"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
Mishell on R4 tried to get her to say Lab would build it after all. Raynor pretty much stuck to the official line I think.
Rayner is a canny politician. She knows when to toe the line and understands the point of unity in public. She manages to combine this with a freshness and authenticity that much of the shadow cabinet cannot match. I can see why she is the nations most popular politician.
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Aaaand we're talking up ethnic cleansing before 9am
What ARE you talking about??
I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want Israelis or Palestinians to die - any of them. The whole thing is a Satanic mess and both sides are at fault - increasingly Israel but the Islamists of Hamas are hardly saints
I am speculating as to possible outcomes and what a very hardline Israeli government might do that no previous Israeli government has dared to do - actually drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. Far right Israeli politicians have talked of this in the past, plenty of times, well now they are in the government - so maybe they will do it
If it happens it would be a crime for the ages - of course - but in the end if the Gazans were given a proper amount of land to settle in Sinai - and their freedom - it might be better than the living prison they inhabit now, which is constantly at war (as we see)
There is no good easy clearly moral solution; quit your pearl clutching
There is, of course, another aspect to any ethnic cleaning of Gaza. Without Gaza, no Palestinian state could possibly be viable, as it is the largest city and the only port (including airport, not that it's operating right now).
It would also change the demographic ratio of the whole area firmly in favour of the Israelis by removing over half the Palestinians.
At that stage the West Bank would almost certainly have to accept its de facto annexation into Israel. The 'facts on the ground' strategy would have borne fruit.
Would Netanyahu do it? Certainly he would, given a pretext.
He has just been given a pretext.
And having emasculated the Israeli courts and split the Knesset, it's hard to see who would stop him.
As the LibDem MP says, it's hard to see how this ends well.
Yes I can absolutely see Netanyahu exploiting this the way you describe. His government is full of people who have PROPOSED versions of this
I once heard Netanyahu compared to Hitler, because of this very issue.
By an Israeli.
Who was not only a senior official of Yad Vashem, but had been forced to leave Iran as a boy because of its own ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Nasty human being (Netanyahu, not Yiftach).
But again, anyone making a hero out of Ismail Haniyeh and his acolytes is overlooking the fact they're just as bad, as any reasoning human being would have worked out but Corbyn apparently couldn't.
This is as OldKingCole says not a conflict where outsiders should look to take sides on moral grounds. Israel is a democracy (rather a flawed one) but it is neither an innocent victim nor an unrelieved goody.
The problem we have with infrastructure in this country isn't the delivery or even necessarily the funding.
It's the process. The root cause being a lack of political courage - to make brave decisions and lead - and then consistency in the follow-through:
"Failing to build things we need is a sure-fire way to get poorer. It gradually strangles an economy, making it harder and harder to live, work and innovate. Yet we seem to have become world leaders in how to not build things. The costs for our infrastructure projects are markedly above those of other countries. The planning and legal processes take longer. The outcomes are less certain.
There are plenty of technical reasons why this is happening, not least a lack of training to produce skilled planners or workers, and fiscal rules that push governments to plan in five-year cycles instead of the 10 to 20 years required. But there is a political and moral reason too. Governments have become incapable of accepting that serving the national interest sometimes involves doing things that are unfair — often deeply unfair — to certain, highly visible, organised groups
The failure to accept this means they instead preside over a much greater, more terrible unfairness: the inexorable decline of British competitiveness. Building more runways or huge pylons or wider roads damages the quality of life of those who live near them. These are unpalatable facts. But somehow we have allowed these facts to overwhelm the greater, pressing national need to modernise the country.
The government avoids grappling directly with these issues by effectively outsourcing policy to the courts, which are then charged with sorting out, over years, which of the various contradictory sets of environmental, human rights or economic policies ought to have priority in each particular case."
I’d like to think the Starmer government will get to grips with this. He will surely have the majority to do it; it should be top of his to-do list. Fix the planning system so we can build things
This government could have been trumpeting first zero-carbon power from Swansea tidal lagoon, had Hinkley C-sized Cardiff - 3.2 GW - well under construction and five + more similar nuclear plant sized lagoons out through planning with earth being broken before going to the voters. With all but a tiny amount of seed corn money coming from the private sector. (The amount required equated to three years at 75 yards of HS2 track per year....)
As someone who comes from a sector that built small towns on stilts in the middle of the North Sea, each tasked with being capable of withstanding a once in a hundred-year wave, it is very obviously Government that can't build things. (And if the budget overrun exceeded 10%, you'd get booted out as operator and replaced.)
Deeply concerned by reports from Gaza and Israel. Civilians must be protected, I am especially horrified to hear about hostage taking, and all violence condemned. This is a significant escalation. I can't see how it ends well for anyone.
She’s getting a lot of grief for this, but I think people are reading too much into it. Layla is Palestinian, true, but it was tweeted early on when the facts were uncertain, and I think it’s simply a bit too bland rather than deliberate both-sideism.
It was less than an hour ago - a full hour after a cursory search showed images of dead Israeli civilians in the streets.
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Egypt will simply stick them all in a permanent refugee camp just across the border. It wouldn't even change anything except to move people a few miles down the coast.
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Then why doesn't Starmer commit to the project in full at Liverpool as he is heading into no 10 in the next year ?
Deeply concerned by reports from Gaza and Israel. Civilians must be protected, I am especially horrified to hear about hostage taking, and all violence condemned. This is a significant escalation. I can't see how it ends well for anyone.
She’s getting a lot of grief for this, but I think people are reading too much into it. Layla is Palestinian, true, but it was tweeted early on when the facts were uncertain, and I think it’s simply a bit too bland rather than deliberate both-sideism.
