proud, that possibly the worst person to have been elected to Parliament in a generation, was the representative of your own constituency?
The only person more proud should be Nick Clegg, who was somehow defeated by this moron.
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
A ... figment of your imagination?
I've literally never done that. Not only do I not like to do that, I've never pointed out dubious fellow travellers as I think it's a bloody stupid thing to do, as there are dubious people on all sides.
Dashed unsporting to quote a chap's own words back at him, but you literally said 'When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes', which is a lie. Now you can either accept that's a lie or do the expressed yourself badly thing. Oh, you can also jog on of course.
Improve your reading comprehension. 🙈
Yes I quite literally said that when you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that ...
I was criticising your opinion, not sharing it. Unless you are overtly sensitive and thought I was lumping you with the BNP, Trump, Infowars and assorted other troglodytes?
The Beggar King is in a Ford Galaxy on the M11 so pb's 101st Chairborne will be getting excited over that providing a welcome change from the trans shit and HS2 minutiae very soon.
We - and Russia to, for that matter - are a nation that survived WWII only because of US aid, so it's a bit charmless to get sniffy about someone else in a comparable situation.
So the Russian nation would have ceased to exist during WW2 had it not been for US aid? What a loony.
PS Would it be gazetted somewhere if Johnson were to receive his US citizenship back, or is it only renunciations that get publicly noted?
PPS Some Ford Galaxies from the mid-noughties had front seats that could turn round and face the back. Now that's what I call a cool car.
The Germans made it to the Moscow suburbs in WWII. It doesn't take much changes to the timeline to them making it a bit further...
For example, the US and UK provided *all* the hi octane aviation gasoline for the USSR. It was only postwar that they got their cracking plants lined up to make it.
Vast amount of machine tools - in some categories, 100% of the tools and 100% of the tooling was Lendlease supplied. Without that, Soviet production would have crawled to a halt.
And so on in many categories - the % of USSR GDP was small, but LendLease was about supplying materials and equipment they were short of. Or literally didn't have.
The fall of Moscow, or even of both Moscow and Leningrad as it then was, would not in itself have come anywhere near making the Soviet government seek to agree terms with Germany. More than 1000 large factories were shipped eastwards. The USSR would certainly have continued fighting. Sure, they could have been defeated but the fall of Moscow wouldn't have done for them.
Do you regret that the USA and Britain gave such substantial assistance to their Soviet ally during WW2/the GPW? Or is it a very different Germany now but a very similar Russia, so western policy was good then (fight with Russia against Germany) and western policy is also good now (pointing towards fighting with Germany against Russia this time round)?
Stalin was evil, but less evil than Hitler.
"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference of the Devil in the House of Commons."
So here's the thing - I am less sure of this than I used to be. Hitler evil, absolutely. He started the war that saw millions dead and initiated the holocaust.
But how many did Stalin kill? The famine in Ukraine, the gulags, the show trials, all of it. Why does Uncle Joe get a pass to be less evil than Hitler?
The main distinction I would draw would be that Stalin came to power in the USSR on a platform of "Socialism in one country" - a recognition that the attempt to spread communist revolution to the rest of the world had failed, and there was a need for the Bolsheviks to consolidate their power within their borders.
By contrast, the core of Hitler's ideology was the idea of the German need for Lebensraum, and consequently aggressive military expansion.
Bluntly, Stalin was content to kill people within his borders, while Hitler sought to kill people in the lands outside Germany's borders. The latter is more dangerous than the former.
This distinction might be more a consequence of the different levels of capability than ideology, but it's also true that the strong evil guy is more of a threat than the weak evil guy.
Also with Communism, for all the horrors enacted in its name, there was an arguably non-heinous idea at its core. This isn't the case with Hitler and the Nazis. The ideology there, the industrial scale subjugation of other people by a master race, is wholly abhorent in every sense and on every level.
Doesn't that make the Communist authoritarianism worse to some extent? It means that well-meaning people can go along with evil, "For The Greater Good," while the moral choice is a bit clearer under fascism. This might also explain why Communist dictatorships have tended to be more durable than fascist ones.
That said, having reflected, I think one can say that Hitler was a notch more evil than Stalin, because Hitler's intent with the Holocaust was to eradicate the Jewish people, and while there was a programme of Russification within the USSR, and particular ethnic groups like the Crimean Tartars were particularly targeted, the single-minded and ideological pursuit of the destruction of the Jewish people was, I think, on a distinctly more evil level.
Death stopped Stalin launching a planned, literal pogrom
"The bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline was a covert operation ordered by the White House and carried out by the CIA — The Times, citing investigative journalist Seymour Hersh"
Sunak's problem in Scotland - is it that levelling up comes across as too English? The general consensus about the need to boost economic performance outside the south east of England ought to find favour in Scotland but the flagship programme for this often seems more about providing pork barrel for Tory MPs. Of which there aren't many in Scotland.
It is also that any UK scheme that turns down a Scottish application gets extra 'teeth gritty' in the way it is portrayed. There was a desperate appeal on my LinkedIn feed the other day by The King's Theatre in Edinburgh, urgently asking for millions to plug a hole because 'our application for the UK Government's levelling up fund has been turned down' - the subtext being the scheming sassenachs out to do Scotland down (again). Deserving a cultural venue as The Kings is, it would be an odd version of 'levelling up' that included refurbishing Edinburgh theatres within its scope.
The Beggar King is in a Ford Galaxy on the M11 so pb's 101st Chairborne will be getting excited over that providing a welcome change from the trans shit and HS2 minutiae very soon.
We - and Russia to, for that matter - are a nation that survived WWII only because of US aid, so it's a bit charmless to get sniffy about someone else in a comparable situation.
So the Russian nation would have ceased to exist during WW2 had it not been for US aid? What a loony.
PS Would it be gazetted somewhere if Johnson were to receive his US citizenship back, or is it only renunciations that get publicly noted?
PPS Some Ford Galaxies from the mid-noughties had front seats that could turn round and face the back. Now that's what I call a cool car.
The Germans made it to the Moscow suburbs in WWII. It doesn't take much changes to the timeline to them making it a bit further...
For example, the US and UK provided *all* the hi octane aviation gasoline for the USSR. It was only postwar that they got their cracking plants lined up to make it.
