If I was in charge of security, anywhere in the world, looking after a fixed target, these stories would be giving me nightmares. It is surely just a matter of time before these cheap, hard to detect, easy to operate drones become the weapon of choice of every terrorist group on the planet.
I saw a piece yesterday about this: the ultimate in cheap and disposable. They'll be ubiquitous oon
I repeat a comment I made about 10 days ago. Ukraine is almost all in on this offensive. It is either going to achieve a decisive breakthrough or dreams of victory are going to die. Russia seem fully extended too and it remains possible they will break. But one way or another this war is going to be decided in the next couple of months and the cost is going to be severe.
And yet the majority of those polled in Ukraine think the war will continue for at least a year.
They're not happy about that - but support for fighting the invasion does not seem to have waned. I don't think you have any more idea than I do if what will happen, but I'd note those looking on have consistently underestimated Ukrainian will to fight.
It also seems that the very high casualty rates from the start of the counteroffensive have dropped significantly as they've learned from their mistakes.
The French were very up for the fight until Verdun. This is an existential war for Ukraine and their choices are limited but the cost in terms of their young men, their very future, is terrible. I really want them to win but stories such as that on the BBC show the terrible cost they are enduring.
The best hope is that someone gets rid of Putin and the new ruler decides that they have bigger fish to fry at home rebuilding a shattered economy.
As you say, the existence of France was never under threat in the way that the existence of Ukraine is under threat now. For that reason, Ukraine will fight itself to a standstill rather than give anything up to the Russians voluntarily. They will fight on even if the Americans withdraw support. The hope that this is what will happen will also drive the Russians on. It's very hard to see how this ends any time soon.
@BartholomewRoberts sorry to hear about your new 23 mile commute. Puts you in the top 5% longest commutes in England & Wales.
My parents used to do one of similar length in Scotland but happily had the train as an option.
Is 23 miles really that un-typical a commute outside of cities? I'm currently doing exactly that distance to my work. Very rare it takes as much as 30 minutes, 65-70mpg from my old diesel car means it only costs about £5 a day even at current bonkers fuel prices. It's amazing how great the UK is as soon as you get away from the bits in the south with too many people in them.
23 miles doesn't sound that long to me. It is a bit longer than average in the countryside, but not hugely so. For example, lots of people who live outside provincial cities like Birmingham or Sheffield would commute 23 miles to get there.
Very rare. That's 37 km.
My commute is 10k, I do it by bike most of the time and train/tube otherwise. It's quite pleasant either way although I WFH two days a week and appreciate the time savings.
On average, if you don't mind me asking, how long does it take to do the commute either by cycling or via train/tube?
One of the biggest difference I think between the efficiency of cars and t he lower efficiency of public transport, is that cars can go direct whereas many people's commute requires not 1 but 2 buses or trains. If you need to change buses or trains then you need to wait at the platform twice to get picked up and that is extra dead time in your commute.
That's I guess part of the reason why my commute, although longer than average, is more importantly to me faster than average. Distance isn't as big a problem if you have speed.
Door to door is about 45 minutes via either method, and according to Google it is also a 45 minute drive although I would never drive it as I'm not crazy.
I repeat a comment I made about 10 days ago. Ukraine is almost all in on this offensive. It is either going to achieve a decisive breakthrough or dreams of victory are going to die. Russia seem fully extended too and it remains possible they will break. But one way or another this war is going to be decided in the next couple of months and the cost is going to be severe.
Your conclusion does not follow from your premise though.
I absolutely hope that Ukraine make a decisive breakthrough this time, but if they fail to do so that doesn't mean there can't be a decisive breakthrough next year, or even the year after. Wars, even total wars, can often last years before the decisive breakthrough.
I will repeat a comment I made about 18 months ago - long, heavy wars are won on logistics, not battles. If Ukraine can repair or replace its losses better than Russia can over the winter, then even if weakened by their current attacks they could be in a much healthier relative position than Russia is come next spring.
Ukraine is consistently gaining new NATO-level equipment. They haven't even got their F16s in the field yet. Russia is continually reaching further and further back in their Cold War stockpile.
NATO has better logistics than Russia. In the claim by Russian pundits that they're fighting NATO, that element is actually reasonable to consider.
If a Republican becomes US President in January 2025 and Ukraine has no decisive advantage by then, the entire equation changes.
Yes but we are barely halfway to that point, and how often has the equation already changed over the past 18 months?
That still leaves more than a year to go even before the US election and it's in Bidens interest to see a breakthrough next year, if not this year.
The key question is is the nation sick and tired of the Conservatives. As they were in 1997.
Given the many versions of the Conservatives over the past decade I'm tempted to say not in the same way.
That said, largely, and for a number of reasons some exogenous and others endogenous, things are pretty shit right now so I expect the current government to get booted out at the next election but not with the same kind of Blair fervour.
Blair mania was real. The country yearned for change, and Callmetony was a walking smiling embodiment of that. In what became the Clinton / Blair / Obama 3rd way model which is either now deeply cynical or patronisingly twee depending on your point of view.
Sir Keith Donkey is not Blair. None of the self-confidence or charm, and offering a biccie tin with only crumbs to show where the biscuits should be. So there is no wave of Starmer fevour as there was with Blair.
But on the flip side, the public mood to get shut of a government now hugely outstrips that in the mid 90s. There were so many reasons to want to get shut of that government, but the latter years of it had shown they could govern policy and economy with competence - albeit cold and unfeeling competence.
This lot? They could probably get away with the corrupt thieving of our money, the inhuman treatment of the poor and dispossessed, the run down to the point of breakdown in public services and social fabric - probably get away with it were they competent.
If this was the grand plan - we're going to bankrupt your council and smash the police and education and the NHS but its a grand plan to achieve x and we're competently delivering that plan - they would not be in such a mess. The sad truth is that they're doing those things by accident, with no plans grand or otherwise, and a refusal to accept this reality they have created.
And no matter how many times they lie about new hospitals or complain about how Labour won't reverse a policy they implemented and how fuck off you should fuck off if you don't like us fuck off, people have stopped listening. Because they know its all lies. And that is why it doesn't matter that Donkey has minimal charisma and fewer answers. He isn't *them*. And when *them* are wretched and malevolent, just being seen as safe and competent will do.
Those interested in theology and politics should read Michael Shellenberger's "Apocalypse Never". In chapter 12, he says: "Environmentalism today is the dominant secular relgion of the eudcated, upper-middle-class elite in most developed and many developing nations. It provides a new story about our collective and individual purpose. It designates good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains. And it does so in the language of science, which provides it legitimacy." (p. 263)
It combines a nature worship with similarities to some pagan religions with apocalyptic ideas from "Judeo-Christian beliefs".
For an example of the first, consider the worship -- and that is not too strong a word in this area -- of killer whales. For an example of the second, consider the odd beliefs of, for example, Extinction Rebellion.
It also tends to conveniently denigrate the views of working-class and lower middle-class people. Very useful for a mostly middle-class movement.
While 46% of ABC1 might vote Green, 36% of C2DE also might.
We used to see polling like this under Charles Kennedy with maps of how yellow the UK would look like if everyone did it.
The Greens are LDs to the max: they are anti-development NIMBYs and conservationists favouring lower taxes on small businesses in rural areas, and radical left-wing activists in urban areas.
I am not surprised that you are hostile to Green politics, but the party does get support across a wide range of demographics and is generally seen positively by voters. In PR elections such as the Euros it does well.
I think unlikely to hold even a single seat in the next parliament, but like UKIP in the past the Greens may well have a lot of influence on how our politics works.
People don't want shit in all our rivers and beaches. That appeals to all classes and ages, except of course those running the Tory Party.
I'm not sure anyone wants shit in our rivers and on the beaches, I'd love a totally clean Britain (who wouldn't?) but like any infrastructure upgrade that will be both expensive and complicated.
I repeat a comment I made about 10 days ago. Ukraine is almost all in on this offensive. It is either going to achieve a decisive breakthrough or dreams of victory are going to die. Russia seem fully extended too and it remains possible they will break. But one way or another this war is going to be decided in the next couple of months and the cost is going to be severe.
And yet the majority of those polled in Ukraine think the war will continue for at least a year.
They're not happy about that - but support for fighting the invasion does not seem to have waned. I don't think you have any more idea than I do if what will happen, but I'd note those looking on have consistently underestimated Ukrainian will to fight.
It also seems that the very high casualty rates from the start of the counteroffensive have dropped significantly as they've learned from their mistakes.
The French were very up for the fight until Verdun. This is an existential war for Ukraine and their choices are limited but the cost in terms of their young men, their very future, is terrible. I really want them to win but stories such as that on the BBC show the terrible cost they are enduring.
The best hope is that someone gets rid of Putin and the new ruler decides that they have bigger fish to fry at home rebuilding a shattered economy.
I think it generally accepted that it was the Nivelle Offensive that broke the French Army in 1917, leading to widespread mutiny. The French were not alone in that of course, as quite a few armies were getting mutinous by the following year, the British Imperial forces being unusually still willing and capable of fighting in 1918.
'Public transport' can be a misleading commute description, as part of the commute time is inevitably walking or cycling unless both your house and work are opposite a station.
For example, my 3-day-a-week commute is 20 minutes on a train and 30 minutes walking in total. I find that much more relaxing than I would driving for a similar period of time.
I repeat a comment I made about 10 days ago. Ukraine is almost all in on this offensive. It is either going to achieve a decisive breakthrough or dreams of victory are going to die. Russia seem fully extended too and it remains possible they will break. But one way or another this war is going to be decided in the next couple of months and the cost is going to be severe.
And yet the majority of those polled in Ukraine think the war will continue for at least a year.
They're not happy about that - but support for fighting the invasion does not seem to have waned. I don't think you have any more idea than I do if what will happen, but I'd note those looking on have consistently underestimated Ukrainian will to fight.
It also seems that the very high casualty rates from the start of the counteroffensive have dropped significantly as they've learned from their mistakes.
The French were very up for the fight until Verdun. This is an existential war for Ukraine and their choices are limited but the cost in terms of their young men, their very future, is terrible. I really want them to win but stories such as that on the BBC show the terrible cost they are enduring.
