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Trump 12% behind in New Hampshire – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,215
edited October 2023 in General
imageTrump 12% behind in New Hampshire – politicalbetting.com

This is the first mention of New Hampshire on a PB thread ahead of the 2024 American presidential election.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,636
    Compared to the 2020 Presidential election, this means Biden is flat, while Trump has lost five percentage points.

    And this is rather Trump's problem: he has (very slightly) gained ground on Biden since 2020, but he's done it in places that are rather unhelpful, increasing his share in California and New York (which won't flip), and Florida and Deep South (which are already handily Red).

    In Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, there is no evidence Trump has done anything but go backwards.

    One might also suspect that the whole "fake electors" thing, might work as a very effective GOTV for Democrats in these States.

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,211
    rcs1000 said:

    Compared to the 2020 Presidential election, this means Biden is flat, while Trump has lost five percentage points.

    And this is rather Trump's problem: he has (very slightly) gained ground on Biden since 2020, but he's done it in places that are rather unhelpful, increasing his share in California and New York (which won't flip), and Florida and Deep South (which are already handily Red).

    In Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, there is no evidence Trump has done anything but go backwards.

    One might also suspect that the whole "fake electors" thing, might work as a very effective GOTV for Democrats in these States.

    Agreed.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,211
    Also a basic electoral problem.

    'This is horrifying': Top New Jersey Democrats call on Bob Menendez to resign after his second indictment
    Democrats figured there would be new developments in the Bob Menendez investigation, but the charges are far more serious than any of them anticipated.
    https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/22/new-jersey-democrats-menendez-indictment-00117693
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,211
    McCarthy vows to strip Ukraine money from Pentagon bill after Greene ‘no’ vote
    https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4218467-mccarthy-vows-to-strip-ukraine-money-from-pentagon-bill-after-greene-no-vote/

  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,133
    Nigelb said:

    As far as the header is concerned, no, the basic problem with Trump is not that he's too old - it's that he's a flaming narcissistic asshole with no regard for anything, other than himself.

    All top politicians are narcissists to some extent, and most to a huge extent. Certainly Obama gives Trump a run for his money in that regard. The main problem with Trump is that he's a sociopath, not that his a narcissist.

  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,154
    edited September 2023
    Any truth in this analysis, which appeared on the internet in a not particularly reliable place?:

    BREAKING: Republican 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump gets devastating news as a massive lawsuit is filed that legal experts are already saying “could lead to Trump getting removed in all 50 states by the U.S. Supreme Court."

    But it gets even WORSE for Donald Trump…

    The lawsuit was filed in Minnesota — and the Minnesota Secretary of State just announced that he will remove Trump from the ballot if the Minnesota Supreme Court rules that he can. Legal experts are already saying that this will create a “domino effect” that can lead to Trump being removed from the ballot “in all 50 states.”

    To make matters worse for Trump, Harvard’s most famous Constitutional Law expert says that the lawsuit is “rock solid as a legal matter, relying entirely on existing law and indisputable facts of public record."
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,084
    edited September 2023
    Biden won New Hampshire by 7.4% in 2020, so if the 12% was the result in 2024 it would represent enough of a swing to give him a comfortable Presidential victory.

    I'll take "boring" thanks Mike if it means no more Capitol riots, insurrection, and anarchy. Heck, I'll even take 'old.'

    It reminds me of the time I was talking with a Palestinian Arab trader in a Jerusalem souk. 'I love this place, there's such a buzz,' I gushed.

    He looked me in the eye and spoke softly, 'I'd given anything to swap this "buzz" for the peace and quiet of England.'
  • Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,755
    edited September 2023
    IanB2 said:

    Any truth in this analysis, which appeared on the internet in a not particularly reliable place?:

    BREAKING: Republican 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump gets devastating news as a massive lawsuit is filed that legal experts are already saying “could lead to Trump getting removed in all 50 states by the U.S. Supreme Court."

    But it gets even WORSE for Donald Trump…

    The lawsuit was filed in Minnesota — and the Minnesota Secretary of State just announced that he will remove Trump from the ballot if the Minnesota Supreme Court rules that he can. Legal experts are already saying that this will create a “domino effect” that can lead to Trump being removed from the ballot “in all 50 states.”

    To make matters worse for Trump, Harvard’s most famous Constitutional Law expert says that the lawsuit is “rock solid as a legal matter, relying entirely on existing law and indisputable facts of public record."

    It’s true such a lawsuit has been filed in Minnesota under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment which prohibits anyone involved in insurrection against the US from being elected to federal office.

    It is technically not aimed at Trump but at the Minnesota Secretary of State, who has said it isn’t his job to determine whether the nominated candidates are eligible. (He’s a Democrat, incidentally.)

    The rest of it is much less certain. I don’t see it going anywhere without Trump’s conviction in a court of law first.

    And even in that event, I wouldn’t trust the current Scotus not to strike it down.

    TLDR - the facts are mostly as stated but the conclusions are a mix of wishful thinking and exaggeration.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,945
    Fishing said:

    Nigelb said:

    As far as the header is concerned, no, the basic problem with Trump is not that he's too old - it's that he's a flaming narcissistic asshole with no regard for anything, other than himself.

    All top politicians are narcissists to some extent, and most to a huge extent. Certainly Obama gives Trump a run for his money in that regard. The main problem with Trump is that he's a sociopath, not that his a narcissist.

    While not disagreeing with that why pick out Obama as a narcissist? Just interested in what I am missing as nothing springs to mind.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,154

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
  • IanB2 said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
    As long as we claim responsibility for the Falkland Islands and as long as the Islanders want to be British then we owe it to them to defend their rights. But we owe the Chagossians equally and have utterly failed them. It is disgraceful.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500
    Nigelb said:

    McCarthy vows to strip Ukraine money from Pentagon bill after Greene ‘no’ vote
    https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4218467-mccarthy-vows-to-strip-ukraine-money-from-pentagon-bill-after-greene-no-vote/

    These useless arseholes would do anything to hang on to their jobs.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,755
    malcolmg said:

    Nigelb said:

    McCarthy vows to strip Ukraine money from Pentagon bill after Greene ‘no’ vote
    https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4218467-mccarthy-vows-to-strip-ukraine-money-from-pentagon-bill-after-greene-no-vote/

    These useless arseholes would do anything to hang on to their jobs.
    Oi! That’s an unfair comparison. I find my arsehole very useful for getting rid of shit. McCarthy has picked the House with it.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500
    Heathener said:

    Biden won New Hampshire by 7.4% in 2020, so if the 12% was the result in 2024 it would represent enough of a swing to give him a comfortable Presidential victory.

    I'll take "boring" thanks Mike if it means no more Capitol riots, insurrection, and anarchy. Heck, I'll even take 'old.'

    It reminds me of the time I was talking with a Palestinian Arab trader in a Jerusalem souk. 'I love this place, there's such a buzz,' I gushed.

    He looked me in the eye and spoke softly, 'I'd given anything to swap this "buzz" for the peace and quiet of England.'

    Jackanory
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,211
    Leaders of Syria and China announce strategic partnership as part of Asian Games diplomacy
    https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=359867
    ...Xi met Syrian President Bashar Assad in the southern Chinese city of Hangzhou, which is hosting the 15-day sports competition.

    "In the face of the unstable and uncertain international situation, China is willing to work with Syria to firmly support each other ... and jointly safeguard international fairness and justice," Xi said in a video clip posted online by state broadcaster CCTV.