Vast amount of machine tools - in some categories, 100% of the tools and 100% of the tooling was Lendlease supplied. Without that, Soviet production would have crawled to a halt.
And so on in many categories - the % of USSR GDP was small, but LendLease was about supplying materials and equipment they were short of. Or literally didn't have.
The fall of Moscow, or even of both Moscow and Leningrad as it then was, would not in itself have come anywhere near making the Soviet government seek to agree terms with Germany. More than 1000 large factories were shipped eastwards. The USSR would certainly have continued fighting. Sure, they could have been defeated but the fall of Moscow wouldn't have done for them.
Do you regret that the USA and Britain gave such substantial assistance to their Soviet ally during WW2/the GPW? Or is it a very different Germany now but a very similar Russia, so western policy was good then (fight with Russia against Germany) and western policy is also good now (pointing towards fighting with Germany against Russia this time round)?
Stalin was evil, but less evil than Hitler.
"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference of the Devil in the House of Commons."
So here's the thing - I am less sure of this than I used to be. Hitler evil, absolutely. He started the war that saw millions dead and initiated the holocaust.
But how many did Stalin kill? The famine in Ukraine, the gulags, the show trials, all of it. Why does Uncle Joe get a pass to be less evil than Hitler?
The main distinction I would draw would be that Stalin came to power in the USSR on a platform of "Socialism in one country" - a recognition that the attempt to spread communist revolution to the rest of the world had failed, and there was a need for the Bolsheviks to consolidate their power within their borders.
By contrast, the core of Hitler's ideology was the idea of the German need for Lebensraum, and consequently aggressive military expansion.
Bluntly, Stalin was content to kill people within his borders, while Hitler sought to kill people in the lands outside Germany's borders. The latter is more dangerous than the former.
This distinction might be more a consequence of the different levels of capability than ideology, but it's also true that the strong evil guy is more of a threat than the weak evil guy.
Also with Communism, for all the horrors enacted in its name, there was an arguably non-heinous idea at its core. This isn't the case with Hitler and the Nazis. The ideology there, the industrial scale subjugation of other people by a master race, is wholly abhorent in every sense and on every level.
Doesn't that make the Communist authoritarianism worse to some extent? It means that well-meaning people can go along with evil, "For The Greater Good," while the moral choice is a bit clearer under fascism. This might also explain why Communist dictatorships have tended to be more durable than fascist ones.
That said, having reflected, I think one can say that Hitler was a notch more evil than Stalin, because Hitler's intent with the Holocaust was to eradicate the Jewish people, and while there was a programme of Russification within the USSR, and particular ethnic groups like the Crimean Tartars were particularly targeted, the single-minded and ideological pursuit of the destruction of the Jewish people was, I think, on a distinctly more evil level.
Wolf more dangerous when donning the sheepskin? Yes, can be. But tbh, 'Hitler or Stalin more evil?', I don't find it that useful a question, but if forced to take it I neither find it that difficult. Hitler. There's just no shred of a redeeming factor, or anything not wholly evil, in what he believed or did in the name of it.
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
Whilst people like you refuse to ever admit that there is ever anything awry. Nothing to apologise for.
I have lived with a Scot for 30 years. It would seem "sorry" is not a word north of the border. Instead, there is a third person in our marriage, myself, my wife - and the mysterious damage fairy, who has to take responsibility for all unexplained incidents that might otherwise point to the Good Lady Wife.
My wife never apologises for anything either (and why should she as she is infallible). And yet she isn't Scottish while I am. Go figure!
Does that mean that if I self ID as female, I will no longer need to apologise for anything?
No, both you and your wife would be Right. The resulting logical impossibility would destroy *all* the multiverses.
"The bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline was a covert operation ordered by the White House and carried out by the CIA — The Times, citing investigative journalist Seymour Hersh"
The truth may be out there, but nobody will ever know if its behind a paywall.
Jared O'Mara has been found guilty of six counts of fraud over expenses claims made while he was in office in 2019.
The former Sheffield Hallam MP was on trial at Leeds Crown Court for submitting fake invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to fund a cocaine habit.
He was convicted on Wednesday of six counts of fraud by false representation. The jury cleared him of two other fraud charges.
Gareth Arnold, a co-defendant, was found guilty of three out of six fraud charges, and a third defendant, John Woodliff, was found not guilty of one offence of fraud.
O'Mara and Arnold will be sentenced at the same court on Thursday.
Are you not insanely proud, that possibly the worst person to have been elected to Parliament in a generation, was the representative of your own constituency?
The only person more proud should be Nick Clegg, who was somehow defeated by this moron.
Nah, I'd rather have Jared O'Mara than Andrew Bridgen.
The Beggar King is in a Ford Galaxy on the M11 so pb's 101st Chairborne will be getting excited over that providing a welcome change from the trans shit and HS2 minutiae very soon.
We - and Russia to, for that matter - are a nation that survived WWII only because of US aid, so it's a bit charmless to get sniffy about someone else in a comparable situation.
So the Russian nation would have ceased to exist during WW2 had it not been for US aid? What a loony.
PS Would it be gazetted somewhere if Johnson were to receive his US citizenship back, or is it only renunciations that get publicly noted?
PPS Some Ford Galaxies from the mid-noughties had front seats that could turn round and face the back. Now that's what I call a cool car.
The Germans made it to the Moscow suburbs in WWII. It doesn't take much changes to the timeline to them making it a bit further...
For example, the US and UK provided *all* the hi octane aviation gasoline for the USSR. It was only postwar that they got their cracking plants lined up to make it.
Vast amount of machine tools - in some categories, 100% of the tools and 100% of the tooling was Lendlease supplied. Without that, Soviet production would have crawled to a halt.
And so on in many categories - the % of USSR GDP was small, but LendLease was about supplying materials and equipment they were short of. Or literally didn't have.
The fall of Moscow, or even of both Moscow and Leningrad as it then was, would not in itself have come anywhere near making the Soviet government seek to agree terms with Germany. More than 1000 large factories were shipped eastwards. The USSR would certainly have continued fighting. Sure, they could have been defeated but the fall of Moscow wouldn't have done for them.
Do you regret that the USA and Britain gave such substantial assistance to their Soviet ally during WW2/the GPW? Or is it a very different Germany now but a very similar Russia, so western policy was good then (fight with Russia against Germany) and western policy is also good now (pointing towards fighting with Germany against Russia this time round)?