The best hope is that someone gets rid of Putin and the new ruler decides that they have bigger fish to fry at home rebuilding a shattered economy.
As you say, the existence of France was never under threat in the way that the existence of Ukraine is under threat now. For that reason, Ukraine will fight itself to a standstill rather than give anything up to the Russians voluntarily. They will fight on even if the Americans withdraw support. The hope that this is what will happen will also drive the Russians on. It's very hard to see how this ends any time soon.
Hmm. The Germans sliced off Alsace and Lorraine in 1871, would have taken some of Northern France if they'd won WW1 (as well as Benelux) and essentially made France an economic vassal. In WW2, of course, by 1942 they occupied the whole country and there's no obvious reason that would have ended had they not invaded Russia and declared war on the USA.
We absolutely did not have the resources to challenge it; just do Boys Own raids with decidedly mixed levels of success.
TfL don't deserve much of the opprobrium they are getting over bringing it in - after all, it was Shapps' idea - but it's pathetic that they can't make sure their website is obvious and at the top of search engine hits. One member of staff typing it in Google twice a day and reporting any scam sites is all that's needed.
I repeat a comment I made about 10 days ago. Ukraine is almost all in on this offensive. It is either going to achieve a decisive breakthrough or dreams of victory are going to die. Russia seem fully extended too and it remains possible they will break. But one way or another this war is going to be decided in the next couple of months and the cost is going to be severe.
Your conclusion does not follow from your premise though.
I absolutely hope that Ukraine make a decisive breakthrough this time, but if they fail to do so that doesn't mean there can't be a decisive breakthrough next year, or even the year after. Wars, even total wars, can often last years before the decisive breakthrough.
I will repeat a comment I made about 18 months ago - long, heavy wars are won on logistics, not battles. If Ukraine can repair or replace its losses better than Russia can over the winter, then even if weakened by their current attacks they could be in a much healthier relative position than Russia is come next spring.
Ukraine is consistently gaining new NATO-level equipment. They haven't even got their F16s in the field yet. Russia is continually reaching further and further back in their Cold War stockpile.
NATO has better logistics than Russia. In the claim by Russian pundits that they're fighting NATO, that element is actually reasonable to consider.
If a Republican becomes US President in January 2025 and Ukraine has no decisive advantage by then, the entire equation changes.
It does depend on which Republican. Not all are Trumpian friends of Putin.
Those interested in theology and politics should read Michael Shellenberger's "Apocalypse Never". In chapter 12, he says: "Environmentalism today is the dominant secular relgion of the eudcated, upper-middle-class elite in most developed and many developing nations. It provides a new story about our collective and individual purpose. It designates good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains. And it does so in the language of science, which provides it legitimacy." (p. 263)
It combines a nature worship with similarities to some pagan religions with apocalyptic ideas from "Judeo-Christian beliefs".
For an example of the first, consider the worship -- and that is not too strong a word in this area -- of killer whales. For an example of the second, consider the odd beliefs of, for example, Extinction Rebellion.
It also tends to conveniently denigrate the views of working-class and lower middle-class people. Very useful for a mostly middle-class movement.
While 46% of ABC1 might vote Green, 36% of C2DE also might.
We used to see polling like this under Charles Kennedy with maps of how yellow the UK would look like if everyone did it.
The Greens are LDs to the max: they are anti-development NIMBYs and conservationists favouring lower taxes on small businesses in rural areas, and radical left-wing activists in urban areas.
I am not surprised that you are hostile to Green politics, but the party does get support across a wide range of demographics and is generally seen positively by voters. In PR elections such as the Euros it does well.
I think unlikely to hold even a single seat in the next parliament, but like UKIP in the past the Greens may well have a lot of influence on how our politics works.
People don't want shit in all our rivers and beaches. That appeals to all classes and ages, except of course those running the Tory Party.
I'm not sure anyone wants shit in our rivers and on the beaches, I'd love a totally clean Britain (who wouldn't?) but like any infrastructure upgrade that will be both expensive and complicated.
And as we have seen with house building and regulation, building the infrastructure will hit “Yes *other* infrastructure is great, but *this* sewage works is a crime against humanity and must never happen”
I quite liked Rishi. He was so much of an improvement after Johnson. But is he?
On Ulez today he confirmed Harper's lie and embellished it by suggesting Starmer promoted Ulez expansion, whilst the Conservatives never supported it.
On lifting surface water restrictions Gove told some absolute whoppas today, and Rishi unflinchingly repeated them.
More interestingly the Conservatives had their LBC phone-in shills linking Starmer to Savile.
Sunak plays dirty doesn't he? He's as bad as Johnson.
The Star, in another crisp as lettuce moment, call Sunak Biggles, and have a cartoon of him in his helicopter.
Biggles is a clever line. If Sunak were up against Trump that’s what he’d be calling him.
Not so sure. Has anyone under 50 heard of Biggles?
Me.
Edit - incidentally, on checking quite a lot of them are still in print. Not all of them, because most of the later ones were of course pretty naff, but the WW1 and WW2 ones are still very easy to get hold of.
I repeat a comment I made about 10 days ago. Ukraine is almost all in on this offensive. It is either going to achieve a decisive breakthrough or dreams of victory are going to die. Russia seem fully extended too and it remains possible they will break. But one way or another this war is going to be decided in the next couple of months and the cost is going to be severe.
And yet the majority of those polled in Ukraine think the war will continue for at least a year.
They're not happy about that - but support for fighting the invasion does not seem to have waned. I don't think you have any more idea than I do if what will happen, but I'd note those looking on have consistently underestimated Ukrainian will to fight.
It also seems that the very high casualty rates from the start of the counteroffensive have dropped significantly as they've learned from their mistakes.
The French were very up for the fight until Verdun. This is an existential war for Ukraine and their choices are limited but the cost in terms of their young men, their very future, is terrible. I really want them to win but stories such as that on the BBC show the terrible cost they are enduring.
The best hope is that someone gets rid of Putin and the new ruler decides that they have bigger fish to fry at home rebuilding a shattered economy.
I think it generally accepted that it was the Nivelle Offensive that broke the French Army in 1917, leading to widespread mutiny. The French were not alone in that of course, as quite a few armies were getting mutinous by the following year, the British Imperial forces being unusually still willing and capable of fighting in 1918.
On the subject of mutiny:
And in Italy, in WWI, Cadorna kept fighting the Battle of Isonzo* until he got the defeat he was really looking for. His own country’s defeat, that is.
Italy, like France nearly collapsed as a result.
Interestingly, after both the Neville Offensive and Caporetto, the French and Italian armies were both still prepared to fight, just not attack suicidally, for no purpose. Hence the rally at Piave.
*When you have got to 11 battles with the same name, it is time to quit.
There's an article in The Spectator (I won't link to far right sites) about the calamity of the Ukrainian casualty handling. Much of the western largess is, to the complete non-surprise of anybody who has ever spent any time in that part of the world, disappearing into a vortex of theft and corruption. The head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Medical Corps has just been sacked for giving a £1.5m contract to his daughter in law for medical supplies off aliexpress that turned out to be useless. The tory party will probably want him as their candidate for Mad Nad's seat as he seems like a good cultural fit.
I repeat a comment I made about 10 days ago. Ukraine is almost all in on this offensive. It is either going to achieve a decisive breakthrough or dreams of victory are going to die. Russia seem fully extended too and it remains possible they will break. But one way or another this war is going to be decided in the next couple of months and the cost is going to be severe.
And yet the majority of those polled in Ukraine think the war will continue for at least a year.
They're not happy about that - but support for fighting the invasion does not seem to have waned. I don't think you have any more idea than I do if what will happen, but I'd note those looking on have consistently underestimated Ukrainian will to fight.
It also seems that the very high casualty rates from the start of the counteroffensive have dropped significantly as they've learned from their mistakes.
The French were very up for the fight until Verdun. This is an existential war for Ukraine and their choices are limited but the cost in terms of their young men, their very future, is terrible. I really want them to win but stories such as that on the BBC show the terrible cost they are enduring.
The best hope is that someone gets rid of Putin and the new ruler decides that they have bigger fish to fry at home rebuilding a shattered economy.
I think it generally accepted that it was the Nivelle Offensive that broke the French Army in 1917, leading to widespread mutiny. The French were not alone in that of course, as quite a few armies were getting mutinous by the following year, the British Imperial forces being unusually still willing and capable of fighting in 1918.
On the subject of mutiny:
And in Italy, in WWI, Cadorna kept fighting the Battle of Isonzo* until he got the defeat he was really looking for. His own country’s defeat, that is.
Italy, like France nearly collapsed as a result.
Interestingly, after both the Neville Offensive and Caporetto, the French and Italian armies were both still prepared to fight, just not attack suicidally, for no purpose. Hence the rally at Piave.
*When you have got to 11 battles with the same name, it is time to quit.
An attitude that of course carried over into the interwar years, with unfortunate consequences for Czechoslovakia and Poland, and equally unfortunate consequences for France itself when the Maginot Line they had built as a result proved less than effective.
Idalia update: we’re a few hours from landfall and what is now a major hurricane is still intensifying over 31C waters in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico.
No major city being hit though, the landfall zone is quite sparsely populated with Tallahassee the biggest settlement in the way. But plenty of coastal surge flooding to come. I don’t think this will be enough to turn Idalia into a big news and political event but we’ll see.
The key question is is the nation sick and tired of the Conservatives. As they were in 1997.
Given the many versions of the Conservatives over the past decade I'm tempted to say not in the same way.
That said, largely, and for a number of reasons some exogenous and others endogenous, things are pretty shit right now so I expect the current government to get booted out at the next election but not with the same kind of Blair fervour.
My sense is that people think the country is going the wrong way. The Daily Mail article linked above is an example. They don't have a good idea how to fix it.
1979 is better comparator than 1997. Not least because Keir Starmer, strangely has a lot in common with early Thatcher. It's not necessarily a happy comparison for Starmer as Thatcher struggled in the early years and was only rescued politically by an Argentinian general invading the Falkland Islands.
