Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I'll admit to knowing little about US politics, despite trying to pick up stuff from PB, I find it all such a weird place.
But what is it about having the wife of an ex-president as a candidate? Hilary Clinton had clearly been very politically active and served as a senator and as the Secretary of State, so there is a track record there.
But Michelle Obama? I understand she has a successful legal career, but otherwise doing lots of good work as the wife of the President shouldn't really be the first thing you look for.
I mean, should the Tories have gone for Norma Major in 1997?
I take your point but I think you underestimate MO significantly. Her book is an interesting read.
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
I reckon you might have to stay there for quite a lot longer yet if you wish to avoid Wusselly Verbosity. It feels like the media are going to run and run and run with this.
Outside of his cult followers, i imagine a lot of public forgot he even existed before this story, but it is being covered like the PM has been caught doing this stuff.
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I like her but the one to beat Trump I think would be Gretchen Whitmer.
It’s tragic that Biden could help deliver another Trump presidency .
Biden is the only Democrat to have beaten Trump and there is no evidence any other Democrat would poll better than him.
Indeed whether or not Trump is convicted in court next year is likely to be far more influential on the presidential race than who the Democratic nominee is
I’m not convinced that Trump will ever be convicted . I don’t see a jury unanimously agreeing. You’ll always get one jury member who likes Trump .
How do you even get started with selecting a jury for a fair trial, literally everybody has heard of him and most have very strong opinions. Remember that in US, jury selection is a big part of pre-trial, how many people are they going to find that says never really had an opinion one way or another.
You might be able to get a DC jury to convict him. Trump got 5.4% of the vote there last time so there's a ~ 50-50 chance you might be able to get an entirely non Trumper jury.
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I'll admit to knowing little about US politics, despite trying to pick up stuff from PB, I find it all such a weird place.
But what is it about having the wife of an ex-president as a candidate? Hilary Clinton had clearly been very politically active and served as a senator and as the Secretary of State, so there is a track record there.
But Michelle Obama? I understand she has a successful legal career, but otherwise doing lots of good work as the wife of the President shouldn't really be the first thing you look for.
I mean, should the Tories have gone for Norma Major in 1997?
I take your point but I think you underestimate MO significantly. Her book is an interesting read.
On topic, Biden has two problems: his age, and that he's been a deeply mediocre President, with low approval ratings that have never recovered from his disastrous Afghanistan decision. If he'd been a good President, his age would seem less important.
Of course, if he'd picked a decent Vice-President, rather than a token because it was "time", he might be handing the nomination over to him gracefully about now. But as it is, he'll certainly try to run again, given that he believes that beating Trump is a sacred duty, and there's no-one else who stands a chance. That may be narcissistic, but he's a senior politician so that goes with the territory.
In my judgment, he's been a very good president.
The simultaneously held beliefs on the right that abandoning Afghanistan was disastrous, while aiding Ukraine is a mistake, are bizarrely contradictory. Though they can easily be explained as sheer antipathy to a Democratic president.
Lots of people on the right support aiding Ukraine, and think that Biden has been "a day late and a dollar short" as John Bolton puts it. I certainly agree.
Are you saying that leaving Afghanistan was a triumph? By showing the West's weakness it could have emboldened Putin to invade. ...
Afghanistan doesn't really figure from Ukraine's POV - and a US still embroiled there would have been far less likely to intervene in Ukraine, in my view.
Sorry Nigel but I think you are quite wrong about this.
The chaotic, rushed, evacuation from Afghanistan was a clear signal to Putin that Biden's America would not stand up for countries outside of NATO. He invaded Ukraine just 6 months later.
That is certainly the view of General Tod Wolters, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe
Likewise it is the view of former French President François Hollande:
“If Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, it was not due to a provocation from the Atlantic alliance […]. He understood that the global situation enabled him to go even further than he had anticipated. […] When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, it showed signs of weakness, and Vladimir Putin interpreted it as a success for himself. Each of our withdrawals has been a new opportunity for his influence to grow. According to this dynamic, Vladimir Putin understood he could go very far if he wished so.
There are certainly those who believe that - and it is, for largely self-serving reasons, the conventional wisdom on the right. But I think it's largely nonsense.
The Biden administration consistently warned Putin of consequences for at least a year running up to the invasion. Putin calculated - wrongly - that the 'SMO' would be done before anyone had a chance to intervene. The fait accompli calculation was very much based on what had happened in Crimea.
I am not sure how you can in all seriousness make a claim that a Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, a former French President, and an eminent historian are pointing out the clear link for 'self-serving' reasons.
I also think it's careless to dismiss such talk as 'conventional wisdom on the right.'
It's also naive to think that just because Biden warned Putin with words that this would make the difference. Putin is someone who reacts to actions not fine talking.
That you don't see the clear link between the chaotic American and Allied withdrawal from Afghanistan and the invasion of Ukraine 6 months later is, if I may say so, being rather deliberately obtuse. You may be right that Crimea had an effect, but in your zeal to pin it all on that, don't dismiss the rather more obvious cause and effect that most everyone else, including eminent analysts, accept.