It was less than an hour ago - a full hour after a cursory search showed images of dead Israeli civilians in the streets.
So you think she is indulging in deliberate both sideism?
She tweeted before I was even properly aware of what was going on.
In regards to the Israel/Gaza situation: I wonder if this also makes Israeli direct involvement in a probable further Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict (Azerbaijan seeking to annex the territory on the Armenian-Iranian border and likely causing war with Iran too).
There're some fairly awful piccies doing the rounds. A morning to avoid Twitter.
Reports of armed Palestinian ganga roaming Israeli towns near Gaza, gunning down everyone they see.
Unfortunately the way they have been treating people it is not surprising. If you keep kicking your dog at some point it will bite back.
True . The Palestinians have been kept in disgusting conditions , effectively a prison camp. Their land being stolen daily to make way for illegal settlements. It’s awful to see this violence but no surprise .
Well, I find it a surprise. Indiscriminate slaughter of civilians? Yes, shocking and surprising.
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Aaaand we're talking up ethnic cleansing before 9am
What ARE you talking about??
I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want Israelis or Palestinians to die - any of them. The whole thing is a Satanic mess and both sides are at fault - increasingly Israel but the Islamists of Hamas are hardly saints
I am speculating as to possible outcomes and what a very hardline Israeli government might do that no previous Israeli government has dared to do - actually drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. Far right Israeli politicians have talked of this in the past, plenty of times, well now they are in the government - so maybe they will do it
If it happens it would be a crime for the ages - of course - but in the end if the Gazans were given a proper amount of land to settle in Sinai - and their freedom - it might be better than the living prison they inhabit now, which is constantly at war (as we see)
There is no good easy clearly moral solution; quit your pearl clutching
There is, of course, another aspect to any ethnic cleaning of Gaza. Without Gaza, no Palestinian state could possibly be viable, as it is the largest city and the only port (including airport, not that it's operating right now).
It would also change the demographic ratio of the whole area firmly in favour of the Israelis by removing over half the Palestinians.
At that stage the West Bank would almost certainly have to accept its de facto annexation into Israel. The 'facts on the ground' strategy would have borne fruit.
Would Netanyahu do it? Certainly he would, given a pretext.
He has just been given a pretext.
And having emasculated the Israeli courts and split the Knesset, it's hard to see who would stop him.
As the LibDem MP says, it's hard to see how this ends well.
It’s a huge intelligence failure. Hard to believe there isn’t a larger power (ie Iran) behind it somewhere. If so, then open hostilities between Israel and Iran are possible. Which is of course indirectly very bad news for Russia.
Open hostilities between Israel and Iran would be very bad news for everyone with the possible exception of Mohammed bin Salman.
It'll be nothing compared to what the Gaza strip gets in return.
Israel’s long term policy with Gaza has pretty obviously always been to make it uninhabitable. Issues with the water supply were thought to make that likely by 2020 but obviously that date wasn’t accurate.
I am just wondering if this latest attack might lead Israel to take a more direct approach a la Azerbaijan and Artsekh. In which case, if I were the Egyptian government I would be really worried right now.
Was this attack by Hamas provoked by anything? Or are they just taking advantage of the Jewish holidays?
If it came as a surprise to the Israelis - and it clearly did - it seems unlikely they had been doing anything (more than the usual) to provoke Hamas.
And yet those who are so quick to condemn the Israelis when they use inappropriate force in response remain silent…
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Egypt will simply stick them all in a permanent refugee camp just across the border. It wouldn't even change anything except to move people a few miles down the coast.
Yes possibly. Maybe probably. Perhaps I’m hopecasting for a different outcome than the inevitable hideous grinding wars of before, as Israel slowly pounds everyone in Gaza into a pulp of submission
The world is weary of this endless horror. The only outcome that might work is if the international community offered the Gazans a place nearby to settle in peace and freedom and showered them with money (and also reimbursed the Egyptian government, of course)
Likely impossible. Eyes down for more obscene killing, then
Do people really think this is a bad look for a PM? That he should be stuck on some gawd awful train somewhere surrounded by yobs drinking tinnies? Rishi is never ever going to come across as a man of the people. He shouldn’t even try.
I am glad he gets on with the job. I just wish he made a lot better decisions.
Oh Dear David.
It’s more honest than Corbyn squatting on the floor of a half empty railway carriage claiming he couldn’t get a seat.
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
Mishell on R4 tried to get her to say Lab would build it after all. Raynor pretty much stuck to the official line I think.
Rayner is a canny politician. She knows when to toe the line and understands the point of unity in public. She manages to combine this with a freshness and authenticity that much of the shadow cabinet cannot match. I can see why she is the nations most popular politician.
There're some fairly awful piccies doing the rounds. A morning to avoid Twitter.
Reports of armed Palestinian ganga roaming Israeli towns near Gaza, gunning down everyone they see.
Unfortunately the way they have been treating people it is not surprising. If you keep kicking your dog at some point it will bite back.
True . The Palestinians have been kept in disgusting conditions , effectively a prison camp. Their land being stolen daily to make way for illegal settlements. It’s awful to see this violence but no surprise .
Well, I find it a surprise. Indiscriminate slaughter of civilians? Yes, shocking and surprising.
Killing every Israeli is Hamas' stated goal. That they attempt to do so given an opportunity is not a surprise.
That they got the opportunity *is* a surprise, given the efficiency of Israel's intelligence services and armed forces. It should be a career ending surprise for Netanyahu and his government. Which is why we should again not be surprised to see something similar done in Gaza when (and unless Hamas has been armed to a very high standard in secret, I am pretty sure it will be when) the IDF move in.