Um, that's worrying. I'd be very surprised if it factually came from Estonia, because they're not insane. If Putin's doing a false-flag, we are in trouble.
It is brilliant , hopefully we see lots more of it.
The key question is is the nation sick and tired of the Conservatives. As they were in 1997.
Given the many versions of the Conservatives over the past decade I'm tempted to say not in the same way.
That said, largely, and for a number of reasons some exogenous and others endogenous, things are pretty shit right now so I expect the current government to get booted out at the next election but not with the same kind of Blair fervour.
My sense is that people think the country is going the wrong way. The Daily Mail article linked above is an example. They don't have a good idea how to fix it.
1979 is better comparator than 1997. Not least because Keir Starmer, strangely has a lot in common with early Thatcher. It's not necessarily a happy comparison for Starmer as Thatcher struggled in the early years and was only rescued politically by an Argentinian general invading the Falkland Islands.
Don't mention the Falklands.
I did it a couple of threads ago, but I think I got away with it...
The key question is is the nation sick and tired of the Conservatives. As they were in 1997.
Given the many versions of the Conservatives over the past decade I'm tempted to say not in the same way.
That said, largely, and for a number of reasons some exogenous and others endogenous, things are pretty shit right now so I expect the current government to get booted out at the next election but not with the same kind of Blair fervour.
My sense is that people think the country is going the wrong way. The Daily Mail article linked above is an example. They don't have a good idea how to fix it.
1979 is better comparator than 1997. Not least because Keir Starmer, strangely has a lot in common with early Thatcher. It's not necessarily a happy comparison for Starmer as Thatcher struggled in the early years and was only rescued politically by an Argentinian general invading the Falkland Islands.
The big difference I think being Starmer won’t be administering tough medicine and austerity as early Thatcher did. The 2010-2015 experiment is too recent.
I quite liked Rishi. He was so much of an improvement after Johnson. But is he?
On Ulez today he confirmed Harper's lie and embellished it by suggesting Starmer promoted Ulez expansion, whilst the Conservatives never supported it.
On lifting surface water restrictions Gove told some absolute whoppas today, and Rishi unflinchingly repeated them.
More interestingly the Conservatives had their LBC phone-in shills linking Starmer to Savile.
Sunak plays dirty doesn't he? He's as bad as Johnson.
The Star, in another crisp as lettuce moment, call Sunak Biggles, and have a cartoon of him in his helicopter.
Biggles is a clever line. If Sunak were up against Trump that’s what he’d be calling him.
When my mum was working in a bookshop an American came in asking if they had any Biggles books, as they claimed to be related to Biggles. I don't think my mum had the heart to tell them that Biggles was a fictional character.
TfL don't deserve much of the opprobrium they are getting over bringing it in - after all, it was Shapps' idea - but it's pathetic that they can't make sure their website is obvious and at the top of search engine hits. One member of staff typing it in Google twice a day and reporting any scam sites is all that's needed.
Organisations do not take this sort of thing seriously enough and it did not help that browsers stopped showing extended validation. And too many large companies send messages that look like phishing emails, which of course just trains their customers to fall for actual phishing.
The key question is is the nation sick and tired of the Conservatives. As they were in 1997.
Given the many versions of the Conservatives over the past decade I'm tempted to say not in the same way.
That said, largely, and for a number of reasons some exogenous and others endogenous, things are pretty shit right now so I expect the current government to get booted out at the next election but not with the same kind of Blair fervour.
My sense is that people think the country is going the wrong way. The Daily Mail article linked above is an example. They don't have a good idea how to fix it.
1979 is better comparator than 1997. Not least because Keir Starmer, strangely has a lot in common with early Thatcher. It's not necessarily a happy comparison for Starmer as Thatcher struggled in the early years and was only rescued politically by an Argentinian general invading the Falkland Islands.
Wilson 1964 is a better comparison for Starmer although he does seem to be moving more towards New Labour policy wise
I repeat a comment I made about 10 days ago. Ukraine is almost all in on this offensive. It is either going to achieve a decisive breakthrough or dreams of victory are going to die. Russia seem fully extended too and it remains possible they will break. But one way or another this war is going to be decided in the next couple of months and the cost is going to be severe.
No chance it will be decided in next few months. Long way to go.
The key question is is the nation sick and tired of the Conservatives. As they were in 1997.
Given the many versions of the Conservatives over the past decade I'm tempted to say not in the same way.
That said, largely, and for a number of reasons some exogenous and others endogenous, things are pretty shit right now so I expect the current government to get booted out at the next election but not with the same kind of Blair fervour.
My sense is that people think the country is going the wrong way. The Daily Mail article linked above is an example. They don't have a good idea how to fix it.
1979 is better comparator than 1997. Not least because Keir Starmer, strangely has a lot in common with early Thatcher. It's not necessarily a happy comparison for Starmer as Thatcher struggled in the early years and was only rescued politically by an Argentinian general invading the Falkland Islands.
Wilson 1964 is a better comparison for Starmer although he does seem to be moving more towards New Labour policy wise
If you told Starmer he was Labour's new Wilson he would be delighted!
Those interested in theology and politics should read Michael Shellenberger's "Apocalypse Never". In chapter 12, he says: "Environmentalism today is the dominant secular relgion of the eudcated, upper-middle-class elite in most developed and many developing nations. It provides a new story about our collective and individual purpose. It designates good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains. And it does so in the language of science, which provides it legitimacy." (p. 263)
It combines a nature worship with similarities to some pagan religions with apocalyptic ideas from "Judeo-Christian beliefs".
For an example of the first, consider the worship -- and that is not too strong a word in this area -- of killer whales. For an example of the second, consider the odd beliefs of, for example, Extinction Rebellion.
It also tends to conveniently denigrate the views of working-class and lower middle-class people. Very useful for a mostly middle-class movement.
While 46% of ABC1 might vote Green, 36% of C2DE also might.
We used to see polling like this under Charles Kennedy with maps of how yellow the UK would look like if everyone did it.
The Greens are LDs to the max: they are anti-development NIMBYs and conservationists favouring lower taxes on small businesses in rural areas, and radical left-wing activists in urban areas.
I am not surprised that you are hostile to Green politics, but the party does get support across a wide range of demographics and is generally seen positively by voters. In PR elections such as the Euros it does well.
I think unlikely to hold even a single seat in the next parliament, but like UKIP in the past the Greens may well have a lot of influence on how our politics works.
People don't want shit in all our rivers and beaches. That appeals to all classes and ages, except of course those running the Tory Party.
I'm not sure anyone wants shit in our rivers and on the beaches, I'd love a totally clean Britain (who wouldn't?) but like any infrastructure upgrade that will be both expensive and complicated.
Pity the Tories siphoned all that cash to tax havens then.
I repeat a comment I made about 10 days ago. Ukraine is almost all in on this offensive. It is either going to achieve a decisive breakthrough or dreams of victory are going to die. Russia seem fully extended too and it remains possible they will break. But one way or another this war is going to be decided in the next couple of months and the cost is going to be severe.
No chance it will be decided in next few months. Long way to go.
Edgy cynics are getting performatively bored in the West though, so Ukraine had better just hand over those territories.
O/T but to follow up on the discussion of places for @DavidL to visit in Kent yesterday - this popped up on my email feed by coincidence. Rather interesting look at Margate.
Also coordinated drone attacks at Byansk and Tula.
Putin retaliates against Estonia. World War 3?
BRACE
Apparently, WW3 would be totally worth it for Donbas to be under the heel of a different set of oligarchs that might otherwise be the case.
Some think it would be worth it to hand over everywhere as far as Bergen because a bad man is saying a scary thing.
That's the totally not juvenile, automatic contrarian thing to do, and not at all to posture as edgy realists. I totally buy its more logical and grown up than over eager armchair generals being a bit flippant about risks or optimistic.
TfL don't deserve much of the opprobrium they are getting over bringing it in - after all, it was Shapps' idea - but it's pathetic that they can't make sure their website is obvious and at the top of search engine hits. One member of staff typing it in Google twice a day and reporting any scam sites is all that's needed.
Is TFL administering this one themselves ? I briefly temped for Capita, administering the congestion charge.
I repeat a comment I made about 10 days ago. Ukraine is almost all in on this offensive. It is either going to achieve a decisive breakthrough or dreams of victory are going to die. Russia seem fully extended too and it remains possible they will break. But one way or another this war is going to be decided in the next couple of months and the cost is going to be severe.
No chance it will be decided in next few months. Long way to go.
Edgy cynics are getting performatively bored in the West though, so Ukraine had better just hand over those territories.
They will get their wish when they are up to their knees in mud in the Baltics crapping themselves.
The key question is is the nation sick and tired of the Conservatives. As they were in 1997.
Given the many versions of the Conservatives over the past decade I'm tempted to say not in the same way.
That said, largely, and for a number of reasons some exogenous and others endogenous, things are pretty shit right now so I expect the current government to get booted out at the next election but not with the same kind of Blair fervour.
My sense is that people think the country is going the wrong way. The Daily Mail article linked above is an example. They don't have a good idea how to fix it.
1979 is better comparator than 1997. Not least because Keir Starmer, strangely has a lot in common with early Thatcher. It's not necessarily a happy comparison for Starmer as Thatcher struggled in the early years and was only rescued politically by an Argentinian general invading the Falkland Islands.
Don't mention the Falklands.
I did it a couple of threads ago, but I think I got away with it...
The other factor was the Other Lot going absolutely Tonto once they were in opposition.
Good job that there's very little risk of that happening to the Conservatives in 2025.
I repeat a comment I made about 10 days ago. Ukraine is almost all in on this offensive. It is either going to achieve a decisive breakthrough or dreams of victory are going to die. Russia seem fully extended too and it remains possible they will break. But one way or another this war is going to be decided in the next couple of months and the cost is going to be severe.
And yet the majority of those polled in Ukraine think the war will continue for at least a year.
They're not happy about that - but support for fighting the invasion does not seem to have waned. I don't think you have any more idea than I do if what will happen, but I'd note those looking on have consistently underestimated Ukrainian will to fight.
