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Memo to the “Bring Back Boris” brigade – politicalbetting.com

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  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,311
    edited May 2023

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    I wondered whether news that Boris has brought a house in Oxford could be a sign he's expecting to lose Uxbridge and South Ruislip either after being recalled following the Commons Privileges committee report or at Election 24 - And is eyeing up a nice, safe Conservative seat in rural Oxfordshire?

    Quite possibly. Uxbridge is in the top 100 Labour target seats and will almost certainly go Labour on current polls.

    However Henley is not ultra safe Tory now either, on May 4th. Indeed the LDs won a landslide victory in South Oxfordshire on 4th May winning 21 seats while the Tories collapsed to just 1 councillor.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2023/england/councils/E07000179

    Even somewhere like Walsall or Dudley or Basildon or Dartford where the Tories held control of the council this month would be safer for Boris now than Henley (albeit less posh and glamorous)
    A friend lives in Brightwell (the Oxfordshire village where Boris is heading) and says there are indeed extensive preparations being made, not least a police car that drives up and down all day - inevitable, I suppose. The culture of the area is very LibDem - prosperous, nice, well-educated and socially liberal. Not naturally populist, as HYUFD says - don't know if Henley is different,
    Yes, it is very Remainery. Boris would be taking a huge risk going to Henley again. It voted for him when he was nice, socially and economically liberal cuddly Cameroon Boris, it will be much less likely to back populist, pro hard Brexit Boris and like much of the home counties the LDs play the NIMBY card there well too
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,297

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    An interesting extension of the free speech argument.

    Abbott knocks Dominion over Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4003679-abbott-knocks-dominion-over-tucker-carlsons-departure-from-fox-news/
    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) bashed Dominion Voting Systems over the departure of Tucker Carlson from Fox News, following a report that the popular conservative primetime host was fired from the network as part of its settlement with the voting software company.
    Carlson was told by a member of the network’s board of directors that he was taken off the air as part of the Fox News settlement with Dominion, according to Axios, which cited unidentified sources briefed on the conversations. Abbott said if the reporting was true, then he is “happy that Dominion does not operate in Texas.”
    “We may disagree with other’s positions, but we should never try to improperly silence views contrary to our own,” Abbott said on Twitter on Saturday. “If Dominion wants to do business with Texas in the future, they should first answer questions about what role, if any, they played in silencing a prominent conservative journalist.”
    A Fox News spokesperson in a statement to Axios said that the idea that Carlson was let go of as part of the settlement was “categorically false.” An attorney for Dominion also told the news outlet that it did not insist on Carlson being fired...

    Tucker intends to subpoena every internal email and memo from both sides, with regard to the Fox/Dominion case, he’s convinced there was a quid pro quo to fire him as part of the settlement.
    Dominion (and specifically their PE owners) only care about making money. All they really want is an agreement from Fox to never question their voting machines integrity.
    You sure that $700m wasn’t something they quite liked as well?
    Sorry, I should have said "in addition to the $700m, all they really want is..."

    It would be interesting to discover at what price PE got into Dominion.
    $38m for a 76% stake

    Almost as good as Denis Ribon buying 90% of PolyPlus for $10m and then selling it 6 years later for $2.7bn
    Wow.

    They really lucked out.
  • El_CapitanoEl_Capitano Posts: 4,238

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    I wondered whether news that Boris has brought a house in Oxford could be a sign he's expecting to lose Uxbridge and South Ruislip either after being recalled following the Commons Privileges committee report or at Election 24 - And is eyeing up a nice, safe Conservative seat in rural Oxfordshire?

    Quite possibly. Uxbridge is in the top 100 Labour target seats and will almost certainly go Labour on current polls.

    However Henley is not ultra safe Tory now either, on May 4th. Indeed the LDs won a landslide victory in South Oxfordshire on 4th May winning 21 seats while the Tories collapsed to just 1 councillor.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2023/england/councils/E07000179

    Even somewhere like Walsall or Dudley or Basildon or Dartford where the Tories held control of the council this month would be safer for Boris now than Henley (albeit less posh and glamorous)
    A friend lives in Brightwell (the Oxfordshire village where Boris is heading) and says there are indeed extensive preparations being made, not least a police car that drives up and down all day - inevitable, I suppose. The culture of the area is very LibDem - prosperous, nice, well-educated and socially liberal. Not naturally populist, as HYUFD says - don't know if Henley is different,
    Yes, the Henley constituency is broadly like that. Thame and Henley are the two largest towns. John Howell (current MP and, as such, Johnson's successor) has a comfortable majority but is not particularly liked. If the LibDems throw resources into the constituency they have a chance of taking it; if the candidate is Johnson, even more so.

    Expect to see this bar-chart used repeatedly over the next few years:


  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 7,880
    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @jonsopel

    Don’t want to go over the top, but this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Someone who was in the cabinet when legislation on voter ID was agreed and went through parliament acknowledges it WAS an attempt to gerrymander the elections

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1658076536350601216

    Said at the conference of loons.
    Which appears to be taking some of its themes from the US right.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/low-birthrate-is-uk-top-priority-tory-mp-tells-rightwing-conference-miriam-cates
    ...The UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, a Conservative MP has argued at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.

    Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction..
    The whole purpose of this well funded conference is to import the craziness of the US right into UK politics. See also recent attempts to rig the franchise (which a former Tory cabinet minister has admitted was gerrymandering). The Tories are utterly toxic now.
    Nearly as toxic as Starmer wanting to extend the franchise to children and foreigners. What next, let’s just let anyone in the UK on holiday vote in the election?

    I say this only slightly in jest, but am quite confident of a serious backlash against the proposals in polling.
    Although those who were opposed to the Tories introducing voter ID seem very supportive of widening the franchise to include additional people they think will vote for the left. Funny that.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,580
    Scott_xP said:

    I suppose the big question about BoZo's new house is whether Carrie gets it in the divorce...

    I doubt any part of it will be effectively mortgage free. Her best bet is to hang on with Baron Greenback until house price inflation has increased the value enough to cash in her share on a nice flat in Carlton Terrace, although that may be a while away
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,297
    Cookie said:

    Farooq said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @jonsopel

    Don’t want to go over the top, but this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Someone who was in the cabinet when legislation on voter ID was agreed and went through parliament acknowledges it WAS an attempt to gerrymander the elections

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1658076536350601216

    Said at the conference of loons.
    Which appears to be taking some of its themes from the US right.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/low-birthrate-is-uk-top-priority-tory-mp-tells-rightwing-conference-miriam-cates
    ...The UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, a Conservative MP has argued at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.

    Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction..
    Weirdly, the birth rate in the USSR fell precipitously at the time that actual Marxism ended there.

    I do wonder what this "cultural Marxism" is. Often people use that as code for "the Jews", but in this case I suspect not since Jews tend to have similar numbers of children as Christians.

    Perhaps "cultural Marxism" is, in this case, a cipher for insecure accommodation and zero-hours contracts?
    That's called capitalism.
    Cultural Marxism tends to be a synonym for wokery.

    And there are few more keen to lay the evils of the world at the door of cultural Marxism and/or wokery than me.

    But I don't think we can pin it specifically for falling birthrates. There are many, many reasons but I'd say #1 of them is the difficulty the breeding-age cohort have in owning a house.
    I'm sure it's a contributory factor, but the UK's birthrate is pretty good by developed world standards, despite some of the highest home prices.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,558
    HYUFD said:

    Cookie said:

    Farooq said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @jonsopel

    Don’t want to go over the top, but this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Someone who was in the cabinet when legislation on voter ID was agreed and went through parliament acknowledges it WAS an attempt to gerrymander the elections

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1658076536350601216

    Said at the conference of loons.
    Which appears to be taking some of its themes from the US right.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/low-birthrate-is-uk-top-priority-tory-mp-tells-rightwing-conference-miriam-cates
    ...The UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, a Conservative MP has argued at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.

    Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction..
    Weirdly, the birth rate in the USSR fell precipitously at the time that actual Marxism ended there.

    I do wonder what this "cultural Marxism" is. Often people use that as code for "the Jews", but in this case I suspect not since Jews tend to have similar numbers of children as Christians.

    Perhaps "cultural Marxism" is, in this case, a cipher for insecure accommodation and zero-hours contracts?
    That's called capitalism.
    Cultural Marxism tends to be a synonym for wokery.

    And there are few more keen to lay the evils of the world at the door of cultural Marxism and/or wokery than me.

    But I don't think we can pin it specifically for falling birthrates. There are many, many reasons but I'd say #1 of them is the difficulty the breeding-age cohort have in owning a house.
    In part yes, we need more new affordable homes and to defy NIMBYs. However the decline in religion amongst under 50s, certainly white British under 50s as well as declining marriage rates and lack of tax support for stay at home mums are also issues plus student debt
    I'm not remotely religious, I am woke AF, my wife works, and yet we have three children. You don't think that perhaps the fact we can afford a 5 bedroom house in inner London might be a key factor here?
    (We are also trying to do our bit for the Great Replacement but don't tell anyone).
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 53,515
    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    An interesting extension of the free speech argument.

    Abbott knocks Dominion over Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4003679-abbott-knocks-dominion-over-tucker-carlsons-departure-from-fox-news/
    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) bashed Dominion Voting Systems over the departure of Tucker Carlson from Fox News, following a report that the popular conservative primetime host was fired from the network as part of its settlement with the voting software company.
    Carlson was told by a member of the network’s board of directors that he was taken off the air as part of the Fox News settlement with Dominion, according to Axios, which cited unidentified sources briefed on the conversations. Abbott said if the reporting was true, then he is “happy that Dominion does not operate in Texas.”
    “We may disagree with other’s positions, but we should never try to improperly silence views contrary to our own,” Abbott said on Twitter on Saturday. “If Dominion wants to do business with Texas in the future, they should first answer questions about what role, if any, they played in silencing a prominent conservative journalist.”
    A Fox News spokesperson in a statement to Axios said that the idea that Carlson was let go of as part of the settlement was “categorically false.” An attorney for Dominion also told the news outlet that it did not insist on Carlson being fired...

    Tucker intends to subpoena every internal email and memo from both sides, with regard to the Fox/Dominion case, he’s convinced there was a quid pro quo to fire him as part of the settlement.
    Dominion (and specifically their PE owners) only care about making money. All they really want is an agreement from Fox to never question their voting machines integrity.
    Of course. But Tucker is hoping to find an email somewhere, that says, or at least alludes, to him being fired as part of the settlement.

    He has a contract with Fox until the end of 2024, and they appear to be intending to throw lawyers at keeping him silent until after the election.

    The one thing he has, is his own Twitter account, and now it looks like Twitter is about to fast-track their video offering to get him as a platform exclusive.
    It will be interesting to see if Tucker is able to make Twitter work.

    My guess, for what it's worth, is that Tucker could build a great business on YouTube.

    But Twitter will be a much harder proposition for two reasons:

    (1) Twitter knows shit about its users, and therefore makes bugger all off advertising to them. (And Musk fired the team responsible for entering into partnerships with other sites to increase their visibility into their users.)

    (2) Twitter isn't on any smart TVs. It's perfectly possible for Tucker's customer base to hit the button on their TV and play YouTube videos. It's much harder (if at all possible) for him to do that with Twitter.

    Tucker could never build a business on YouTube. He’d be immediately demonetised, as have been Steven Crowder and Glenn Beck, with random videos deleted for random reasons.

    Yes, Twitter needs to develop the platform in the way that YouTube have. There’s a feeling that their new management understands this.

    There’s also the contract that Tucker has with Fox, that allegedly mentions Youtube but not Twitter - which leaves him with little choice. Fox could tie him up in litigation and injunctions running past the election, so Twitter is his only option.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,311
    edited May 2023

    HYUFD said:

    Cookie said:

    Farooq said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @jonsopel

    Don’t want to go over the top, but this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Someone who was in the cabinet when legislation on voter ID was agreed and went through parliament acknowledges it WAS an attempt to gerrymander the elections

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1658076536350601216

    Said at the conference of loons.
    Which appears to be taking some of its themes from the US right.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/low-birthrate-is-uk-top-priority-tory-mp-tells-rightwing-conference-miriam-cates
    ...The UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, a Conservative MP has argued at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.

    Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction..
    Weirdly, the birth rate in the USSR fell precipitously at the time that actual Marxism ended there.

    I do wonder what this "cultural Marxism" is. Often people use that as code for "the Jews", but in this case I suspect not since Jews tend to have similar numbers of children as Christians.

    Perhaps "cultural Marxism" is, in this case, a cipher for insecure accommodation and zero-hours contracts?
    That's called capitalism.
    Cultural Marxism tends to be a synonym for wokery.