Stalin was evil, but less evil than Hitler.
"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference of the Devil in the House of Commons."
I'm not convinced there was a great deal in it between Stalin and Hitler.
Hitler, however, was a much greater direct threat to Britain in the 30s and early 40s than Stalin. That was more important than who was the most evil.
I agree - not sure how much of a direct threat Hitler was either. Strictly speaking, the Kaiser before him had more plans to unwind Britain's global power than Hitler did - he always seemed quite admiring, even obsequious, toward Britain.
There are “strong indications” that President Vladimir V. Putin decided to supply the antiaircraft missile system that Russia-backed separatists used to shoot down a Malaysia Airlines jet above eastern Ukraine in 2014, a Dutch-led international team found.
But the team said on Wednesday that it had suspended its criminal investigation because of insufficient evidence and immunity privileges that prevent new prosecutions in the crash of Flight MH17, which killed all 298 people aboard.
Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet is scary. There was nothing like that for Iraq or Afghanistan or any other recent war that Britain has been involved in.
So much for the separation of power. Perhaps that was always a poncy French idea anyway. Will the Supreme Court judges take a bow next?
Notorious Russian army captain and mercenary Igor Mangushev has died in hospital, days after he was shot in the head at close range in occupied Ukraine, his friends have said.
Mangushev's wife Tatyana described his killing as an execution.
He commanded an anti-drone unit in occupied Luhansk, but had also been one of the founders of a mercenary group fighting Ukrainian forces in 2014.
He took to a stage last summer holding a man's skull.
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
Whilst people like you refuse to ever admit that there is ever anything awry. Nothing to apologise for.
I have lived with a Scot for 30 years. It would seem "sorry" is not a word north of the border. Instead, there is a third person in our marriage, myself, my wife - and the mysterious damage fairy, who has to take responsibility for all unexplained incidents that might otherwise point to the Good Lady Wife.
My wife never apologises for anything either (and why should she as she is infallible). And yet she isn't Scottish while I am. Go figure!
Does that mean that if I self ID as female, I will no longer need to apologise for anything?
Yes, that's right. And you will always put the toilet lid down.
Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet is scary. There was nothing like that for Iraq or Afghanistan or any other recent war that Britain has been involved in.
So much for the separation of power. Perhaps that was always a poncy French idea anyway. Will the Supreme Court judges take a bow next?
Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet is scary. There was nothing like that for Iraq or Afghanistan or any other recent war that Britain has been involved in.
So much for the separation of power. Perhaps that was always a poncy French idea anyway. Will the Supreme Court judges take a bow next?
"Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet"
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
Whilst people like you refuse to ever admit that there is ever anything awry. Nothing to apologise for.
I have lived with a Scot for 30 years. It would seem "sorry" is not a word north of the border. Instead, there is a third person in our marriage, myself, my wife - and the mysterious damage fairy, who has to take responsibility for all unexplained incidents that might otherwise point to the Good Lady Wife.
I confess I don't feel the slightest need to apologise to you for anything.
This study argues that a new women's cooperative constellation has been established in Scotland around the issue of the Scottish Government's proposed reforms of the Gender Recognition Act. This constellation includes women politicians, researchers, journalists, writers, and activists from all sides of mainstream political opinion in Scotland. The constellation works together to support its politician members, share information and form a supportive community. The constellation acts together to show support for those in the public eye, such as politicians or members being publicly attacked, to make them aware they have ‘an army of women behind them’. The role social media plays has been an important one for the formation and continuance of the constellation, particularly during the pandemic. It has been game-changing in allowing women to identify each other, communicate, arrange to work together and show public support for others. It has also been important in raising awareness of the issues, both with politicians and the general public because, unlike previously identified constellations, this network has needed to generate broad public awareness and support because they have not been working as Government insiders. However, all interviewees were aware that it was not enough to engage in online activism and that they needed to be ‘in the room’ with politicians in order to make any impact.
I hope women do organize to fight misogyny in society - it's rife - but I'm skeptical of this transgender issue being the Rosa Parks for it. Love to be wrong though.
So what feminist issues do YOU wish to focus on once the GRR is confirmed as being defeated?
Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet is scary. There was nothing like that for Iraq or Afghanistan or any other recent war that Britain has been involved in.
So much for the separation of power. Perhaps that was always a poncy French idea anyway. Will the Supreme Court judges take a bow next?
"Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet"
Gosh.
If that isn't the worst concept for a porno ever, it will do until one comes along.
Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet is scary. There was nothing like that for Iraq or Afghanistan or any other recent war that Britain has been involved in.
So much for the separation of power. Perhaps that was always a poncy French idea anyway. Will the Supreme Court judges take a bow next?
"Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet"
Gosh.
If that isn't the worst concept for a porno ever, it will do until one comes along.
The best war porno since “Shaving Ryan’s Privates”?
(Don’t Google that title, it’s exactly what you think it is…)
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
Whilst people like you refuse to ever admit that there is ever anything awry. Nothing to apologise for.
I have lived with a Scot for 30 years. It would seem "sorry" is not a word north of the border. Instead, there is a third person in our marriage, myself, my wife - and the mysterious damage fairy, who has to take responsibility for all unexplained incidents that might otherwise point to the Good Lady Wife.
My wife never apologises for anything either (and why should she as she is infallible). And yet she isn't Scottish while I am. Go figure!
Does that mean that if I self ID as female, I will no longer need to apologise for anything?
Yes, that's right. And you will always put the toilet lid down.
Surely a true gentleman always does that anyway?
(I was persuaded on this point by by now-wife, who argued that - when we were a household of two - that there was a higher probability the next user would want the toilet seat down than up. I'm a sucker for - even postulative - statistical argument.)
Notorious Russian army captain and mercenary Igor Mangushev has died in hospital, days after he was shot in the head at close range in occupied Ukraine, his friends have said.
Mangushev's wife Tatyana described his killing as an execution.
He commanded an anti-drone unit in occupied Luhansk, but had also been one of the founders of a mercenary group fighting Ukrainian forces in 2014.
He took to a stage last summer holding a man's skull.
Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet is scary. There was nothing like that for Iraq or Afghanistan or any other recent war that Britain has been involved in.