I didn't - read what I wrote; ...and it is, for largely self-serving reasons, the conventional wisdom on the right..
You're entitled to your judgment, as are those you cite. But I think they are wrong. Afghanistan isn't clear 'cause and effect' - not least because the invasion was planned at least a year before it took place.
To re-iterate, we know from copious evidence that Putin expected the operation to be over in days. US intervention in that event would not have been military.
Maybe Biden got confused again and warned Prussia not to invade Yugoslavia.
Can't we stipulate that they're both old, but only one of them is completely bonkers ?
He's not bonkers, he's a sociopath. He has a firm grasp on reality, and from his point of view he's chillingly rational. He's just totally self-interested and incapable of empathy.
A psychopath for sure. I'd add that he is ignorant and thick.
It's hard to imagine someone less suited for high office (or any office for that matter).
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I like her but the one to beat Trump I think would be Gretchen Whitmer.
It’s tragic that Biden could help deliver another Trump presidency .
Gretchen Whitmer’s an interesting one, would definitely be in with a chance if Biden endorsed her.
The real problem is still how they can avoid the useless Kamala Harris being seen as the default, if Biden doesn’t run. She loses the general election to any credible Republican.
The Dems really need to do a full primary season, which means Biden making the call early to stand aside. Does Dr Jill have enough authority to tap him on the shoulder and tell him to retire? The last couple of years have been quite sad to watch his cognitive decline, he’s obviously on a lot of medication for public appearances.
I agree. If he steps down next year, he can go with his head held high and, assuming Trump gets beaten by his successor, Biden can justifiably claim to have saved US democracy imo. That's not a bad legacy.
Regarding Harris, Biden just has to be tough and say 'sorry Kamala, I am not going to support you as successor'.
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
I reckon you might have to stay there for quite a lot longer yet if you wish to avoid Wusselly Verbosity. It feels like the media are going to run and run and run with this.
Outside of his cult followers, i imagine a lot of public forgot he even existed before this story, but it is being covered like the PM has been caught doing this stuff.
As some of us said on Friday, if the ‘story of the year’, that led to leave being cancelled at newspapers, turned out to be that Russell Brand is a pervert, then it’s hardly news to anyone who’s followed comedy for the past, oh, couple of decades?
Wasn't the "story of the year" thing simply from a tweet by Toby Young? As such, it automatically comes labelled "probably not story of the year".
It is a pretty big story, though, not because Brand is a huge figure in public life any more (he's getting on and disappeared into a lucrative but still not really mainstream world of alt-right conspiracy some time ago) but because he appears to have been enabled to a significant degree by the industry in which he worked?
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I like her but the one to beat Trump I think would be Gretchen Whitmer.
It’s tragic that Biden could help deliver another Trump presidency .
Biden is the only Democrat to have beaten Trump and there is no evidence any other Democrat would poll better than him.
Indeed whether or not Trump is convicted in court next year is likely to be far more influential on the presidential race than who the Democratic nominee is
I’m not convinced that Trump will ever be convicted . I don’t see a jury unanimously agreeing. You’ll always get one jury member who likes Trump .
How do you even get started with selecting a jury for a fair trial, literally everybody has heard of him and most have very strong opinions. Remember that in US, jury selection is a big part of pre-trial, how many people are they going to find that says never really had an opinion one way or another.
Absolutely, how on Earth do you find a dozen Amercians with a neutral view on Donald Trump?
I suspect that the legal cases against Trump are going to collapse in spectacular fashion, which will embolden him in the primary races.
I have a particular hatred (not dislike, genuine hatred) for the US ‘plea bargain’ system, that leads to the IT director of Mar-a-Lago being told that he faces a 100-year sentence if he doesn’t testify against Trump. That really isn’t how the law is supposed to operate in a democracy
I had an employee who got called up for a big US criminal case, gangster stuff....he said the selection process was awful experience, as lawyers effectively try to discredit you as an individual to try and get you deselected.
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I like her but the one to beat Trump I think would be Gretchen Whitmer.
It’s tragic that Biden could help deliver another Trump presidency .
Biden is the only Democrat to have beaten Trump and there is no evidence any other Democrat would poll better than him.
Indeed whether or not Trump is convicted in court next year is likely to be far more influential on the presidential race than who the Democratic nominee is
I’m not convinced that Trump will ever be convicted . I don’t see a jury unanimously agreeing. You’ll always get one jury member who likes Trump .
How do you even get started with selecting a jury for a fair trial, literally everybody has heard of him and most have very strong opinions. Remember that in US, jury selection is a big part of pre-trial, how many people are they going to find that says never really had an opinion one way or another.
I guess they have to find people who will put their opinions aside and decide on the evidence. Not an easy task to identify those people. Many will say they will, but will they?
Way offtopic, but Brent Crude is likely to go through $95 a barrel today.
That’s actually up on this date a year ago, and will make the inflation number this month much more difficult for the government.