The problem we have with infrastructure in this country isn't the delivery or even necessarily the funding.
It's the process. The root cause being a lack of political courage - to make brave decisions and lead - and then consistency in the follow-through:
"Failing to build things we need is a sure-fire way to get poorer. It gradually strangles an economy, making it harder and harder to live, work and innovate. Yet we seem to have become world leaders in how to not build things. The costs for our infrastructure projects are markedly above those of other countries. The planning and legal processes take longer. The outcomes are less certain.
There are plenty of technical reasons why this is happening, not least a lack of training to produce skilled planners or workers, and fiscal rules that push governments to plan in five-year cycles instead of the 10 to 20 years required. But there is a political and moral reason too. Governments have become incapable of accepting that serving the national interest sometimes involves doing things that are unfair — often deeply unfair — to certain, highly visible, organised groups
The failure to accept this means they instead preside over a much greater, more terrible unfairness: the inexorable decline of British competitiveness. Building more runways or huge pylons or wider roads damages the quality of life of those who live near them. These are unpalatable facts. But somehow we have allowed these facts to overwhelm the greater, pressing national need to modernise the country.
The government avoids grappling directly with these issues by effectively outsourcing policy to the courts, which are then charged with sorting out, over years, which of the various contradictory sets of environmental, human rights or economic policies ought to have priority in each particular case."
I’d like to think the Starmer government will get to grips with this. He will surely have the majority to do it; it should be top of his to-do list. Fix the planning system so we can build things
This government could have been trumpeting first zero-carbon power from Swansea tidal lagoon, had Hinkley C-sized Cardiff - 3.2 GW - well under construction and five + more similar nuclear plant sized lagoons out through planning with earth being broken before going to the voters. With all but a tiny amount of seed corn money coming from the private sector. (The amount required equated to three years at 75 yards of HS2 track per year....)
As someone who comes from a sector that built small towns on stilts in the middle of the North Sea, each tasked with being capable of withstanding a once in a hundred-year wave, it is very obviously Government that can't build things. (And if the budget overrun exceeded 10%, you'd get booted out as operator and replaced.)
Tbf it was Tezzie May who foolishly canned your project. And it was a short sighted and ridiculous justification for so doing. This is Rishi's argument for change. All that went before was rubbish so let's look forward and issue petrochemical and gas extraction licences to secure our energy future.
I don't suppose there was too much opportunity for grift with your project. Best to stick up another foreign operated nuclear power plant, trebles all round.
Will people be that fussed by a bit of private jet use ? Doesn't seem to have dented Ms Swift's tour sales
Taylor Swift hasn't just canned all transport upgrades in England.
She’s going ahead with them? Excellent news. I assume she is behind the fleet of caravans that all proclaim to be ‘Swift’ despite all evidence to the contrary…
Deeply concerned by reports from Gaza and Israel. Civilians must be protected, I am especially horrified to hear about hostage taking, and all violence condemned. This is a significant escalation. I can't see how it ends well for anyone.
She’s getting a lot of grief for this, but I think people are reading too much into it. Layla is Palestinian, true, but it was tweeted early on when the facts were uncertain, and I think it’s simply a bit too bland rather than deliberate both-sideism.
It was less than an hour ago - a full hour after a cursory search showed images of dead Israeli civilians in the streets.
So you think she is indulging in deliberate both sideism?
She tweeted before I was even properly aware of what was going on.
Since the reports were of dead Israeli civilians in Israel, and Israeli hostages, those seem significant omissions from her tweet. reports from Gaza and Israel. Civilians must be protected, I am especially horrified to hear about hostage taking
Lets see if greater insight leads to more focussed concerns.
Though I suspect the inevitable Israeli response will lead to general deprecation of all violence. We'll see.
On the early cross country train to Plymouth and given that the trains are now 4 rather than 8 coaches it’s already beyond full at Sheffield
A Voyager, presumably?
There's a grim irony that CC claimed they could have 'more seats with fewer trains' when retiring the Intercities!
Yep - and if makes a Ryanair flight feel pleasant - it would be nice to have enough legroom that I could open up a 12 inch laptop - instead I’m now playing on my phone
It'll be nothing compared to what the Gaza strip gets in return.
Israel’s long term policy with Gaza has pretty obviously always been to make it uninhabitable. Issues with the water supply were thought to make that likely by 2020 but obviously that date wasn’t accurate.
I am just wondering if this latest attack might lead Israel to take a more direct approach a la Azerbaijan and Artsekh. In which case, if I were the Egyptian government I would be really worried right now.
Was this attack by Hamas provoked by anything? Or are they just taking advantage of the Jewish holidays?
If it came as a surprise to the Israelis - and it clearly did - it seems unlikely they had been doing anything (more than the usual) to provoke Hamas.
There’s just been a news item about this particular issue. Mrs C asked me “which side are we on?” I had to say that I didn’t know; both as bad as each other, perhaps. At the beginning, back in the 40’s and 50’s, one could, reasonably, have sympathy for the Israelis, but now???
I’m sorry but WTAF?
These are innocent civilians who have been attacked by terrorists.
Are you really unable to separate that from the actions of the Israeli government?
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
Mishell on R4 tried to get her to say Lab would build it after all. Raynor pretty much stuck to the official line I think.
Rayner is a canny politician. She knows when to toe the line and understands the point of unity in public. She manages to combine this with a freshness and authenticity that much of the shadow cabinet cannot match. I can see why she is the nations most popular politician.