It also seems that the very high casualty rates from the start of the counteroffensive have dropped significantly as they've learned from their mistakes.
The French were very up for the fight until Verdun. This is an existential war for Ukraine and their choices are limited but the cost in terms of their young men, their very future, is terrible. I really want them to win but stories such as that on the BBC show the terrible cost they are enduring.
The best hope is that someone gets rid of Putin and the new ruler decides that they have bigger fish to fry at home rebuilding a shattered economy.
I think it generally accepted that it was the Nivelle Offensive that broke the French Army in 1917, leading to widespread mutiny. The French were not alone in that of course, as quite a few armies were getting mutinous by the following year, the British Imperial forces being unusually still willing and capable of fighting in 1918.
On the subject of mutiny:
And in Italy, in WWI, Cadorna kept fighting the Battle of Isonzo* until he got the defeat he was really looking for. His own country’s defeat, that is.
Italy, like France nearly collapsed as a result.
Interestingly, after both the Neville Offensive and Caporetto, the French and Italian armies were both still prepared to fight, just not attack suicidally, for no purpose. Hence the rally at Piave.
*When you have got to 11 battles with the same name, it is time to quit.
I walked some of those battlefields last year, and might get another chance shortly. The scenery up there is stunning, but the conditions were worse than in the trenches of France/Belgium.
I came across a hill that had been captured by the bravery of a young guy called Rommel. I wonder what happened to him?
Idalia update: we’re a few hours from landfall and what is now a major hurricane is still intensifying over 31C waters in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico.
No major city being hit though, the landfall zone is quite sparsely populated with Tallahassee the biggest settlement in the way. But plenty of coastal surge flooding to come. I don’t think this will be enough to turn Idalia into a big news and political event but we’ll see.
The Almighty appears to have spared the liberal bits of Florida in delivering his message to Ron.
The key question is is the nation sick and tired of the Conservatives. As they were in 1997.
Given the many versions of the Conservatives over the past decade I'm tempted to say not in the same way.
That said, largely, and for a number of reasons some exogenous and others endogenous, things are pretty shit right now so I expect the current government to get booted out at the next election but not with the same kind of Blair fervour.
My sense is that people think the country is going the wrong way. The Daily Mail article linked above is an example. They don't have a good idea how to fix it.
1979 is better comparator than 1997. Not least because Keir Starmer, strangely has a lot in common with early Thatcher. It's not necessarily a happy comparison for Starmer as Thatcher struggled in the early years and was only rescued politically by an Argentinian general invading the Falkland Islands.
Don't mention the Falklands.
I did it a couple of threads ago, but I think I got away with it...
The other factor was the Other Lot going absolutely Tonto once they were in opposition.
Good job that there's very little risk of that happening to the Conservatives in 2025.
I quite liked Rishi. He was so much of an improvement after Johnson. But is he?
On Ulez today he confirmed Harper's lie and embellished it by suggesting Starmer promoted Ulez expansion, whilst the Conservatives never supported it.
On lifting surface water restrictions Gove told some absolute whoppas today, and Rishi unflinchingly repeated them.
More interestingly the Conservatives had their LBC phone-in shills linking Starmer to Savile.
Sunak plays dirty doesn't he? He's as bad as Johnson.
The Star, in another crisp as lettuce moment, call Sunak Biggles, and have a cartoon of him in his helicopter.
Biggles is a clever line. If Sunak were up against Trump that’s what he’d be calling him.
Not so sure. Has anyone under 50 heard of Biggles?
Me.
Edit - incidentally, on checking quite a lot of them are still in print. Not all of them, because most of the later ones were of course pretty naff, but the WW1 and WW2 ones are still very easy to get hold of.
I'm not sure 'Biggles' is quite the slur the Star intends it to be. Older readers will surely remember him as a bit of a swash-buckling hero, harking back in a rose-tinted view to an era when Britain was a world power; younger readers probably have no idea who Biggles is.
I quite liked Rishi. He was so much of an improvement after Johnson. But is he?
On Ulez today he confirmed Harper's lie and embellished it by suggesting Starmer promoted Ulez expansion, whilst the Conservatives never supported it.
On lifting surface water restrictions Gove told some absolute whoppas today, and Rishi unflinchingly repeated them.
More interestingly the Conservatives had their LBC phone-in shills linking Starmer to Savile.
Sunak plays dirty doesn't he? He's as bad as Johnson.
The Star, in another crisp as lettuce moment, call Sunak Biggles, and have a cartoon of him in his helicopter.
Biggles is a clever line. If Sunak were up against Trump that’s what he’d be calling him.
Not so sure. Has anyone under 50 heard of Biggles?
Yes, I am 41 and have not only heard of Biggles but read the books too
Under the circumstances of your post, not the best moment to hit the "o" rather than the "i" key. Anyway didn't he have a hit with "Video killed the radio star"?
The key question is is the nation sick and tired of the Conservatives. As they were in 1997.
Given the many versions of the Conservatives over the past decade I'm tempted to say not in the same way.
That said, largely, and for a number of reasons some exogenous and others endogenous, things are pretty shit right now so I expect the current government to get booted out at the next election but not with the same kind of Blair fervour.
My sense is that people think the country is going the wrong way. The Daily Mail article linked above is an example. They don't have a good idea how to fix it.
1979 is better comparator than 1997. Not least because Keir Starmer, strangely has a lot in common with early Thatcher. It's not necessarily a happy comparison for Starmer as Thatcher struggled in the early years and was only rescued politically by an Argentinian general invading the Falkland Islands.
Don't mention the Falklands.
I did it a couple of threads ago, but I think I got away with it...
The other factor was the Other Lot going absolutely Tonto once they were in opposition.
Good job that there's very little risk of that happening to the Conservatives in 2025.
There's zero risk of them *going* tonto.
Staying tonto, now...
I dunno. There's a decent chance that by 2027 or so, the Conservative party will be making the Truss weeks look like an oasis of calm and sanity.
Um, that's worrying. I'd be very surprised if it factually came from Estonia, because they're not insane. If Putin's doing a false-flag, we are in trouble.
I doubt it's a false-flag given that it seems to have destroyed a number of Russian military transport planes, but the drones from Estonia explanation may be wrong.
You may have misunderstood what I was saying. A "false-flag operation" is an operation carried out by one country posing as/blamed on another. I was implying that Russia did the explosions on its own soil and blamed it on the Estonians. Such ruses have been used, both in the real world and in fiction. The Russians did it in WW2.
Is North Korea preparing crown princess Kim Ju-ae as successor? https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=358090 North Korea again directed the media spotlight on Kim Ju-ae, the daughter of leader Kim Jong-un, running a video footage of its navy commander saluting the presumed 10-year-old, rekindling a debate over whether the North is preparing to make her the rightful heir to the regime.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Aug. 29 that Kim made a congratulatory visit to the Naval Command of the North Korean People's Army (KPA) with his daughter on Aug. 27. The television network also released a video image of KPA Navy Commander Adm. Kim Myong-sik saluting Ju-ae, further fueling speculation about her elevated status.
"When the respected Comrade Kim Jong-un arrived at the Navy Command together with his beloved daughter, the officers and men of the Navy there broke into enthusiastic cheers, full of the emotion and joy of coming to high glory and privilege on its significant foundation day," the KCNA wrote. ..
Which other modern dictatorships have managed to establish rule by hereditary principle ?
Monarchy is deeply ingrained in Korean national identity.
Syria, and Cuba until recently. And Cromwell passed on to his son here.
Dictatorships often like to keep it in the family, if they can.
Cromwell refused the Crown but became Lord Protector and Charles II quickly restored royal blood as he was invited to become King at the Restoration soon after Richard Cromwell took over
The key question is is the nation sick and tired of the Conservatives. As they were in 1997.
Given the many versions of the Conservatives over the past decade I'm tempted to say not in the same way.
That said, largely, and for a number of reasons some exogenous and others endogenous, things are pretty shit right now so I expect the current government to get booted out at the next election but not with the same kind of Blair fervour.
My sense is that people think the country is going the wrong way. The Daily Mail article linked above is an example. They don't have a good idea how to fix it.
1979 is better comparator than 1997. Not least because Keir Starmer, strangely has a lot in common with early Thatcher. It's not necessarily a happy comparison for Starmer as Thatcher struggled in the early years and was only rescued politically by an Argentinian general invading the Falkland Islands.
Don't mention the Falklands.
I did it a couple of threads ago, but I think I got away with it...
The other factor was the Other Lot going absolutely Tonto once they were in opposition.
Good job that there's very little risk of that happening to the Conservatives in 2025.
There's zero risk of them *going* tonto.
Staying tonto, now...
Next Tory leadership contenders will be: Tonto, Tontoer, and Tontoest.
Is North Korea preparing crown princess Kim Ju-ae as successor? https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=358090 North Korea again directed the media spotlight on Kim Ju-ae, the daughter of leader Kim Jong-un, running a video footage of its navy commander saluting the presumed 10-year-old, rekindling a debate over whether the North is preparing to make her the rightful heir to the regime.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Aug. 29 that Kim made a congratulatory visit to the Naval Command of the North Korean People's Army (KPA) with his daughter on Aug. 27. The television network also released a video image of KPA Navy Commander Adm. Kim Myong-sik saluting Ju-ae, further fueling speculation about her elevated status.
"When the respected Comrade Kim Jong-un arrived at the Navy Command together with his beloved daughter, the officers and men of the Navy there broke into enthusiastic cheers, full of the emotion and joy of coming to high glory and privilege on its significant foundation day," the KCNA wrote. ..
Which other modern dictatorships have managed to establish rule by hereditary principle ?
Monarchy is deeply ingrained in Korean national identity.
Syria, and Cuba until recently. And Cromwell passed on to his son here.
Dictatorships often like to keep it in the family, if they can.
Cromwell refused the Crown but became Lord Protector and Charles II quickly restored royal blood as he was invited to become King at the Restoration soon after Richard Cromwell took over
Don't you mean, 'soon after Richard Cromwell was deposed?'
The key question is is the nation sick and tired of the Conservatives. As they were in 1997.