    And there are few more keen to lay the evils of the world at the door of cultural Marxism and/or wokery than me.

    But I don't think we can pin it specifically for falling birthrates. There are many, many reasons but I'd say #1 of them is the difficulty the breeding-age cohort have in owning a house.
    In part yes, we need more new affordable homes and to defy NIMBYs. However the decline in religion amongst under 50s, certainly white British under 50s as well as declining marriage rates and lack of tax support for stay at home mums are also issues plus student debt
    I'm not remotely religious, I am woke AF, my wife works, and yet we have three children. You don't think that perhaps the fact we can afford a 5 bedroom house in inner London might be a key factor here?
    (We are also trying to do our bit for the Great Replacement but don't tell anyone).
    You may be an exception, though I also agree we need to get more 30 to 40 year olds property owners by building new housing but on average the more religious you are the more likely you are to have children and above average numbers of children too
    https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/news/religious-people-have-more-children
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/religious-belief-makes-you-have-more-children-gttxqqxvx
    https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/gods-little-rabbits-religious-people-out-reproduce-secular-ones-by-a-landslide/
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 21,158
    Farooq said:

    ...Politics is non-commutative...

    Yup

  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,580

    It’s funny how JRM is no longer seen as a lying toerag now that he says something that is useful to his former accusers

    The stopped clock effect can apply to lying toerags too.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 69,050
    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @jonsopel

    Don’t want to go over the top, but this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Someone who was in the cabinet when legislation on voter ID was agreed and went through parliament acknowledges it WAS an attempt to gerrymander the elections

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1658076536350601216

    Said at the conference of loons.
    Which appears to be taking some of its themes from the US right.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/low-birthrate-is-uk-top-priority-tory-mp-tells-rightwing-conference-miriam-cates
    ...The UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, a Conservative MP has argued at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.

    Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction..
    How does she explain the fact that birth rates are low in all developed countries, whether you have a left wing or right wing government?
    She's a loon.
    Explanations are for ordinary folk.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 69,050

    One less Brexiteer for the Beeb to get on QT or Newsnight. I couldn't even be arsed with a sardonic 'vaguely credible'.




    "I voted for the current mess, but don't expect me to stick around."
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,297
    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    An interesting extension of the free speech argument.

    Abbott knocks Dominion over Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4003679-abbott-knocks-dominion-over-tucker-carlsons-departure-from-fox-news/
    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) bashed Dominion Voting Systems over the departure of Tucker Carlson from Fox News, following a report that the popular conservative primetime host was fired from the network as part of its settlement with the voting software company.
    Carlson was told by a member of the network’s board of directors that he was taken off the air as part of the Fox News settlement with Dominion, according to Axios, which cited unidentified sources briefed on the conversations. Abbott said if the reporting was true, then he is “happy that Dominion does not operate in Texas.”
    “We may disagree with other’s positions, but we should never try to improperly silence views contrary to our own,” Abbott said on Twitter on Saturday. “If Dominion wants to do business with Texas in the future, they should first answer questions about what role, if any, they played in silencing a prominent conservative journalist.”
    A Fox News spokesperson in a statement to Axios said that the idea that Carlson was let go of as part of the settlement was “categorically false.” An attorney for Dominion also told the news outlet that it did not insist on Carlson being fired...

    Tucker intends to subpoena every internal email and memo from both sides, with regard to the Fox/Dominion case, he’s convinced there was a quid pro quo to fire him as part of the settlement.
    Dominion (and specifically their PE owners) only care about making money. All they really want is an agreement from Fox to never question their voting machines integrity.
    Of course. But Tucker is hoping to find an email somewhere, that says, or at least alludes, to him being fired as part of the settlement.

    He has a contract with Fox until the end of 2024, and they appear to be intending to throw lawyers at keeping him silent until after the election.

    The one thing he has, is his own Twitter account, and now it looks like Twitter is about to fast-track their video offering to get him as a platform exclusive.
    It will be interesting to see if Tucker is able to make Twitter work.

    My guess, for what it's worth, is that Tucker could build a great business on YouTube.

    But Twitter will be a much harder proposition for two reasons:

    (1) Twitter knows shit about its users, and therefore makes bugger all off advertising to them. (And Musk fired the team responsible for entering into partnerships with other sites to increase their visibility into their users.)

    (2) Twitter isn't on any smart TVs. It's perfectly possible for Tucker's customer base to hit the button on their TV and play YouTube videos. It's much harder (if at all possible) for him to do that with Twitter.

    Tucker could never build a business on YouTube. He’d be immediately demonetised, as have been Steven Crowder and Glenn Beck, with random videos deleted for random reasons.

    Yes, Twitter needs to develop the platform in the way that YouTube have. There’s a feeling that their new management understands this.

    There’s also the contract that Tucker has with Fox, that allegedly mentions Youtube but not Twitter - which leaves him with little choice. Fox could tie him up in litigation and injunctions running past the election, so Twitter is his only option.
    They're running late to the game: can Elon build relationships with Samsung and LG? And build a really good video distribution app for Smart TVs/Roku/etc?

    And how will they monetize well? Google knows *everything* about you. Apple knows a lot. Twitter knows nothing.

    Twitter is in the very difficult position of needing to make heavy investments into its platform, while simultaneously paying a massive quarterly interest bill. If they had a $10bn in the bank, and a long-term vision, it'd be one thing, but Musk is trying to drive them to profitability now, and that's a tough call with their debt loads and interest bill. (Especially in a rising rate environment.)

    If Elon really wanted to make Twitter work, he'd sell down $30bn of his SpaceX and Tesla stakes. Pay off the debt. And then give the new CEO the resources to play with. Instead, they are trying to cut their way to profitability, and that's really tough.
  • TazTaz Posts: 13,750
    As people seem to be fans of this belting track here’s an Acapella version

    https://youtu.be/-GPffhQtfGI
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 3,860
    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:

    kamski said:

    Farooq said:

    kamski said:

    Farooq said:

    Sandpit said:

    RobD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Keir Starmer confirms Labour considering extending vote in general elections to EU nationals and 16/17-year-olds

    Labour leader also refuses to rule out deal with Lib Dems, saying he wants outright majority but will ‘see what situation is next year’"

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2023/may/15/local-election-results-labour-tactical-voting-considered-keir-starmer-tories-conservatives-rishi-sunak-uk-politics-live

    So no reciprocation needed after all?
    So Starmer wants us to become the only country in Europe that allows non nationals to vote in the national elections (excepting the reciprocal arrangments we have with Ireland). Specifically those he thinks are most likely to vote for him and his policies.

    I have said up until now that I don't fear a Labour Government. This blatant attempt at vte rigging is enough to change that view.
    It is by no means obvious that EU nationals working here would vote Labour, but it is hard to see why Starmer is raising this now (or a couple of days ago when we last discussed it).

    On 16- and 17-year-olds, George Osborne advocated that extension of the franchise. I'm not sure it is a party political matter.
    I disagree with the reduction in the age of voting but that is more of a philosophical argument and one we have been discussing over the last few days.

    But extending the franchise to non citizens - something no other country in Europe does - is simply wrong and is clearly an attempt to sway the votes in favour of those parties and issues Starmer has sympathy with. It is vote rigging at its most blatant. If people want to vote on the future of this country then they can become British citizens

    Apart from historical anomalies, why would any country allow non-citizens the vote?

    If you want to vote, then take citizenship, in the UK there’s a clear application process available to long-term residents.
    Indeed. Nor is it particularly arduous as a process. In the last 2 years I have acted as referee for 4 people to take British citizenship - 2 Vietnamese, a Pole and a Venezuelan. All had good English language skills which made it easier but it was a relatively straight forward process for them.
    It costs over £1000 to apply. A lot of people don't have that kind of money lying around.
    1000 quid to vote in a general election is a lot. Most people wouldn't pay it.

    And there are many countries that don't allow dual citizenship. If you have all the rights of permanent residency in the UK, it is difficult to give up the citizenship of the country you are from, where you may still have family that you might conceivably need to take care of at some point for example, just in order to secure a vote in a general election.
    Especially with the uncertainty around Brexit. If someone takes up a UK passport and has to relinquish their old one, are they going to need a visa to visit family, etc?
    Plenty of reasons why someone might make this their permanent home but want for pragmatic reasons to not have the expense and hassle of changing their citizenship permanently. To exclude those people who are living stable, ordinary British lives just because of their passport is a policy borne of paranoia.
    I think changing the franchise should be done by consensus if at all possible. And I'm not convinced that extending voting at the national level to non-citizens is a good idea, and it's probably a vote-loser.

    But I don't think it's accurate to say becoming a British citizen is easy for everyone who is a long-term resident. It costs 1330 GPP to apply! Shouldn't the UK be encouraging long-term residents to become citizens, instead of applying punitive application fees?
    I agree, the citizenship pub quiz is quite bonkers and the fees excessive. 5 years residence with no criminal convictions should be enough, alongside a fairly nominal fee.
    The fees are excessive but the tests are a very good idea.

    Norway has extensive language and culture tests for prospective citizens. Indeed for anyone who wants permanent residence. When I was there it was 200 hours of compulsory language and culture lessons which I believe is now increased to 300 hours. This seems to me to be a very sensible thing to avoid isolation and ghettoisation.
    The test, though, contains a lot that is wank: It's all our duty to look after the environment, for example.

    And a lot that is absurdly specific (like the questions on dog ownership).

    Or which (like the Boer Wars) is not likely to help you assimilate.
    90% of born Britons would not pass, maybe more. And some of the assertions (like looking after the environment or treating people fairly being particularly British values) are just a bit wrong.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,796
    Poor Turkey. I've worked there several times and have quite a few good friends in Istanbul. Every one desperate for Erdogan to lose

    Imagine Johnson about to be voted in after twenty consecutive years.

  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,179
    My less polite memo to loons who want to bring back Johnson:

    Boris Johnson is a lying twat who is unfit to hold high office. Don't be so fucking brain dead.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,297
    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    An interesting extension of the free speech argument.

    Abbott knocks Dominion over Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4003679-abbott-knocks-dominion-over-tucker-carlsons-departure-from-fox-news/
    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) bashed Dominion Voting Systems over the departure of Tucker Carlson from Fox News, following a report that the popular conservative primetime host was fired from the network as part of its settlement with the voting software company.
    Carlson was told by a member of the network’s board of directors that he was taken off the air as part of the Fox News settlement with Dominion, according to Axios, which cited unidentified sources briefed on the conversations. Abbott said if the reporting was true, then he is “happy that Dominion does not operate in Texas.”
    “We may disagree with other’s positions, but we should never try to improperly silence views contrary to our own,” Abbott said on Twitter on Saturday. “If Dominion wants to do business with Texas in the future, they should first answer questions about what role, if any, they played in silencing a prominent conservative journalist.”
    A Fox News spokesperson in a statement to Axios said that the idea that Carlson was let go of as part of the settlement was “categorically false.” An attorney for Dominion also told the news outlet that it did not insist on Carlson being fired...

    Tucker intends to subpoena every internal email and memo from both sides, with regard to the Fox/Dominion case, he’s convinced there was a quid pro quo to fire him as part of the settlement.
    Dominion (and specifically their PE owners) only care about making money. All they really want is an agreement from Fox to never question their voting machines integrity.
    Of course. But Tucker is hoping to find an email somewhere, that says, or at least alludes, to him being fired as part of the settlement.

    He has a contract with Fox until the end of 2024, and they appear to be intending to throw lawyers at keeping him silent until after the election.

    The one thing he has, is his own Twitter account, and now it looks like Twitter is about to fast-track their video offering to get him as a platform exclusive.
    It will be interesting to see if Tucker is able to make Twitter work.

    My guess, for what it's worth, is that Tucker could build a great business on YouTube.

    But Twitter will be a much harder proposition for two reasons:

    (1) Twitter knows shit about its users, and therefore makes bugger all off advertising to them. (And Musk fired the team responsible for entering into partnerships with other sites to increase their visibility into their users.)

    (2) Twitter isn't on any smart TVs. It's perfectly possible for Tucker's customer base to hit the button on their TV and play YouTube videos. It's much harder (if at all possible) for him to do that with Twitter.

    Tucker could never build a business on YouTube. He’d be immediately demonetised, as have been Steven Crowder and Glenn Beck, with random videos deleted for random reasons.

    Yes, Twitter needs to develop the platform in the way that YouTube have. There’s a feeling that their new management understands this.