Do people really think this is a bad look for a PM? That he should be stuck on some gawd awful train somewhere surrounded by yobs drinking tinnies? Rishi is never ever going to come across as a man of the people. He shouldn’t even try.
I am glad he gets on with the job. I just wish he made a lot better decisions.
Oh Dear David.
It’s more honest than Corbyn squatting on the floor of a half empty railway carriage claiming he couldn’t get a seat.
Still feckin stupid though.
Why didn't they just put a photo up of him filling a car up?
"£80 billion for drivers with fuel duty freeze - vote Conservative".
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
Mishell on R4 tried to get her to say Lab would build it after all. Raynor pretty much stuck to the official line I think.
Rayner is a canny politician. She knows when to toe the line and understands the point of unity in public. She manages to combine this with a freshness and authenticity that much of the shadow cabinet cannot match. I can see why she is the nations most popular politician.
Deeply concerned by reports from Gaza and Israel. Civilians must be protected, I am especially horrified to hear about hostage taking, and all violence condemned. This is a significant escalation. I can't see how it ends well for anyone.
In regards to the Israel/Gaza situation: I wonder if this also makes Israeli direct involvement in a probable further Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict (Azerbaijan seeking to annex the territory on the Armenian-Iranian border and likely causing war with Iran too).
The azeris would never take on Iran. And I can’t see Israel getting involved in this war. What’s in it for them?
*Massive operation/incursion by Hamas inside Israel. V different from anything in past. *Well planned, must have taken months. *Must have had outside support - Iran/Hezb. *Huge intel failure by Israel, caught totally unaware, barley any response in first hours 1/4
All still unfolding. See this as : *Iran axis response to Israel normalization talks with Saudi. Also undermines Iran-Saudi normalization *Palestinian response to worsening/unbearable oppression under occupation. But operation will only make things worse for Pal civilians. 2/4
*Intel failure clear consequence of Israeli domestic political turmoil. *Watershed moment on many levels. Extent of consequences will take time to determine. *Israel wrath against Gaza will be unprecedented. *Watch for Saudi reaction. *All happening as region in huge flux 3/4
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Then why doesn't Starmer commit to the project in full at Liverpool as he is heading into no 10 in the next year ?
Because Sunak may well have made it all but physically impossible by the time he leaves office.
If the unprotected route is sold off, or the unwanted bit of Euston has even the beginnings of flats on them, that's it. HS2 delenda est.
Frankly, that's the politically inexplicable bit. If Rishi wanted to put Keir in a pickle, he should have left the door fractionally ajar. Instead, he's gluing it shut with araldite.
Did Rishi have an unfortunate childhood incident involving a train or something?
(And just to check- I trust that everyone agrees that a state resorting to these sort of measures should be condemned if it proposes pre-election tax cuts.)
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Aaaand we're talking up ethnic cleansing before 9am
What ARE you talking about??
I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want Israelis or Palestinians to die - any of them. The whole thing is a Satanic mess and both sides are at fault - increasingly Israel but the Islamists of Hamas are hardly saints
I am speculating as to possible outcomes and what a very hardline Israeli government might do that no previous Israeli government has dared to do - actually drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. Far right Israeli politicians have talked of this in the past, plenty of times, well now they are in the government - so maybe they will do it
If it happens it would be a crime for the ages - of course - but in the end if the Gazans were given a proper amount of land to settle in Sinai - and their freedom - it might be better than the living prison they inhabit now, which is constantly at war (as we see)
There is no good easy clearly moral solution; quit your pearl clutching
There is, of course, another aspect to any ethnic cleaning of Gaza. Without Gaza, no Palestinian state could possibly be viable, as it is the largest city and the only port (including airport, not that it's operating right now).
It would also change the demographic ratio of the whole area firmly in favour of the Israelis by removing over half the Palestinians.
At that stage the West Bank would almost certainly have to accept its de facto annexation into Israel. The 'facts on the ground' strategy would have borne fruit.
Would Netanyahu do it? Certainly he would, given a pretext.
He has just been given a pretext.
And having emasculated the Israeli courts and split the Knesset, it's hard to see who would stop him.
As the LibDem MP says, it's hard to see how this ends well.
Yes I can absolutely see Netanyahu exploiting this the way you describe. His government is full of people who have PROPOSED versions of this
I once heard Netanyahu compared to Hitler, because of this very issue.
By an Israeli.
Who was not only a senior official of Yad Vashem, but had been forced to leave Iran as a boy because of its own ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Nasty human being (Netanyahu, not Yiftach).
But again, anyone making a hero out of Ismail Haniyeh and his acolytes is overlooking the fact they're just as bad, as any reasoning human being would have worked out but Corbyn apparently couldn't.
This is as OldKingCole says not a conflict where outsiders should look to take sides on moral grounds. Israel is a democracy (rather a flawed one) but it is neither an innocent victim nor an unrelieved goody.
In this particular instance, Israel is surely the victim. Hamas has launched what looks like an armed invasion, with thousands of rockets and apparently indiscriminate slaughter. The provocation was not Israel but more likely Iran's desperation to undermine the recent deals Israel has made with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Leon might be right that Israel's government will exploit this, but that is not to say they caused or invited it.
Will people be that fussed by a bit of private jet use ? Doesn't seem to have dented Ms Swift's tour sales
A major problem has arisen in the set off industry, however. New studies have established that trees planted in carbon rich soils, such as peat, are net contributors to carbon in the atmosphere for at least 30 years and potentially longer. They leach carbon out of the soils for wood formation and then contribute CO2 from the process of growing. Once the tree is fully mature the balance may become a net retainer of carbon but it takes a very long time, much longer than we have until supposedly net zero.