So much for the separation of power. Perhaps that was always a poncy French idea anyway. Will the Supreme Court judges take a bow next?
The role of the Speaker of the House is to literally Speak for the House. Since the House is typically a forum for the cut and thrust of political debate and dissent, this often requires the Speaker to be neutral, but in the case of a war for freedom and democracy against tyranny and imperialism, then it is entirely appropriate for the Speaker to give voice to the united view of the House that it is on the side of freedom and against tyranny.
Bit easier for the Speaker to do this in this case, than when it meant giving the bad news to a tyrannical King, but I think Hoyle did everything that was required of him and wasn't wrong to express support for Ukraine.
Sunak's problem in Scotland - is it that levelling up comes across as too English? The general consensus about the need to boost economic performance outside the south east of England ought to find favour in Scotland but the flagship programme for this often seems more about providing pork barrel for Tory MPs. Of which there aren't many in Scotland.
It is also that any UK scheme that turns down a Scottish application gets extra 'teeth gritty' in the way it is portrayed. There was a desperate appeal on my LinkedIn feed the other day by The King's Theatre in Edinburgh, urgently asking for millions to plug a hole because 'our application for the UK Government's levelling up fund has been turned down' - the subtext being the scheming sassenachs out to do Scotland down (again). Deserving a cultural venue as The Kings is, it would be an odd version of 'levelling up' that included refurbishing Edinburgh theatres within its scope.
Er, that is uncalled for. Do I detect a smidgin of bias?
(I agree it doesn't make sense - in fact it is a poor substitute for failing to repatriate the relevant powers which should have gone to S, W and NI after Brexit under UK legislation. But you can't blame the theatre for asking. The theatre isn't interested in that.)
Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet is scary. There was nothing like that for Iraq or Afghanistan or any other recent war that Britain has been involved in.
So much for the separation of power. Perhaps that was always a poncy French idea anyway. Will the Supreme Court judges take a bow next?
"Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet"
Gosh.
If that isn't the worst concept for a porno ever, it will do until one comes along.
I am responsible for the worst concept for political porn back in 2016.
It led to far too many in Westminster thinking about David & Sam Cameron making home made porn.
What of David Cameron? With this [Brexit] referendum he must be feeling like the couple who agreed to make home made porn. It sounded like a good idea at the time, he thought it would be fun to do, but now as he sits back and views his production, he must be thinking this hasn’t turned out how he expected it to turn out, whilst regretting his initial decision and feeling a bit nauseous about it all.
This study argues that a new women's cooperative constellation has been established in Scotland around the issue of the Scottish Government's proposed reforms of the Gender Recognition Act. This constellation includes women politicians, researchers, journalists, writers, and activists from all sides of mainstream political opinion in Scotland. The constellation works together to support its politician members, share information and form a supportive community. The constellation acts together to show support for those in the public eye, such as politicians or members being publicly attacked, to make them aware they have ‘an army of women behind them’. The role social media plays has been an important one for the formation and continuance of the constellation, particularly during the pandemic. It has been game-changing in allowing women to identify each other, communicate, arrange to work together and show public support for others. It has also been important in raising awareness of the issues, both with politicians and the general public because, unlike previously identified constellations, this network has needed to generate broad public awareness and support because they have not been working as Government insiders. However, all interviewees were aware that it was not enough to engage in online activism and that they needed to be ‘in the room’ with politicians in order to make any impact.
I hope women do organize to fight misogyny in society - it's rife - but I'm skeptical of this transgender issue being the Rosa Parks for it. Love to be wrong though.
So what feminist issues do YOU wish to focus on once the GRR is confirmed as being defeated?
The GRR bill subject to amendment could be passed - I have sympathy for both trans people who find the current process too cumbersome and critics of self-ID who see it as too open to abuse.
One of the most important issues facing women as a whole is male violence - which is why the GRR Bill whipped up a perfect storm and why the SNP & Sturgeon were so foolish to ignore criticism.
"The bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline was a covert operation ordered by the White House and carried out by the CIA — The Times, citing investigative journalist Seymour Hersh"
I was, of course, nearly laughed off PB as a lunatic conspiracy theorist for daring to suggest this was a possibility last year.
Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet is scary. There was nothing like that for Iraq or Afghanistan or any other recent war that Britain has been involved in.
So much for the separation of power. Perhaps that was always a poncy French idea anyway. Will the Supreme Court judges take a bow next?
"Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet"
Gosh.
Imperfect command of idiomatic English one suspects….
Notorious Russian army captain and mercenary Igor Mangushev has died in hospital, days after he was shot in the head at close range in occupied Ukraine, his friends have said.
Mangushev's wife Tatyana described his killing as an execution.
He commanded an anti-drone unit in occupied Luhansk, but had also been one of the founders of a mercenary group fighting Ukrainian forces in 2014.
He took to a stage last summer holding a man's skull.
Notorious Russian army captain and mercenary Igor Mangushev has died in hospital, days after he was shot in the head at close range in occupied Ukraine, his friends have said.
Mangushev's wife Tatyana described his killing as an execution.
He commanded an anti-drone unit in occupied Luhansk, but had also been one of the founders of a mercenary group fighting Ukrainian forces in 2014.
He took to a stage last summer holding a man's skull.
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
Whilst people like you refuse to ever admit that there is ever anything awry. Nothing to apologise for.
I have lived with a Scot for 30 years. It would seem "sorry" is not a word north of the border. Instead, there is a third person in our marriage, myself, my wife - and the mysterious damage fairy, who has to take responsibility for all unexplained incidents that might otherwise point to the Good Lady Wife.
My wife never apologises for anything either (and why should she as she is infallible). And yet she isn't Scottish while I am. Go figure!
Does that mean that if I self ID as female, I will no longer need to apologise for anything?
Yes, that's right. And you will always put the toilet lid down.
Surely a true gentleman always does that anyway?
(I was persuaded on this point by by now-wife, who argued that - when we were a household of two - that there was a higher probability the next user would want the toilet seat down than up. I'm a sucker for - even postulative - statistical argument.)
Nah, that only works if she is referring to the middle ring bit. Putting the lid down conveniences no-one.
Best is lid up, ring bit down Second is lid up, ring bit up
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
A ... figment of your imagination?