As I’ve been saying for months, Western governments, especially those looking at an election next year - Mr Sunak and Mr Biden - need to persuade the OPEC countries to turn on the taps, and get Putin’s black market oil out of the world trade.
Probably a Provincial Science Teacher ignorant question, what's in it for Saudi et al?
Re-igniting the willy-waving contest between MBS and Putin, that started during the pandemic.
Also, a more friendly West as the OPEC nations try to look both ways at the moment.
Why would getting Putin's black market oil off the world market help the situation?
Sunak/Hunt need to incentivise UK oil and gas production urgently, as well as revisit fracking. Of course, they won't.
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
I reckon you might have to stay there for quite a lot longer yet if you wish to avoid Wusselly Verbosity. It feels like the media are going to run and run and run with this.
Outside of his cult followers, i imagine a lot of public forgot he even existed before this story, but it is being covered like the PM has been caught doing this stuff.
As some of us said on Friday, if the ‘story of the year’, that led to leave being cancelled at newspapers, turned out to be that Russell Brand is a pervert, then it’s hardly news to anyone who’s followed comedy for the past, oh, couple of decades?
Wasn't the "story of the year" thing simply from a tweet by Toby Young? As such, it automatically comes labelled "probably not story of the year".
It is a pretty big story, though, not because Brand is a huge figure in public life any more (he's getting on and disappeared into a lucrative but still not really mainstream world of alt-right conspiracy some time ago) but because he appears to have been enabled to a significant degree by the industry in which he worked?
It's just a lazy habit the media have got into. This year so far we have had: Philip Schofield, Hew Edwards, Russell Brand. The hacks will move on once they have had their pound of flesh and seek out their next victim. (They probably already have a list of likely candidates.)
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I like her but the one to beat Trump I think would be Gretchen Whitmer.
It’s tragic that Biden could help deliver another Trump presidency .
Biden is the only Democrat to have beaten Trump and there is no evidence any other Democrat would poll better than him.
Indeed whether or not Trump is convicted in court next year is likely to be far more influential on the presidential race than who the Democratic nominee is
I’m not convinced that Trump will ever be convicted . I don’t see a jury unanimously agreeing. You’ll always get one jury member who likes Trump .
How do you even get started with selecting a jury for a fair trial, literally everybody has heard of him and most have very strong opinions. Remember that in US, jury selection is a big part of pre-trial, how many people are they going to find that says never really had an opinion one way or another.
Absolutely, how on Earth do you find a dozen Amercians with a neutral view on Donald Trump?
It's a hard problem. But solvable.
The alternative is saying that someone sufficiently notorious can never be tried for a crime.
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I'll admit to knowing little about US politics, despite trying to pick up stuff from PB, I find it all such a weird place.
But what is it about having the wife of an ex-president as a candidate? Hilary Clinton had clearly been very politically active and served as a senator and as the Secretary of State, so there is a track record there.
But Michelle Obama? I understand she has a successful legal career, but otherwise doing lots of good work as the wife of the President shouldn't really be the first thing you look for.
I mean, should the Tories have gone for Norma Major in 1997?
She'd probably have been as good a bet as who they in fact went for, given Hague essentially gave them no recovery, not even dead cat bounce, in 2001 (he has come across quite well as a person since then, but he was useless as party leader).
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
You may have to continue watching for quite a long time as the media are unlikely to move on anytime soon
I find France24 palls after a few hours - too much on a loop, and they have commentators on their debate shows seriously arguing the Putin viewpoint as if they believe it - one away from Scott Ritter. But F24 is very good on horror stories about countries that aren't France.
I tend to combine it with Deutsche Welle. which is - as one might expect - stolid, but thoughtful.
My wallpaper this morning will be Despatches, if it is available.
The BBC are using quite the photo of Russell Brand this morning, that could be a caption competition.
There is a very obvious one but it would be utterly tasteless under the circumstances.
Way offtopic, but Brent Crude is likely to go through $95 a barrel today.
That’s actually up on this date a year ago, and will make the inflation number this month much more difficult for the government.
As I’ve been saying for months, Western governments, especially those looking at an election next year - Mr Sunak and Mr Biden - need to persuade the OPEC countries to turn on the taps, and get Putin’s black market oil out of the world trade.
Probably a Provincial Science Teacher ignorant question, what's in it for Saudi et al?
Re-igniting the willy-waving contest between MBS and Putin, that started during the pandemic.
Also, a more friendly West as the OPEC nations try to look both ways at the moment.
Why would getting Putin's black market oil off the world market help the situation?
Sunak/Hunt need to incentivise UK oil and gas production urgently, as well as revisit fracking. Of course, they won't.
U.K. fracking won’t work. The reasons have been explained to you multiple times.
Oo, I see that The Truss is back in the game today.
Rishi Rich must be delighted.
I reckon she will definitely run for tory leader again after Sunak gets his shit pushed in at the GE. She and her acolytes at GBeebies/Telegraph/etc. are already crafting the Dolchstosslegende in preparation.