Given the many versions of the Conservatives over the past decade I'm tempted to say not in the same way.
That said, largely, and for a number of reasons some exogenous and others endogenous, things are pretty shit right now so I expect the current government to get booted out at the next election but not with the same kind of Blair fervour.
My sense is that people think the country is going the wrong way. The Daily Mail article linked above is an example. They don't have a good idea how to fix it.
1979 is better comparator than 1997. Not least because Keir Starmer, strangely has a lot in common with early Thatcher. It's not necessarily a happy comparison for Starmer as Thatcher struggled in the early years and was only rescued politically by an Argentinian general invading the Falkland Islands.
Don't mention the Falklands.
I did it a couple of threads ago, but I think I got away with it...
The other factor was the Other Lot going absolutely Tonto once they were in opposition.
Good job that there's very little risk of that happening to the Conservatives in 2025.
There's zero risk of them *going* tonto.
Staying tonto, now...
I dunno. There's a decent chance that by 2027 or so, the Conservative party will be making the Truss weeks look like an oasis of calm and sanity.
Is North Korea preparing crown princess Kim Ju-ae as successor? https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=358090 North Korea again directed the media spotlight on Kim Ju-ae, the daughter of leader Kim Jong-un, running a video footage of its navy commander saluting the presumed 10-year-old, rekindling a debate over whether the North is preparing to make her the rightful heir to the regime.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Aug. 29 that Kim made a congratulatory visit to the Naval Command of the North Korean People's Army (KPA) with his daughter on Aug. 27. The television network also released a video image of KPA Navy Commander Adm. Kim Myong-sik saluting Ju-ae, further fueling speculation about her elevated status.
"When the respected Comrade Kim Jong-un arrived at the Navy Command together with his beloved daughter, the officers and men of the Navy there broke into enthusiastic cheers, full of the emotion and joy of coming to high glory and privilege on its significant foundation day," the KCNA wrote. ..
Which other modern dictatorships have managed to establish rule by hereditary principle ?
Monarchy is deeply ingrained in Korean national identity.
Syria, and Cuba until recently. And Cromwell passed on to his son here.
Dictatorships often like to keep it in the family, if they can.
Cromwell refused the Crown but became Lord Protector and Charles II quickly restored royal blood as he was invited to become King at the Restoration soon after Richard Cromwell took over
Is North Korea preparing crown princess Kim Ju-ae as successor? https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=358090 North Korea again directed the media spotlight on Kim Ju-ae, the daughter of leader Kim Jong-un, running a video footage of its navy commander saluting the presumed 10-year-old, rekindling a debate over whether the North is preparing to make her the rightful heir to the regime.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Aug. 29 that Kim made a congratulatory visit to the Naval Command of the North Korean People's Army (KPA) with his daughter on Aug. 27. The television network also released a video image of KPA Navy Commander Adm. Kim Myong-sik saluting Ju-ae, further fueling speculation about her elevated status.
"When the respected Comrade Kim Jong-un arrived at the Navy Command together with his beloved daughter, the officers and men of the Navy there broke into enthusiastic cheers, full of the emotion and joy of coming to high glory and privilege on its significant foundation day," the KCNA wrote. ..
Which other modern dictatorships have managed to establish rule by hereditary principle ?
Monarchy is deeply ingrained in Korean national identity.
Syria, and Cuba until recently. And Cromwell passed on to his son here.
Dictatorships often like to keep it in the family, if they can.
Cromwell refused the Crown but became Lord Protector and Charles II quickly restored royal blood as he was invited to become King at the Restoration soon after Richard Cromwell took over
"royal blood"
The blood of mediaeval warlords and thieves. Nothing inherently royal about it.
We are still a nation of Christian heritage though as most priests believe. However Latin America, the USA, southern Africa, the Philippines, Poland, Ireland, Greece, even Italy, Germany and Canada are now more Christian than the UK.
Interestingly 80% of Church of England priests would support the next Archbishop of Canterbury being female too
@HYUFD Thanks for that link last night. It is a clever reconciliation of Genesis and Evolution at least as far as Adam and Eve goes. My apologies for not remembering. You had provided this previously when we discussed it. It also explains another criticism of Genesis which is when other humans suddenly appear in the bible. It is quite imaginative.
My question however was slightly different, which was the use of 'In the beginning'. Is this just put down to interpretation or translation because it is inconsistent.
I quite liked Rishi. He was so much of an improvement after Johnson. But is he?
On Ulez today he confirmed Harper's lie and embellished it by suggesting Starmer promoted Ulez expansion, whilst the Conservatives never supported it.
On lifting surface water restrictions Gove told some absolute whoppas today, and Rishi unflinchingly repeated them.
More interestingly the Conservatives had their LBC phone-in shills linking Starmer to Savile.
Sunak plays dirty doesn't he? He's as bad as Johnson.
The Star, in another crisp as lettuce moment, call Sunak Biggles, and have a cartoon of him in his helicopter.
Biggles is a clever line. If Sunak were up against Trump that’s what he’d be calling him.
Not so sure. Has anyone under 50 heard of Biggles?
I have! I only read one or two but remember them as pretty darn exciting. My older sister was obsessed and has read most of them.
My brother has over 100, though some are duplicates.
They are an interesting insight into British mentality up to the 1960s and were widely popular.
Biggles was a hero full of derring do, not really a Sunak figure. Very much a fixed wing aircraft man as I remember too.
Biggles, along with Dan Dare and Dick Barton, stirred my understanding of class differences.
I thoroughly recommend "Biggles flies undone" and "Biggles and Algy nip behind the hangar for a quick one".
Old ones, I know, but still goodies.
I have never ready any of them and assume they are crap. By the time I could read English with any level of proficiency I was too old for them and went straight to Moorcock.
Um, that's worrying. I'd be very surprised if it factually came from Estonia, because they're not insane. If Putin's doing a false-flag, we are in trouble.
I doubt it's a false-flag given that it seems to have destroyed a number of Russian military transport planes, but the drones from Estonia explanation may be wrong.
You may have misunderstood what I was saying. A "false-flag operation" is an operation carried out by one country posing as/blamed on another. I was implying that Russia did the explosions on its own soil and blamed it on the Estonians. Such ruses have been used, both in the real world and in fiction. The Russians did it in WW2.
There seem t be some significant drone strikes from Ukraine that happened last night, across multiple areas - including NW Russia.
Is North Korea preparing crown princess Kim Ju-ae as successor? https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=358090 North Korea again directed the media spotlight on Kim Ju-ae, the daughter of leader Kim Jong-un, running a video footage of its navy commander saluting the presumed 10-year-old, rekindling a debate over whether the North is preparing to make her the rightful heir to the regime.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Aug. 29 that Kim made a congratulatory visit to the Naval Command of the North Korean People's Army (KPA) with his daughter on Aug. 27. The television network also released a video image of KPA Navy Commander Adm. Kim Myong-sik saluting Ju-ae, further fueling speculation about her elevated status.
"When the respected Comrade Kim Jong-un arrived at the Navy Command together with his beloved daughter, the officers and men of the Navy there broke into enthusiastic cheers, full of the emotion and joy of coming to high glory and privilege on its significant foundation day," the KCNA wrote. ..
Which other modern dictatorships have managed to establish rule by hereditary principle ?
Monarchy is deeply ingrained in Korean national identity.
Syria, and Cuba until recently. And Cromwell passed on to his son here.
Dictatorships often like to keep it in the family, if they can.
Cromwell refused the Crown but became Lord Protector and Charles II quickly restored royal blood as he was invited to become King at the Restoration soon after Richard Cromwell took over
As was discussed here recently, might have been a lot better if Oliver had organised a succession process, rather than allowing a return to a hereditary method.
Is North Korea preparing crown princess Kim Ju-ae as successor? https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=358090 North Korea again directed the media spotlight on Kim Ju-ae, the daughter of leader Kim Jong-un, running a video footage of its navy commander saluting the presumed 10-year-old, rekindling a debate over whether the North is preparing to make her the rightful heir to the regime.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Aug. 29 that Kim made a congratulatory visit to the Naval Command of the North Korean People's Army (KPA) with his daughter on Aug. 27. The television network also released a video image of KPA Navy Commander Adm. Kim Myong-sik saluting Ju-ae, further fueling speculation about her elevated status.
"When the respected Comrade Kim Jong-un arrived at the Navy Command together with his beloved daughter, the officers and men of the Navy there broke into enthusiastic cheers, full of the emotion and joy of coming to high glory and privilege on its significant foundation day," the KCNA wrote. ..
Which other modern dictatorships have managed to establish rule by hereditary principle ?
Monarchy is deeply ingrained in Korean national identity.
Syria, and Cuba until recently. And Cromwell passed on to his son here.
Dictatorships often like to keep it in the family, if they can.
Cromwell refused the Crown but became Lord Protector and Charles II quickly restored royal blood as he was invited to become King at the Restoration soon after Richard Cromwell took over
"royal blood"
The blood of mediaeval warlords and thieves. Nothing inherently royal about it.
Never knew you held your fellow Scots in such low esteem, Carnyx!
I quite liked Rishi. He was so much of an improvement after Johnson. But is he?
On Ulez today he confirmed Harper's lie and embellished it by suggesting Starmer promoted Ulez expansion, whilst the Conservatives never supported it.
On lifting surface water restrictions Gove told some absolute whoppas today, and Rishi unflinchingly repeated them.
More interestingly the Conservatives had their LBC phone-in shills linking Starmer to Savile.
Sunak plays dirty doesn't he? He's as bad as Johnson.
The Star, in another crisp as lettuce moment, call Sunak Biggles, and have a cartoon of him in his helicopter.
Biggles is a clever line. If Sunak were up against Trump that’s what he’d be calling him.
Not so sure. Has anyone under 50 heard of Biggles?
Me.
Edit - incidentally, on checking quite a lot of them are still in print. Not all of them, because most of the later ones were of course pretty naff, but the WW1 and WW2 ones are still very easy to get hold of.
I'm not sure 'Biggles' is quite the slur the Star intends it to be. Older readers will surely remember him as a bit of a swash-buckling hero, harking back in a rose-tinted view to an era when Britain was a world power; younger readers probably have no idea who Biggles is.