I've literally never done that. Not only do I not like to do that, I've never pointed out dubious fellow travellers as I think it's a bloody stupid thing to do, as there are dubious people on all sides.
Dashed unsporting to quote a chap's own words back at him, but you literally said 'When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes', which is a lie. Now you can either accept that's a lie or do the expressed yourself badly thing. Oh, you can also jog on of course.
Improve your reading comprehension. 🙈
Yes I quite literally said that when you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that ...
I was criticising your opinion, not sharing it. Unless you are overtly sensitive and thought I was lumping you with the BNP, Trump, Infowars and assorted other troglodytes?
What opinion did I express that said that 'the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes'?
Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet is scary. There was nothing like that for Iraq or Afghanistan or any other recent war that Britain has been involved in.
So much for the separation of power. Perhaps that was always a poncy French idea anyway. Will the Supreme Court judges take a bow next?
"Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet"
Gosh.
Imperfect command of idiomatic English one suspects….
Like the man who didn't understand what was so funny about helping his Uncle Jack off a horse.
Surprised how many have an unfavourable opinion of Rishi. If it wasn't that he supported 'Leave' I would rate him as quite reasonable for a Tory. Light years less ghastly than Johnson and not nearly as arrogant as Truss
He is utterly useless though.
He's what people accused Starmer of being.
Absolutely. It’s amazing how quickly Roger has gone Tory isn’t it? He always told us he was a solid Lib Dem. The mask has well and truly slipped with that post, hasn’t it.
Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet is scary. There was nothing like that for Iraq or Afghanistan or any other recent war that Britain has been involved in.
So much for the separation of power. Perhaps that was always a poncy French idea anyway. Will the Supreme Court judges take a bow next?
"Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet"
Gosh.
If that isn't the worst concept for a porno ever, it will do until one comes along.
I am responsible for the worst concept for political porn back in 2016.
It led to far too many in Westminster thinking about David & Sam Cameron making home made porn.
What of David Cameron? With this [Brexit] referendum he must be feeling like the couple who agreed to make home made porn. It sounded like a good idea at the time, he thought it would be fun to do, but now as he sits back and views his production, he must be thinking this hasn’t turned out how he expected it to turn out, whilst regretting his initial decision and feeling a bit nauseous about it all.
There's always a danger that something you hope will be exciting but fundamentally soft ends up unwatchably hard.
Notorious Russian army captain and mercenary Igor Mangushev has died in hospital, days after he was shot in the head at close range in occupied Ukraine, his friends have said.
Mangushev's wife Tatyana described his killing as an execution.
He commanded an anti-drone unit in occupied Luhansk, but had also been one of the founders of a mercenary group fighting Ukrainian forces in 2014.
He took to a stage last summer holding a man's skull.
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
Whilst people like you refuse to ever admit that there is ever anything awry. Nothing to apologise for.
I have lived with a Scot for 30 years. It would seem "sorry" is not a word north of the border. Instead, there is a third person in our marriage, myself, my wife - and the mysterious damage fairy, who has to take responsibility for all unexplained incidents that might otherwise point to the Good Lady Wife.
My wife never apologises for anything either (and why should she as she is infallible). And yet she isn't Scottish while I am. Go figure!
Does that mean that if I self ID as female, I will no longer need to apologise for anything?
Yes, that's right. And you will always put the toilet lid down.
Surely a true gentleman always does that anyway?
(I was persuaded on this point by by now-wife, who argued that - when we were a household of two - that there was a higher probability the next user would want the toilet seat down than up. I'm a sucker for - even postulative - statistical argument.)
Nah, that only works if she is referring to the middle ring bit. Putting the lid down conveniences no-one.
Best is lid up, ring bit down Second is lid up, ring bit up
Have a word.
Flushing with lid up is a bad idea. Suitable lighting and a high speed camera will reveal why.
Once flushed you might as well leave the lid down, as getting it to the correct configuration for the next user takes only one movement in all cases and no effort is wasted.
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
Whilst people like you refuse to ever admit that there is ever anything awry. Nothing to apologise for.
I have lived with a Scot for 30 years. It would seem "sorry" is not a word north of the border. Instead, there is a third person in our marriage, myself, my wife - and the mysterious damage fairy, who has to take responsibility for all unexplained incidents that might otherwise point to the Good Lady Wife.
My wife never apologises for anything either (and why should she as she is infallible). And yet she isn't Scottish while I am. Go figure!
Does that mean that if I self ID as female, I will no longer need to apologise for anything?
Yes, that's right. And you will always put the toilet lid down.
Surely a true gentleman always does that anyway?
(I was persuaded on this point by by now-wife, who argued that - when we were a household of two - that there was a higher probability the next user would want the toilet seat down than up. I'm a sucker for - even postulative - statistical argument.)
Nah, that only works if she is referring to the middle ring bit. Putting the lid down conveniences no-one.
Best is lid up, ring bit down Second is lid up, ring bit up
Have a word.
Ah... No, the mistake is entirely in my (lack of) reading comprehension. Lid up, seat/ring bit down is indeed the agreed procedure in our household. My error, as usual, and my wife entirely blameless and correct, as usual.*
(Also, is "ring bit' slightly unfortunate terminology?" )
*well, in all honesty, more often than not, somewhat vexingly
The Premier League’s disciplinary case against Manchester City is likely to take between two and four years to be completed, according to one of Britain’s leading sports lawyers.
The Premier League announced on its website that the club have been charged with breaching 115 different regulations over 14 years from 2009/10 to this season.
Nick De Marco KC, who represented Mike Ashley in a lengthy legal case when he was trying to sell Newcastle United and who also defended Derby County and Sheffield Wednesday on financial fair play charges, said the number of charges facing City and the length of time they cover made the case incredibly complex. He believes the process will take between two and four years.
De Marco said: “Having worked on the Derby County and Sheffield Wednesday financial fair play cases, both of which involved two charges over about two years and took about a year and a half from charges to the end, I would not be surprised if these proceedings took considerably longer given there are apparently 115 charges covering a period of 14 years.”
Strange that Sturgeon - very able as she is - should stumble over a couple of things much less gifted people would avoid.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
That’s the point Salmond was making on WATO yesterday - why pick a fight with Westminster over this, rather than, for example, something Europe related which could be tied in with the economy/cost of living?