    Assad's visit parallels in some ways that of Russian President Vladimir Putin last year for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics. Both leaders are virtual pariahs in the West but welcomed by China as it tries to expand its global influence and promote an alternative to the U.S.-led international order...


    Love the quote.
  • Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    Unfortunately the UK is losing the narrative in the region over this incident - the UNGA may lack power but it certainly represents opinion that will is slowly but surely hardening on this issue.
  • Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    Unfortunately the UK is losing the narrative in the region over this incident - the UNGA may lack power but it certainly represents opinion that will is slowly but surely hardening on this issue.
    It should be losing the narrative, what we have done to them is indefensible.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,403
    Interesting link: thank you for posting. By following all/most of the people that Musk follows on X the author had a good peg to hang the article on, although a lack of empathy with Musk did creep thru. There's a difference between "look at what this person thinks" and "look at what this person thinks - isn't it weird". Nevertheless I thought it ultimately good and thank you for posting the link.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,403
    "...What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area. Checkpoints go up at fifteen miles. Your fugitive's name is Dr. Richard Kimble. Go get him."

    The Fugitive (1993) is thirty years old this year.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,137

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    Unfortunately the UK is losing the narrative in the region over this incident - the UNGA may lack power but it certainly represents opinion that will is slowly but surely hardening on this issue.
    Expelling people to turn it into a military base. The Chagos affair does rather have a whiff of Crimea about it.
  • Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    Then to add insult to injury their top-level domain got granted to some British hustler who claimed the islanders would be getting revenue from it, which apparently has never happened. If you use a .io domain, it's the DNS equivalent of blood diamonds.
  • Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    Britain was quite happy to hand the White Falkland Islanders over to Argentina. There were transfer negotiations even under Mrs Thatcher. Of course, the war rather hardened attitudes against it. The treatment of the Chagos Islanders is shameful enough without dragging the Falklands into it.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,928
    Listening to the media stories Sunak seems to be considering the Bill Clinton/Bill Morris approach.

    The cigarette thing baffles me. Presumably as you move forward there is nothing to stop 41 year olds buying cigarettes for their 40 year old spouse.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,712

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    Britain was quite happy to hand the White Falkland Islanders over to Argentina. There were transfer negotiations even under Mrs Thatcher. Of course, the war rather hardened attitudes against it. The treatment of the Chagos Islanders is shameful enough without dragging the Falklands into it.
    Good morning one and all!

    Had it not been for two senior MP’s, one Labour (Peter Shore) and one Conservative (Bernard Braine) the Falklands/Malvinas would have been under joint sovereignty by 1983. Of course quite a lot of young men would still be alive.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,025
    Biden is playing the potential shut down very well, having a real dig at the long weekend that McCarthy has given the House when appropriation bills have not been passed:: https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1704991755597123871?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1704991755597123871|twgr^f610b9309165fa42c0446bd2fadced4b6658a8ee|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/22/2194800/-Shutdown-watch-Chuck-Schumer-prepares-to-step-in

    I find it bewildering that a group of 5 or 6 House representatives who are backing Putin in Ukraine are managing to hold the House and the country to ransom. Those that took forever to vote for McCarthy as Speaker have been vindicated.

  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,688
    edited September 2023

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    Unfortunately the UK is losing the narrative in the region over this incident - the UNGA may lack power but it certainly represents opinion that will is slowly but surely hardening on this issue.
    Good. We as a nation are in the wrong on this and the more people that know that the sooner that wrong will start to be righted. What we really need is for far more people in this country to be aware of the issue and start to campaign about it.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,928
    Farooq said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    Wait til you find out how far Britain is from BIOT
    Except it has been British territory for 200 years.

    What is Mauritius intending to do for the Chagossians?
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,133
    kjh said:

    Fishing said:

    Nigelb said:

    As far as the header is concerned, no, the basic problem with Trump is not that he's too old - it's that he's a flaming narcissistic asshole with no regard for anything, other than himself.

    All top politicians are narcissists to some extent, and most to a huge extent. Certainly Obama gives Trump a run for his money in that regard. The main problem with Trump is that he's a sociopath, not that his a narcissist.

    While not disagreeing with that why pick out Obama as a narcissist? Just interested in what I am missing as nothing springs to mind.
    He had the same job as Trump, he was Trump's immediate predecessor so most people will not need a long explanation on why he was a narcissist and was for my money probably the most obvious narcissist in the job recently besides Trump, but without having any of Trump's obvious sociopathy. Also he's as adored on the soft left as Trump is hated, despite not really having achieved anything much in eight years besides some healthcare reforms. But there's certainly stiff competition for the most narcissistic senior politician title.
  • Yes, that looks good.
    There are a lot of things to dislike about Musk including his cosying up to Tucker Carlson and other right wing nuts.
    BUT he is doing the right thing in an incredibly important way with Tesla, without him the transition to electric cars would be far slower. Tesla's success is forcing other car makers to try to follow suit, the trouble is they mostly lose money on electric cars while making money on ICE cars. Tesla's margin on its cars is high and their cars efficiency is also high, add in the Supercharger network and you can see why others are having difficulty competing.
    https://techxplore.com/news/2023-09-electric-shift-stalls-volkswagen.html
  • Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    Then to add insult to injury their top-level domain got granted to some British hustler who claimed the islanders would be getting revenue from it, which apparently has never happened. If you use a .io domain, it's the DNS equivalent of blood diamonds.
    More on this story here.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.io
  • Farooq said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    Wait til you find out how far Britain is from BIOT
    Except it has been British territory for 200 years.

    What is Mauritius intending to do for the Chagossians?
    Maybe allow them to actually live there? Which is more than we are doing.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,928

    Farooq said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    Wait til you find out how far Britain is from BIOT
    Except it has been British territory for 200 years.

    What is Mauritius intending to do for the Chagossians?
    Maybe allow them to actually live there? Which is more than we are doing.
    You don't think they would rather make money from renting the islands to the Americans? Other countries do quite well out of that.
  • Listening to the media stories Sunak seems to be considering the Bill Clinton/Bill Morris approach.

    The cigarette thing baffles me. Presumably as you move forward there is nothing to stop 41 year olds buying cigarettes for their 40 year old spouse.

    Even further forward, it's a nice little supplement to their pensions for the remaining 95 years olds who are still allowed to smoke, as they flog illicit fags to everyone else out the back of the old folks' home!
  • rcs1000 said:

    Compared to the 2020 Presidential election, this means Biden is flat, while Trump has lost five percentage points.

    And this is rather Trump's problem: he has (very slightly) gained ground on Biden since 2020, but he's done it in places that are rather unhelpful, increasing his share in California and New York (which won't flip), and Florida and Deep South (which are already handily Red).

    In Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, there is no evidence Trump has done anything but go backwards.

    One might also suspect that the whole "fake electors" thing, might work as a very effective GOTV for Democrats in these States.

    I think the fake electors thing works in those states for wavering GOP voters as well. There's a reason all Biden's attacks on the GOP use the "MAGA" branding.

    The fun thing about the electoral college improvement is that it also seems to be driven by reducing racial polarization. The Dems are losing their lock on Black and Hispanic voters, but those voters get down-weighted by the Electoral College.
  • Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    Unfortunately the UK is losing the narrative in the region over this incident - the UNGA may lack power but it certainly represents opinion that will is slowly but surely hardening on this issue.
    Good. We as a nation are in the wrong on this and the more people that know that the sooner that wrong will start to be righted. What we really need is for far more people in this country to be aware of the issue and start to campaign about it.
    So what's Boris doing raising it?

    Is it that he really wants the UK to hold onto BIOT?

    That the Mail have pointed out to him who pays his wages?