Badenoch, Barclay, Tugendhat, Mordaunt, Braverman even Rees Mogg would beat Truss in the next leadership election now. She wouldn't even get to the final round anyway
Depends on how many Tory MPs are left, and which ones surely?
Someone should do an analysis of whether the make-up of the PCP would be more, or less, right-wing with increasing levels of seat loss.
(Personally, I am looking forward to the remaining 20 Tory MPs deciding which of themselves they will put to the membership.)
Quick muck around with the HoC Library spreadsheet gives me yer top 25 safest Tories (obvs this doesn't take boundary changes into account).
The Sir Edward Leigh Gammon Ascendency awaits!
Rebecca Harris Matt Warman John Hayes Gavin Williamson Victoria Atkins Mark Francois Stephen Barclay Giles Watling John Whittingdale Andrew Percy Wendy Morton Elizabeth Truss Martin Vickers Alex Burghart Amanda Milling Mike Wood Gordon Henderson James Cleverly Caroline Johnson John Baron Nigel Huddleston Priti Patel Tracey Crouch Caroline Dinenage Edward Leigh
Somewhat OT, but it seems my local council (Derbyshire) is on the point of going bust. Further reading suggests that this has been precipitated, at least in part, a failed project to build a waste incinerator.
From my brief reading up, what seems to have happened is: Derbyshire and Derby City Councils teamed up to build a new incinerator. They dished out some sort of PFI type contract to a private sector consortium to build it. The incinerator is built, but repeatedly fails commissioning tests. Eventually the councils decide to pull the plug on the basis that the plant is clearly a turkey. This is after dishing out various management and maintenance contracts worth millions to look after the closed plant. Somehow the councils find themselves sharing the liability for a £100millon payment to the an outfit behind the building of the incinerator. Derbyshire's £57million share of this appears to be a large part of what is putting them very in the red this year.
Can anyone explain: a) How did the councils manage to end up paying out to not use a facility which they paid to have built which doesn't work, and seems to have little prospect of ever working? b) How on earth this isn't a massive political scandal, given that at best it's spectacular incompetence and at worst it smells more like straight up corruption. To manage to end up in a mess like this must have taken some gritty determination to pick all the wrong choices at every point.
On the one hand Russell Brand is an utter, utter tosser; while on the other, the press treatment of him seems way over the top. He has been accused of crimes, so let that play out for sure, but this whole "shagger of the year" criticism is puritanism and hypocrisy at its worst.
Oo, I see that The Truss is back in the game today.
Rishi Rich must be delighted.
I reckon she will definitely run for tory leader again after Sunak gets his shit pushed in at the GE. She and her acolytes at GBeebies/Telegraph/etc. are already crafting the Dolchstosslegende in preparation.
Badenoch, Barclay, Tugendhat, Mordaunt, Braverman even Rees Mogg would beat Truss in the next leadership election now. She wouldn't even get to the final round anyway
Depends on how many Tory MPs are left, and which ones surely?
Someone should do an analysis of whether the make-up of the PCP would be more, or less, right-wing with increasing levels of seat loss.
(Personally, I am looking forward to the remaining 20 Tory MPs deciding which of themselves they will put to the membership.)
Quick muck around with the HoC Library spreadsheet gives me yer top 25 safest Tories (obvs this doesn't take boundary changes into account).
The Sir Edward Leigh Gammon Ascendency awaits!
Rebecca Harris Matt Warman John Hayes Gavin Williamson Victoria Atkins Mark Francois Stephen Barclay Giles Watling John Whittingdale Andrew Percy Wendy Morton Elizabeth Truss Martin Vickers Alex Burghart Amanda Milling Mike Wood Gordon Henderson James Cleverly Caroline Johnson John Baron Nigel Huddleston Priti Patel Tracey Crouch Caroline Dinenage Edward Leigh
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I like her but the one to beat Trump I think would be Gretchen Whitmer.
It’s tragic that Biden could help deliver another Trump presidency .
Biden is the only Democrat to have beaten Trump and there is no evidence any other Democrat would poll better than him.
Indeed whether or not Trump is convicted in court next year is likely to be far more influential on the presidential race than who the Democratic nominee is
I’m not convinced that Trump will ever be convicted . I don’t see a jury unanimously agreeing. You’ll always get one jury member who likes Trump .
How do you even get started with selecting a jury for a fair trial, literally everybody has heard of him and most have very strong opinions. Remember that in US, jury selection is a big part of pre-trial, how many people are they going to find that says never really had an opinion one way or another.
You might be able to get a DC jury to convict him. Trump got 5.4% of the vote there last time so there's a ~ 50-50 chance you might be able to get an entirely non Trumper jury.
It's more than that chance. Quite a few people here are forgetting that, although it was the highest turnout US election since 1900, a third of registered adult voters didn't bother.
We struggle to believe it as very politically engaged people but quite a lot of people don't have particularly strong views, and just get on with their lives.
I see we have to add ‘using a ballpoint pen’ to the ever-growing list of simple things PBers are unable to do. See also, using a train ticket app, driving at 20mph, and sitting through the Tube scene in Darkest Hour.