Why are we ruling out that she wants to deliver a longstanding commitment that she also believes in?
Comes under an increasing reluctance to assume ANY good faith in the motives of one's opponents.
Which you both clearly demonstrate yourselves.
I mean the reason the move was opposed was not because people might be concerned about say convicted male rapists being allowed into women's prisons but because such people wanted to create a culture war, have a wedge issue, play dirty politics.
there is more of that on the anti (GRR) side than the pro.
Which of the concerns about the GRR Bill raised by its critics (and dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”) have proved not to be?
Well the bill hasn't passed so one can't really say. We need to look at what's happened in countries - Ireland being the closest to home - where similar HAS been done. What we certainly do seem to have in Scotland is an issue with risk assessment for prisons. Are you claiming that this specific recent case shows that all the fears raised - no more single sex spaces, women's rights destroyed, floodgates opened for predatory men to gain GRCs for nefarious purposes, end of sex as a biological concept etc etc - are rational and justified? If you are I think that's a stretch.
You claimed that critics were more driving the issue as a “wedge issue” but have no evidence - so now retreat behind “the bill hasn’t passed”. I ask again, where is the evidence that critics were driven by trying to create a wedge, or were their concerns “not valid” to quote Sturgeon?
Claiming it’s a “wedge issue” is another tactic to delegitimise your opponents views - which is why they weren’t listened to, which is why it’s in the mess it’s in. If you really were interested in trans rights you’d have listened.
Good to know that Alistair McConnachie of UK A Force For Good, Joseph Finnie ex BNP and Fox regular Andy Ngo supported the Let Women Speak rally on Sunday to show their concerns rather than use it as a wedge issue.
So mandatory fox hunting and animal cruelty? Mustn't support a cause that the Hugo Boss fashionistas like....
Yeah, you’ve tried that lumbering zinger before. The point attempting to be made was that this was not being used as a wedge issue in a culture war. I’ll add you to the list of credulous folk who think that.
I am rather taken aback by the resistance we are encountering on this one.
"Ok, listen up peeps, how can we use this Transgender thing to peel away votes from the other side?"
Can there seriously be any doubt that the above is playing out far more in Tory brainstorming sessions than in those of LAB/LD/SNP?
If we can't win this argument on here we might as well give up and put the kettle on.
When you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that the only people who are on the other side are the "BNP", "Trump", "InfoWars" and assorted other troglodytes then yes its certainly possible and there certainly is doubt.
Of course it shouldn't be playing out in any such sessions for any party and instead the legitimate concerns of both sides should be listened to, but the two of you in particular are never in any mood for that, hence the desire to mock everyone who disagrees as being a "wedge" or "InfoWars" instead of listening to their very valid concerns.
That's what people like you do, characterise a pointing out of dubious fellow travellers as saying they are 'the only people who are on the other side', which is lying, which makes you a...?
Whilst people like you refuse to ever admit that there is ever anything awry. Nothing to apologise for.
I have lived with a Scot for 30 years. It would seem "sorry" is not a word north of the border. Instead, there is a third person in our marriage, myself, my wife - and the mysterious damage fairy, who has to take responsibility for all unexplained incidents that might otherwise point to the Good Lady Wife.
My wife never apologises for anything either (and why should she as she is infallible). And yet she isn't Scottish while I am. Go figure!
Does that mean that if I self ID as female, I will no longer need to apologise for anything?
Yes, that's right. And you will always put the toilet lid down.
Surely a true gentleman always does that anyway?
(I was persuaded on this point by by now-wife, who argued that - when we were a household of two - that there was a higher probability the next user would want the toilet seat down than up. I'm a sucker for - even postulative - statistical argument.)
Nah, that only works if she is referring to the middle ring bit. Putting the lid down conveniences no-one.
Best is lid up, ring bit down Second is lid up, ring bit up
Have a word.
Flushing with lid up is a bad idea. Suitable lighting and a high speed camera will reveal why.
Once flushed you might as well leave the lid down, as getting it to the correct configuration for the next user takes only one movement in all cases and no effort is wasted.
The breach of the Western 4th Generation jet fighter taboo seems to be in progress.
There are a lot of unhappy power people in DC, Paris & Berlin over this development.…
Hopefully the UK government will make those people even more unhappy by adding a couple dozen Storm Shadow cruise missiles for these Eurofighters to launch at high priority Russian logistical targets inside Ukraine's 1991 borders.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited Britain to drum up aid, winning a pledge to train Ukrainian pilots on advanced NATO fighter jets, a big symbolic step up in Western military support https://reut.rs/3YCwaDB
The Premier League’s disciplinary case against Manchester City is likely to take between two and four years to be completed, according to one of Britain’s leading sports lawyers.
The Premier League announced on its website that the club have been charged with breaching 115 different regulations over 14 years from 2009/10 to this season.
Nick De Marco KC, who represented Mike Ashley in a lengthy legal case when he was trying to sell Newcastle United and who also defended Derby County and Sheffield Wednesday on financial fair play charges, said the number of charges facing City and the length of time they cover made the case incredibly complex. He believes the process will take between two and four years.
De Marco said: “Having worked on the Derby County and Sheffield Wednesday financial fair play cases, both of which involved two charges over about two years and took about a year and a half from charges to the end, I would not be surprised if these proceedings took considerably longer given there are apparently 115 charges covering a period of 14 years.”
O/T: John Cleese says Fawlty Towers couldn't be made today. Good thing too. The way the Spanish character Manuel is written and related to by other characters is disgustingly racist.
A typical laugh with Manuel: he doesn't know English properly, he says "Que" in Spanish when he doesn't understand something, and - haha - here's his tall English employer whopping him around the head. As if Basil doesn't have enough problems!
PS Agreeing with the above does not suggest support for allowing rapists into women's changing rooms just because they've decided to call themselves women.
I don't think the snobbery and middle class angst about loss of status would be recognisable these days. Most comedy dates quite swiftly.
Perhaps he could make a series about the middle class angst about loss of comic chops instead.
Lindsay Hoyle's public fondling of Volodymyr Zelensky's helmet is scary. There was nothing like that for Iraq or Afghanistan or any other recent war that Britain has been involved in.
So much for the separation of power. Perhaps that was always a poncy French idea anyway. Will the Supreme Court judges take a bow next?