This is throwing the offset industry into disarray. Many businesses, wealthy individuals and institutions buy land for forestry on the basis it allows them to carry on as normal whilst being irredeemably smug and patronising. It appears that in doing so they are actually increasing their carbon footprint, not reducing it.
Is it bad that there’s a part of me that want to laugh?
I would agree with you that smoking is not cool. The problem is that people who smoke look cool. That is a fact, and advertising (and tobacco) revenues over the decades prove it.
It'll be nothing compared to what the Gaza strip gets in return.
Israel’s long term policy with Gaza has pretty obviously always been to make it uninhabitable. Issues with the water supply were thought to make that likely by 2020 but obviously that date wasn’t accurate.
I am just wondering if this latest attack might lead Israel to take a more direct approach a la Azerbaijan and Artsekh. In which case, if I were the Egyptian government I would be really worried right now.
Was this attack by Hamas provoked by anything? Or are they just taking advantage of the Jewish holidays?
If it came as a surprise to the Israelis - and it clearly did - it seems unlikely they had been doing anything (more than the usual) to provoke Hamas.
And yet those who are so quick to condemn the Israelis when they use inappropriate force in response remain silent…
I've criticised Israel plenty in the past, and I have no qualms in condemning Hamas today.
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Then why doesn't Starmer commit to the project in full at Liverpool as he is heading into no 10 in the next year ?
Because, as you already know, the government is salting the earth by selling off the property.
It's like me coming around your house, setting your car on fire, then loudly wondering why you aren't committing to driving it to the supermarket this afternoon.
Starmer unequivocal stance that he will build HS2 with a warning to all developments that he will compulsory purchase any resales without compensation would inhibit any action the government may take in the next year
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Then why doesn't Starmer commit to the project in full at Liverpool as he is heading into no 10 in the next year ?
Because Sunak may well have made it all but physically impossible by the time he leaves office.
If the unprotected route is sold off, or the unwanted bit of Euston has even the beginnings of flats on them, that's it. HS2 delenda est.
Frankly, that's the politically inexplicable bit. If Rishi wanted to put Keir in a pickle, he should have left the door fractionally ajar. Instead, he's gluing it shut with araldite.
Did Rishi have an unfortunate childhood incident involving a train or something?
(And just to check- I trust that everyone agrees that a state resorting to these sort of measures should be condemned if it proposes pre-election tax cuts.)
Donations from property developers might be conditional on it.
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Then why doesn't Starmer commit to the project in full at Liverpool as he is heading into no 10 in the next year ?
Because Sunak may well have made it all but physically impossible by the time he leaves office.
If the unprotected route is sold off, or the unwanted bit of Euston has even the beginnings of flats on them, that's it. HS2 delenda est.
Frankly, that's the politically inexplicable bit. If Rishi wanted to put Keir in a pickle, he should have left the door fractionally ajar. Instead, he's gluing it shut with araldite.
Did Rishi have an unfortunate childhood incident involving a train or something?
(And just to check- I trust that everyone agrees that a state resorting to these sort of measures should be condemned if it proposes pre-election tax cuts.)
Re Euston, the theme on here is the dreadful delays in planning approvals which means there will not be any residential building started at Euston before October 24
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Aaaand we're talking up ethnic cleansing before 9am
What ARE you talking about??
I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want Israelis or Palestinians to die - any of them. The whole thing is a Satanic mess and both sides are at fault - increasingly Israel but the Islamists of Hamas are hardly saints
I am speculating as to possible outcomes and what a very hardline Israeli government might do that no previous Israeli government has dared to do - actually drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. Far right Israeli politicians have talked of this in the past, plenty of times, well now they are in the government - so maybe they will do it
If it happens it would be a crime for the ages - of course - but in the end if the Gazans were given a proper amount of land to settle in Sinai - and their freedom - it might be better than the living prison they inhabit now, which is constantly at war (as we see)
There is no good easy clearly moral solution; quit your pearl clutching
There is, of course, another aspect to any ethnic cleaning of Gaza. Without Gaza, no Palestinian state could possibly be viable, as it is the largest city and the only port (including airport, not that it's operating right now).
It would also change the demographic ratio of the whole area firmly in favour of the Israelis by removing over half the Palestinians.
At that stage the West Bank would almost certainly have to accept its de facto annexation into Israel. The 'facts on the ground' strategy would have borne fruit.
Would Netanyahu do it? Certainly he would, given a pretext.
He has just been given a pretext.
And having emasculated the Israeli courts and split the Knesset, it's hard to see who would stop him.
As the LibDem MP says, it's hard to see how this ends well.
Yes I can absolutely see Netanyahu exploiting this the way you describe. His government is full of people who have PROPOSED versions of this
I once heard Netanyahu compared to Hitler, because of this very issue.
By an Israeli.
Who was not only a senior official of Yad Vashem, but had been forced to leave Iran as a boy because of its own ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Nasty human being (Netanyahu, not Yiftach).
But again, anyone making a hero out of Ismail Haniyeh and his acolytes is overlooking the fact they're just as bad, as any reasoning human being would have worked out but Corbyn apparently couldn't.
This is as OldKingCole says not a conflict where outsiders should look to take sides on moral grounds. Israel is a democracy (rather a flawed one) but it is neither an innocent victim nor an unrelieved goody.
In this particular instance, Israel is surely the victim. Hamas has launched what looks like an armed invasion, with thousands of rockets and apparently indiscriminate slaughter. The provocation was not Israel but more likely Iran's desperation to undermine the recent deals Israel has made with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Leon might be right that Israel's government will exploit this, but that is not to say they caused or invited it.