    The he sees an opportunity to make trouble for a not-Boris PM, and can't help himself?
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500

    Listening to the media stories Sunak seems to be considering the Bill Clinton/Bill Morris approach.

    The cigarette thing baffles me. Presumably as you move forward there is nothing to stop 41 year olds buying cigarettes for their 40 year old spouse.

    Even further forward, it's a nice little supplement to their pensions for the remaining 95 years olds who are still allowed to smoke, as they flog illicit fags to everyone else out the back of the old folks' home!
    Bizarre given most today will be black market due to cost in any case. Just increasing the bootleggers income/profits.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,500

    Yes, that looks good.
    There are a lot of things to dislike about Musk including his cosying up to Tucker Carlson and other right wing nuts.
    BUT he is doing the right thing in an incredibly important way with Tesla, without him the transition to electric cars would be far slower. Tesla's success is forcing other car makers to try to follow suit, the trouble is they mostly lose money on electric cars while making money on ICE cars. Tesla's margin on its cars is high and their cars efficiency is also high, add in the Supercharger network and you can see why others are having difficulty competing.
    https://techxplore.com/news/2023-09-electric-shift-stalls-volkswagen.html
    Musk is one of the biggest arseholes on the planet
  • Good morning, everyone.

    F1: will probably put up the pre-race ramble mid-afternoon due to the 6am race start.

    Smoking: if smoking is banned it'll be very bad for the finances as smokers bring in way more than they cost in healthcare, unlike drinkers.
  • Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    Unfortunately the UK is losing the narrative in the region over this incident - the UNGA may lack power but it certainly represents opinion that will is slowly but surely hardening on this issue.
    Good. We as a nation are in the wrong on this and the more people that know that the sooner that wrong will start to be righted. What we really need is for far more people in this country to be aware of the issue and start to campaign about it.
    So what's Boris doing raising it?

    Is it that he really wants the UK to hold onto BIOT?

    That the Mail have pointed out to him who pays his wages?

    The he sees an opportunity to make trouble for a not-Boris PM, and can't help himself?
    I have no idea nor interest in what goes on in Johnson's tiny mind.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,963
    edited September 2023
    Well....

    SNP MP ‘shunned’ after criticising party’s handling of sex claims

    Lisa Cameron faces being ousted from her seat after she challenged the leadership’s handling of harassment allegations against Patrick Grady, the party’s former chief whip at Westminster


    An SNP MP has mounted a challenge to Humza Yousaf’s authority after threatening to force a by-election if she is ousted as a candidate for the next general election.

    Dr Lisa Cameron, the MP for East Kilbride, Strathaven & Lesmahagow, claims her constituency’s Westminster campaign committee has backed a party worker to contest the seat at the next general election, instead of her.

    She claims she has been “ostracised” by the SNP after she challenged how the leadership handled sexual harassment allegations against Patrick Grady, the party’s former chief whip at Westminster.

    Cameron, a former consultant clinical psychologist, told the Daily Mirror that she spoke out after Ian Blackford, the former SNP Westminster leader, said in a group meeting that MPs should offer their “absolute full support” to Grady, according to a leaked recording of the event. Grady was suspended from the SNP for six months following sexual harassment allegations.

    Grady was accused of inappropriately touching a 19-year-old party staff member in 2016 during a night out. He had his SNP membership restored in December 2022 but Cameron claims she questioned why the experience of the victim was not being prioritised.

    “I was treated as if I was saying something outlandish. I was made to feel I was out of step with the party. I felt ostracised,” she said. “After I spoke up in one of the meetings and said, ‘Shouldn’t we be supporting the victim?’ people were quite hostile towards me. I couldn’t go into the tea room, for instance — people wouldn’t speak to me.

    Cameron is now being challenged by Grant Costello, the SNP’s digital manager, for selection in the seat she currently holds. She said that she had gathered the 50 nominations required and intended to contest the constituency at the general election. Polls close in local branches on October 12.

    Cameron said she would have to consider her future and her family if she did not win the nomination, and added: “It would be natural for me to think about what else I would be doing. I have other skills, so I would not completely rule out the possibility of a by-election.”


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/snp-mp-shunned-after-criticising-partys-handling-of-sex-claims-rq3kxbwgn
  • The SNP couldn't organise a pregnancy on a council estate.

    Confusion over SNP independence strategy as Flynn pushes ‘majority’

    Stephen Flynn says the SNP needs a majority of seats, but had already agreed with Humza Yousaf to target ‘the most seats’


    Humza Yousaf’s independence strategy has suffered another blow after it was repeatedly contradicted by his party’s Westminster leader.

    Stephen Flynn twice said during a television interview that the SNP would need to win “a majority” of constituencies in Scotland at the general election to secure a mandate for secession talks.

    This goes against a motion jointly proposed by Yousaf, the first minister, and Flynn for next month’s SNP conference. The motion says that “if the SNP subsequently wins the most seats at the general election in Scotland, the Scottish government is empowered to begin immediate negotiations with the UK government to give democratic effect to Scotland becoming an independent country”.

    “The most seats” does not mean a majority and there is confusion about what would be involved in negotiations. Yousaf has suggested that they could include talks to formalise independence, but close aides have briefed that it would more likely be to try to agree a second independence referendum.

    Flynn leant into the latter camp during an interview on Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge on Sky News. He said that if the SNP won “a majority of seats, which I’m very confident that we will in the general election next year, then that’ll be a mandate for us to give democratic effect to independence”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/confusion-over-snp-independence-strategy-as-flynn-pushes-majority-30hnnm02k
  • Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    Unfortunately the UK is losing the narrative in the region over this incident - the UNGA may lack power but it certainly represents opinion that will is slowly but surely hardening on this issue.
    Good. We as a nation are in the wrong on this and the more people that know that the sooner that wrong will start to be righted. What we really need is for far more people in this country to be aware of the issue and start to campaign about it.
    So what's Boris doing raising it?

    Is it that he really wants the UK to hold onto BIOT?

    That the Mail have pointed out to him who pays his wages?

    The he sees an opportunity to make trouble for a not-Boris PM, and can't help himself?
    I have no idea nor interest in what goes on in Johnson's tiny mind.
    Unfortunately, he still has a platform and an audience on the right. And like a pigeon in a living room, he can still cause plenty of damage to no good end.
  • The SNP couldn't organise a pregnancy on a council estate.

    Confusion over SNP independence strategy as Flynn pushes ‘majority’

    Stephen Flynn says the SNP needs a majority of seats, but had already agreed with Humza Yousaf to target ‘the most seats’


    Humza Yousaf’s independence strategy has suffered another blow after it was repeatedly contradicted by his party’s Westminster leader.

    Stephen Flynn twice said during a television interview that the SNP would need to win “a majority” of constituencies in Scotland at the general election to secure a mandate for secession talks.

    This goes against a motion jointly proposed by Yousaf, the first minister, and Flynn for next month’s SNP conference. The motion says that “if the SNP subsequently wins the most seats at the general election in Scotland, the Scottish government is empowered to begin immediate negotiations with the UK government to give democratic effect to Scotland becoming an independent country”.

    “The most seats” does not mean a majority and there is confusion about what would be involved in negotiations. Yousaf has suggested that they could include talks to formalise independence, but close aides have briefed that it would more likely be to try to agree a second independence referendum.