We - or some of us - had a similar Bigglesian discussion some years back on PB. One key point made was how grim some of the WW1 novels could be. Dulce et decorum erat to be burnt alive for the glory of the Empire.
Is North Korea preparing crown princess Kim Ju-ae as successor? https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=358090 North Korea again directed the media spotlight on Kim Ju-ae, the daughter of leader Kim Jong-un, running a video footage of its navy commander saluting the presumed 10-year-old, rekindling a debate over whether the North is preparing to make her the rightful heir to the regime.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Aug. 29 that Kim made a congratulatory visit to the Naval Command of the North Korean People's Army (KPA) with his daughter on Aug. 27. The television network also released a video image of KPA Navy Commander Adm. Kim Myong-sik saluting Ju-ae, further fueling speculation about her elevated status.
"When the respected Comrade Kim Jong-un arrived at the Navy Command together with his beloved daughter, the officers and men of the Navy there broke into enthusiastic cheers, full of the emotion and joy of coming to high glory and privilege on its significant foundation day," the KCNA wrote. ..
Which other modern dictatorships have managed to establish rule by hereditary principle ?
Monarchy is deeply ingrained in Korean national identity.
Syria, and Cuba until recently. And Cromwell passed on to his son here.
Dictatorships often like to keep it in the family, if they can.
Cromwell refused the Crown but became Lord Protector and Charles II quickly restored royal blood as he was invited to become King at the Restoration soon after Richard Cromwell took over
"royal blood"
The blood of mediaeval warlords and thieves. Nothing inherently royal about it.
Never knew you held your fellow Scots in such low esteem, Carnyx!
So? That's the way it was, and the French, English and Welsh diluent wasn't any better.
The key question is is the nation sick and tired of the Conservatives. As they were in 1997.
Given the many versions of the Conservatives over the past decade I'm tempted to say not in the same way.
That said, largely, and for a number of reasons some exogenous and others endogenous, things are pretty shit right now so I expect the current government to get booted out at the next election but not with the same kind of Blair fervour.
My sense is that people think the country is going the wrong way. The Daily Mail article linked above is an example. They don't have a good idea how to fix it.
1979 is better comparator than 1997. Not least because Keir Starmer, strangely has a lot in common with early Thatcher. It's not necessarily a happy comparison for Starmer as Thatcher struggled in the early years and was only rescued politically by an Argentinian general invading the Falkland Islands.
Don't mention the Falklands.
I did it a couple of threads ago, but I think I got away with it...
Hmmmm.
I'm not sure if "Thatcher, filleted" is a good slogan.
Is North Korea preparing crown princess Kim Ju-ae as successor? https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=358090 North Korea again directed the media spotlight on Kim Ju-ae, the daughter of leader Kim Jong-un, running a video footage of its navy commander saluting the presumed 10-year-old, rekindling a debate over whether the North is preparing to make her the rightful heir to the regime.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Aug. 29 that Kim made a congratulatory visit to the Naval Command of the North Korean People's Army (KPA) with his daughter on Aug. 27. The television network also released a video image of KPA Navy Commander Adm. Kim Myong-sik saluting Ju-ae, further fueling speculation about her elevated status.
"When the respected Comrade Kim Jong-un arrived at the Navy Command together with his beloved daughter, the officers and men of the Navy there broke into enthusiastic cheers, full of the emotion and joy of coming to high glory and privilege on its significant foundation day," the KCNA wrote. ..
Which other modern dictatorships have managed to establish rule by hereditary principle ?
Monarchy is deeply ingrained in Korean national identity.
Syria, and Cuba until recently. And Cromwell passed on to his son here.
Dictatorships often like to keep it in the family, if they can.
Cromwell refused the Crown but became Lord Protector and Charles II quickly restored royal blood as he was invited to become King at the Restoration soon after Richard Cromwell took over
Don't you mean, 'soon after Richard Cromwell was deposed?'
Richard Cromwell was Lord Protector for less than a year
@HYUFD Thanks for that link last night. It is a clever reconciliation of Genesis and Evolution at least as far as Adam and Eve goes. My apologies for not remembering. You had provided this previously when we discussed it. It also explains another criticism of Genesis which is when other humans suddenly appear in the bible. It is quite imaginative.
My question however was slightly different, which was the use of 'In the beginning'. Is this just put down to interpretation or translation because it is inconsistent.
Ask Rowan Williams, he is a much better theologian than me and trained as such
I quite liked Rishi. He was so much of an improvement after Johnson. But is he?
On Ulez today he confirmed Harper's lie and embellished it by suggesting Starmer promoted Ulez expansion, whilst the Conservatives never supported it.
On lifting surface water restrictions Gove told some absolute whoppas today, and Rishi unflinchingly repeated them.
More interestingly the Conservatives had their LBC phone-in shills linking Starmer to Savile.
Sunak plays dirty doesn't he? He's as bad as Johnson.
The Star, in another crisp as lettuce moment, call Sunak Biggles, and have a cartoon of him in his helicopter.
Biggles is a clever line. If Sunak were up against Trump that’s what he’d be calling him.
Not so sure. Has anyone under 50 heard of Biggles?
Me.
Edit - incidentally, on checking quite a lot of them are still in print. Not all of them, because most of the later ones were of course pretty naff, but the WW1 and WW2 ones are still very easy to get hold of.
I'm not sure 'Biggles' is quite the slur the Star intends it to be. Older readers will surely remember him as a bit of a swash-buckling hero, harking back in a rose-tinted view to an era when Britain was a world power; younger readers probably have no idea who Biggles is.
Biggles is not intended as a slur. Biggles is to remind us that Rishi Sunak flies everywhere.
We are still a nation of Christian heritage though as most priests believe. However Latin America, the USA, southern Africa, the Philippines, Poland, Ireland, Greece, even Italy, Germany and Canada are now more Christian than the UK.
Interestingly 80% of Church of England priests would support the next Archbishop of Canterbury being female too
I quite liked Rishi. He was so much of an improvement after Johnson. But is he?
On Ulez today he confirmed Harper's lie and embellished it by suggesting Starmer promoted Ulez expansion, whilst the Conservatives never supported it.
On lifting surface water restrictions Gove told some absolute whoppas today, and Rishi unflinchingly repeated them.
More interestingly the Conservatives had their LBC phone-in shills linking Starmer to Savile.
Sunak plays dirty doesn't he? He's as bad as Johnson.
The Star, in another crisp as lettuce moment, call Sunak Biggles, and have a cartoon of him in his helicopter.
Biggles is a clever line. If Sunak were up against Trump that’s what he’d be calling him.
Not so sure. Has anyone under 50 heard of Biggles?
Me.
Edit - incidentally, on checking quite a lot of them are still in print. Not all of them, because most of the later ones were of course pretty naff, but the WW1 and WW2 ones are still very easy to get hold of.
I'm not sure 'Biggles' is quite the slur the Star intends it to be. Older readers will surely remember him as a bit of a swash-buckling hero, harking back in a rose-tinted view to an era when Britain was a world power; younger readers probably have no idea who Biggles is.
We - or some of us - had a similar Bigglesian discussion some years back on PB. One key point made was how grim some of the WW1 novels could be. Dulce et decorum erat to be burnt alive for the glory of the Empire.
Edit: a key piece of context which not everyone might realise is that no parachutes were provided in the RFC/RAF (and I think also the RNAS). To encourage fighting spirit. Bit shit if your plane went on fire and you couldn't escape.
Grub Street publish some rather good memoirs from the Great War in the air, and I have been slowly working through them. This one - as the title suggests - was still bitter many, many years later.
The key question is is the nation sick and tired of the Conservatives. As they were in 1997.
Given the many versions of the Conservatives over the past decade I'm tempted to say not in the same way.
That said, largely, and for a number of reasons some exogenous and others endogenous, things are pretty shit right now so I expect the current government to get booted out at the next election but not with the same kind of Blair fervour.
My sense is that people think the country is going the wrong way. The Daily Mail article linked above is an example. They don't have a good idea how to fix it.
1979 is better comparator than 1997. Not least because Keir Starmer, strangely has a lot in common with early Thatcher. It's not necessarily a happy comparison for Starmer as Thatcher struggled in the early years and was only rescued politically by an Argentinian general invading the Falkland Islands.
Don't mention the Falklands.
I did it a couple of threads ago, but I think I got away with it...
The other factor was the Other Lot going absolutely Tonto once they were in opposition.
Good job that there's very little risk of that happening to the Conservatives in 2025.
There's zero risk of them *going* tonto.
Staying tonto, now...
I dunno. There's a decent chance that by 2027 or so, the Conservative party will be making the Truss weeks look like an oasis of calm and sanity.
On current polls we will be in the Starmer years in 2027, the Conservatives will be in opposition.
In which case their fortunes will be more dependent on how well or badly his government does than what they do in opposition
@HYUFD Thanks for that link last night. It is a clever reconciliation of Genesis and Evolution at least as far as Adam and Eve goes. My apologies for not remembering. You had provided this previously when we discussed it. It also explains another criticism of Genesis which is when other humans suddenly appear in the bible. It is quite imaginative.
My question however was slightly different, which was the use of 'In the beginning'. Is this just put down to interpretation or translation because it is inconsistent.
Ask Rowan Williams, he is a much better theologian than me and trained as such
The key question is is the nation sick and tired of the Conservatives. As they were in 1997.
Given the many versions of the Conservatives over the past decade I'm tempted to say not in the same way.
That said, largely, and for a number of reasons some exogenous and others endogenous, things are pretty shit right now so I expect the current government to get booted out at the next election but not with the same kind of Blair fervour.
My sense is that people think the country is going the wrong way. The Daily Mail article linked above is an example. They don't have a good idea how to fix it.
1979 is better comparator than 1997. Not least because Keir Starmer, strangely has a lot in common with early Thatcher. It's not necessarily a happy comparison for Starmer as Thatcher struggled in the early years and was only rescued politically by an Argentinian general invading the Falkland Islands.