    There’s also the contract that Tucker has with Fox, that allegedly mentions Youtube but not Twitter - which leaves him with little choice. Fox could tie him up in litigation and injunctions running past the election, so Twitter is his only option.
    Separately, GB News and others aren't demonetized. It's not *that* easy to get demonetized: Alex Jones only fell foul when he went down the whole Sandy Hook wasn't real rabbit hole.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 31,508
    "Andrew fears family 'will cut off electricity to force him out'" - page 5 of The Times print edition.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,179
    Nigelb said:

    One less Brexiteer for the Beeb to get on QT or Newsnight. I couldn't even be arsed with a sardonic 'vaguely credible'.




    "I voted for the current mess, but don't expect me to stick around."
    Hypocritical arse. Anyone who has publicly admitted to voting for it should be denied dual nationality. They should be made to have British Citizenship ONLY

  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,197

    It’s funny how JRM is no longer seen as a lying toerag now that he says something that is useful to his former accusers

    No idea what he has said but he is more a condescending, over privileged and pompous relic than a lying toerag.....
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 69,050

    Nigelb said:

    An interesting extension of the free speech argument.

    Abbott knocks Dominion over Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4003679-abbott-knocks-dominion-over-tucker-carlsons-departure-from-fox-news/
    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) bashed Dominion Voting Systems over the departure of Tucker Carlson from Fox News, following a report that the popular conservative primetime host was fired from the network as part of its settlement with the voting software company.
    Carlson was told by a member of the network’s board of directors that he was taken off the air as part of the Fox News settlement with Dominion, according to Axios, which cited unidentified sources briefed on the conversations. Abbott said if the reporting was true, then he is “happy that Dominion does not operate in Texas.”
    “We may disagree with other’s positions, but we should never try to improperly silence views contrary to our own,” Abbott said on Twitter on Saturday. “If Dominion wants to do business with Texas in the future, they should first answer questions about what role, if any, they played in silencing a prominent conservative journalist.”
    A Fox News spokesperson in a statement to Axios said that the idea that Carlson was let go of as part of the settlement was “categorically false.” An attorney for Dominion also told the news outlet that it did not insist on Carlson being fired...

    For this to be an interesting extension of the free speech argument, wouldn’t Abbott have to have some sort of coherent position? He’s just pwning the libs here. There’s zero philosophy or consistency.
    Of course.

    He's the perfect example of one of Cyclefree's "free speech for me, but not for thee" set - along with Ron DeSantis.

    If of a rather different ideological persuasion to those she was inveighing against.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,130

    Cookie said:

    Farooq said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @jonsopel

    Don’t want to go over the top, but this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Someone who was in the cabinet when legislation on voter ID was agreed and went through parliament acknowledges it WAS an attempt to gerrymander the elections

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1658076536350601216

    Said at the conference of loons.
    Which appears to be taking some of its themes from the US right.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/low-birthrate-is-uk-top-priority-tory-mp-tells-rightwing-conference-miriam-cates
    ...The UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, a Conservative MP has argued at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.

    Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction..
    Weirdly, the birth rate in the USSR fell precipitously at the time that actual Marxism ended there.

    I do wonder what this "cultural Marxism" is. Often people use that as code for "the Jews", but in this case I suspect not since Jews tend to have similar numbers of children as Christians.

    Perhaps "cultural Marxism" is, in this case, a cipher for insecure accommodation and zero-hours contracts?
    That's called capitalism.
    Cultural Marxism tends to be a synonym for wokery.

    And there are few more keen to lay the evils of the world at the door of cultural Marxism and/or wokery than me.

    But I don't think we can pin it specifically for falling birthrates. There are many, many reasons but I'd say #1 of them is the difficulty the breeding-age cohort have in owning a house.
    Could the fetishising of owning property and the resultant vastly inflated housing market be described as cultural captalism, and therefore..
    I don't think capitalism is to blame. Rather, the mismatch in number of households to number of houses. If there are more of the former than the latter, then tenure is very much a secondary issue.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 3,860
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    I wondered whether news that Boris has brought a house in Oxford could be a sign he's expecting to lose Uxbridge and South Ruislip either after being recalled following the Commons Privileges committee report or at Election 24 - And is eyeing up a nice, safe Conservative seat in rural Oxfordshire?

    Quite possibly. Uxbridge is in the top 100 Labour target seats and will almost certainly go Labour on current polls.

    However Henley is not ultra safe Tory now either, on May 4th. Indeed the LDs won a landslide victory in South Oxfordshire on 4th May winning 21 seats while the Tories collapsed to just 1 councillor.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2023/england/councils/E07000179

    Even somewhere like Walsall or Dudley or Basildon or Dartford where the Tories held control of the council this month would be safer for Boris now than Henley (albeit less posh and glamorous)
    A friend lives in Brightwell (the Oxfordshire village where Boris is heading) and says there are indeed extensive preparations being made, not least a police car that drives up and down all day - inevitable, I suppose. The culture of the area is very LibDem - prosperous, nice, well-educated and socially liberal. Not naturally populist, as HYUFD says - don't know if Henley is different,
    Yes, it is very Remainery. Boris would be taking a huge risk going to Henley again. It voted for him when he was nice, socially and economically liberal cuddly Cameroon Boris, it will be much less likely to back populist, pro hard Brexit Boris and like much of the home counties the LDs play the NIMBY card there well too
    He'd do better somewhere like Dudley South.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 50,730
    edited May 2023
    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @jonsopel

    Don’t want to go over the top, but this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Someone who was in the cabinet when legislation on voter ID was agreed and went through parliament acknowledges it WAS an attempt to gerrymander the elections

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1658076536350601216

    Said at the conference of loons.
    Which appears to be taking some of its themes from the US right.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/low-birthrate-is-uk-top-priority-tory-mp-tells-rightwing-conference-miriam-cates
    ...The UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, a Conservative MP has argued at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.

    Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction..
    The whole purpose of this well funded conference is to import the craziness of the US right into UK politics. See also recent attempts to rig the franchise (which a former Tory cabinet minister has admitted was gerrymandering). The Tories are utterly toxic now.
    Nearly as toxic as Starmer wanting to extend the franchise to children and foreigners. What next, let’s just let anyone in the UK on holiday vote in the election?

    I say this only slightly in jest, but am quite confident of a serious backlash against the proposals in polling.
    It's blantant gaslighting to accuse the other side of rigging the franchise while actually rigging the franchise.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 69,050
    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    An interesting extension of the free speech argument.

    Abbott knocks Dominion over Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4003679-abbott-knocks-dominion-over-tucker-carlsons-departure-from-fox-news/
    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) bashed Dominion Voting Systems over the departure of Tucker Carlson from Fox News, following a report that the popular conservative primetime host was fired from the network as part of its settlement with the voting software company.
    Carlson was told by a member of the network’s board of directors that he was taken off the air as part of the Fox News settlement with Dominion, according to Axios, which cited unidentified sources briefed on the conversations. Abbott said if the reporting was true, then he is “happy that Dominion does not operate in Texas.”
    “We may disagree with other’s positions, but we should never try to improperly silence views contrary to our own,” Abbott said on Twitter on Saturday. “If Dominion wants to do business with Texas in the future, they should first answer questions about what role, if any, they played in silencing a prominent conservative journalist.”
    A Fox News spokesperson in a statement to Axios said that the idea that Carlson was let go of as part of the settlement was “categorically false.” An attorney for Dominion also told the news outlet that it did not insist on Carlson being fired...

    Tucker intends to subpoena every internal email and memo from both sides, with regard to the Fox/Dominion case, he’s convinced there was a quid pro quo to fire him as part of the settlement.
    Dominion (and specifically their PE owners) only care about making money. All they really want is an agreement from Fox to never question their voting machines integrity.
    Of course. But Tucker is hoping to find an email somewhere, that says, or at least alludes, to him being fired as part of the settlement.

    He has a contract with Fox until the end of 2024, and they appear to be intending to throw lawyers at keeping him silent until after the election.

    The one thing he has, is his own Twitter account, and now it looks like Twitter is about to fast-track their video offering to get him as a platform exclusive.
    It's not exactly surprising that a shameless liar would feel no remorse for the damage he's caused his employer.

    (Though, TBF, I don't feel much sympathy for them either.)
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 17,544

    One less Brexiteer for the Beeb to get on QT or Newsnight. I couldn't even be arsed with a sardonic 'vaguely credible'.




    Why are right-wingers always doing the country down? Pessimism is a cancer that is eating away at the core of conservatism.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 53,515
    edited May 2023
    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    An interesting extension of the free speech argument.

    Abbott knocks Dominion over Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4003679-abbott-knocks-dominion-over-tucker-carlsons-departure-from-fox-news/
    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) bashed Dominion Voting Systems over the departure of Tucker Carlson from Fox News, following a report that the popular conservative primetime host was fired from the network as part of its settlement with the voting software company.
    Carlson was told by a member of the network’s board of directors that he was taken off the air as part of the Fox News settlement with Dominion, according to Axios, which cited unidentified sources briefed on the conversations. Abbott said if the reporting was true, then he is “happy that Dominion does not operate in Texas.”
    “We may disagree with other’s positions, but we should never try to improperly silence views contrary to our own,” Abbott said on Twitter on Saturday. “If Dominion wants to do business with Texas in the future, they should first answer questions about what role, if any, they played in silencing a prominent conservative journalist.”
    A Fox News spokesperson in a statement to Axios said that the idea that Carlson was let go of as part of the settlement was “categorically false.” An attorney for Dominion also told the news outlet that it did not insist on Carlson being fired...

    Tucker intends to subpoena every internal email and memo from both sides, with regard to the Fox/Dominion case, he’s convinced there was a quid pro quo to fire him as part of the settlement.
    Dominion (and specifically their PE owners) only care about making money. All they really want is an agreement from Fox to never question their voting machines integrity.
    Of course. But Tucker is hoping to find an email somewhere, that says, or at least alludes, to him being fired as part of the settlement.

    He has a contract with Fox until the end of 2024, and they appear to be intending to throw lawyers at keeping him silent until after the election.

    The one thing he has, is his own Twitter account, and now it looks like Twitter is about to fast-track their video offering to get him as a platform exclusive.
    It will be interesting to see if Tucker is able to make Twitter work.

    My guess, for what it's worth, is that Tucker could build a great business on YouTube.

    But Twitter will be a much harder proposition for two reasons:

    (1) Twitter knows shit about its users, and therefore makes bugger all off advertising to them. (And Musk fired the team responsible for entering into partnerships with other sites to increase their visibility into their users.)

    (2) Twitter isn't on any smart TVs. It's perfectly possible for Tucker's customer base to hit the button on their TV and play YouTube videos. It's much harder (if at all possible) for him to do that with Twitter.

    Tucker could never build a business on YouTube. He’d be immediately demonetised, as have been Steven Crowder and Glenn Beck, with random videos deleted for random reasons.

    Yes, Twitter needs to develop the platform in the way that YouTube have. There’s a feeling that their new management understands this.

    There’s also the contract that Tucker has with Fox, that allegedly mentions Youtube but not Twitter - which leaves him with little choice. Fox could tie him up in litigation and injunctions running past the election, so Twitter is his only option.
    Separately, GB News and others aren't demonetized. It's not *that* easy to get demonetized: Alex Jones only fell foul when he went down the whole Sandy Hook wasn't real rabbit hole.
    Not Alex Jones. Steven Crowder and Glenn Beck, much more reasonable characters.

    YouTube still run ads on their content, just don’t share it with them. Something like 5m views a day between them.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 50,730
    Farooq said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @jonsopel

    Don’t want to go over the top, but this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Someone who was in the cabinet when legislation on voter ID was agreed and went through parliament acknowledges it WAS an attempt to gerrymander the elections

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1658076536350601216

    Said at the conference of loons.
    Which appears to be taking some of its themes from the US right.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/low-birthrate-is-uk-top-priority-tory-mp-tells-rightwing-conference-miriam-cates
    ...The UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, a Conservative MP has argued at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.

    Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction..
    The whole purpose of this well funded conference is to import the craziness of the US right into UK politics. See also recent attempts to rig the franchise (which a former Tory cabinet minister has admitted was gerrymandering). The Tories are utterly toxic now.
    Nearly as toxic as Starmer wanting to extend the franchise to children and foreigners. What next, let’s just let anyone in the UK on holiday vote in the election?

    I say this only slightly in jest, but am quite confident of a serious backlash against the proposals in polling.
    It's blantant gaslighting to accuse the other side of rigging the franchise while actually rigging the franchise.
    Stop doing it then
    Whatever else you can say about voter ID, it doesn’t change the franchise and it’s the norm in most non-Anglosphere democracies.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,580
    edited May 2023
    Andy_JS said:

    "Andrew fears family 'will cut off electricity to force him out'" - page 5 of The Times print edition.

    He could follow Hazza and Megs (far and away my favourite Royals) to ca. He would make a shedful of money doing nothing at all, and his comedy video with Emily Maitlis has doubtless made less impact over there than here. Ghost written books, chaperoned interviews with Oprah and free junkets from Jaguar Land Rover and Hunter wellington boots and he'd be fine.