    Flynn leant into the latter camp during an interview on Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge on Sky News. He said that if the SNP won “a majority of seats, which I’m very confident that we will in the general election next year, then that’ll be a mandate for us to give democratic effect to independence”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/confusion-over-snp-independence-strategy-as-flynn-pushes-majority-30hnnm02k

    Angels on the head of a pin stuff as the Times dissects the meanings of "the most" versus "a majority".
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,004
    DavidL said:

    Biden is playing the potential shut down very well, having a real dig at the long weekend that McCarthy has given the House when appropriation bills have not been passed:: https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1704991755597123871?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1704991755597123871|twgr^f610b9309165fa42c0446bd2fadced4b6658a8ee|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/22/2194800/-Shutdown-watch-Chuck-Schumer-prepares-to-step-in

    I find it bewildering that a group of 5 or 6 House representatives who are backing Putin in Ukraine are managing to hold the House and the country to ransom. Those that took forever to vote for McCarthy as Speaker have been vindicated.

    There’s a concerted effort from a group of House Republicans, led by Rep Matt Gaetz from Florida, to scrutinise government spending much more than has been the case in recent years, by breaking down spending by department and voting on items individually.

    Since the 1990s, wide-ranging ‘continuation bills’ have been passed each year, which basically say that the Federal government continues to do business as usual, with increases for inflation and some specific increases for certain departments. It usually amounts to a single Bill running to several thousand pages of paper, that the Congressemen and women have little opportunity to read, let alone amend.

    Gaetz argues that the size of the Federaal government is out of control, and for years has been unable to balance its budget, so it’s imperative that the expenditure at least comes close to matching the income.

    Any Bill that’s only on Ukraine spending wil pass easily, there’s only half a dozen on each side that oppose it.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,591
    edited September 2023

    Listening to the media stories Sunak seems to be considering the Bill Clinton/Bill Morris approach.

    The cigarette thing baffles me. Presumably as you move forward there is nothing to stop 41 year olds buying cigarettes for their 40 year old spouse.

    The cigarette thing has already been implemented in New Zealand - and by the looks of it the UK will be identical.
  • Yes, that looks good.
    There are a lot of things to dislike about Musk including his cosying up to Tucker Carlson and other right wing nuts.
    BUT he is doing the right thing in an incredibly important way with Tesla, without him the transition to electric cars would be far slower. Tesla's success is forcing other car makers to try to follow suit, the trouble is they mostly lose money on electric cars while making money on ICE cars. Tesla's margin on its cars is high and their cars efficiency is also high, add in the Supercharger network and you can see why others are having difficulty competing.
    https://techxplore.com/news/2023-09-electric-shift-stalls-volkswagen.html
    I'd agree on Tesla, except for one thing: the overhyped and (IMV) undeliverable promises of Autopilot; promises that have helped drive Tesla's share price, and which gained them massive amount of warnings from pre-orders for a system that still does nowhere near what was promised.
  • Farooq said:

    The SNP couldn't organise a pregnancy on a council estate.

    Confusion over SNP independence strategy as Flynn pushes ‘majority’

    Stephen Flynn says the SNP needs a majority of seats, but had already agreed with Humza Yousaf to target ‘the most seats’


    Humza Yousaf’s independence strategy has suffered another blow after it was repeatedly contradicted by his party’s Westminster leader.

    Stephen Flynn twice said during a television interview that the SNP would need to win “a majority” of constituencies in Scotland at the general election to secure a mandate for secession talks.

    This goes against a motion jointly proposed by Yousaf, the first minister, and Flynn for next month’s SNP conference. The motion says that “if the SNP subsequently wins the most seats at the general election in Scotland, the Scottish government is empowered to begin immediate negotiations with the UK government to give democratic effect to Scotland becoming an independent country”.

    “The most seats” does not mean a majority and there is confusion about what would be involved in negotiations. Yousaf has suggested that they could include talks to formalise independence, but close aides have briefed that it would more likely be to try to agree a second independence referendum.

    Flynn leant into the latter camp during an interview on Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge on Sky News. He said that if the SNP won “a majority of seats, which I’m very confident that we will in the general election next year, then that’ll be a mandate for us to give democratic effect to independence”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/confusion-over-snp-independence-strategy-as-flynn-pushes-majority-30hnnm02k

    Angels on the head of a pin stuff as the Times dissects the meanings of "the most" versus "a majority".
    I think it's an important difference. I wouldn't support a mandate that consisted of 40% of the seats, but I would support one that consisted of 60% of the seats.

    Of course, better than that would be the mandate coming from Holyrood, but Westminster apparently doesn't believe in that kind of democracy any more.
    First, you'd need to establish the terms necessarily had different meanings, which is the angels on the head of a pin bit.
  • Sandpit said:

    DavidL said:

    Biden is playing the potential shut down very well, having a real dig at the long weekend that McCarthy has given the House when appropriation bills have not been passed:: https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1704991755597123871?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1704991755597123871|twgr^f610b9309165fa42c0446bd2fadced4b6658a8ee|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/22/2194800/-Shutdown-watch-Chuck-Schumer-prepares-to-step-in

    I find it bewildering that a group of 5 or 6 House representatives who are backing Putin in Ukraine are managing to hold the House and the country to ransom. Those that took forever to vote for McCarthy as Speaker have been vindicated.

    There’s a concerted effort from a group of House Republicans, led by Rep Matt Gaetz from Florida, to scrutinise government spending much more than has been the case in recent years, by breaking down spending by department and voting on items individually.

    Since the 1990s, wide-ranging ‘continuation bills’ have been passed each year, which basically say that the Federal government continues to do business as usual, with increases for inflation and some specific increases for certain departments. It usually amounts to a single Bill running to several thousand pages of paper, that the Congressemen and women have little opportunity to read, let alone amend.

    Gaetz argues that the size of the Federaal government is out of control, and for years has been unable to balance its budget, so it’s imperative that the expenditure at least comes close to matching the income.

    Any Bill that’s only on Ukraine spending wil pass easily, there’s only half a dozen on each side that oppose it.
    I think this works for Gaetz as a thing to pretend to want, but not for the GOP if they actually get it. This is because government spending as a whole is unpopular and everybody wants to cut it, but each individual thing is popular, and that's why they haven't cut it already. It's a useful line if you're an oppositional GOP person because you can argue about process instead of saying what you actually want to cut, but the House GOP as a whole probably knows better than to actually give it to him, and in the event that he somehow succeeded in deposing the incumbent speaker he'd drop the idea as well.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,004

    Sandpit said:

    DavidL said:

    Biden is playing the potential shut down very well, having a real dig at the long weekend that McCarthy has given the House when appropriation bills have not been passed:: https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1704991755597123871?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1704991755597123871|twgr^f610b9309165fa42c0446bd2fadced4b6658a8ee|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/22/2194800/-Shutdown-watch-Chuck-Schumer-prepares-to-step-in

    I find it bewildering that a group of 5 or 6 House representatives who are backing Putin in Ukraine are managing to hold the House and the country to ransom. Those that took forever to vote for McCarthy as Speaker have been vindicated.

    There’s a concerted effort from a group of House Republicans, led by Rep Matt Gaetz from Florida, to scrutinise government spending much more than has been the case in recent years, by breaking down spending by department and voting on items individually.

    Since the 1990s, wide-ranging ‘continuation bills’ have been passed each year, which basically say that the Federal government continues to do business as usual, with increases for inflation and some specific increases for certain departments. It usually amounts to a single Bill running to several thousand pages of paper, that the Congressemen and women have little opportunity to read, let alone amend.

    Gaetz argues that the size of the Federaal government is out of control, and for years has been unable to balance its budget, so it’s imperative that the expenditure at least comes close to matching the income.