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I like her but the one to beat Trump I think would be Gretchen Whitmer.
It’s tragic that Biden could help deliver another Trump presidency .
Biden is the only Democrat to have beaten Trump and there is no evidence any other Democrat would poll better than him.
Indeed whether or not Trump is convicted in court next year is likely to be far more influential on the presidential race than who the Democratic nominee is
I’m not convinced that Trump will ever be convicted . I don’t see a jury unanimously agreeing. You’ll always get one jury member who likes Trump .
You're ignore the process. You start with someone who voted for Trump but isn't necessarily politically engaged. You present them with damning evidence, they go "uh oh, this is really bad" and vote to convict.
Not every, in fact very few, Trump voters are shit-eating cultists. If you get one of THOSE on your jury, there's no chance of a conviction. But those numbers are small.
You need a basic level of mental competence to serve on a Jury therefore ardent Trump fans are ineligible.
Way offtopic, but Brent Crude is likely to go through $95 a barrel today.
That’s actually up on this date a year ago, and will make the inflation number this month much more difficult for the government.
As I’ve been saying for months, Western governments, especially those looking at an election next year - Mr Sunak and Mr Biden - need to persuade the OPEC countries to turn on the taps, and get Putin’s black market oil out of the world trade.
Probably a Provincial Science Teacher ignorant question, what's in it for Saudi et al?
Re-igniting the willy-waving contest between MBS and Putin, that started during the pandemic.
Also, a more friendly West as the OPEC nations try to look both ways at the moment.
Why would getting Putin's black market oil off the world market help the situation?
Sunak/Hunt need to incentivise UK oil and gas production urgently, as well as revisit fracking. Of course, they won't.
Because Putin needs to keep his oil flowing. He both needs foreign currency right now, to fund his war, and he needs the wells to pump as much oil as possible before they become unserviceable because of a lack of foreign equipment due to sanctions.
If the Saudis can get the global price down now, they benefit massively from Russian production falling in the medium term.
On the one hand Russell Brand is an utter, utter tosser; while on the other, the press treatment of him seems way over the top. He has been accused of crimes, so let that play out for sure, but this whole "shagger of the year" criticism is puritanism and hypocrisy at its worst.
Firstly, aren't they reasoning (probably correctly) that the accusations against him are the tip of a very large iceberg. Secondly, the whole "shagger of the year" thing is a reference to him hiding in plain sight, and being allowed to do so, certainly by agents and employers but also (although they don't like to admit it) the press.
The actual documentary covered the hiding in plain sight bit rather well. He literally said at the time that he did the things he's accused of doing, and it was put down to his outrageous, larger than life persona. The parallel with Jimmy Savile is obvious and uncomfortable - Savile similarly frequently alluded to the hideously dark side we now all know he had.
Way offtopic, but Brent Crude is likely to go through $95 a barrel today.
That’s actually up on this date a year ago, and will make the inflation number this month much more difficult for the government.
As I’ve been saying for months, Western governments, especially those looking at an election next year - Mr Sunak and Mr Biden - need to persuade the OPEC countries to turn on the taps, and get Putin’s black market oil out of the world trade.
Probably a Provincial Science Teacher ignorant question, what's in it for Saudi et al?
Re-igniting the willy-waving contest between MBS and Putin, that started during the pandemic.
Also, a more friendly West as the OPEC nations try to look both ways at the moment.
Why would getting Putin's black market oil off the world market help the situation?
Sunak/Hunt need to incentivise UK oil and gas production urgently, as well as revisit fracking. Of course, they won't.
U.K. fracking won’t work. The reasons have been explained to you multiple times.
We have a lot of mystic Megs here quite confident about why we can't do fracking. They're less good at explaining why we need a ban.
On the one hand Russell Brand is an utter, utter tosser; while on the other, the press treatment of him seems way over the top. He has been accused of crimes, so let that play out for sure, but this whole "shagger of the year" criticism is puritanism and hypocrisy at its worst.
There's quite a lot of news that is about things that haven't happened yet. Someone who hasn't yet been convicted of an offence. A speech that a politician hasn't yet given. Many sports events that haven't happened yet. Speculation about a budget or policy proposal that hasn't yet been announced.
Predicting things is a valuable human skill - and obviously a focus for us here. But in general I think the competition between media outlets to be first with the news means that there is too much news about things that haven't happened yet (and might not), and not enough news about things that have happened.
On topic, Biden has two problems: his age, and that he's been a deeply mediocre President, with low approval ratings that have never recovered from his disastrous Afghanistan decision. If he'd been a good President, his age would seem less important.
Of course, if he'd picked a decent Vice-President, rather than a token because it was "time", he might be handing the nomination over to him gracefully about now. But as it is, he'll certainly try to run again, given that he believes that beating Trump is a sacred duty, and there's no-one else who stands a chance. That may be narcissistic, but he's a senior politician so that goes with the territory.
In my judgment, he's been a very good president.