I agree this is on Hamas. All the way. They are acting as they have always sought to, on a vast scale apparently, and demonstrating why the Israelis hate and fear them.
I do wonder however whether you're altogether right about the Israeli government reaction (leaving aside, for the moment, the somewhat separate issue about the extent to which their policies over the years have caused it). Sure, this isn't what they *invited* but if Netanyahu can exploit it to capture Gaza and expel the Palestinian population there I suspect privately he will be very pleased. And whatever he says in public, I doubt if he really cares about the lives of Israeli civilians any more than he does Palestinian ones.
Will people be that fussed by a bit of private jet use ? Doesn't seem to have dented Ms Swift's tour sales
A major problem has arisen in the set off industry, however. New studies have established that trees planted in carbon rich soils, such as peat, are net contributors to carbon in the atmosphere for at least 30 years and potentially longer. They leach carbon out of the soils for wood formation and then contribute CO2 from the process of growing. Once the tree is fully mature the balance may become a net retainer of carbon but it takes a very long time, much longer than we have until supposedly net zero.
This is throwing the offset industry into disarray. Many businesses, wealthy individuals and institutions buy land for forestry on the basis it allows them to carry on as normal whilst being irredeemably smug and patronising. It appears that in doing so they are actually increasing their carbon footprint, not reducing it.
Is it bad that there’s a part of me that want to laugh?
No. I’m similar
I get the same cynical amusement when I am lectured on my globetrotting by people with three dogs and two cars and big houses leaking heat. I have neither dogs nor cars and live in a flat
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Then why doesn't Starmer commit to the project in full at Liverpool as he is heading into no 10 in the next year ?
Because, as you already know, the government is salting the earth by selling off the property.
It's like me coming around your house, setting your car on fire, then loudly wondering why you aren't committing to driving it to the supermarket this afternoon.
Starmer unequivocal stance that he will build HS2 with a warning to all developments that he will compulsory purchase any resales without compensation would inhibit any action the government may take in the next year
Snatching land without compensation would be illegal, would it not?
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Aaaand we're talking up ethnic cleansing before 9am
What ARE you talking about??
I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want Israelis or Palestinians to die - any of them. The whole thing is a Satanic mess and both sides are at fault - increasingly Israel but the Islamists of Hamas are hardly saints
I am speculating as to possible outcomes and what a very hardline Israeli government might do that no previous Israeli government has dared to do - actually drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. Far right Israeli politicians have talked of this in the past, plenty of times, well now they are in the government - so maybe they will do it
If it happens it would be a crime for the ages - of course - but in the end if the Gazans were given a proper amount of land to settle in Sinai - and their freedom - it might be better than the living prison they inhabit now, which is constantly at war (as we see)
There is no good easy clearly moral solution; quit your pearl clutching
There is, of course, another aspect to any ethnic cleaning of Gaza. Without Gaza, no Palestinian state could possibly be viable, as it is the largest city and the only port (including airport, not that it's operating right now).
It would also change the demographic ratio of the whole area firmly in favour of the Israelis by removing over half the Palestinians.
At that stage the West Bank would almost certainly have to accept its de facto annexation into Israel. The 'facts on the ground' strategy would have borne fruit.
Would Netanyahu do it? Certainly he would, given a pretext.
He has just been given a pretext.
And having emasculated the Israeli courts and split the Knesset, it's hard to see who would stop him.
As the LibDem MP says, it's hard to see how this ends well.
Yes I can absolutely see Netanyahu exploiting this the way you describe. His government is full of people who have PROPOSED versions of this
I once heard Netanyahu compared to Hitler, because of this very issue.
By an Israeli.
Who was not only a senior official of Yad Vashem, but had been forced to leave Iran as a boy because of its own ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Nasty human being (Netanyahu, not Yiftach).
But again, anyone making a hero out of Ismail Haniyeh and his acolytes is overlooking the fact they're just as bad, as any reasoning human being would have worked out but Corbyn apparently couldn't.
This is as OldKingCole says not a conflict where outsiders should look to take sides on moral grounds. Israel is a democracy (rather a flawed one) but it is neither an innocent victim nor an unrelieved goody.
In this particular instance, Israel is surely the victim. Hamas has launched what looks like an armed invasion, with thousands of rockets and apparently indiscriminate slaughter. The provocation was not Israel but more likely Iran's desperation to undermine the recent deals Israel has made with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Leon might be right that Israel's government will exploit this, but that is not to say they caused or invited it.
I agree this is on Hamas. All the way. They are acting as they have always sought to, on a vast scale apparently, and demonstrating why the Israelis hate and fear them.
I do wonder however whether you're altogether right about the Israeli government reaction (leaving aside, for the moment, the somewhat separate issue about the extent to which their policies over the years have caused it). Sure, this isn't what they *invited* but if Netanyahu can exploit it to capture Gaza and expel the Palestinian population there I suspect privately he will be very pleased. And whatever he says in public, I doubt if he really cares about the lives of Israeli civilians any more than he does Palestinian ones.
A big question is: does Hamas have a different, better plan this time? Something that doesn’t end the normal way - with Israel beating the shit out of gaza for six months and 5000 dead Palestinians?
Coz that’s how it always ends so far. Is it possible they have something slightly more strategic in mind?
In regards to the Israel/Gaza situation: I wonder if this also makes Israeli direct involvement in a probable further Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict (Azerbaijan seeking to annex the territory on the Armenian-Iranian border and likely causing war with Iran too).
The azeris would never take on Iran. And I can’t see Israel getting involved in this war. What’s in it for them?