    Any Bill that’s only on Ukraine spending wil pass easily, there’s only half a dozen on each side that oppose it.
    I think this works for Gaetz as a thing to pretend to want, but not for the GOP if they actually get it. This is because government spending as a whole is unpopular and everybody wants to cut it, but each individual thing is popular, and that's why they haven't cut it already. It's a useful line if you're an oppositional GOP person because you can argue about process instead of saying what you actually want to cut, but the House GOP as a whole probably knows better than to actually give it to him, and in the event that he somehow succeeded in deposing the incumbent speaker he'd drop the idea as well.
    It was one of the issues that McCarthy agreed to when he was elected Speaker, but has dragged his heels on it for months, and is now trying to present another massive continuation bill to prevent a shutdown at the end of this month.

    Yes, one of the biggest reasons behind the constant continuation bills, is that the congresscritters don’t want to be held accountable for specific cuts to individual programmes.
  • FPT
    dixiedean said:

    Ban smoking and vaping and you'd soon see what a proper labour shortage in education looks like.

    What do you mean?

    I'd hope the vast majority of teachers being educated adults themselves wouldn't be dumb enough to smoke or vape?

    And it's already illegal for children to smoke and vape.

    The fact the latter do is because prohibition does not work, which is the problem with the policy, but I'm not sure how you'd expect it to effect education staffing levels?
  • Foxy said:
    Yeah but surely that is just down to Trump declaring even the most hardcored Republicans rhinos if they show him the slightest disrespect?
  • Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    "They" - you are British.

    Watch your mouth.
  • IanB2 said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
    No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
  • Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    The SNP couldn't organise a pregnancy on a council estate.

    Confusion over SNP independence strategy as Flynn pushes ‘majority’

    Stephen Flynn says the SNP needs a majority of seats, but had already agreed with Humza Yousaf to target ‘the most seats’


    Humza Yousaf’s independence strategy has suffered another blow after it was repeatedly contradicted by his party’s Westminster leader.

    Stephen Flynn twice said during a television interview that the SNP would need to win “a majority” of constituencies in Scotland at the general election to secure a mandate for secession talks.

    This goes against a motion jointly proposed by Yousaf, the first minister, and Flynn for next month’s SNP conference. The motion says that “if the SNP subsequently wins the most seats at the general election in Scotland, the Scottish government is empowered to begin immediate negotiations with the UK government to give democratic effect to Scotland becoming an independent country”.

    “The most seats” does not mean a majority and there is confusion about what would be involved in negotiations. Yousaf has suggested that they could include talks to formalise independence, but close aides have briefed that it would more likely be to try to agree a second independence referendum.

    Flynn leant into the latter camp during an interview on Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge on Sky News. He said that if the SNP won “a majority of seats, which I’m very confident that we will in the general election next year, then that’ll be a mandate for us to give democratic effect to independence”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/confusion-over-snp-independence-strategy-as-flynn-pushes-majority-30hnnm02k

    Angels on the head of a pin stuff as the Times dissects the meanings of "the most" versus "a majority".
    I think it's an important difference. I wouldn't support a mandate that consisted of 40% of the seats, but I would support one that consisted of 60% of the seats.

    Of course, better than that would be the mandate coming from Holyrood, but Westminster apparently doesn't believe in that kind of democracy any more.
    First, you'd need to establish the terms necessarily had different meanings, which is the angels on the head of a pin bit.
    Forgive me, but isn't the distinction quite clear and commonly used? "The most" meaning that you have more seats than any other single party, "majority" meaning that you have more seats than all other parties combined.
    Not necessarily. Most people use majority to mean plurality, and most of the seats means more than half. In other words, there is enough wriggle-room in these political promises to make everyone happy.
  • Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    Unfortunately the UK is losing the narrative in the region over this incident - the UNGA may lack power but it certainly represents opinion that will is slowly but surely hardening on this issue.
    Good. We as a nation are in the wrong on this and the more people that know that the sooner that wrong will start to be righted. What we really need is for far more people in this country to be aware of the issue and start to campaign about it.
    Treatment of the Chagos Islanders was shameful and they should be allowed to return, if they want to do so, alongside the base. Some probably just want money.

    We also shouldn't be too starry eyed about the other side. For China this is strategic - elbowing the West out of the Indian Ocean - and for Mauritius it's about money.
  • Farooq said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    Wait til you find out how far Britain is from BIOT
    The point is that Mauritius claiming it as a contingent and integral part of its national territory is a real stretch. The fact Britain administered it as one in the past doesn't change that.

    I'd expect Mauritius to be just as exploitative of it, if not more so, and largely uninterested in the fate of the Chagos Islanders.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,211
    DavidL said:

    Biden is playing the potential shut down very well, having a real dig at the long weekend that McCarthy has given the House when appropriation bills have not been passed:: https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1704991755597123871?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1704991755597123871|twgr^f610b9309165fa42c0446bd2fadced4b6658a8ee|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/22/2194800/-Shutdown-watch-Chuck-Schumer-prepares-to-step-in

    I find it bewildering that a group of 5 or 6 House representatives who are backing Putin in Ukraine are managing to hold the House and the country to ransom. Those that took forever to vote for McCarthy as Speaker have been vindicated.

    That's the current GOP.
    They don't believe in anything.

    Cassidy Hutchinson had to flee DC for safety after Jan. 6 testimony
    https://thehill.com/homenews/4219099-cassidy-hutchinson-had-to-flee-dc-for-safety-after-jan-6-testimony/amp/

  • Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    The SNP couldn't organise a pregnancy on a council estate.

    Confusion over SNP independence strategy as Flynn pushes ‘majority’

    Stephen Flynn says the SNP needs a majority of seats, but had already agreed with Humza Yousaf to target ‘the most seats’


    Humza Yousaf’s independence strategy has suffered another blow after it was repeatedly contradicted by his party’s Westminster leader.

    Stephen Flynn twice said during a television interview that the SNP would need to win “a majority” of constituencies in Scotland at the general election to secure a mandate for secession talks.

    This goes against a motion jointly proposed by Yousaf, the first minister, and Flynn for next month’s SNP conference. The motion says that “if the SNP subsequently wins the most seats at the general election in Scotland, the Scottish government is empowered to begin immediate negotiations with the UK government to give democratic effect to Scotland becoming an independent country”.

    “The most seats” does not mean a majority and there is confusion about what would be involved in negotiations. Yousaf has suggested that they could include talks to formalise independence, but close aides have briefed that it would more likely be to try to agree a second independence referendum.

    Flynn leant into the latter camp during an interview on Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge on Sky News. He said that if the SNP won “a majority of seats, which I’m very confident that we will in the general election next year, then that’ll be a mandate for us to give democratic effect to independence”.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/confusion-over-snp-independence-strategy-as-flynn-pushes-majority-30hnnm02k

    Angels on the head of a pin stuff as the Times dissects the meanings of "the most" versus "a majority".
    I think it's an important difference. I wouldn't support a mandate that consisted of 40% of the seats, but I would support one that consisted of 60% of the seats.

    Of course, better than that would be the mandate coming from Holyrood, but Westminster apparently doesn't believe in that kind of democracy any more.
    First, you'd need to establish the terms necessarily had different meanings, which is the angels on the head of a pin bit.
    Forgive me, but isn't the distinction quite clear and commonly used? "The most" meaning that you have more seats than any other single party, "majority" meaning that you have more seats than all other parties combined.
    Not necessarily. Most people use majority to mean plurality, and most of the seats means more than half. In other words, there is enough wriggle-room in these political promises to make everyone happy.
    Everyone who closely follows politics understands the difference between most and majority.