The simultaneously held beliefs on the right that abandoning Afghanistan was disastrous, while aiding Ukraine is a mistake, are bizarrely contradictory. Though they can easily be explained as sheer antipathy to a Democratic president.
Lots of people on the right support aiding Ukraine, and think that Biden has been "a day late and a dollar short" as John Bolton puts it. I certainly agree.
Are you saying that leaving Afghanistan was a triumph? By showing the West's weakness it could have emboldened Putin to invade. ...
Afghanistan doesn't really figure from Ukraine's POV - and a US still embroiled there would have been far less likely to intervene in Ukraine, in my view.
Sorry Nigel but I think you are quite wrong about this.
The chaotic, rushed, evacuation from Afghanistan was a clear signal to Putin that Biden's America would not stand up for countries outside of NATO. He invaded Ukraine just 6 months later.
That is certainly the view of General Tod Wolters, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe
Likewise it is the view of former French President François Hollande:
“If Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, it was not due to a provocation from the Atlantic alliance […]. He understood that the global situation enabled him to go even further than he had anticipated. […] When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, it showed signs of weakness, and Vladimir Putin interpreted it as a success for himself. Each of our withdrawals has been a new opportunity for his influence to grow. According to this dynamic, Vladimir Putin understood he could go very far if he wished so.
There are certainly those who believe that - and it is, for largely self-serving reasons, the conventional wisdom on the right. But I think it's largely nonsense.
The Biden administration consistently warned Putin of consequences for at least a year running up to the invasion. Putin calculated - wrongly - that the 'SMO' would be done before anyone had a chance to intervene. The fait accompli calculation was very much based on what had happened in Crimea.
I am not sure how you can in all seriousness make a claim that a Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, a former French President, and an eminent historian are pointing out the clear link for 'self-serving' reasons.
I also think it's careless to dismiss such talk as 'conventional wisdom on the right.'
It's also naive to think that just because Biden warned Putin with words that this would make the difference. Putin is someone who reacts to actions not fine talking.
That you don't see the clear link between the chaotic American and Allied withdrawal from Afghanistan and the invasion of Ukraine 6 months later is, if I may say so, being rather deliberately obtuse. You may be right that Crimea had an effect, but in your zeal to pin it all on that, don't dismiss the rather more obvious cause and effect that most everyone else, including eminent analysts, accept.
I didn't - read what I wrote; ...and it is, for largely self-serving reasons, the conventional wisdom on the right..
You're entitled to your judgment, as are those you cite. But I think they are wrong. Afghanistan isn't clear 'cause and effect' - not least because the invasion was planned at least a year before it took place.
To re-iterate, we know from copious evidence that Putin expected the operation to be over in days. US intervention in that event would not have been military.
Maybe Biden got confused again and warned Prussia not to invade Yugoslavia.
Can't we stipulate that they're both old, but only one of them is completely bonkers ?
He's not bonkers, he's a sociopath. He has a firm grasp on reality, and from his point of view he's chillingly rational. He's just totally self-interested and incapable of empathy.
A psychopath for sure. I'd add that he is ignorant and thick.
It's hard to imagine someone less suited for high office (or any office for that matter).
I don't agree he's thick - I think he's quite intelligent in a street smarts kind of way. He's good at seeing the weaknesses in people and systems and manipulating them. For instance, anybody else would have been in jail for witness tampering for the threats he's issued to witnesses. But he knows just how far to push the system. Same with his call to the Governor of Georgia. He knows just how far to go to claim freedom of speech or aspiration rather than orders. So far, anyway.
I agree he's ignorant, especially of the world outside America, but that's true of almost the whole American political class. I've done business in Washington, and that's really noticeable, the moment you talk to them. They see every issue through American eyes, and rarely understand foreign points of view unless you laboriously explain them. And as for any knowledge of foreign languages, history, culture, geography, etc., pretty much forget it unless they have special professional reasons to have it.
(I'm not the only person who has noticed this - Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, neither of whom were remotely anti-American, had similar reactions to the American political class).
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
I reckon you might have to stay there for quite a lot longer yet if you wish to avoid Wusselly Verbosity. It feels like the media are going to run and run and run with this.
Outside of his cult followers, i imagine a lot of public forgot he even existed before this story, but it is being covered like the PM has been caught doing this stuff.
As some of us said on Friday, if the ‘story of the year’, that led to leave being cancelled at newspapers, turned out to be that Russell Brand is a pervert, then it’s hardly news to anyone who’s followed comedy for the past, oh, couple of decades?
Wasn't the "story of the year" thing simply from a tweet by Toby Young? As such, it automatically comes labelled "probably not story of the year".
It is a pretty big story, though, not because Brand is a huge figure in public life any more (he's getting on and disappeared into a lucrative but still not really mainstream world of alt-right conspiracy some time ago) but because he appears to have been enabled to a significant degree by the industry in which he worked?
It was indeed from Young’s Tweet, describing how his sources inside the Times were discussing the story.
In the end it’s a media story, and we all know how much the media loves to talk about the media.