    I don't like Andrew, but sausage fingers seems to have been allowed to keep his cake, and eat it.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,297
    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    An interesting extension of the free speech argument.

    Abbott knocks Dominion over Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4003679-abbott-knocks-dominion-over-tucker-carlsons-departure-from-fox-news/
    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) bashed Dominion Voting Systems over the departure of Tucker Carlson from Fox News, following a report that the popular conservative primetime host was fired from the network as part of its settlement with the voting software company.
    Carlson was told by a member of the network’s board of directors that he was taken off the air as part of the Fox News settlement with Dominion, according to Axios, which cited unidentified sources briefed on the conversations. Abbott said if the reporting was true, then he is “happy that Dominion does not operate in Texas.”
    “We may disagree with other’s positions, but we should never try to improperly silence views contrary to our own,” Abbott said on Twitter on Saturday. “If Dominion wants to do business with Texas in the future, they should first answer questions about what role, if any, they played in silencing a prominent conservative journalist.”
    A Fox News spokesperson in a statement to Axios said that the idea that Carlson was let go of as part of the settlement was “categorically false.” An attorney for Dominion also told the news outlet that it did not insist on Carlson being fired...

    Tucker intends to subpoena every internal email and memo from both sides, with regard to the Fox/Dominion case, he’s convinced there was a quid pro quo to fire him as part of the settlement.
    Dominion (and specifically their PE owners) only care about making money. All they really want is an agreement from Fox to never question their voting machines integrity.
    Of course. But Tucker is hoping to find an email somewhere, that says, or at least alludes, to him being fired as part of the settlement.

    He has a contract with Fox until the end of 2024, and they appear to be intending to throw lawyers at keeping him silent until after the election.

    The one thing he has, is his own Twitter account, and now it looks like Twitter is about to fast-track their video offering to get him as a platform exclusive.
    It will be interesting to see if Tucker is able to make Twitter work.

    My guess, for what it's worth, is that Tucker could build a great business on YouTube.

    But Twitter will be a much harder proposition for two reasons:

    (1) Twitter knows shit about its users, and therefore makes bugger all off advertising to them. (And Musk fired the team responsible for entering into partnerships with other sites to increase their visibility into their users.)

    (2) Twitter isn't on any smart TVs. It's perfectly possible for Tucker's customer base to hit the button on their TV and play YouTube videos. It's much harder (if at all possible) for him to do that with Twitter.

    Tucker could never build a business on YouTube. He’d be immediately demonetised, as have been Steven Crowder and Glenn Beck, with random videos deleted for random reasons.

    Yes, Twitter needs to develop the platform in the way that YouTube have. There’s a feeling that their new management understands this.

    There’s also the contract that Tucker has with Fox, that allegedly mentions Youtube but not Twitter - which leaves him with little choice. Fox could tie him up in litigation and injunctions running past the election, so Twitter is his only option.
    Separately, GB News and others aren't demonetized. It's not *that* easy to get demonetized: Alex Jones only fell foul when he went down the whole Sandy Hook wasn't real rabbit hole.
    Not Alex Jones. Steven Crowder and Glenn Beck, much more reasonable characters.
    I could be wrong, but Glenn Beck has only claimed that some of his clips have been demonetized for containing "sensitive" or "adult" content - see https://twitter.com/glennbeck/status/1304094216449126400?lang=en
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,825
    edited May 2023
    O/t but I'm reading Savage Continent, by Keith Lowe, about the aftermath of WWII.

    The sufferings of Central and Eastern Europeans were indescribable.

    Belarus had lost a third of its population in the War, Ukraine, one fifth (on top of the Holodomor), Poland, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic States one sixth, Greece one tenth. Greece, Ukraine, and Poland, the Baltic States, however, were still in the middle of civil wars between nationalists, communists, and rival nationalists (Polish and Ukrainian nationalists slaughtered each others' people with gusto).

    Nobody batted an eyelid at the ethnic cleansing of Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Ruthenians, Bulgarians who found themselves on the wrong side of new borders (tragically, thousands of Jews who had survived the war, by getting themselves designated as "German", were then expelled from Poland and the Sudetenland). Few people wanted the surviving Jews back to reclaim their property, and most of the area was on the point of falling to communist rule.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 69,050

    It’s funny how JRM is no longer seen as a lying toerag now that he says something that is useful to his former accusers

    He's just a lying toerag who's fessed up to a piece of shenanigans he voted for.
    Hasn't changed my opinion of him a great deal.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,297
    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    An interesting extension of the free speech argument.

    Abbott knocks Dominion over Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4003679-abbott-knocks-dominion-over-tucker-carlsons-departure-from-fox-news/
    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) bashed Dominion Voting Systems over the departure of Tucker Carlson from Fox News, following a report that the popular conservative primetime host was fired from the network as part of its settlement with the voting software company.
    Carlson was told by a member of the network’s board of directors that he was taken off the air as part of the Fox News settlement with Dominion, according to Axios, which cited unidentified sources briefed on the conversations. Abbott said if the reporting was true, then he is “happy that Dominion does not operate in Texas.”
    “We may disagree with other’s positions, but we should never try to improperly silence views contrary to our own,” Abbott said on Twitter on Saturday. “If Dominion wants to do business with Texas in the future, they should first answer questions about what role, if any, they played in silencing a prominent conservative journalist.”
    A Fox News spokesperson in a statement to Axios said that the idea that Carlson was let go of as part of the settlement was “categorically false.” An attorney for Dominion also told the news outlet that it did not insist on Carlson being fired...

    Tucker intends to subpoena every internal email and memo from both sides, with regard to the Fox/Dominion case, he’s convinced there was a quid pro quo to fire him as part of the settlement.
    Dominion (and specifically their PE owners) only care about making money. All they really want is an agreement from Fox to never question their voting machines integrity.
    Of course. But Tucker is hoping to find an email somewhere, that says, or at least alludes, to him being fired as part of the settlement.

    He has a contract with Fox until the end of 2024, and they appear to be intending to throw lawyers at keeping him silent until after the election.

    The one thing he has, is his own Twitter account, and now it looks like Twitter is about to fast-track their video offering to get him as a platform exclusive.
    It will be interesting to see if Tucker is able to make Twitter work.

    My guess, for what it's worth, is that Tucker could build a great business on YouTube.

    But Twitter will be a much harder proposition for two reasons:

    (1) Twitter knows shit about its users, and therefore makes bugger all off advertising to them. (And Musk fired the team responsible for entering into partnerships with other sites to increase their visibility into their users.)

    (2) Twitter isn't on any smart TVs. It's perfectly possible for Tucker's customer base to hit the button on their TV and play YouTube videos. It's much harder (if at all possible) for him to do that with Twitter.

    Tucker could never build a business on YouTube. He’d be immediately demonetised, as have been Steven Crowder and Glenn Beck, with random videos deleted for random reasons.

    Yes, Twitter needs to develop the platform in the way that YouTube have. There’s a feeling that their new management understands this.

    There’s also the contract that Tucker has with Fox, that allegedly mentions Youtube but not Twitter - which leaves him with little choice. Fox could tie him up in litigation and injunctions running past the election, so Twitter is his only option.
    Separately, GB News and others aren't demonetized. It's not *that* easy to get demonetized: Alex Jones only fell foul when he went down the whole Sandy Hook wasn't real rabbit hole.
    Not Alex Jones. Steven Crowder and Glenn Beck, much more reasonable characters.
    I could be wrong, but Glenn Beck has only claimed that some of his clips have been demonetized for containing "sensitive" or "adult" content - see https://twitter.com/glennbeck/status/1304094216449126400?lang=en
    Indeed, here's the Daily Kos complaining about Google not demonetizing him - https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/26/2118936/-YouTube-Fails-To-Demonetize-Climate-Disinfo-From-Stossel-Glenn-Beck-Alex-Epstein-and-Seibt
  • eekeek Posts: 27,647
    edited May 2023

    One less Brexiteer for the Beeb to get on QT or Newsnight. I couldn't even be arsed with a sardonic 'vaguely credible'.




    Why are right-wingers always doing the country down? Pessimism is a cancer that is eating away at the core of conservatism.
    Declinism is the latest version of the British Disease from the 70s.

    The only thing Brexit has done is revealed that the heart of Declinism is the Treasury and that it needs to be destroyed with it's contradictory demands separated out so the arguments are visible in public.

    Case in point Vancouver and Leeds are roughly the same population.

    Since 1980 Vancouver has built a 3 line underground Metro system. Leeds has done nothing because the Treasury instantly blocks any plans and all the money.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,197
    Farooq said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @jonsopel

    Don’t want to go over the top, but this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Someone who was in the cabinet when legislation on voter ID was agreed and went through parliament acknowledges it WAS an attempt to gerrymander the elections

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1658076536350601216

    Said at the conference of loons.
    Which appears to be taking some of its themes from the US right.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/low-birthrate-is-uk-top-priority-tory-mp-tells-rightwing-conference-miriam-cates
    ...The UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, a Conservative MP has argued at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.

    Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction..
    Weirdly, the birth rate in the USSR fell precipitously at the time that actual Marxism ended there.

    I do wonder what this "cultural Marxism" is. Often people use that as code for "the Jews", but in this case I suspect not since Jews tend to have similar numbers of children as Christians.

    Perhaps "cultural Marxism" is, in this case, a cipher for insecure accommodation and zero-hours contracts?
    We need to be careful generalising about Jews because they really are not a single homogeneous population. Very religious Jews tend to have very large families. Others, not so much. I doubt the Conservative MP meant to be antisemitic but perhaps by now he should know the term cultural marxism is booby-trapped so...
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,179

    Farooq said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @jonsopel

    Don’t want to go over the top, but this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Someone who was in the cabinet when legislation on voter ID was agreed and went through parliament acknowledges it WAS an attempt to gerrymander the elections

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1658076536350601216

    Said at the conference of loons.
    Which appears to be taking some of its themes from the US right.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/low-birthrate-is-uk-top-priority-tory-mp-tells-rightwing-conference-miriam-cates
    ...The UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, a Conservative MP has argued at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.

    Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction..
    The whole purpose of this well funded conference is to import the craziness of the US right into UK politics. See also recent attempts to rig the franchise (which a former Tory cabinet minister has admitted was gerrymandering). The Tories are utterly toxic now.
    Nearly as toxic as Starmer wanting to extend the franchise to children and foreigners. What next, let’s just let anyone in the UK on holiday vote in the election?

    I say this only slightly in jest, but am quite confident of a serious backlash against the proposals in polling.
    It's blantant gaslighting to accuse the other side of rigging the franchise while actually rigging the franchise.
    Stop doing it then
    Whatever else you can say about voter ID, it doesn’t change the franchise and it’s the norm in most non-Anglosphere democracies.
    In the light of the fact that all but one of EU nations have it demonstrates that the attempt to paint it as corrupt was toxic and damaging to democracy in this country. Unfortunately the Labour Party and its followers have bad history in this area. Demonise and question the integrity of your opponent is straight out of the Trump playbook. Either that or Trump took it straight out of the Labour Party playbook
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 36,825

    One less Brexiteer for the Beeb to get on QT or Newsnight. I couldn't even be arsed with a sardonic 'vaguely credible'.




    Why are right-wingers always doing the country down? Pessimism is a cancer that is eating away at the core of conservatism.
    Unfortunately, doing the country down seems to be common across the political spectrum.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,580
    Ghedebrav said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    I wondered whether news that Boris has brought a house in Oxford could be a sign he's expecting to lose Uxbridge and South Ruislip either after being recalled following the Commons Privileges committee report or at Election 24 - And is eyeing up a nice, safe Conservative seat in rural Oxfordshire?

    Quite possibly. Uxbridge is in the top 100 Labour target seats and will almost certainly go Labour on current polls.

    However Henley is not ultra safe Tory now either, on May 4th. Indeed the LDs won a landslide victory in South Oxfordshire on 4th May winning 21 seats while the Tories collapsed to just 1 councillor.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2023/england/councils/E07000179

    Even somewhere like Walsall or Dudley or Basildon or Dartford where the Tories held control of the council this month would be safer for Boris now than Henley (albeit less posh and glamorous)
    A friend lives in Brightwell (the Oxfordshire village where Boris is heading) and says there are indeed extensive preparations being made, not least a police car that drives up and down all day - inevitable, I suppose. The culture of the area is very LibDem - prosperous, nice, well-educated and socially liberal. Not naturally populist, as HYUFD says - don't know if Henley is different,
    Yes, it is very Remainery. Boris would be taking a huge risk going to Henley again. It voted for him when he was nice, socially and economically liberal cuddly Cameroon Boris, it will be much less likely to back populist, pro hard Brexit Boris and like much of the home counties the LDs play the NIMBY card there well too
    He'd do better somewhere like Dudley South.
    He could buy the whole of Halesowen for £3.8m.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 48,606
    Cookie said:

    Cookie said:

    Farooq said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @jonsopel

    Don’t want to go over the top, but this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Someone who was in the cabinet when legislation on voter ID was agreed and went through parliament acknowledges it WAS an attempt to gerrymander the elections

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1658076536350601216

    Said at the conference of loons.
    Which appears to be taking some of its themes from the US right.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/low-birthrate-is-uk-top-priority-tory-mp-tells-rightwing-conference-miriam-cates
    ...The UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, a Conservative MP has argued at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.

    Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction..
    Weirdly, the birth rate in the USSR fell precipitously at the time that actual Marxism ended there.

    I do wonder what this "cultural Marxism" is. Often people use that as code for "the Jews", but in this case I suspect not since Jews tend to have similar numbers of children as Christians.

    Perhaps "cultural Marxism" is, in this case, a cipher for insecure accommodation and zero-hours contracts?
    That's called capitalism.
    Cultural Marxism tends to be a synonym for wokery.

    And there are few more keen to lay the evils of the world at the door of cultural Marxism and/or wokery than me.

    But I don't think we can pin it specifically for falling birthrates. There are many, many reasons but I'd say #1 of them is the difficulty the breeding-age cohort have in owning a house.
    Could the fetishising of owning property and the resultant vastly inflated housing market be described as cultural captalism, and therefore..
    I don't think capitalism is to blame. Rather, the mismatch in number of households to number of houses. If there are more of the former than the latter, then tenure is very much a secondary issue.
    I remember trying to explain to some people in Peru the concept of preventing properties being built.

    There’s some planning stuff there, but in general, if you want to build a house on your land, it would seem as plain weird to stop you.

    “Then where do your children live?”, was the main response.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,197

    It’s funny how JRM is no longer seen as a lying toerag now that he says something that is useful to his former accusers

    Was JRM ever seen as a lying toerag?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,311
    edited May 2023
    Ghedebrav said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    I wondered whether news that Boris has brought a house in Oxford could be a sign he's expecting to lose Uxbridge and South Ruislip either after being recalled following the Commons Privileges committee report or at Election 24 - And is eyeing up a nice, safe Conservative seat in rural Oxfordshire?

    Quite possibly. Uxbridge is in the top 100 Labour target seats and will almost certainly go Labour on current polls.

    However Henley is not ultra safe Tory now either, on May 4th. Indeed the LDs won a landslide victory in South Oxfordshire on 4th May winning 21 seats while the Tories collapsed to just 1 councillor.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2023/england/councils/E07000179

    Even somewhere like Walsall or Dudley or Basildon or Dartford where the Tories held control of the council this month would be safer for Boris now than Henley (albeit less posh and glamorous)
    A friend lives in Brightwell (the Oxfordshire village where Boris is heading) and says there are indeed extensive preparations being made, not least a police car that drives up and down all day - inevitable, I suppose. The culture of the area is very LibDem - prosperous, nice, well-educated and socially liberal. Not naturally populist, as HYUFD says - don't know if Henley is different,
    Yes, it is very Remainery. Boris would be taking a huge risk going to Henley again. It voted for him when he was nice, socially and economically liberal cuddly Cameroon Boris, it will be much less likely to back populist, pro hard Brexit Boris and like much of the home counties the LDs play the NIMBY card there well too
    He'd do better somewhere like Dudley South.
    Yes, he will have to tell Carrie to forget the beautiful Georgian farmhouse with views of the Chilterns because the yellow peril are too big a risk with their pesky bar charts and Focus leaflets.

    No, they will have to slum it in a semi in Dudley for the sake of his political career which is much more Brexity and secure and where most voters would rather watch paint dry than vote LD (he just won't tell her about the barmaids at the local pub)
  • northern_monkeynorthern_monkey Posts: 1,639
    Sean_F said:

    O/t but I'm reading Savage Continent, by Keith Lowe, about the aftermath of WWII.

    The sufferings of Central and Eastern Europeans were indescribable.

    Belarus had lost a third of its population in the War, Ukraine, one fifth (on top of the Holodomor), Poland, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic States one sixth, Greece one tenth. Greece, Ukraine, and Poland, the Baltic States, however, were still in the middle of civil wars between nationalists, communists, and rival nationalists (Polish and Ukrainian nationalists slaughtered each others' people with gusto).

    Nobody batted an eyelid at the ethnic cleansing of Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Ruthenians, Bulgarians who found themselves on the wrong side of new borders (tragically, thousands of Jews who had survived the war, by getting themselves designated as "German", were then expelled from Poland and the Sudetenland). Few people wanted the surviving Jews back to reclaim their property, and most of the area was on the point of falling to communist rule.

    Thanks for that, I'll give that a read.

    Anyone got any recommendations for a good book about the American occupation of Japan?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,580
    edited May 2023
    Roger said:

    Poor Turkey. I've worked there several times and have quite a few good friends in Istanbul. Every one desperate for Erdogan to lose

    Imagine Johnson about to be voted in after twenty consecutive years.

    I was in Istanbul recently, and this might simply be the Lord Astor effect, but opponents were convinced Team Erdogan got to vote twice.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 3,860
    HYUFD said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    I wondered whether news that Boris has brought a house in Oxford could be a sign he's expecting to lose Uxbridge and South Ruislip either after being recalled following the Commons Privileges committee report or at Election 24 - And is eyeing up a nice, safe Conservative seat in rural Oxfordshire?

    Quite possibly. Uxbridge is in the top 100 Labour target seats and will almost certainly go Labour on current polls.

    However Henley is not ultra safe Tory now either, on May 4th. Indeed the LDs won a landslide victory in South Oxfordshire on 4th May winning 21 seats while the Tories collapsed to just 1 councillor.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2023/england/councils/E07000179

    Even somewhere like Walsall or Dudley or Basildon or Dartford where the Tories held control of the council this month would be safer for Boris now than Henley (albeit less posh and glamorous)
    A friend lives in Brightwell (the Oxfordshire village where Boris is heading) and says there are indeed extensive preparations being made, not least a police car that drives up and down all day - inevitable, I suppose. The culture of the area is very LibDem - prosperous, nice, well-educated and socially liberal. Not naturally populist, as HYUFD says - don't know if Henley is different,
    Yes, it is very Remainery. Boris would be taking a huge risk going to Henley again. It voted for him when he was nice, socially and economically liberal cuddly Cameroon Boris, it will be much less likely to back populist, pro hard Brexit Boris and like much of the home counties the LDs play the NIMBY card there well too
    He'd do better somewhere like Dudley South.
    Yes, he will have to tell Carrie to forget the beautiful Georgian farmhouse with views of the Chilterns because the yellow peril are too big a risk with their pesky bar charts and Focus leaflets.

    No, they will have to slum it in a semi in Dudley which is much more Brexity and secure (he just won't tell her about the barmaids at the local pub)
    The priapic Mr Johnson is no stranger to a semi.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 10,321

    Farooq said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @jonsopel

    Don’t want to go over the top, but this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Someone who was in the cabinet when legislation on voter ID was agreed and went through parliament acknowledges it WAS an attempt to gerrymander the elections

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1658076536350601216

    Said at the conference of loons.
    Which appears to be taking some of its themes from the US right.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/low-birthrate-is-uk-top-priority-tory-mp-tells-rightwing-conference-miriam-cates
    ...The UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, a Conservative MP has argued at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.

    Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction..
    The whole purpose of this well funded conference is to import the craziness of the US right into UK politics. See also recent attempts to rig the franchise (which a former Tory cabinet minister has admitted was gerrymandering). The Tories are utterly toxic now.
    Nearly as toxic as Starmer wanting to extend the franchise to children and foreigners. What next, let’s just let anyone in the UK on holiday vote in the election?

    I say this only slightly in jest, but am quite confident of a serious backlash against the proposals in polling.
    It's blantant gaslighting to accuse the other side of rigging the franchise while actually rigging the franchise.
    Stop doing it then
    Whatever else you can say about voter ID, it doesn’t change the franchise and it’s the norm in most non-Anglosphere democracies.
    One could say it changes the franchise to "people with the requisite ID".

    More broadly, it's sophistry to say that one change to voting is massively important and requires consensus while other changes to voting (requiring ID, changing SV to FPTP) are trivial and don't require consensus. The SV-to-FPTP switch is the one that probably has a greater effect on outcomes than ID or the proposals Labour are considering, and the Tories did that without consensus or a manifesto pledge.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,197

    One less Brexiteer for the Beeb to get on QT or Newsnight. I couldn't even be arsed with a sardonic 'vaguely credible'.




    Why are right-wingers always doing the country down? Pessimism is a cancer that is eating away at the core of conservatism.
    Its a really weird relationship. Constant moaning and whingeing about this, that and the other whilst simultaneously proclaiming we are world beating.

  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,580

    It’s funny how JRM is no longer seen as a lying toerag now that he says something that is useful to his former accusers

    Was JRM ever seen as a lying toerag?
    I watched him on Sophy Ridge on Sunday yesterday and from that performance alone you could put me in the yes camp.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,197
    GIN1138 said:

    I wondered whether news that Boris has brought a house in Oxford could be a sign he's expecting to lose Uxbridge and South Ruislip either after being recalled following the Commons Privileges committee report or at Election 24 - And is eyeing up a nice, safe Conservative seat in rural Oxfordshire?

    Yes, but also a sign that Boris has not twigged that 9-bedroom houses with three-sided moats are ruinously expensive to run, and unlike Chevening and Chequers, the government will not be picking up the bill, and unlike the Bamfords, Boris has not sold a billion quids' worth of digging equipment.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 27,831
    ...

    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:
    It has the same sugar/fat ratio as breast milk, that is apparently why we like it. I have ice cream nearly every night, go me.
    Technically, it's the same carbohydrates/fat ratio. Breast milk contains relatively little in the way of straight sugar: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5331577/#:~:text=Fructose, glucose, and lactose were,associated with infant body composition.
    Look, Luckyguy is allowed to justify being a tit man any way he needs to.
    Can breast milk be turned into ice cream?
    It is often turned into ice cream, it's just usually cow's breast milk.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 31,508
    More on the Mogg revelation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65599380

    "Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested the Conservatives introduced voter ID to boost their election chances, but it came "back to bite them".

    The former minister said it had "made it hard for our own voters" to take part in England's local elections.

    The polls on 4 May were the first in Britain where people had to show photo ID, such as a passport or driving licence, to vote.

    Mr Rees-Mogg said the change had "upset a system that worked perfectly well.""
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 77,496
    Nigelb said:

    One less Brexiteer for the Beeb to get on QT or Newsnight. I couldn't even be arsed with a sardonic 'vaguely credible'.




    "I voted for the current mess, but don't expect me to stick around."
    Have Rocco Forte and Melvyn Bragg been seen in the same room together ?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 69,050
    Andy_JS said:

    More on the Mogg revelation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65599380

    "Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested the Conservatives introduced voter ID to boost their election chances, but it came "back to bite them".

    The former minister said it had "made it hard for our own voters" to take part in England's local elections...

    I wonder what it was the turned him against the wizard wheeze he voted for ?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,479

    One less Brexiteer for the Beeb to get on QT or Newsnight. I couldn't even be arsed with a sardonic 'vaguely credible'.




    Why are right-wingers always doing the country down? Pessimism is a cancer that is eating away at the core of conservatism.
    Its a really weird relationship. Constant moaning and whingeing about this, that and the other whilst simultaneously proclaiming we are world beating.

    World-beating at being shite? That's the only logical conclusion from their discourse.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,530
    HYUFD said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    I wondered whether news that Boris has brought a house in Oxford could be a sign he's expecting to lose Uxbridge and South Ruislip either after being recalled following the Commons Privileges committee report or at Election 24 - And is eyeing up a nice, safe Conservative seat in rural Oxfordshire?

    Quite possibly. Uxbridge is in the top 100 Labour target seats and will almost certainly go Labour on current polls.