    Or did you think Cameron and May won a majority of seats in 2010 and 2017 respectively?
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,386

    Good morning

    On smoking 21 years ago when my first granddaughter was born my daughter told her husband and me that we would not be allowed access to our daughter /granddaughter if we continued to smoke

    Whilst I was not a heavy smoker ( maybe 10 a day ) it was the hardest thing I have ever done but now I cannot abide being near cigarette smoke

    A few years ago my practice nurse at our surgery informed me it was a vital decision as due to an underlying condition it ultimately saved me serious and complex health problems

    Morning Big G. Pleased quitting smoking worked out for you.

    Must say it sounds a bit extreme to ban you for seeing your granddaughter if you continued to smoke. I can understand your daughter not wanting you to light up around her baby but it seems a bit OTT to say if you smoke at all, you can't see your granddaughter?
  • Farooq said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    "They" - you are British.

    Watch your mouth.
    Really interesting insight into your mindset here.
    The use of "they" when referring to decision other people made is normal. We aren't obliged to use the "we" pronoun for actions taken by the British state. Indeed, if you want to seek to emphasise the fact that decisions are sometimes made despite the people not because of them, then the "they" pronoun is effective.

    Also, I don't know how old OLB is, but 1968 is before I was born. Is there really a "we" to speak of here? If you want to emphasise that kind of implied participation by citizenship, then you are very much into the kind of territory favoured by those who would see "us" pay reparations for what "we" did as a country 300 years ago.

    I didn't expect you Pronoun Patrol to claim you as one of its members, but just goes to show you can never be too sure.
    Your mindset stinks on virtually everything under the sun, and you are also a treasonous little guttersnipe, so I will take pronouncements from you on this subject with a very large crate of salt, thanks.

    I have better things to do with my time, so I will bid you good day.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,137

    IanB2 said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
    No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
    So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,128

    Yes, that looks good.
    There are a lot of things to dislike about Musk including his cosying up to Tucker Carlson and other right wing nuts.
    BUT he is doing the right thing in an incredibly important way with Tesla, without him the transition to electric cars would be far slower. Tesla's success is forcing other car makers to try to follow suit, the trouble is they mostly lose money on electric cars while making money on ICE cars. Tesla's margin on its cars is high and their cars efficiency is also high, add in the Supercharger network and you can see why others are having difficulty competing.
    https://techxplore.com/news/2023-09-electric-shift-stalls-volkswagen.html
    What most seem to miss, is that it is about *actually doing things*.

    Tesla came out of the existence of custom conversions to electric if ICE, for the rich. That combined with mass production to bring prices down. The key insight was that you start at the high end and work down.

    Nearly anyone in the automotive industry could have done this.

    Similarly, once evidence accumulated that water cooling batteries meant they could easily deal with high charging rates, superchargers were inevitable. Tesla created a division to build them, that is its own profit centre - so now it’s into compound expansion, largely self funded.

    The supercharging network in the IS has defeated the competing, official standard. Why? Because they built more chargers and the they work more often.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,386
    Farooq said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Good morning

    On smoking 21 years ago when my first granddaughter was born my daughter told her husband and me that we would not be allowed access to our daughter /granddaughter if we continued to smoke

    Whilst I was not a heavy smoker ( maybe 10 a day ) it was the hardest thing I have ever done but now I cannot abide being near cigarette smoke

    A few years ago my practice nurse at our surgery informed me it was a vital decision as due to an underlying condition it ultimately saved me serious and complex health problems

    Morning Big G. Pleased quitting smoking worked out for you.

    Must say it sounds a bit extreme to ban you for seeing your granddaughter if you continued to smoke. I can understand your daughter not wanting you to light up around her baby but it seems a bit OTT to say if you smoke at all, you can't see your granddaughter?
    Sounds like it did the trick, and might have even saved his life.
    It's a big card to play, but sounds like everyone won in the end.
    #ToughLove!
  • .
    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
    No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
    So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
    I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.

    It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
  • Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    "They" - you are British.

    Watch your mouth.
    Really interesting insight into your mindset here.
    The use of "they" when referring to decision other people made is normal. We aren't obliged to use the "we" pronoun for actions taken by the British state. Indeed, if you want to seek to emphasise the fact that decisions are sometimes made despite the people not because of them, then the "they" pronoun is effective.

    Also, I don't know how old OLB is, but 1968 is before I was born. Is there really a "we" to speak of here? If you want to emphasise that kind of implied participation by citizenship, then you are very much into the kind of territory favoured by those who would see "us" pay reparations for what "we" did as a country 300 years ago.

    I didn't expect you Pronoun Patrol to claim you as one of its members, but just goes to show you can never be too sure.
    Your mindset stinks on virtually everything under the sun, and you are also a treasonous little guttersnipe, so I will take pronouncements from you on this subject with a very large crate of salt, thanks.

    I have better things to do with my time, so I will bid you good day.
    Wow, that "we" dissolved pretty quickly.

    If you're having a bad day we can hug it out. I'm here for you.
    Er, no. I couldn't give a toss about you but do care about my family.

    Maybe you have no-one who loves you but you can always talk to your fellow creatures in the muck.
  • Good morning, everyone.

    F1: will probably put up the pre-race ramble mid-afternoon due to the 6am race start.

    Smoking: if smoking is banned it'll be very bad for the finances as smokers bring in way more than they cost in healthcare, unlike drinkers.

    On smoking, Sunak's move would wrong-foot the "de-criminalise cannabis" crowd.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,004
    That’s a very good piece, well-written and pretty even-handed towards the guy, who we all know can be a polarising figure.

    It’s also an absolutely brilliant premise for an article, to spend some weeks following Musk’s own Twitter timeline to see who he follows and what they have to say.
  • Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    Unfortunately the UK is losing the narrative in the region over this incident - the UNGA may lack power but it certainly represents opinion that will is slowly but surely hardening on this issue.

    Good. We as a nation are in the wrong on this and the more people that know that the sooner that wrong will start to be righted. What we really need is for far more people in this country to be aware of the issue and start to campaign about it.
    But there is a strong strategic argument for compensation rather than returning the property.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,214
    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    Biden is playing the potential shut down very well, having a real dig at the long weekend that McCarthy has given the House when appropriation bills have not been passed:: https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1704991755597123871?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1704991755597123871|twgr^f610b9309165fa42c0446bd2fadced4b6658a8ee|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/22/2194800/-Shutdown-watch-Chuck-Schumer-prepares-to-step-in

    I find it bewildering that a group of 5 or 6 House representatives who are backing Putin in Ukraine are managing to hold the House and the country to ransom. Those that took forever to vote for McCarthy as Speaker have been vindicated.

    That's the current GOP.
    They don't believe in anything.

    Cassidy Hutchinson had to flee DC for safety after Jan. 6 testimony
    https://thehill.com/homenews/4219099-cassidy-hutchinson-had-to-flee-dc-for-safety-after-jan-6-testimony/amp/

    The GOP are creating potential problems for themselves here if Ukraine gets the upper hand in the war. American voters like winners: if they are presented with some then the miserliness of the Putin caucus in Washington is going to look pretty bad.

    If Russia wins of course then it’s a different matter but dangerous to for their reputation. Stalemate is probably the preferred outcome for the US right, then they can say I told you so.
  • Farooq said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    Wait til you find out how far Britain is from BIOT
    The point is that Mauritius claiming it as a contingent and integral part of its national territory is a real stretch. The fact Britain administered it as one in the past doesn't change that.

    I'd expect Mauritius to be just as exploitative of it, if not more so, and largely uninterested
    in the fate of the Chagos Islanders.
    Put ownership of the islands into the hands of the Chagas Trust and rent it back to the UK.
  • "The basic electoral problem with both Trump and Biden is that they are far too old."