Iran might take on the Azeris though. Armenia relies on its land border with Iran to a significant extent. Azerbaijan wants to March over it at the same time as securing a land corridor to Turkey. So Iran acting as regional “peacekeeper” might well step in, at the risk of a Turkish response.
I agree though far too indirectly linked for Israel to be involved.
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Then why doesn't Starmer commit to the project in full at Liverpool as he is heading into no 10 in the next year ?
Because Sunak may well have made it all but physically impossible by the time he leaves office.
If the unprotected route is sold off, or the unwanted bit of Euston has even the beginnings of flats on them, that's it. HS2 delenda est.
Frankly, that's the politically inexplicable bit. If Rishi wanted to put Keir in a pickle, he should have left the door fractionally ajar. Instead, he's gluing it shut with araldite.
Did Rishi have an unfortunate childhood incident involving a train or something?
(And just to check- I trust that everyone agrees that a state resorting to these sort of measures should be condemned if it proposes pre-election tax cuts.)
Donations from property developers might be conditional on it.
Then they are really stupid property developers - anything with great transport links is usually worth an awful lot more
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Then why doesn't Starmer commit to the project in full at Liverpool as he is heading into no 10 in the next year ?
Because by next year to get the project up and running the £90b may have become £180b. Starmer doesn't know yet what the current government plans to do with the existing contracts and procured infrastructure. If the current government pay off billions to Hitachi- Alstrom for cancelling the train procurement (breached) contract, a future Labour Government would have to renegotiate that contract at current retail prices. They would also have to add on EVERYTHING already paid to (for example) Hitachi. And that is just one contract (granted a big one). That principle applies to thousands upon thousands of signed contracts.
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Then why doesn't Starmer commit to the project in full at Liverpool as he is heading into no 10 in the next year ?
Because, as you already know, the government is salting the earth by selling off the property.
It's like me coming around your house, setting your car on fire, then loudly wondering why you aren't committing to driving it to the supermarket this afternoon.
Starmer unequivocal stance that he will build HS2 with a warning to all developments that he will compulsory purchase any resales without compensation would inhibit any action the government may take in the next year
Snatching land without compensation would be illegal, would it not?
Which is why I was saying compensation would be at the rate paid for the land and no more
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Then why doesn't Starmer commit to the project in full at Liverpool as he is heading into no 10 in the next year ?
Because, as you already know, the government is salting the earth by selling off the property.
It's like me coming around your house, setting your car on fire, then loudly wondering why you aren't committing to driving it to the supermarket this afternoon.
Starmer unequivocal stance that he will build HS2 with a warning to all developments that he will compulsory purchase any resales without compensation would inhibit any action the government may take in the next year
Not legally. It might have the effect of dicking around with the price of properties, but it doesn't inhibit the actual sale.
Any uncertainty will have an adverse effect on sales
I experienced this when the A55 through Colwyn Bay was planned and the years of blight, not just on the properties directly affected, but those in the immediate vicinity
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Aaaand we're talking up ethnic cleansing before 9am
What ARE you talking about??
I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want Israelis or Palestinians to die - any of them. The whole thing is a Satanic mess and both sides are at fault - increasingly Israel but the Islamists of Hamas are hardly saints
I am speculating as to possible outcomes and what a very hardline Israeli government might do that no previous Israeli government has dared to do - actually drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. Far right Israeli politicians have talked of this in the past, plenty of times, well now they are in the government - so maybe they will do it
If it happens it would be a crime for the ages - of course - but in the end if the Gazans were given a proper amount of land to settle in Sinai - and their freedom - it might be better than the living prison they inhabit now, which is constantly at war (as we see)
There is no good easy clearly moral solution; quit your pearl clutching
There is, of course, another aspect to any ethnic cleaning of Gaza. Without Gaza, no Palestinian state could possibly be viable, as it is the largest city and the only port (including airport, not that it's operating right now).
It would also change the demographic ratio of the whole area firmly in favour of the Israelis by removing over half the Palestinians.
At that stage the West Bank would almost certainly have to accept its de facto annexation into Israel. The 'facts on the ground' strategy would have borne fruit.
Would Netanyahu do it? Certainly he would, given a pretext.
He has just been given a pretext.
And having emasculated the Israeli courts and split the Knesset, it's hard to see who would stop him.
As the LibDem MP says, it's hard to see how this ends well.
Yes I can absolutely see Netanyahu exploiting this the way you describe. His government is full of people who have PROPOSED versions of this
I once heard Netanyahu compared to Hitler, because of this very issue.
By an Israeli.
Who was not only a senior official of Yad Vashem, but had been forced to leave Iran as a boy because of its own ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Nasty human being (Netanyahu, not Yiftach).
But again, anyone making a hero out of Ismail Haniyeh and his acolytes is overlooking the fact they're just as bad, as any reasoning human being would have worked out but Corbyn apparently couldn't.
This is as OldKingCole says not a conflict where outsiders should look to take sides on moral grounds. Israel is a democracy (rather a flawed one) but it is neither an innocent victim nor an unrelieved goody.
In this particular instance, Israel is surely the victim. Hamas has launched what looks like an armed invasion, with thousands of rockets and apparently indiscriminate slaughter. The provocation was not Israel but more likely Iran's desperation to undermine the recent deals Israel has made with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Leon might be right that Israel's government will exploit this, but that is not to say they caused or invited it.
I agree this is on Hamas. All the way. They are acting as they have always sought to, on a vast scale apparently, and demonstrating why the Israelis hate and fear them.