Wilson 1964 is a better comparison for Starmer although he does seem to be moving more towards New Labour policy wise
If you told Starmer he was Labour's new Wilson he would be delighted!
Though Wilson did lose a general election unlike Blair
Is North Korea preparing crown princess Kim Ju-ae as successor? https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=358090 North Korea again directed the media spotlight on Kim Ju-ae, the daughter of leader Kim Jong-un, running a video footage of its navy commander saluting the presumed 10-year-old, rekindling a debate over whether the North is preparing to make her the rightful heir to the regime.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Aug. 29 that Kim made a congratulatory visit to the Naval Command of the North Korean People's Army (KPA) with his daughter on Aug. 27. The television network also released a video image of KPA Navy Commander Adm. Kim Myong-sik saluting Ju-ae, further fueling speculation about her elevated status.
"When the respected Comrade Kim Jong-un arrived at the Navy Command together with his beloved daughter, the officers and men of the Navy there broke into enthusiastic cheers, full of the emotion and joy of coming to high glory and privilege on its significant foundation day," the KCNA wrote. ..
Which other modern dictatorships have managed to establish rule by hereditary principle ?
Monarchy is deeply ingrained in Korean national identity.
Syria, and Cuba until recently. And Cromwell passed on to his son here.
Dictatorships often like to keep it in the family, if they can.
Cromwell refused the Crown but became Lord Protector and Charles II quickly restored royal blood as he was invited to become King at the Restoration soon after Richard Cromwell took over
Don't you mean, 'soon after Richard Cromwell was deposed?'
Richard Cromwell was Lord Protector for less than a year
Yes, but correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't the invitation to become King only *after* Richard had been removed? And indeed, after his removers had been removed? Which made your original comment a bit misleading.
(Incidentally, *Richard* is a name I would avoid if I were picking names for a possible Head of State of this country. Richard Cromwell is the only one of the four that didn't die by violence, and even he had a pretty miserable old age.)
OT It is a lovely still and moonlit night here in Herefordshire. Sleep surprisingly elusive and not even a read through this thread is going to send me back to the land of nod so I have been pondering. To get a handle on the scale of the Tory defeat at the next GE we need to form a view as to where their disgruntled former voters are going to put their cross, if they do. I would guess that a lot of them are decent folk who are so disgusted with the present iteration of the natural party of government - a combination of meanness incompetence and bonkers - that they will not vote for it. Will they really go the whole hog and vote against the party that has, in general, served them so well for the last forty years? Somehow I doubt it. I would factor in mass abstention leading to a low turnout and a not quite fifth mass extinction event. 147 seats max. But what do I know? Night night.
That’s the sense I get. Rather like 1997
Me too.
Events can and will change things, maybe for the better, maybe not. For the moment I'm sticking with my very broad prediction of somewhere 100 and 250, so Gonatas's guess of 147 strikes me as being as good as any.
I agree with his sleepless analysis though. Massive Tory abstentions much more likely than going the whole hog and voting for a Party with which they have nothing in common.
I made the point the other day that between 1992 and 1997 turnout fell by 6 percentage points, almost all of it disaffected Tories who just didn't vote. Given the general competence of the Major government once Ken Clark was in the Treasury they have so much more to be disaffected about this time. I will vote and I will vote Tory because of the independence thing we have going on up here but if it wasn't for that I am really not sure I could hold my nose hard enough.
Hunt is a competent Chancellor like Clarke, even if it didn't do their parties much good
I quite liked Rishi. He was so much of an improvement after Johnson. But is he?
On Ulez today he confirmed Harper's lie and embellished it by suggesting Starmer promoted Ulez expansion, whilst the Conservatives never supported it.
On lifting surface water restrictions Gove told some absolute whoppas today, and Rishi unflinchingly repeated them.
More interestingly the Conservatives had their LBC phone-in shills linking Starmer to Savile.
Sunak plays dirty doesn't he? He's as bad as Johnson.
The Star, in another crisp as lettuce moment, call Sunak Biggles, and have a cartoon of him in his helicopter.
Biggles is a clever line. If Sunak were up against Trump that’s what he’d be calling him.
Not so sure. Has anyone under 50 heard of Biggles?
Me.
Edit - incidentally, on checking quite a lot of them are still in print. Not all of them, because most of the later ones were of course pretty naff, but the WW1 and WW2 ones are still very easy to get hold of.
I'm not sure 'Biggles' is quite the slur the Star intends it to be. Older readers will surely remember him as a bit of a swash-buckling hero, harking back in a rose-tinted view to an era when Britain was a world power; younger readers probably have no idea who Biggles is.
We - or some of us - had a similar Bigglesian discussion some years back on PB. One key point made was how grim some of the WW1 novels could be. Dulce et decorum erat to be burnt alive for the glory of the Empire.
Edit: a key piece of context which not everyone might realise is that no parachutes were provided in the RFC/RAF (and I think also the RNAS). To encourage fighting spirit. Bit shit if your plane went on fire and you couldn't escape.
Grub Street publish some rather good memoirs from the Great War in the air, and I have been slowly working through them. This one - as the title suggests - was still bitter many, many years later.
@HYUFD Thanks for that link last night. It is a clever reconciliation of Genesis and Evolution at least as far as Adam and Eve goes. My apologies for not remembering. You had provided this previously when we discussed it. It also explains another criticism of Genesis which is when other humans suddenly appear in the bible. It is quite imaginative.
My question however was slightly different, which was the use of 'In the beginning'. Is this just put down to interpretation or translation because it is inconsistent.
Ask Rowan Williams, he is a much better theologian than me and trained as such
"Sir Iain Duncan Smith backs 'blade runner' ULEZ vandals: Tory MP says he is 'happy' for residents of his east London constituency to destroy cameras because they have been 'lied to'"
I quite liked Rishi. He was so much of an improvement after Johnson. But is he?
On Ulez today he confirmed Harper's lie and embellished it by suggesting Starmer promoted Ulez expansion, whilst the Conservatives never supported it.
On lifting surface water restrictions Gove told some absolute whoppas today, and Rishi unflinchingly repeated them.
More interestingly the Conservatives had their LBC phone-in shills linking Starmer to Savile.
Sunak plays dirty doesn't he? He's as bad as Johnson.
The Star, in another crisp as lettuce moment, call Sunak Biggles, and have a cartoon of him in his helicopter.
Biggles is a clever line. If Sunak were up against Trump that’s what he’d be calling him.
Not so sure. Has anyone under 50 heard of Biggles?
Me.
Edit - incidentally, on checking quite a lot of them are still in print. Not all of them, because most of the later ones were of course pretty naff, but the WW1 and WW2 ones are still very easy to get hold of.
I'm not sure 'Biggles' is quite the slur the Star intends it to be. Older readers will surely remember him as a bit of a swash-buckling hero, harking back in a rose-tinted view to an era when Britain was a world power; younger readers probably have no idea who Biggles is.
We - or some of us - had a similar Bigglesian discussion some years back on PB. One key point made was how grim some of the WW1 novels could be. Dulce et decorum erat to be burnt alive for the glory of the Empire.
Edit: a key piece of context which not everyone might realise is that no parachutes were provided in the RFC/RAF (and I think also the RNAS). To encourage fighting spirit. Bit shit if your plane went on fire and you couldn't escape.
Grub Street publish some rather good memoirs from the Great War in the air, and I have been slowly working through them. This one - as the title suggests - was still bitter many, many years later.
No actual evidence of the "to encourage fighting spirit" claim has emerged, IIRC.
Creating a parachute that could work at non-zero airspeed and not weigh a ton took quite a while. The German system of stowing a parachute in a container in the fuselage behind the pilot had limited usage.
The Allies started issuing them, fairly soon after a design that was compact and worked when leaving an aircraft (ripcord) was worked out.
"Sir Iain Duncan Smith backs 'blade runner' ULEZ vandals: Tory MP says he is 'happy' for residents of his east London constituency to destroy cameras because they have been 'lied to'"
Is North Korea preparing crown princess Kim Ju-ae as successor? https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=358090 North Korea again directed the media spotlight on Kim Ju-ae, the daughter of leader Kim Jong-un, running a video footage of its navy commander saluting the presumed 10-year-old, rekindling a debate over whether the North is preparing to make her the rightful heir to the regime.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Aug. 29 that Kim made a congratulatory visit to the Naval Command of the North Korean People's Army (KPA) with his daughter on Aug. 27. The television network also released a video image of KPA Navy Commander Adm. Kim Myong-sik saluting Ju-ae, further fueling speculation about her elevated status.
"When the respected Comrade Kim Jong-un arrived at the Navy Command together with his beloved daughter, the officers and men of the Navy there broke into enthusiastic cheers, full of the emotion and joy of coming to high glory and privilege on its significant foundation day," the KCNA wrote. ..
Which other modern dictatorships have managed to establish rule by hereditary principle ?
Monarchy is deeply ingrained in Korean national identity.
Syria, and Cuba until recently. And Cromwell passed on to his son here.
Dictatorships often like to keep it in the family, if they can.
Cromwell refused the Crown but became Lord Protector and Charles II quickly restored royal blood as he was invited to become King at the Restoration soon after Richard Cromwell took over
Don't you mean, 'soon after Richard Cromwell was deposed?'
Richard Cromwell was Lord Protector for less than a year
I quite liked Rishi. He was so much of an improvement after Johnson. But is he?
On Ulez today he confirmed Harper's lie and embellished it by suggesting Starmer promoted Ulez expansion, whilst the Conservatives never supported it.
On lifting surface water restrictions Gove told some absolute whoppas today, and Rishi unflinchingly repeated them.
More interestingly the Conservatives had their LBC phone-in shills linking Starmer to Savile.
Sunak plays dirty doesn't he? He's as bad as Johnson.
The Star, in another crisp as lettuce moment, call Sunak Biggles, and have a cartoon of him in his helicopter.
Biggles is a clever line. If Sunak were up against Trump that’s what he’d be calling him.
Not so sure. Has anyone under 50 heard of Biggles?
Me.
Edit - incidentally, on checking quite a lot of them are still in print. Not all of them, because most of the later ones were of course pretty naff, but the WW1 and WW2 ones are still very easy to get hold of.