Thoughts and prayers for you today.
Not understanding the role of the Speaker in the House of Commons... Time for some re-education, eh?
The Beggar King is in a Ford Galaxy on the M11 so pb's 101st Chairborne will be getting excited over that providing a welcome change from the trans shit and HS2 minutiae very soon.
We - and Russia to, for that matter - are a nation that survived WWII only because of US aid, so it's a bit charmless to get sniffy about someone else in a comparable situation.
So the Russian nation would have ceased to exist during WW2 had it not been for US aid? What a loony.
PS Would it be gazetted somewhere if Johnson were to receive his US citizenship back, or is it only renunciations that get publicly noted?
PPS Some Ford Galaxies from the mid-noughties had front seats that could turn round and face the back. Now that's what I call a cool car.
The Germans made it to the Moscow suburbs in WWII. It doesn't take much changes to the timeline to them making it a bit further...
For example, the US and UK provided *all* the hi octane aviation gasoline for the USSR. It was only postwar that they got their cracking plants lined up to make it.
Vast amount of machine tools - in some categories, 100% of the tools and 100% of the tooling was Lendlease supplied. Without that, Soviet production would have crawled to a halt.
And so on in many categories - the % of USSR GDP was small, but LendLease was about supplying materials and equipment they were short of. Or literally didn't have.
The fall of Moscow, or even of both Moscow and Leningrad as it then was, would not in itself have come anywhere near making the Soviet government seek to agree terms with Germany. More than 1000 large factories were shipped eastwards. The USSR would certainly have continued fighting. Sure, they could have been defeated but the fall of Moscow wouldn't have done for them.
Do you regret that the USA and Britain gave such substantial assistance to their Soviet ally during WW2/the GPW? Or is it a very different Germany now but a very similar Russia, so western policy was good then (fight with Russia against Germany) and western policy is also good now (pointing towards fighting with Germany against Russia this time round)?
Stalin was evil, but less evil than Hitler.
"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference of the Devil in the House of Commons."
So here's the thing - I am less sure of this than I used to be. Hitler evil, absolutely. He started the war that saw millions dead and initiated the holocaust.
But how many did Stalin kill? The famine in Ukraine, the gulags, the show trials, all of it. Why does Uncle Joe get a pass to be less evil than Hitler?
The main distinction I would draw would be that Stalin came to power in the USSR on a platform of "Socialism in one country" - a recognition that the attempt to spread communist revolution to the rest of the world had failed, and there was a need for the Bolsheviks to consolidate their power within their borders.
By contrast, the core of Hitler's ideology was the idea of the German need for Lebensraum, and consequently aggressive military expansion.
Bluntly, Stalin was content to kill people within his borders, while Hitler sought to kill people in the lands outside Germany's borders. The latter is more dangerous than the former.
This distinction might be more a consequence of the different levels of capability than ideology, but it's also true that the strong evil guy is more of a threat than the weak evil guy.
The question wasn't who was more dangerous it was about who was more evil.
Comments
A typical laugh with Manuel: he doesn't know English properly, he says "Que" in Spanish when he doesn't understand something, and - haha - here's his tall English employer whopping him around the head. As if Basil doesn't have enough problems!
PS Agreeing with the above does not suggest support for allowing rapists into women's changing rooms just because they've decided to call themselves women.
Hitler, however, was a much greater direct threat to Britain in the 30s and early 40s than Stalin. That was more important than who was the most evil.
But how many did Stalin kill? The famine in Ukraine, the gulags, the show trials, all of it. Why does Uncle Joe get a pass to be less evil than Hitler?
Communism (aside from all that eradication of the upper and middle classes stuff that often gets conveniently paved over) dines out more on its desire for a utopian society.
In reality however give a dictator enough control and they’ll perpetrate atrocity no matter what ideology sits behind them.
I have lived with a Scot for 30 years. It would seem "sorry" is not a word north of the border. Instead, there is a third person in our marriage, myself, my wife - and the mysterious damage fairy, who has to take responsibility for all unexplained incidents that might otherwise point to the Good Lady Wife.
Can't see what is wrong with how the receptionist handled it to be honest. They said twice upfront they were unsure if and when it would be signed, so it is unsurprising the follow up questions did not produce the answer desired.
It is not the receptionists job to commit a doctor to signing something they have not seen and may not be appropriate to share with an employer.
C (who has 2000 patients, each of whom may be in this position in multiple ways) is already spending all day checking that 2 year olds don't have sepsis, meningitis, pneumonia and scarlet fever, and organising blood tests for people who would once have been dead - me for example.
I sympathise with C and C's receptionist. If A is serious A should organise and pay for a proper medical.
The Germans were far more modern, implementing the latest killing technologies in disposing of their millions. They made much more of an effort to be efficiently evil.
What a change it will make not to have anyone from Russia in the royal enclosure at Ascot this year.
Remind me who owns the Evening Standard and the Independent. A traitor? An enemy agent? Or someone who bravely chose the side of goodness and propriety and that's all there is to it?
But they weren't wrong. We give the Soviets in the 1930s and 1940s a massive 'free pass' because they helped us fight the Nazis.
I'm not convinced Stalin was less evil either......
By contrast, the core of Hitler's ideology was the idea of the German need for Lebensraum, and consequently aggressive military expansion.
Bluntly, Stalin was content to kill people within his borders, while Hitler sought to kill people in the lands outside Germany's borders. The latter is more dangerous than the former.
This distinction might be more a consequence of the different levels of capability than ideology, but it's also true that the strong evil guy is more of a threat than the weak evil guy.
https://twitter.com/danneidle/status/1623333868139909121
https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/scot.2022.0394
I've literally never done that. Not only do I not like to do that, I've never pointed out dubious fellow travellers as I think it's a bloody stupid thing to do, as there are dubious people on all sides.
Awful polling for Scot Gov on gender row
50% of Scots say UK Gov *should* have blocked gender bill vs 33% saying it *should not* have
Framing of Q also seems favourable to Scot Gov. ie no mention of self-ID, age cut to 16. In past polling, specifics elicited high opposition
https://twitter.com/ChrisMusson/status/1623354970924847104
Too often (as an accountant) we are asked by a bank to sign something for a client. To say things like, "The client has sacks of money and will definitely pay back the loan. If they don't, then we (the accountant) will owe you lots of cash instead because we said they were great and they're not."