    However Henley is not ultra safe Tory now either, on May 4th. Indeed the LDs won a landslide victory in South Oxfordshire on 4th May winning 21 seats while the Tories collapsed to just 1 councillor.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2023/england/councils/E07000179

    Even somewhere like Walsall or Dudley or Basildon or Dartford where the Tories held control of the council this month would be safer for Boris now than Henley (albeit less posh and glamorous)
    A friend lives in Brightwell (the Oxfordshire village where Boris is heading) and says there are indeed extensive preparations being made, not least a police car that drives up and down all day - inevitable, I suppose. The culture of the area is very LibDem - prosperous, nice, well-educated and socially liberal. Not naturally populist, as HYUFD says - don't know if Henley is different,
    Yes, it is very Remainery. Boris would be taking a huge risk going to Henley again. It voted for him when he was nice, socially and economically liberal cuddly Cameroon Boris, it will be much less likely to back populist, pro hard Brexit Boris and like much of the home counties the LDs play the NIMBY card there well too
    He'd do better somewhere like Dudley South.
    Yes, he will have to tell Carrie to forget the beautiful Georgian farmhouse with views of the Chilterns because the yellow peril are too big a risk with their pesky bar charts and Focus leaflets.

    No, they will have to slum it in a semi in Dudley for the sake of his political career which is much more Brexity and secure and where most voters would rather watch paint dry than vote LD (he just won't tell her about the barmaids at the local pub)
    Excellent post @hyufd.

    I have to tell you though if we win Henley, boy are your guys in big trouble elsewhere.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,479

    Andy_JS said:

    "Andrew fears family 'will cut off electricity to force him out'" - page 5 of The Times print edition.

    That's no big problem. Given his medical condition, he doesn't need the aircon over the summer months anyway.
    Surely he needs it *more*, as a result. No cooling from sweating, see.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 16,673

    GIN1138 said:

    I wondered whether news that Boris has brought a house in Oxford could be a sign he's expecting to lose Uxbridge and South Ruislip either after being recalled following the Commons Privileges committee report or at Election 24 - And is eyeing up a nice, safe Conservative seat in rural Oxfordshire?

    Yes, but also a sign that Boris has not twigged that 9-bedroom houses with three-sided moats are ruinously expensive to run, and unlike Chevening and Chequers, the government will not be picking up the bill, and unlike the Bamfords, Boris has not sold a billion quids' worth of digging equipment.
    You don't think for a nanosecond that Boris is planning on paying the running costs, do you?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,297

    ...

    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:
    It has the same sugar/fat ratio as breast milk, that is apparently why we like it. I have ice cream nearly every night, go me.
    Technically, it's the same carbohydrates/fat ratio. Breast milk contains relatively little in the way of straight sugar: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5331577/#:~:text=Fructose, glucose, and lactose were,associated with infant body composition.
    Look, Luckyguy is allowed to justify being a tit man any way he needs to.
    Can breast milk be turned into ice cream?
    It is often turned into ice cream, it's just usually cow's breast milk.
    Albeit they do add lots of sugar to it.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,297
    Sean_F said:

    O/t but I'm reading Savage Continent, by Keith Lowe, about the aftermath of WWII.

    The sufferings of Central and Eastern Europeans were indescribable.

    Belarus had lost a third of its population in the War, Ukraine, one fifth (on top of the Holodomor), Poland, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic States one sixth, Greece one tenth. Greece, Ukraine, and Poland, the Baltic States, however, were still in the middle of civil wars between nationalists, communists, and rival nationalists (Polish and Ukrainian nationalists slaughtered each others' people with gusto).

    Nobody batted an eyelid at the ethnic cleansing of Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Ruthenians, Bulgarians who found themselves on the wrong side of new borders (tragically, thousands of Jews who had survived the war, by getting themselves designated as "German", were then expelled from Poland and the Sudetenland). Few people wanted the surviving Jews back to reclaim their property, and most of the area was on the point of falling to communist rule.

    Sounds cheerful.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,197
    Andy_JS said:

    More on the Mogg revelation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65599380

    "Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested the Conservatives introduced voter ID to boost their election chances, but it came "back to bite them".

    The former minister said it had "made it hard for our own voters" to take part in England's local elections.

    The polls on 4 May were the first in Britain where people had to show photo ID, such as a passport or driving licence, to vote.

    Mr Rees-Mogg said the change had "upset a system that worked perfectly well.""

    Boris behind all of this nonsense. Whatever the polls say he has a better chance than Sunak as so much better at being a manipulative and cynical bastard.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,580
    Andy_JS said:

    More on the Mogg revelation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65599380

    "Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested the Conservatives introduced voter ID to boost their election chances, but it came "back to bite them".

    The former minister said it had "made it hard for our own voters" to take part in England's local elections.

    The polls on 4 May were the first in Britain where people had to show photo ID, such as a passport or driving licence, to vote.

    Mr Rees-Mogg said the change had "upset a system that worked perfectly well.""

    I hope Mike does a thread header. It certainly warrants debate.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,551

    ...

    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:
    It has the same sugar/fat ratio as breast milk, that is apparently why we like it. I have ice cream nearly every night, go me.
    Technically, it's the same carbohydrates/fat ratio. Breast milk contains relatively little in the way of straight sugar: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5331577/#:~:text=Fructose, glucose, and lactose were,associated with infant body composition.
    Look, Luckyguy is allowed to justify being a tit man any way he needs to.
    Can breast milk be turned into ice cream?
    It is often turned into ice cream, it's just usually cow's breast milk.
    I'm visualising some anti woke bovine bellowing about udders being disgracefully described with the anti biological term breasts.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,167
    eek said:

    One less Brexiteer for the Beeb to get on QT or Newsnight. I couldn't even be arsed with a sardonic 'vaguely credible'.




    Why are right-wingers always doing the country down? Pessimism is a cancer that is eating away at the core of conservatism.
    Declinism is the latest version of the British Disease from the 70s.

    The only thing Brexit has done is revealed that the heart of Declinism is the Treasury and that it needs to be destroyed with it's contradictory demands separated out so the arguments are visible in public.

    Case in point Vancouver and Leeds are roughly the same population.

    Since 1980 Vancouver has built a 3 line underground Metro system. Leeds has done nothing because the Treasury instantly blocks any plans and all the money.
    One one hand, the Treasury is one of the few British institutions that “works”, in that acts as a bulwark for “sound money” and against general profligacy, regardless of what the electoral system throws up.

    On the other hand, it maintains much of the economy in a death-grip, as your Leeds example shows.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 69,050
    Carnyx said:

    One less Brexiteer for the Beeb to get on QT or Newsnight. I couldn't even be arsed with a sardonic 'vaguely credible'.




    Why are right-wingers always doing the country down? Pessimism is a cancer that is eating away at the core of conservatism.
    Its a really weird relationship. Constant moaning and whingeing about this, that and the other whilst simultaneously proclaiming we are world beating.

    World-beating at being shite? That's the only logical conclusion from their discourse.
    We could also be world beating whingers.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,479
    rcs1000 said:

    ...

    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:
    It has the same sugar/fat ratio as breast milk, that is apparently why we like it. I have ice cream nearly every night, go me.
    Technically, it's the same carbohydrates/fat ratio. Breast milk contains relatively little in the way of straight sugar: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5331577/#:~:text=Fructose, glucose, and lactose were,associated with infant body composition.
    Look, Luckyguy is allowed to justify being a tit man any way he needs to.
    Can breast milk be turned into ice cream?
    It is often turned into ice cream, it's just usually cow's breast milk.
    Albeit they do add lots of sugar to it.
    I'm confused - the suggestion earlier that breast milk contains relatively little in the way of straight sugar (and implying that much of the carbohydrate in it isn't stdraight sugar) when in fact any soluble mono- or di-saccharide IS a sugar.

    Unless the milk contains starches etc., in which case it'd be more like sweet wallpaper paste? What am I missing?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,580
    ...
    Nigelb said:

    Andy_JS said:

    More on the Mogg revelation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65599380

    "Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested the Conservatives introduced voter ID to boost their election chances, but it came "back to bite them".

    The former minister said it had "made it hard for our own voters" to take part in England's local elections...

    I wonder what it was the turned him against the wizard wheeze he voted for ?

    Getting spanked in the locals?

    I have said this before, it's an efficient system if streamlined only to those forms of ID held exclusively by Conservative voters.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,197
    rcs1000 said:

    Sean_F said:

    O/t but I'm reading Savage Continent, by Keith Lowe, about the aftermath of WWII.

    The sufferings of Central and Eastern Europeans were indescribable.

    Belarus had lost a third of its population in the War, Ukraine, one fifth (on top of the Holodomor), Poland, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic States one sixth, Greece one tenth. Greece, Ukraine, and Poland, the Baltic States, however, were still in the middle of civil wars between nationalists, communists, and rival nationalists (Polish and Ukrainian nationalists slaughtered each others' people with gusto).

    Nobody batted an eyelid at the ethnic cleansing of Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Ruthenians, Bulgarians who found themselves on the wrong side of new borders (tragically, thousands of Jews who had survived the war, by getting themselves designated as "German", were then expelled from Poland and the Sudetenland). Few people wanted the surviving Jews back to reclaim their property, and most of the area was on the point of falling to communist rule.

    Sounds cheerful.
    France was lucky (well, de Gaulle might dispute the role of luck) not to fall into civil war after liberation. Even so, some estimate that more French citizens were killed in sectarian reprisals than by the Nazis.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,311
    edited May 2023
    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    I wondered whether news that Boris has brought a house in Oxford could be a sign he's expecting to lose Uxbridge and South Ruislip either after being recalled following the Commons Privileges committee report or at Election 24 - And is eyeing up a nice, safe Conservative seat in rural Oxfordshire?

    Quite possibly. Uxbridge is in the top 100 Labour target seats and will almost certainly go Labour on current polls.

    However Henley is not ultra safe Tory now either, on May 4th. Indeed the LDs won a landslide victory in South Oxfordshire on 4th May winning 21 seats while the Tories collapsed to just 1 councillor.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2023/england/councils/E07000179

    Even somewhere like Walsall or Dudley or Basildon or Dartford where the Tories held control of the council this month would be safer for Boris now than Henley (albeit less posh and glamorous)
    A friend lives in Brightwell (the Oxfordshire village where Boris is heading) and says there are indeed extensive preparations being made, not least a police car that drives up and down all day - inevitable, I suppose. The culture of the area is very LibDem - prosperous, nice, well-educated and socially liberal. Not naturally populist, as HYUFD says - don't know if Henley is different,
    Yes, it is very Remainery. Boris would be taking a huge risk going to Henley again. It voted for him when he was nice, socially and economically liberal cuddly Cameroon Boris, it will be much less likely to back populist, pro hard Brexit Boris and like much of the home counties the LDs play the NIMBY card there well too
    He'd do better somewhere like Dudley South.
    Yes, he will have to tell Carrie to forget the beautiful Georgian farmhouse with views of the Chilterns because the yellow peril are too big a risk with their pesky bar charts and Focus leaflets.

    No, they will have to slum it in a semi in Dudley for the sake of his political career which is much more Brexity and secure and where most voters would rather watch paint dry than vote LD (he just won't tell her about the barmaids at the local pub)
    Excellent post @hyufd.

    I have to tell you though if we win Henley, boy are your guys in big trouble elsewhere.
    Thanks.

    To an extent yes and certainly in Remain seats in the Home Counties but it is a different coalition to 1997. The Tories may hold Leave voting white working class seats like Dartford, Romford, Peterborough, Basildon, Harlow and Dudley and Walsall Blair won but lose upper middle class Remain seats like Henley, Surrey SW, Esher and Walton, Chesham and Amersham, Maidenhead and Wantage to the LDs that Major held (plus probably Cities of London and Westminster to Labour despite it also staying Tory in 1997)
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 27,831
    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ...

    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:
    It has the same sugar/fat ratio as breast milk, that is apparently why we like it. I have ice cream nearly every night, go me.
    Technically, it's the same carbohydrates/fat ratio. Breast milk contains relatively little in the way of straight sugar: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5331577/#:~:text=Fructose, glucose, and lactose were,associated with infant body composition.
    Look, Luckyguy is allowed to justify being a tit man any way he needs to.
    Can breast milk be turned into ice cream?
    It is often turned into ice cream, it's just usually cow's breast milk.
    Albeit they do add lots of sugar to it.
    I'm confused - the suggestion earlier that breast milk contains relatively little in the way of straight sugar (and implying that much of the carbohydrate in it isn't stdraight sugar) when in fact any soluble mono- or di-saccharide IS a sugar.

    Unless the milk contains starches etc., in which case it'd be more like sweet wallpaper paste? What am I missing?
    I don't know either - it is said to be sweet (this is neither distant recollection nor recent experience) in the same way that ice cream is sweet.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,479
    Farooq said:

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ...