    Now if this was the case either they should be also rans in the primaries and polling, or they must have amazing positives to counter balance? So what are they?

    Their ages are not a particular electoral problem, unless the franchise gets extended to include British opinion writers too.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,211
    GIN1138 said:

    Good morning

    On smoking 21 years ago when my first granddaughter was born my daughter told her husband and me that we would not be allowed access to our daughter /granddaughter if we continued to smoke

    Whilst I was not a heavy smoker ( maybe 10 a day ) it was the hardest thing I have ever done but now I cannot abide being near cigarette smoke

    A few years ago my practice nurse at our surgery informed me it was a vital decision as due to an underlying condition it ultimately saved me serious and complex health problems

    Morning Big G. Pleased quitting smoking worked out for you.

    Must say it sounds a bit extreme to ban you for seeing your granddaughter if you continued to smoke. I can understand your daughter not wanting you to light up around her baby but it seems a bit OTT to say if you smoke at all, you can't see your granddaughter?
    His family clearly know Big_G well, and applied blackmail they knew would work.
    Winners all round.
  • GIN1138 said:

    Good morning

    On smoking 21 years ago when my first granddaughter was born my daughter told her husband and me that we would not be allowed access to our daughter /granddaughter if we continued to smoke

    Whilst I was not a heavy smoker ( maybe 10 a day ) it was the hardest thing I have ever done but now I cannot abide being near cigarette smoke

    A few years ago my practice nurse at our surgery informed me it was a vital decision as due to an underlying condition it ultimately saved me serious and complex health problems

    Morning Big G. Pleased quitting smoking worked out for you.

    Must say it sounds a bit extreme to ban you for seeing your granddaughter if you continued to smoke. I can understand your daughter not wanting you to light up around her baby but it seems a bit OTT to say if you smoke at all, you can't see your granddaughter?
    To be fair it was in and around my granddaughter but I willingly agreed but it was tough
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,755
    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    "They" - you are British.

    Watch your mouth.
    Really interesting insight into your mindset here.
    The use of "they" when referring to decision other people made is normal. We aren't obliged to use the "we" pronoun for actions taken by the British state. Indeed, if you want to seek to emphasise the fact that decisions are sometimes made despite the people not because of them, then the "they" pronoun is effective.

    Also, I don't know how old OLB is, but 1968 is before I was born. Is there really a "we" to speak of here? If you want to emphasise that kind of implied participation by citizenship, then you are very much into the kind of territory favoured by those who would see "us" pay reparations for what "we" did as a country 300 years ago.

    I didn't expect you Pronoun Patrol to claim you as one of its members, but just goes to show you can never be too sure.
    Your mindset stinks on virtually everything under the sun, and you are also a treasonous little guttersnipe, so I will take pronouncements from you on this subject with a very large crate of salt, thanks.

    I have better things to do with my time, so I will bid you good day.
    Wow, that "we" dissolved pretty quickly.

    If you're having a bad day we can hug it out. I'm here for you.
    Er, no. I couldn't give a toss about you but do care about my family.

    Maybe you have no-one who loves you but you can always talk to your fellow creatures in the muck.
    You leave my worm farm out of this! So what if I talk to my annelids, it soothes them.
    Have they got you taped?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,137
    edited September 2023

    .

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
    No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
    So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
    I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.

    It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
    It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.

    Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.

    The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,128
    ydoethur said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    "They" - you are British.

    Watch your mouth.
    Really interesting insight into your mindset here.
    The use of "they" when referring to decision other people made is normal. We aren't obliged to use the "we" pronoun for actions taken by the British state. Indeed, if you want to seek to emphasise the fact that decisions are sometimes made despite the people not because of them, then the "they" pronoun is effective.

    Also, I don't know how old OLB is, but 1968 is before I was born. Is there really a "we" to speak of here? If you want to emphasise that kind of implied participation by citizenship, then you are very much into the kind of territory favoured by those who would see "us" pay reparations for what "we" did as a country 300 years ago.

    I didn't expect you Pronoun Patrol to claim you as one of its members, but just goes to show you can never be too sure.
    Your mindset stinks on virtually everything under the sun, and you are also a treasonous little guttersnipe, so I will take pronouncements from you on this subject with a very large crate of salt, thanks.

    I have better things to do with my time, so I will bid you good day.
    Wow, that "we" dissolved pretty quickly.

    If you're having a bad day we can hug it out. I'm here for you.
    Er, no. I couldn't give a toss about you but do care about my family.

    Maybe you have no-one who loves you but you can always talk to your fellow creatures in the muck.
    You leave my worm farm out of this! So what if I talk to my annelids, it soothes them.
    Have they got you taped?
    You are erudite - obviously as the result of a round(ed) education.
  • Foxy said:

    .

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
    No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
    So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
    I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.

    It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
    It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.


    Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.

    The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
    Or that it was bureaucratically easiest
  • Foxy said:

    .

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
    No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
    So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
    I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.

    It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
    It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.

    Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.

    The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
    The patriotic viewpoint seems to be that we must be criticise and lament most individual parts of what really makes up Britain yet revere the flag, monarchy and symbols. I can't say I get it.
  • ydoethur said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    "They" - you are British.

    Watch your mouth.
    Really interesting insight into your mindset here.
    The use of "they" when referring to decision other people made is normal. We aren't obliged to use the "we" pronoun for actions taken by the British state. Indeed, if you want to seek to emphasise the fact that decisions are sometimes made despite the people not because of them, then the "they" pronoun is effective.

    Also, I don't know how old OLB is, but 1968 is before I was born. Is there really a "we" to speak of here? If you want to emphasise that kind of implied participation by citizenship, then you are very much into the kind of territory favoured by those who would see "us" pay reparations for what "we" did as a country 300 years ago.

    I didn't expect you Pronoun Patrol to claim you as one of its members, but just goes to show you can never be too sure.
    Your mindset stinks on virtually everything under the sun, and you are also a treasonous little guttersnipe, so I will take pronouncements from you on this subject with a very large crate of salt, thanks.

    I have better things to do with my time, so I will bid you good day.
    Wow, that "we" dissolved pretty quickly.

    If you're having a bad day we can hug it out. I'm here for you.
    Er, no. I couldn't give a toss about you but do care about my family.

    Maybe you have no-one who loves you but you can always talk to your fellow creatures in the muck.
    You leave my worm farm out of this! So what if I talk to my annelids, it soothes them.
    Have they got you taped?
    You are erudite - obviously as the result of a round(ed) education.
    You’re all heart. Knocks me flat.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,211
    TimS said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    Biden is playing the potential shut down very well, having a real dig at the long weekend that McCarthy has given the House when appropriation bills have not been passed:: https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1704991755597123871?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1704991755597123871|twgr^f610b9309165fa42c0446bd2fadced4b6658a8ee|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/22/2194800/-Shutdown-watch-Chuck-Schumer-prepares-to-step-in

    I find it bewildering that a group of 5 or 6 House representatives who are backing Putin in Ukraine are managing to hold the House and the country to ransom. Those that took forever to vote for McCarthy as Speaker have been vindicated.

    That's the current GOP.
    They don't believe in anything.

    Cassidy Hutchinson had to flee DC for safety after Jan. 6 testimony
    https://thehill.com/homenews/4219099-cassidy-hutchinson-had-to-flee-dc-for-safety-after-jan-6-testimony/amp/

    The GOP are creating potential problems for themselves here if Ukraine gets the upper hand in the war. American voters like winners: if they are presented with some then the miserliness of the Putin caucus in Washington is going to look pretty bad.