To most of us though, it’s hardly news. When the media were giving him “shagger of the year” awards a decade and a half ago, anyone sensible was telling their daughters and granddaughters to avoid him like the plague.
Mr. Password, aye. War seems to be flaring up again in Sudan but that's an order of magnitude less important in the mind of editors than Russell Brand, or so it seems.
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
You may have to continue watching for quite a long time as the media are unlikely to move on anytime soon
I find France24 palls after a few hours - too much on a loop, and they have commentators on their debate shows seriously arguing the Putin viewpoint as if they believe it - one away from Scott Ritter. But F24 is very good on horror stories about countries that aren't France.
I tend to combine it with Deutsche Welle. which is - as one might expect - stolid, but thoughtful.
My wallpaper this morning will be Despatches, if it is available.
The BBC are using quite the photo of Russell Brand this morning, that could be a caption competition.
There is a very obvious one but it would be utterly tasteless under the circumstances.
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
You may have to continue watching for quite a long time as the media are unlikely to move on anytime soon
I find France24 palls after a few hours - too much on a loop, and they have commentators on their debate shows seriously arguing the Putin viewpoint as if they believe it - one away from Scott Ritter. But F24 is very good on horror stories about countries that aren't France.
I tend to combine it with Deutsche Welle. which is - as one might expect - stolid, but thoughtful.
My wallpaper this morning will be Despatches, if it is available.
The BBC are using quite the photo of Russell Brand this morning, that could be a caption competition.
There is a very obvious one but it would be utterly tasteless under the circumstances.
O/T I cannot believe it is nine years to the day that the forces of righteousness & enlightenment defeated the forces of darkness & nationalism in the Indyref.
Where does the time go?
Vote No to Stay in the EU, Preserve Stability & Avoid Chaos With no Chance of BJ Becoming PM Day comes round more quickly every year.
On the one hand Russell Brand is an utter, utter tosser; while on the other, the press treatment of him seems way over the top. He has been accused of crimes, so let that play out for sure, but this whole "shagger of the year" criticism is puritanism and hypocrisy at its worst.
Whenever I see this kind of media outrage (note - the crimes he is accused of are serious, but he has not been convicted, let alone charged with ANYTHING yet) I think of hundreds of badly behaved types in the media all hypocritically pointing and shaming, while secretly being desperate that THEIR misdemeanours never come out. Brand's Rolf Harris is a classic example.
Take the horror about the time the football pundit talked about 'smashing' (i,e. having sex with) a female Line Official. How horrible they all said, outrageous. But I know sports people. This is EXACTLY the kind of banter that goes on, everyday, everywhere.
The number one rule is don't get caught...
And when someone is in the spotlight make sure you kick them hard, because this time, it isn't you...
The Guardian 2013: Guardian columnist Russell Brand sits next to editor Alan Rusbridger at staff meeting
What a diverse bunch too.
Young white women, young white men.
Likely all from about four universities, and with half of them having parents in the industry.
Four universities?
1) Oxford 2) St Andrews 3) UCL 4) Hull
?
Hull? Didn’t have that in my top ten when I was advising someone. Although Eldest Granddaughter’s Significant Other went there and seems well connected. What about Durham?
Glad HYUFD has moved from Epping. Apparently it’s somewhere that stolen cars are re-documented for resale According to Essex Police latest list of successes.
I’ve now made my way to the sanctuary of watching France 24 or Euronews !
A Russell Brand free zone .
You may have to continue watching for quite a long time as the media are unlikely to move on anytime soon
I find France24 palls after a few hours - too much on a loop, and they have commentators on their debate shows seriously arguing the Putin viewpoint as if they believe it - one away from Scott Ritter. But F24 is very good on horror stories about countries that aren't France.
I tend to combine it with Deutsche Welle. which is - as one might expect - stolid, but thoughtful.
My wallpaper this morning will be Despatches, if it is available.
The BBC are using quite the photo of Russell Brand this morning, that could be a caption competition.
There is a very obvious one but it would be utterly tasteless under the circumstances.
On the one hand Russell Brand is an utter, utter tosser; while on the other, the press treatment of him seems way over the top. He has been accused of crimes, so let that play out for sure, but this whole "shagger of the year" criticism is puritanism and hypocrisy at its worst.
There's quite a lot of news that is about things that haven't happened yet. Someone who hasn't yet been convicted of an offence. A speech that a politician hasn't yet given. Many sports events that haven't happened yet. Speculation about a budget or policy proposal that hasn't yet been announced.
Predicting things is a valuable human skill - and obviously a focus for us here. But in general I think the competition between media outlets to be first with the news means that there is too much news about things that haven't happened yet (and might not), and not enough news about things that have happened.
You nailed it with this post. I was having a conversation the other day about today's media appearing to be an endless cycle of speculation, rather than reporting of actual facts.
Huge shame the Dems can't persuade Michelle Obama to run.
I like her but the one to beat Trump I think would be Gretchen Whitmer.
It’s tragic that Biden could help deliver another Trump presidency .