I'm not sure 'Biggles' is quite the slur the Star intends it to be. Older readers will surely remember him as a bit of a swash-buckling hero, harking back in a rose-tinted view to an era when Britain was a world power; younger readers probably have no idea who Biggles is.
We - or some of us - had a similar Bigglesian discussion some years back on PB. One key point made was how grim some of the WW1 novels could be. Dulce et decorum erat to be burnt alive for the glory of the Empire.
Edit: a key piece of context which not everyone might realise is that no parachutes were provided in the RFC/RAF (and I think also the RNAS). To encourage fighting spirit. Bit shit if your plane went on fire and you couldn't escape.
Grub Street publish some rather good memoirs from the Great War in the air, and I have been slowly working through them. This one - as the title suggests - was still bitter many, many years later.
I thought it was more that parachutes had not been sufficiently developed to operate with any reliability?
They were in use. Balloon crews in the RFC/RAF, and German Luftstreitkrafte, had them well before the end of the war. One H. Goering was saved by his parachute.
Sure, the reliability of the plane ones was poor, but a hell of a lot better chance then staying with a burning plane of oil-soaked nitrate- and varnish-covered linen and wood with a leaking petrol tank.
(When I were a lad, I finished one of those balsa, tissue and dope flying model planes and when ti was all done, and dried, hung it from the ceiling to keep it out of the way. Friend comes alongn and playfully threatens to set it on fire with a match. He got a little too close and suddenly it went woomph - in a second there was nothing but the piano wire for the undercarriage falling to the floor. I would not want to be in a large scale version of one of those with a German firing tracer at me.)
"Sir Iain Duncan Smith backs 'blade runner' ULEZ vandals: Tory MP says he is 'happy' for residents of his east London constituency to destroy cameras because they have been 'lied to'"
I quite liked Rishi. He was so much of an improvement after Johnson. But is he?
On Ulez today he confirmed Harper's lie and embellished it by suggesting Starmer promoted Ulez expansion, whilst the Conservatives never supported it.
On lifting surface water restrictions Gove told some absolute whoppas today, and Rishi unflinchingly repeated them.
More interestingly the Conservatives had their LBC phone-in shills linking Starmer to Savile.
Sunak plays dirty doesn't he? He's as bad as Johnson.
The Star, in another crisp as lettuce moment, call Sunak Biggles, and have a cartoon of him in his helicopter.
Biggles is a clever line. If Sunak were up against Trump that’s what he’d be calling him.
Not so sure. Has anyone under 50 heard of Biggles?
Me.
Edit - incidentally, on checking quite a lot of them are still in print. Not all of them, because most of the later ones were of course pretty naff, but the WW1 and WW2 ones are still very easy to get hold of.
I'm not sure 'Biggles' is quite the slur the Star intends it to be. Older readers will surely remember him as a bit of a swash-buckling hero, harking back in a rose-tinted view to an era when Britain was a world power; younger readers probably have no idea who Biggles is.
We - or some of us - had a similar Bigglesian discussion some years back on PB. One key point made was how grim some of the WW1 novels could be. Dulce et decorum erat to be burnt alive for the glory of the Empire.
Edit: a key piece of context which not everyone might realise is that no parachutes were provided in the RFC/RAF (and I think also the RNAS). To encourage fighting spirit. Bit shit if your plane went on fire and you couldn't escape.
Grub Street publish some rather good memoirs from the Great War in the air, and I have been slowly working through them. This one - as the title suggests - was still bitter many, many years later.
No actual evidence of the "to encourage fighting spirit" claim has emerged, IIRC.
Creating a parachute that could work at non-zero airspeed and not weigh a ton took quite a while. The German system of stowing a parachute in a container in the fuselage behind the pilot had limited usage.
The Allies started issuing them, fairly soon after a design that was compact and worked when leaving an aircraft (ripcord) was worked out.
Though Gould Lee did do the research and found no evidence for the regular wartime claim that pilots would bail out early if given parachutes, however.
Comments
Russia’s kamikaze drones raining down on Ukraine's east
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66621724
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66579436
Our benefits system's characteristic mix of cruelty and incompetence strikes again.
That still leaves more than a year to go even before the US election and it's in Bidens interest to see a breakthrough next year, if not this year.
Sir Keith Donkey is not Blair. None of the self-confidence or charm, and offering a biccie tin with only crumbs to show where the biscuits should be. So there is no wave of Starmer fevour as there was with Blair.
But on the flip side, the public mood to get shut of a government now hugely outstrips that in the mid 90s. There were so many reasons to want to get shut of that government, but the latter years of it had shown they could govern policy and economy with competence - albeit cold and unfeeling competence.
This lot? They could probably get away with the corrupt thieving of our money, the inhuman treatment of the poor and dispossessed, the run down to the point of breakdown in public services and social fabric - probably get away with it were they competent.
If this was the grand plan - we're going to bankrupt your council and smash the police and education and the NHS but its a grand plan to achieve x and we're competently delivering that plan - they would not be in such a mess. The sad truth is that they're doing those things by accident, with no plans grand or otherwise, and a refusal to accept this reality they have created.
And no matter how many times they lie about new hospitals or complain about how Labour won't reverse a policy they implemented and how fuck off you should fuck off if you don't like us fuck off, people have stopped listening. Because they know its all lies. And that is why it doesn't matter that Donkey has minimal charisma and fewer answers. He isn't *them*. And when *them* are wretched and malevolent, just being seen as safe and competent will do.
On the subject of mutiny:
For example, my 3-day-a-week commute is 20 minutes on a train and 30 minutes walking in total. I find that much more relaxing than I would driving for a similar period of time.
We absolutely did not have the resources to challenge it; just do Boys Own raids with decidedly mixed levels of success.
Ulez: Drivers fined after using scam copycat websites
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66607651
TfL don't deserve much of the opprobrium they are getting over bringing it in - after all, it was Shapps' idea - but it's pathetic that they can't make sure their website is obvious and at the top of search engine hits. One member of staff typing it in Google twice a day and reporting any scam sites is all that's needed.
Edit - incidentally, on checking quite a lot of them are still in print. Not all of them, because most of the later ones were of course pretty naff, but the WW1 and WW2 ones are still very easy to get hold of.
It’s got the same energy as Trump’s “Pocahontas”
Italy, like France nearly collapsed as a result.
Interestingly, after both the Neville Offensive and Caporetto, the French and Italian armies were both still prepared to fight, just not attack suicidally, for no purpose. Hence the rally at Piave.
*When you have got to 11 battles with the same name, it is time to quit.
No major city being hit though, the landfall zone is quite sparsely populated with Tallahassee the biggest settlement in the way. But plenty of coastal surge flooding to come. I don’t think this will be enough to turn Idalia into a big news and political event but we’ll see.
1979 is better comparator than 1997. Not least because Keir Starmer, strangely has a lot in common with early Thatcher. It's not necessarily a happy comparison for Starmer as Thatcher struggled in the early years and was only rescued politically by an Argentinian general invading the Falkland Islands.
I did it a couple of threads ago, but I think I got away with it...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12458565/SARAH-VINE-Basket-case-Britain-World-country.html
*if only she had been connected to the people running the country this last decade...
only heard of Biggles but read the books too
https://heritagecalling.com/2023/08/17/10-historic-sites-to-see-in-margate/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=brand
Good job that there's very little risk of that happening to the Conservatives in 2025.
They are an interesting insight into British mentality up to the 1960s and were widely popular.
Biggles was a hero full of derring do, not really a Sunak figure. Very much a fixed wing aircraft man as I remember too.
Otherwise possibly, but probably rarely.
I came across a hill that had been captured by the bravery of a young guy called Rommel. I wonder what happened to him?
Staying tonto, now...
Edit: you corrected just in time!
Because if you thought that was a good pun, you were sold a Pup.
Re: characterising https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/1696636257286205723 as a "false-flag"
You may have misunderstood what I was saying. A "false-flag operation" is an operation carried out by one country posing as/blamed on another. I was implying that Russia did the explosions on its own soil and blamed it on the Estonians. Such ruses have been used, both in the real world and in fiction. The Russians did it in WW2.
The blood of mediaeval warlords and thieves. Nothing inherently royal about it.
Christian than the UK.
Interestingly 80% of Church of England priests would support the next Archbishop of Canterbury being female too
Old ones, I know, but still goodies.
My question however was slightly different, which was the use of 'In the beginning'. Is this just put down to interpretation or translation because it is inconsistent.
Is part of that this one?
(There's a pitch for aspiring producers.)
About its only notable feature was that it was Peter Cushing's last film before his retirement from acting.
(urgh)
I'm not sure if "Thatcher, filleted" is a good slogan.
Grub Street publish some rather good memoirs from the Great War in the air, and I have been slowly working through them. This one - as the title suggests - was still bitter many, many years later.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/No-Parachute-Classic-Account-War/dp/1909166049
In which case their fortunes will be more dependent on how well or badly his government does than what they do in opposition
(Incidentally, *Richard* is a name I would avoid if I were picking names for a possible Head of State of this country. Richard Cromwell is the only one of the four that didn't die by violence, and even he had a pretty miserable old age.)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12458065/Sir-Iain-Smith-ULEZ-vandals-Tory-MP.html
Creating a parachute that could work at non-zero airspeed and not weigh a ton took quite a while. The German system of stowing a parachute in a container in the fuselage behind the pilot had limited usage.
The Allies started issuing them, fairly soon after a design that was compact and worked when leaving an aircraft (ripcord) was worked out.
Sure, the reliability of the plane ones was poor, but a hell of a lot better chance then staying with a burning plane of oil-soaked nitrate- and varnish-covered linen and wood with a leaking petrol tank.
(When I were a lad, I finished one of those balsa, tissue and dope flying model planes and when ti was all done, and dried, hung it from the ceiling to keep it out of the way. Friend comes alongn and playfully threatens to set it on fire with a match. He got a little too close and suddenly it went woomph - in a second there was nothing but the piano wire for the undercarriage falling to the floor. I would not want to be in a large scale version of one of those with a German firing tracer at me.)