    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:
    It has the same sugar/fat ratio as breast milk, that is apparently why we like it. I have ice cream nearly every night, go me.
    Technically, it's the same carbohydrates/fat ratio. Breast milk contains relatively little in the way of straight sugar: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5331577/#:~:text=Fructose, glucose, and lactose were,associated with infant body composition.
    Look, Luckyguy is allowed to justify being a tit man any way he needs to.
    Can breast milk be turned into ice cream?
    It is often turned into ice cream, it's just usually cow's breast milk.
    Albeit they do add lots of sugar to it.
    I'm confused - the suggestion earlier that breast milk contains relatively little in the way of straight sugar (and implying that much of the carbohydrate in it isn't stdraight sugar) when in fact any soluble mono- or di-saccharide IS a sugar.

    Unless the milk contains starches etc., in which case it'd be more like sweet wallpaper paste? What am I missing?
    I'd say you're missing a beautiful sunny day out there.
    And on that note, I'm off for a walk.
    Had a long walk already today! Plenty of flowers and ephemopterans.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 5,057

    Farooq said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @jonsopel

    Don’t want to go over the top, but this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Someone who was in the cabinet when legislation on voter ID was agreed and went through parliament acknowledges it WAS an attempt to gerrymander the elections

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1658076536350601216

    Said at the conference of loons.
    Which appears to be taking some of its themes from the US right.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/low-birthrate-is-uk-top-priority-tory-mp-tells-rightwing-conference-miriam-cates
    ...The UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, a Conservative MP has argued at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.

    Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction..
    The whole purpose of this well funded conference is to import the craziness of the US right into UK politics. See also recent attempts to rig the franchise (which a former Tory cabinet minister has admitted was gerrymandering). The Tories are utterly toxic now.
    Nearly as toxic as Starmer wanting to extend the franchise to children and foreigners. What next, let’s just let anyone in the UK on holiday vote in the election?

    I say this only slightly in jest, but am quite confident of a serious backlash against the proposals in polling.
    It's blantant gaslighting to accuse the other side of rigging the franchise while actually rigging the franchise.
    Stop doing it then
    Whatever else you can say about voter ID, it doesn’t change the franchise and it’s the norm in most non-Anglosphere democracies.
    In the light of the fact that all but one of EU nations have it demonstrates that the attempt to paint it as corrupt was toxic and damaging to democracy in this country. Unfortunately the Labour Party and its followers have bad history in this area. Demonise and question the integrity of your opponent is straight out of the Trump playbook. Either that or Trump took it straight out of the Labour Party playbook
    Which EU country is the exception?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 31,508
    edited May 2023
    Off topic

    One of the biggest mysteries of recent years: how an important archive on the subject of the study of terrorism "went missing" from Leicester University.

    https://theatheistconservative.com/2022/01/15/an-historically-valuable-archive-is-lost-by-a-university/

    "An historically valuable archive is lost by a university
    The University of Leicester has lost the archive of the Institute for the Study of Terrorism (IST)."
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,197
    edited May 2023

    Andy_JS said:

    More on the Mogg revelation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65599380

    "Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested the Conservatives introduced voter ID to boost their election chances, but it came "back to bite them".

    The former minister said it had "made it hard for our own voters" to take part in England's local elections.

    The polls on 4 May were the first in Britain where people had to show photo ID, such as a passport or driving licence, to vote.

    Mr Rees-Mogg said the change had "upset a system that worked perfectly well.""

    I hope Mike does a thread header. It certainly warrants debate.
    JRM was speaking in the context of Labour said to be thinking about changes to the electorate, and was warning things did not always work out as hoped. Certainly I'd want to see evidence that newly enfranchised EU citizens would vote Labour.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,558

    Carnyx said:

    rcs1000 said:

    ...

    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:
    It has the same sugar/fat ratio as breast milk, that is apparently why we like it. I have ice cream nearly every night, go me.
    Technically, it's the same carbohydrates/fat ratio. Breast milk contains relatively little in the way of straight sugar: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5331577/#:~:text=Fructose, glucose, and lactose were,associated with infant body composition.
    Look, Luckyguy is allowed to justify being a tit man any way he needs to.
    Can breast milk be turned into ice cream?
    It is often turned into ice cream, it's just usually cow's breast milk.
    Albeit they do add lots of sugar to it.
    I'm confused - the suggestion earlier that breast milk contains relatively little in the way of straight sugar (and implying that much of the carbohydrate in it isn't stdraight sugar) when in fact any soluble mono- or di-saccharide IS a sugar.

    Unless the milk contains starches etc., in which case it'd be more like sweet wallpaper paste? What am I missing?
    I don't know either - it is said to be sweet (this is neither distant recollection nor recent experience) in the same way that ice cream is sweet.
    It is sweet. Quite tasty actually, no wonder babies can't get enough of the stuff.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,613

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @jonsopel

    Don’t want to go over the top, but this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Someone who was in the cabinet when legislation on voter ID was agreed and went through parliament acknowledges it WAS an attempt to gerrymander the elections

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1658076536350601216

    Said at the conference of loons.
    Which appears to be taking some of its themes from the US right.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/low-birthrate-is-uk-top-priority-tory-mp-tells-rightwing-conference-miriam-cates
    ...The UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, a Conservative MP has argued at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.

    Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction..
    The whole purpose of this well funded conference is to import the craziness of the US right into UK politics. See also recent attempts to rig the franchise (which a former Tory cabinet minister has admitted was gerrymandering). The Tories are utterly toxic now.
    Yes, falling birth rates in the West have long been a preoccupation of the US hard-Right. I don't know if the reason they give for this concern - Christian white folk being outbred by the Muslims - was made explicit on this occasion.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,197
    Andy_JS said:

    Off topic

    One of the biggest mysteries of recent years: how an important archive on the subject of the study of terrorism "went missing" from Leicester University.

    https://theatheistconservative.com/2022/01/15/an-historically-valuable-archive-is-lost-by-a-university/

    "An historically valuable archive is lost by a university
    The University of Leicester has lost the archive of the Institute for the Study of Terrorism (IST)."

    That report is more than a year old. Has there been a new development?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,580
    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    Ghedebrav said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    GIN1138 said:

    I wondered whether news that Boris has brought a house in Oxford could be a sign he's expecting to lose Uxbridge and South Ruislip either after being recalled following the Commons Privileges committee report or at Election 24 - And is eyeing up a nice, safe Conservative seat in rural Oxfordshire?

    Quite possibly. Uxbridge is in the top 100 Labour target seats and will almost certainly go Labour on current polls.

    However Henley is not ultra safe Tory now either, on May 4th. Indeed the LDs won a landslide victory in South Oxfordshire on 4th May winning 21 seats while the Tories collapsed to just 1 councillor.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2023/england/councils/E07000179

    Even somewhere like Walsall or Dudley or Basildon or Dartford where the Tories held control of the council this month would be safer for Boris now than Henley (albeit less posh and glamorous)
    A friend lives in Brightwell (the Oxfordshire village where Boris is heading) and says there are indeed extensive preparations being made, not least a police car that drives up and down all day - inevitable, I suppose. The culture of the area is very LibDem - prosperous, nice, well-educated and socially liberal. Not naturally populist, as HYUFD says - don't know if Henley is different,
    Yes, it is very Remainery. Boris would be taking a huge risk going to Henley again. It voted for him when he was nice, socially and economically liberal cuddly Cameroon Boris, it will be much less likely to back populist, pro hard Brexit Boris and like much of the home counties the LDs play the NIMBY card there well too
    He'd do better somewhere like Dudley South.
    Yes, he will have to tell Carrie to forget the beautiful Georgian farmhouse with views of the Chilterns because the yellow peril are too big a risk with their pesky bar charts and Focus leaflets.

    No, they will have to slum it in a semi in Dudley for the sake of his political career which is much more Brexity and secure and where most voters would rather watch paint dry than vote LD (he just won't tell her about the barmaids at the local pub)
    Excellent post @hyufd.

    I have to tell you though if we win Henley, boy are your guys in big trouble elsewhere.
    That's as implausible as Labour ever losing say, Hartlepool or Bolsover!
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 21,158

    ...

    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:
    It has the same sugar/fat ratio as breast milk, that is apparently why we like it. I have ice cream nearly every night, go me.
    Technically, it's the same carbohydrates/fat ratio. Breast milk contains relatively little in the way of straight sugar: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5331577/#:~:text=Fructose, glucose, and lactose were,associated with infant body composition.
    Look, Luckyguy is allowed to justify being a tit man any way he needs to.
    Can breast milk be turned into ice cream?
    It is often turned into ice cream, it's just usually cow's breast milk.
    Pull the udder one :smiley:
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 69,050

    Sean_F said:

    O/t but I'm reading Savage Continent, by Keith Lowe, about the aftermath of WWII.

    The sufferings of Central and Eastern Europeans were indescribable.

    Belarus had lost a third of its population in the War, Ukraine, one fifth (on top of the Holodomor), Poland, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic States one sixth, Greece one tenth. Greece, Ukraine, and Poland, the Baltic States, however, were still in the middle of civil wars between nationalists, communists, and rival nationalists (Polish and Ukrainian nationalists slaughtered each others' people with gusto).

    Nobody batted an eyelid at the ethnic cleansing of Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Ruthenians, Bulgarians who found themselves on the wrong side of new borders (tragically, thousands of Jews who had survived the war, by getting themselves designated as "German", were then expelled from Poland and the Sudetenland). Few people wanted the surviving Jews back to reclaim their property, and most of the area was on the point of falling to communist rule.

    Thanks for that, I'll give that a read.

    Anyone got any recommendations for a good book about the American occupation of Japan?
    There's Michael Schaller's American Occupation of Japan.

    MacArthur, whom I regard as something of a dangerous megalomaniac, did have his positive side.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur
    ...In 1947, MacArthur invited the founder and first executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Roger Nash Baldwin, to teach the Japanese government and people about civil rights and civil liberties. MacArthur also asked him to do the same for southern Korea, which MacArthur was responsible for when it was under U.S. Army occupation. MacArthur ignored members of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the FBI who believed that Baldwin was a Soviet-loving communist. He wanted a civil liberties expert to quickly introduce western-style civil rights to the Japanese and thought conservatives would take too long. Baldwin helped found the Japan Civil Liberties Union. In a confidential letter to ACLU leaders the anti-militarist and very liberal Baldwin said about MacArthur, "His observation on civil liberties and democracy rank with the best I ever heard from any civilian — and they were incredible from a general."..
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,271
    It's an absolute disgrace! How dare the Labour Party float some ideas, including about changing the electorate, in advance of writing its manifesto for the next GE! Bring back the days when we could all say the Labour Party has no policies! The cheek of it - discussing policy matters and asking members for their views!

    Alternatively, people could chill out and reserve judgement and vitriol until they see which of the ideas currently being kicked about, on all manner of things, actually make it into Labour's manifesto.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,271
    Andy_JS said:

    Off topic

    One of the biggest mysteries of recent years: how an important archive on the subject of the study of terrorism "went missing" from Leicester University.

    https://theatheistconservative.com/2022/01/15/an-historically-valuable-archive-is-lost-by-a-university/

    "An historically valuable archive is lost by a university
    The University of Leicester has lost the archive of the Institute for the Study of Terrorism (IST)."

    It probably got blown up.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,223

    It's an absolute disgrace! How dare the Labour Party float some ideas, including about changing the electorate, in advance of writing its manifesto for the next GE! Bring back the days when we could all say the Labour Party has no policies! The cheek of it - discussing policy matters and asking members for their views!

    Alternatively, people could chill out and reserve judgement and vitriol until they see which of the ideas currently being kicked about, on all manner of things, actually make it into Labour's manifesto.

    The fact they are even considering extending the franchise in the way suggested to non citizens is indeed a disgrace. Any honest politician (with apologies for the obvious oxymoron) would not look twice at the idea.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,021
    Andy_JS said:

    More on the Mogg revelation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65599380

    "Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested the Conservatives introduced voter ID to boost their election chances, but it came "back to bite them".

    The former minister said it had "made it hard for our own voters" to take part in England's local elections.

    The polls on 4 May were the first in Britain where people had to show photo ID, such as a passport or driving licence, to vote.

    Mr Rees-Mogg said the change had "upset a system that worked perfectly well.""

    Well that's interesting. Mogg's complaint is that deliberate voter suppression was carried out incompetently, not that it was an outrageous attack on democracy. There I was, amazed to agree with Mogg on something, anything at all, literally for the first time. But no. The record is unbroken.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,167
    edited May 2023

    It's an absolute disgrace! How dare the Labour Party float some ideas, including about changing the electorate, in advance of writing its manifesto for the next GE! Bring back the days when we could all say the Labour Party has no policies! The cheek of it - discussing policy matters and asking members for their views!

    Alternatively, people could chill out and reserve judgement and vitriol until they see which of the ideas currently being kicked about, on all manner of things, actually make it into Labour's manifesto.