Biden is the only Democrat to have beaten Trump and there is no evidence any other Democrat would poll better than him.
Indeed whether or not Trump is convicted in court next year is likely to be far more influential on the presidential race than who the Democratic nominee is
Comments
I take your point but I think you underestimate MO significantly. Her book is an interesting read.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Becoming-Michelle-Obama/dp/0241334144
Anyway, it's not so much about her track record, it's about who might beat Trump.
It's hard to imagine someone less suited for high office (or any office for that matter).
Regarding Harris, Biden just has to be tough and say 'sorry Kamala, I am not going to support you as successor'.
It is a pretty big story, though, not because Brand is a huge figure in public life any more (he's getting on and disappeared into a lucrative but still not really mainstream world of alt-right conspiracy some time ago) but because he appears to have been enabled to a significant degree by the industry in which he worked?
I suspect that the legal cases against Trump are going to collapse in spectacular fashion, which will embolden him in the primary races.
I have a particular hatred (not dislike, genuine hatred) for the US ‘plea bargain’ system, that leads to the IT director of Mar-a-Lago being told that he faces a 100-year sentence if he doesn’t testify against Trump. That really isn’t how the law is supposed to operate in a democracy
Sunak/Hunt need to incentivise UK oil and gas production urgently, as well as revisit fracking. Of course, they won't.
But solvable.
The alternative is saying that someone sufficiently notorious can never be tried for a crime.
The Sir Edward Leigh Gammon Ascendency awaits!
Rebecca Harris
Matt Warman
John Hayes
Gavin Williamson
Victoria Atkins
Mark Francois
Stephen Barclay
Giles Watling
John Whittingdale
Andrew Percy
Wendy Morton
Elizabeth Truss
Martin Vickers
Alex Burghart
Amanda Milling
Mike Wood
Gordon Henderson
James Cleverly
Caroline Johnson
John Baron
Nigel Huddleston
Priti Patel
Tracey Crouch
Caroline Dinenage
Edward Leigh
From my brief reading up, what seems to have happened is:
Derbyshire and Derby City Councils teamed up to build a new incinerator. They dished out some sort of PFI type contract to a private sector consortium to build it.
The incinerator is built, but repeatedly fails commissioning tests.
Eventually the councils decide to pull the plug on the basis that the plant is clearly a turkey. This is after dishing out various management and maintenance contracts worth millions to look after the closed plant.
Somehow the councils find themselves sharing the liability for a £100millon payment to the an outfit behind the building of the incinerator. Derbyshire's £57million share of this appears to be a large part of what is putting them very in the red this year.
Can anyone explain:
a) How did the councils manage to end up paying out to not use a facility which they paid to have built which doesn't work, and seems to have little prospect of ever working?
b) How on earth this isn't a massive political scandal, given that at best it's spectacular incompetence and at worst it smells more like straight up corruption. To manage to end up in a mess like this must have taken some gritty determination to pick all the wrong choices at every point.
We struggle to believe it as very politically engaged people but quite a lot of people don't have particularly strong views, and just get on with their lives.
I see we have to add ‘using a ballpoint pen’ to the ever-growing list of simple things PBers are unable to do. See also, using a train ticket app, driving at 20mph, and sitting through the Tube scene in Darkest Hour.
Young white women, young white men.
If the Saudis can get the global price down now, they benefit massively from Russian production falling in the medium term.
The actual documentary covered the hiding in plain sight bit rather well. He literally said at the time that he did the things he's accused of doing, and it was put down to his outrageous, larger than life persona. The parallel with Jimmy Savile is obvious and uncomfortable - Savile similarly frequently alluded to the hideously dark side we now all know he had.
Predicting things is a valuable human skill - and obviously a focus for us here. But in general I think the competition between media outlets to be first with the news means that there is too much news about things that haven't happened yet (and might not), and not enough news about things that have happened.
I agree he's ignorant, especially of the world outside America, but that's true of almost the whole American political class. I've done business in Washington, and that's really noticeable, the moment you talk to them. They see every issue through American eyes, and rarely understand foreign points of view unless you laboriously explain them. And as for any knowledge of foreign languages, history, culture, geography, etc., pretty much forget it unless they have special professional reasons to have it.
(I'm not the only person who has noticed this - Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, neither of whom were remotely anti-American, had similar reactions to the American political class).
In the end it’s a media story, and we all know how much the media loves to talk about the media.
To most of us though, it’s hardly news. When the media were giving him “shagger of the year” awards a decade and a half ago, anyone sensible was telling their daughters and granddaughters to avoid him like the plague.
1) Oxford
2) St Andrews
3) UCL
4) Hull
?
Brand's Rolf Harris is a classic example.
Take the horror about the time the football pundit talked about 'smashing' (i,e. having sex with) a female Line Official. How horrible they all said, outrageous. But I know sports people. This is EXACTLY the kind of banter that goes on, everyday, everywhere.
The number one rule is don't get caught...
And when someone is in the spotlight make sure you kick them hard, because this time, it isn't you...
According to Essex Police latest list of successes.