It's the bank not willing or wanting to do due diligence and instead hand over risk to someone else. Either they lend the money or they don't. They shouldn't drag third parties into this.
Same with the employer and your daughter. To me, it smacks of the employer not really wanting to give her the job anyway.
What if your daughter replied with, "The doctor will not sign it."
What would they do? Ring candidate number 2? What if their doctor won't sign it?
"Me too"
Now you can either accept that's a lie or do the expressed yourself badly thing.
Oh, you can also jog on of course.
We got upset with Hitler because he started killing other country's people.
But just kill your own..... well, no one's bothered by that.....
“Sorry to hear that, your majesty”
Not sure Poles et al. would agree Stalin 'only' killed his own people.
Jared O'Mara has been found guilty of six counts of fraud over expenses claims made while he was in office in 2019.
The former Sheffield Hallam MP was on trial at Leeds Crown Court for submitting fake invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to fund a cocaine habit.
He was convicted on Wednesday of six counts of fraud by false representation. The jury cleared him of two other fraud charges.
Gareth Arnold, a co-defendant, was found guilty of three out of six fraud charges, and a third defendant, John Woodliff, was found not guilty of one offence of fraud.
O'Mara and Arnold will be sentenced at the same court on Thursday.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/02/08/jared-omara-guilty-six-counts-expenses-fraud-cocaine-habit/
That said, having reflected, I think one can say that Hitler was a notch more evil than Stalin, because Hitler's intent with the Holocaust was to eradicate the Jewish people, and while there was a programme of Russification within the USSR, and particular ethnic groups like the Crimean Tartars were particularly targeted, the single-minded and ideological pursuit of the destruction of the Jewish people was, I think, on a distinctly more evil level.
The only person more proud should be Nick Clegg, who was somehow defeated by this moron.
Yes I quite literally said that when you and @Theuniondivvie are of the opinion that ...
I was criticising your opinion, not sharing it. Unless you are overtly sensitive and thought I was lumping you with the BNP, Trump, Infowars and assorted other troglodytes?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_plot
"The bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline was a covert operation ordered by the White House and carried out by the CIA — The Times, citing investigative journalist Seymour Hersh"
Looks like we have found another flaw in self-id.
But the team said on Wednesday that it had suspended its criminal investigation because of insufficient evidence and immunity privileges that prevent new prosecutions in the crash of Flight MH17, which killed all 298 people aboard.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/world/europe/putin-flight-mh17-missile.html
So much for the separation of power. Perhaps that was always a poncy French idea anyway. Will the Supreme Court judges take a bow next?
Notorious Russian army captain and mercenary Igor Mangushev has died in hospital, days after he was shot in the head at close range in occupied Ukraine, his friends have said.
Mangushev's wife Tatyana described his killing as an execution.
He commanded an anti-drone unit in occupied Luhansk, but had also been one of the founders of a mercenary group fighting Ukrainian forces in 2014.
He took to a stage last summer holding a man's skull.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64566582
Gosh.
So what feminist issues do YOU wish to focus on once the GRR is confirmed as being defeated?
(Don’t Google that title, it’s exactly what you think it is…)
(I was persuaded on this point by by now-wife, who argued that - when we were a household of two - that there was a higher probability the next user would want the toilet seat down than up. I'm a sucker for - even postulative - statistical argument.)
Bit easier for the Speaker to do this in this case, than when it meant giving the bad news to a tyrannical King, but I think Hoyle did everything that was required of him and wasn't wrong to express support for Ukraine.
The theatre is 100% correct, full marks, nem con.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/levelling-up-projects-in-scotland-awarded-177-million
(I agree it doesn't make sense - in fact it is a poor substitute for failing to repatriate the relevant powers which should have gone to S, W and NI after Brexit under UK legislation. But you can't blame the theatre for asking. The theatre isn't interested in that.)
It led to far too many in Westminster thinking about David & Sam Cameron making home made porn.
What of David Cameron? With this [Brexit] referendum he must be feeling like the couple who agreed to make home made porn. It sounded like a good idea at the time, he thought it would be fun to do, but now as he sits back and views his production, he must be thinking this hasn’t turned out how he expected it to turn out, whilst regretting his initial decision and feeling a bit nauseous about it all.
One of the most important issues facing women as a whole is male violence - which is why the GRR Bill whipped up a perfect storm and why the SNP & Sturgeon were so foolish to ignore criticism.
Agreed that Windsor Davies applies.
Best is lid up, ring bit down
Second is lid up, ring bit up
Have a word.
Or so I've heard
https://twitter.com/PistolRick/status/1622606193481994240?s=20&t=BBUZCtw2Bx6v8E5xGXu4wg
Once flushed you might as well leave the lid down, as getting it to the correct configuration for the next user takes only one movement in all cases and no effort is wasted.
(Also, is "ring bit' slightly unfortunate terminology?"
*well, in all honesty, more often than not, somewhat vexingly
The Premier League announced on its website that the club have been charged with breaching 115 different regulations over 14 years from 2009/10 to this season.
Nick De Marco KC, who represented Mike Ashley in a lengthy legal case when he was trying to sell Newcastle United and who also defended Derby County and Sheffield Wednesday on financial fair play charges, said the number of charges facing City and the length of time they cover made the case incredibly complex. He believes the process will take between two and four years.
De Marco said: “Having worked on the Derby County and Sheffield Wednesday financial fair play cases, both of which involved two charges over about two years and took about a year and a half from charges to the end, I would not be surprised if these proceedings took considerably longer given there are apparently 115 charges covering a period of 14 years.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/case-against-manchester-city-for-financial-breaches-could-take-four-years-tfpb7wnhf
There are a lot of unhappy power people in DC, Paris & Berlin over this development.…
Hopefully the UK government will make those people even more unhappy by adding a couple dozen Storm Shadow cruise missiles for these Eurofighters to launch at high priority Russian logistical targets inside Ukraine's 1991 borders.
https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1623362923153264649
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited Britain to drum up aid, winning a pledge to train Ukrainian pilots on advanced NATO fighter jets, a big symbolic step up in Western military support https://reut.rs/3YCwaDB
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1623358745945247745