    If Russia wins of course then it’s a different matter but dangerous to for their reputation. Stalemate is probably the preferred outcome for the US right, then they can say I told you so.
    "Treasonous guttersnipes" might more reasonably be applied to describe them.

    Well, treasonous, anyway.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,755

    ydoethur said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    "They" - you are British.

    Watch your mouth.
    Really interesting insight into your mindset here.
    The use of "they" when referring to decision other people made is normal. We aren't obliged to use the "we" pronoun for actions taken by the British state. Indeed, if you want to seek to emphasise the fact that decisions are sometimes made despite the people not because of them, then the "they" pronoun is effective.

    Also, I don't know how old OLB is, but 1968 is before I was born. Is there really a "we" to speak of here? If you want to emphasise that kind of implied participation by citizenship, then you are very much into the kind of territory favoured by those who would see "us" pay reparations for what "we" did as a country 300 years ago.

    I didn't expect you Pronoun Patrol to claim you as one of its members, but just goes to show you can never be too sure.
    Your mindset stinks on virtually everything under the sun, and you are also a treasonous little guttersnipe, so I will take pronouncements from you on this subject with a very large crate of salt, thanks.

    I have better things to do with my time, so I will bid you good day.
    Wow, that "we" dissolved pretty quickly.

    If you're having a bad day we can hug it out. I'm here for you.
    Er, no. I couldn't give a toss about you but do care about my family.

    Maybe you have no-one who loves you but you can always talk to your fellow creatures in the muck.
    You leave my worm farm out of this! So what if I talk to my annelids, it soothes them.
    Have they got you taped?
    You are erudite - obviously as the result of a round(ed) education.
    You’re all heart. Knocks me flat.
    Bugger. We're all now hooked on worm puns.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,955
    Quick note on cyclists running red lights - here in Melbourne, cyclists and pedestrians share a traffic phase, but only in one direction (and if you're turning left out right, you have to give way to the pedestrians. This is the same for drivers on their phase).

    Interesting solution, with vulnerable road users grouped together.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,538

    IanB2 said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
    As long as we claim responsibility for the Falkland Islands and as long as the Islanders want to be British then we owe it to them to defend their rights. But we owe the Chagossians equally and have utterly failed them. It is disgraceful.
    The Chagossians were indeed treated disgracefully and deserve to be allowed to return and/or be fully compensated.

    That’s an entirely separate issue from whether the islands should be given to Mauritius. Given their strategic importance, I’m inclined to think not.

    Alternatively, sell the islands to the USA and compensate the islanders out of the proceeds.
  • .
    Foxy said:

    .

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
    No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
    So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
    I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.

    It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
    It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.

    Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.

    The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
    I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.

    I'm all ears.
  • Sean_F said:

    IanB2 said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
    As long as we claim responsibility for the Falkland Islands and as long as the Islanders want to be British then we owe it to them to defend their rights. But we owe the Chagossians equally and have utterly failed them. It is disgraceful.
    The Chagossians were indeed treated disgracefully and deserve to be allowed to return and/or be fully compensated.

    That’s an entirely separate issue from whether the islands should be given to Mauritius. Given their strategic importance, I’m inclined to think not.

    Alternatively, sell the islands to the USA and compensate the islanders out of the proceeds.
    Quite right.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,776

    Farooq said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    Wait til you find out how far Britain is from BIOT
    The point is that Mauritius claiming it as a contingent and integral part of its national territory is a real stretch. The fact Britain administered it as one in the past doesn't change that.

    I'd expect Mauritius to be just as exploitative of it, if not more so, and largely uninterested
    in the fate of the Chagos Islanders.
    Put ownership of the islands into the hands of the Chagas Trust and rent it back to the UK.
    It's really up the US what happens. There are 10x more US military personnel at NSF Diego Garcia than British. Plus a few thousand (American) civvie contractors.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,755
    edited September 2023

    .

    Foxy said:

    .

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
    No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
    So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
    I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.

    It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
    It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.

    Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.

    The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
    I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.

    I'm all ears.
    A Patriotic Thing In Your Life.

    And I dictated it, so I did say it.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,137
    edited September 2023

    Foxy said:

    .

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
    No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
    So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
    I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.

    It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
    It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.

    Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.

    The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
    The patriotic viewpoint seems to be that we must be criticise and lament most individual parts of what really makes up Britain yet revere the flag, monarchy and symbols. I can't say I get it.
    Yes, well put. The British right love the symbols of Britain rather than the complicated reality. Same goes for America too, and probably most other countries.
  • Yes, that looks good.
    There are a lot of things to dislike about Musk including his cosying up to Tucker Carlson and other right wing nuts.
    BUT he is doing the right thing in an incredibly important way with Tesla, without him the transition to electric cars would be far slower. Tesla's success is forcing other car makers to try to follow suit, the trouble is they mostly lose money on electric cars while making money on ICE cars. Tesla's margin on its cars is high and their cars efficiency is also high, add in the Supercharger network and you can see why others are having difficulty competing.
    https://techxplore.com/news/2023-09-electric-shift-stalls-volkswagen.html
    What most seem to miss, is that it is about *actually doing things*.

    Tesla came out of the existence of custom conversions to electric if ICE, for the rich. That combined with mass production to bring prices down. The key insight was that you start at the high end and work down.

    Nearly anyone in the automotive industry could have done this.

    Similarly, once evidence accumulated that water cooling batteries meant they could easily deal with high charging rates, superchargers were inevitable. Tesla created a division to build them, that is its own profit centre - so now it’s into compound expansion, largely self funded.

    The supercharging network in the IS has defeated the competing, official standard. Why? Because they built more chargers and the they work more often.
    Yes, that's right.
    Musk can be annoying and makes stupid decisions (e.g. Twitter) but he's a good engineer.
    Look at the efficiency figures for Tesla cars compared to others, the production speed, the margins and, as you said the Supercharger reliability. Yes, the other car brands could have done the same, but they would be working against their existing ICE sales. I'm afraid that not all legacy carmakers will survive.
    So on balance is Musk a 'good' thing? Well, we have plenty of right wingers, one more with a megaphone may be regrettable but can be ignored (and he at least believes the science on climate change). We only have one game changing electric car maker and that is completely down to Musk.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,915
    New Hampshire hasn't voted Republican for President since it voted for Bush in 2000 so the general election numbers are no great surprise.

    In the Republican primary however Trump still leads ahead of Christie who has moved into second

    "2024 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary - Wikipedia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_New_Hampshire_Republican_presidential_primary
  • .
    ydoethur said:

    .

    Foxy said:

    .

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.

    They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.

    The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.

    So it will be kept come what may.

    The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business.
    An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
    For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
    No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
    So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
    I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.

    It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
    It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.

    Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.

    The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
    I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.

    I'm all ears.
    A Patriotic Thing In Your Life.

    And I dictated it, so I did say it.
    These people don't understand that if you're going to be listened to on a strident criticism of your own country then that has to start on a basic premise of trust.

    Most of those opining on this are the full-time Britain haters, and their friends.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,211
    HYUFD said:

    New Hampshire hasn't voted Republican for President since it voted for Bush in 2000 so the general election numbers are no great surprise.

    In the Republican primary however Trump still leads ahead of Christie who has moved into second

    "2024 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary - Wikipedia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_New_Hampshire_Republican_presidential_primary

    Biden v Christie would be entertaining, and without the roll of a dice on whether US democracy will still be a thing.
This discussion has been closed.