    The fact they are even considering extending the franchise in the way suggested to non citizens is indeed a disgrace. Any honest politician (with apologies for the obvious oxymoron) would not look twice at the idea.
    This was a Telegraph report, so it’s quite possible you are getting worked up about nothing, indeed I thought that they had briefed it was not happening.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,145

    Andy_JS said:

    Off topic

    One of the biggest mysteries of recent years: how an important archive on the subject of the study of terrorism "went missing" from Leicester University.

    https://theatheistconservative.com/2022/01/15/an-historically-valuable-archive-is-lost-by-a-university/

    "An historically valuable archive is lost by a university
    The University of Leicester has lost the archive of the Institute for the Study of Terrorism (IST)."

    That report is more than a year old. Has there been a new development?
    When you are an archivist a one year old story is stop press news. BTW archivists only have one job, which is not to lose things.

  • eekeek Posts: 27,647
    Always think about how a photo could be cut to make you look like a fool / crook

    image
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 21,158
    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    An interesting extension of the free speech argument.

    Abbott knocks Dominion over Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News
    https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4003679-abbott-knocks-dominion-over-tucker-carlsons-departure-from-fox-news/
    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) bashed Dominion Voting Systems over the departure of Tucker Carlson from Fox News, following a report that the popular conservative primetime host was fired from the network as part of its settlement with the voting software company.
    Carlson was told by a member of the network’s board of directors that he was taken off the air as part of the Fox News settlement with Dominion, according to Axios, which cited unidentified sources briefed on the conversations. Abbott said if the reporting was true, then he is “happy that Dominion does not operate in Texas.”
    “We may disagree with other’s positions, but we should never try to improperly silence views contrary to our own,” Abbott said on Twitter on Saturday. “If Dominion wants to do business with Texas in the future, they should first answer questions about what role, if any, they played in silencing a prominent conservative journalist.”
    A Fox News spokesperson in a statement to Axios said that the idea that Carlson was let go of as part of the settlement was “categorically false.” An attorney for Dominion also told the news outlet that it did not insist on Carlson being fired...

    Tucker intends to subpoena every internal email and memo from both sides, with regard to the Fox/Dominion case, he’s convinced there was a quid pro quo to fire him as part of the settlement.
    Dominion (and specifically their PE owners) only care about making money. All they really want is an agreement from Fox to never question their voting machines integrity.
    Of course. But Tucker is hoping to find an email somewhere, that says, or at least alludes, to him being fired as part of the settlement.

    He has a contract with Fox until the end of 2024, and they appear to be intending to throw lawyers at keeping him silent until after the election.

    The one thing he has, is his own Twitter account, and now it looks like Twitter is about to fast-track their video offering to get him as a platform exclusive.
    It will be interesting to see if Tucker is able to make Twitter work.

    My guess, for what it's worth, is that Tucker could build a great business on YouTube.

    But Twitter will be a much harder proposition for two reasons:

    (1) Twitter knows shit about its users, and therefore makes bugger all off advertising to them. (And Musk fired the team responsible for entering into partnerships with other sites to increase their visibility into their users.)

    (2) Twitter isn't on any smart TVs. It's perfectly possible for Tucker's customer base to hit the button on their TV and play YouTube videos. It's much harder (if at all possible) for him to do that with Twitter.

    Tucker could never build a business on YouTube. He’d be immediately demonetised, as have been Steven Crowder and Glenn Beck, with random videos deleted for random reasons.

    Yes, Twitter needs to develop the platform in the way that YouTube have. There’s a feeling that their new management understands this.

    There’s also the contract that Tucker has with Fox, that allegedly mentions Youtube but not Twitter - which leaves him with little choice. Fox could tie him up in litigation and injunctions running past the election, so Twitter is his only option.
    Separately, GB News and others aren't demonetized. It's not *that* easy to get demonetized: Alex Jones only fell foul when he went down the whole Sandy Hook wasn't real rabbit hole.
    Not Alex Jones. Steven Crowder and Glenn Beck, much more reasonable characters.
    I could be wrong, but Glenn Beck has only claimed that some of his clips have been demonetized for containing "sensitive" or "adult" content - see https://twitter.com/glennbeck/status/1304094216449126400?lang=en
    YouTube demonetization and "the algorithm" are, to put it politely, quixotic. There are many cases where it happens and it isn't limited to the latest American right-wing shibboleths.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 27,580
    edited May 2023

    Andy_JS said:

    More on the Mogg revelation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65599380

    "Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested the Conservatives introduced voter ID to boost their election chances, but it came "back to bite them".

    The former minister said it had "made it hard for our own voters" to take part in England's local elections.

    The polls on 4 May were the first in Britain where people had to show photo ID, such as a passport or driving licence, to vote.

    Mr Rees-Mogg said the change had "upset a system that worked perfectly well.""

    I hope Mike does a thread header. It certainly warrants debate.
    JRM was speaking in the context of Labour said to be thinking about changes to the electorate, and was warning things did not always work out as hoped. Certainly I'd want to see evidence that newly enfranchised EU citizens would vote Labour.
    Widening the franchise is generally positive I would have thought. It might be cynical in the extreme if the aim is significant electoral advantage. Although I suspect Cameron regrets not reducing the EURef age to 16. If he had he might still be PM.

    On the other hand I find a determined approach to suppressing legitimate voter numbers to be undemocratic. If there was a significant risk of voter fraud that is one thing, but there wasn't? And in the area where voter fraud had been pinpointed, namely postal votes, the whole fraudulent mess was ignored.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,311
    edited May 2023
    algarkirk said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Off topic

    One of the biggest mysteries of recent years: how an important archive on the subject of the study of terrorism "went missing" from Leicester University.

    https://theatheistconservative.com/2022/01/15/an-historically-valuable-archive-is-lost-by-a-university/

    "An historically valuable archive is lost by a university
    The University of Leicester has lost the archive of the Institute for the Study of Terrorism (IST)."

    That report is more than a year old. Has there been a new development?
    When you are an archivist a one year old story is stop press news. BTW archivists only have one job, which is not to lose things.

    Plus delete or destroy records past their retention in line with the organisation's retention schedule, albeit that does not seem to apply to these records
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,271

    It's an absolute disgrace! How dare the Labour Party float some ideas, including about changing the electorate, in advance of writing its manifesto for the next GE! Bring back the days when we could all say the Labour Party has no policies! The cheek of it - discussing policy matters and asking members for their views!

    Alternatively, people could chill out and reserve judgement and vitriol until they see which of the ideas currently being kicked about, on all manner of things, actually make it into Labour's manifesto.

    The fact they are even considering extending the franchise in the way suggested to non citizens is indeed a disgrace. Any honest politician (with apologies for the obvious oxymoron) would not look twice at the idea.
    I doubt it will feature in the 2024 manifesto. And if it does, and Labour is voted into power, then that's democracy for you. The fact you don't agree with it doesn't make it a 'disgrace', any more than my views on many things that the Tories have done. For example, I may think the whole Rwanda thing is a 'disgrace', but that the Tories are perfectly entitled to pursue things I disagree with. Indeed, I'd be rather disappointed if they didn't.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 121,311

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @jonsopel

    Don’t want to go over the top, but this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Someone who was in the cabinet when legislation on voter ID was agreed and went through parliament acknowledges it WAS an attempt to gerrymander the elections

    https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1658076536350601216

    Said at the conference of loons.
    Which appears to be taking some of its themes from the US right.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/15/low-birthrate-is-uk-top-priority-tory-mp-tells-rightwing-conference-miriam-cates
    ...The UK’s low birthrate is the most pressing policy issue of the generation and is caused in part by “cultural Marxism” stripping young people of any hope, a Conservative MP has argued at the start of a populist-tinged conference in London.

    Addressing the National Conservatism gathering, run by a US-based thinktank, Miriam Cates said western countries faced an existential threat from falling reproduction..
    The whole purpose of this well funded conference is to import the craziness of the US right into UK politics. See also recent attempts to rig the franchise (which a former Tory cabinet minister has admitted was gerrymandering). The Tories are utterly toxic now.
    Yes, falling birth rates in the West have long been a preoccupation of the US hard-Right. I don't know if the reason they give for this concern - Christian white folk being outbred by the Muslims - was made explicit on this occasion.
    More a case of atheist white folk being outbred by Muslims, Christian evangelicals also have lots of children and Catholics used to have more too
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,034
    Farooq said:

    carnforth said:

    Farooq said:

    Sandpit said:

    Ukranian President Zelensky in UK this lunchtime. Turned up at Chequers in an helicopter to meet the PM.

    I've always had you down as something of a barbarian; using "an" in front of "helicopter" confirms it.
    Maybe he doesn't pronounce the h :smile:

    I think "an hereditary" is about the only defensible one these days. Most people drop the h there.
    A hereditary
    An hour
    A helicopter
    An honour
    A hammer

    An understanding
    A unicorn
    An arse
    A balloon

    in teh spirit of the thread
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 69,050

    ...

    Nigelb said:

    Andy_JS said:

    More on the Mogg revelation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65599380

    "Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested the Conservatives introduced voter ID to boost their election chances, but it came "back to bite them".

    The former minister said it had "made it hard for our own voters" to take part in England's local elections...

    I wonder what it was the turned him against the wizard wheeze he voted for ?

    Getting spanked in the locals?

    A euphemism I hadn't come across.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 69,050
    Nigelb said:

    Sean_F said:

    O/t but I'm reading Savage Continent, by Keith Lowe, about the aftermath of WWII.

    The sufferings of Central and Eastern Europeans were indescribable.

    Belarus had lost a third of its population in the War, Ukraine, one fifth (on top of the Holodomor), Poland, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic States one sixth, Greece one tenth. Greece, Ukraine, and Poland, the Baltic States, however, were still in the middle of civil wars between nationalists, communists, and rival nationalists (Polish and Ukrainian nationalists slaughtered each others' people with gusto).

    Nobody batted an eyelid at the ethnic cleansing of Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Ruthenians, Bulgarians who found themselves on the wrong side of new borders (tragically, thousands of Jews who had survived the war, by getting themselves designated as "German", were then expelled from Poland and the Sudetenland). Few people wanted the surviving Jews back to reclaim their property, and most of the area was on the point of falling to communist rule.

    Thanks for that, I'll give that a read.

    Anyone got any recommendations for a good book about the American occupation of Japan?
    There's Michael Schaller's American Occupation of Japan.

    MacArthur, whom I regard as something of a dangerous megalomaniac, did have his positive side.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur
    ...In 1947, MacArthur invited the founder and first executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Roger Nash Baldwin, to teach the Japanese government and people about civil rights and civil liberties. MacArthur also asked him to do the same for southern Korea, which MacArthur was responsible for when it was under U.S. Army occupation. MacArthur ignored members of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the FBI who believed that Baldwin was a Soviet-loving communist. He wanted a civil liberties expert to quickly introduce western-style civil rights to the Japanese and thought conservatives would take too long. Baldwin helped found the Japan Civil Liberties Union. In a confidential letter to ACLU leaders the anti-militarist and very liberal Baldwin said about MacArthur, "His observation on civil liberties and democracy rank with the best I ever heard from any civilian — and they were incredible from a general."..
    There's also this, but it doesn't seem to be in print ?
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/25066295
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,479
    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Off topic

    One of the biggest mysteries of recent years: how an important archive on the subject of the study of terrorism "went missing" from Leicester University.

    https://theatheistconservative.com/2022/01/15/an-historically-valuable-archive-is-lost-by-a-university/

    "An historically valuable archive is lost by a university
    The University of Leicester has lost the archive of the Institute for the Study of Terrorism (IST)."

    That report is more than a year old. Has there been a new development?
    When you are an archivist a one year old story is stop press news. BTW archivists only have one job, which is not to lose things.

    Plus delete or destroy records past their retention in line with the organisation's retention schedule, albeit that does not seem to apply to these records
    THat's a different kind of "archivist", though - a role which should never have been given that name, which is confusing. It's done in part to make sure there aren't any skeletons in cupboards.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 16,673
    Nigelb said:

    ...

    Nigelb said:

    Andy_JS said:

    More on the Mogg revelation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65599380

    "Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested the Conservatives introduced voter ID to boost their election chances, but it came "back to bite them".

    The former minister said it had "made it hard for our own voters" to take part in England's local elections...

    I wonder what it was the turned him against the wizard wheeze he voted for ?

    Getting spanked in the locals?

    A euphemism I hadn't come across.
    It's what happens if you don't have a safe seat.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,568
    Good afternoon, everyone.

    Football: not many bets this month compared to splendid April. Backed Wolves to win at home versus Everton at 2.82.

    https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2023/05/epl-15-may-2023.html

    Good home performances lately for Wolves, although worth noting Evertone have also been quite handy away.
This discussion has been closed.