I do wonder however whether you're altogether right about the Israeli government reaction (leaving aside, for the moment, the somewhat separate issue about the extent to which their policies over the years have caused it). Sure, this isn't what they *invited* but if Netanyahu can exploit it to capture Gaza and expel the Palestinian population there I suspect privately he will be very pleased. And whatever he says in public, I doubt if he really cares about the lives of Israeli civilians any more than he does Palestinian ones.
Perhaps. A complicating issue is that Israel's much-vaunted intelligence was completely blindsided (and I dare say every Western Power will be asking why its own agencies missed this as well) which might blow back on the Israeli government.
The problem we have with infrastructure in this country isn't the delivery or even necessarily the funding.
It's the process. The root cause being a lack of political courage - to make brave decisions and lead - and then consistency in the follow-through:
"Failing to build things we need is a sure-fire way to get poorer. It gradually strangles an economy, making it harder and harder to live, work and innovate. Yet we seem to have become world leaders in how to not build things. The costs for our infrastructure projects are markedly above those of other countries. The planning and legal processes take longer. The outcomes are less certain.
There are plenty of technical reasons why this is happening, not least a lack of training to produce skilled planners or workers, and fiscal rules that push governments to plan in five-year cycles instead of the 10 to 20 years required. But there is a political and moral reason too. Governments have become incapable of accepting that serving the national interest sometimes involves doing things that are unfair — often deeply unfair — to certain, highly visible, organised groups
The failure to accept this means they instead preside over a much greater, more terrible unfairness: the inexorable decline of British competitiveness. Building more runways or huge pylons or wider roads damages the quality of life of those who live near them. These are unpalatable facts. But somehow we have allowed these facts to overwhelm the greater, pressing national need to modernise the country.
The government avoids grappling directly with these issues by effectively outsourcing policy to the courts, which are then charged with sorting out, over years, which of the various contradictory sets of environmental, human rights or economic policies ought to have priority in each particular case."
The 'problem' if you really want to call it that is that we thankfully live under a system of Common Law rather than Napoleonic law. In France the legal assumption is the State can take your property and the matter of compensation is a political one. In England rights and the assumptions of rights rest with the individual not with the State. Hence the reason all these decisions can now and will always be challenged in the courts.
Unless of course you want to abandon our legal system and adopt Napoleonic law?
I would agree with you that smoking is not cool. The problem is that people who smoke look cool. That is a fact, and advertising (and tobacco) revenues over the decades prove it.
Also smokers vote and allowing smokers to continue to smoke may be worth a few votes
Israel defence minister saying Hamas has started a war !!!
Great!!! Hard to argue it hasn't as well
I get the enough is enough argument but lots and lots and lots of Palestinians will die now due to this action. 100 to 1 would be my guess at the ratio.
War is just stupid when will we get some proper solution to Palestine. Never in my lifetime I fear.
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Aaaand we're talking up ethnic cleansing before 9am
What ARE you talking about??
I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want Israelis or Palestinians to die - any of them. The whole thing is a Satanic mess and both sides are at fault - increasingly Israel but the Islamists of Hamas are hardly saints
I am speculating as to possible outcomes and what a very hardline Israeli government might do that no previous Israeli government has dared to do - actually drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. Far right Israeli politicians have talked of this in the past, plenty of times, well now they are in the government - so maybe they will do it
If it happens it would be a crime for the ages - of course - but in the end if the Gazans were given a proper amount of land to settle in Sinai - and their freedom - it might be better than the living prison they inhabit now, which is constantly at war (as we see)
There is no good easy clearly moral solution; quit your pearl clutching
There is, of course, another aspect to any ethnic cleaning of Gaza. Without Gaza, no Palestinian state could possibly be viable, as it is the largest city and the only port (including airport, not that it's operating right now).
It would also change the demographic ratio of the whole area firmly in favour of the Israelis by removing over half the Palestinians.
At that stage the West Bank would almost certainly have to accept its de facto annexation into Israel. The 'facts on the ground' strategy would have borne fruit.
Would Netanyahu do it? Certainly he would, given a pretext.
He has just been given a pretext.
And having emasculated the Israeli courts and split the Knesset, it's hard to see who would stop him.
As the LibDem MP says, it's hard to see how this ends well.
Yes I can absolutely see Netanyahu exploiting this the way you describe. His government is full of people who have PROPOSED versions of this
I once heard Netanyahu compared to Hitler, because of this very issue.
By an Israeli.
Who was not only a senior official of Yad Vashem, but had been forced to leave Iran as a boy because of its own ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Nasty human being (Netanyahu, not Yiftach).
But again, anyone making a hero out of Ismail Haniyeh and his acolytes is overlooking the fact they're just as bad, as any reasoning human being would have worked out but Corbyn apparently couldn't.
This is as OldKingCole says not a conflict where outsiders should look to take sides on moral grounds. Israel is a democracy (rather a flawed one) but it is neither an innocent victim nor an unrelieved goody.
In this particular instance, Israel is surely the victim. Hamas has launched what looks like an armed invasion, with thousands of rockets and apparently indiscriminate slaughter. The provocation was not Israel but more likely Iran's desperation to undermine the recent deals Israel has made with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Leon might be right that Israel's government will exploit this, but that is not to say they caused or invited it.
I agree this is on Hamas. All the way. They are acting as they have always sought to, on a vast scale apparently, and demonstrating why the Israelis hate and fear them.
I do wonder however whether you're altogether right about the Israeli government reaction (leaving aside, for the moment, the somewhat separate issue about the extent to which their policies over the years have caused it). Sure, this isn't what they *invited* but if Netanyahu can exploit it to capture Gaza and expel the Palestinian population there I suspect privately he will be very pleased. And whatever he says in public, I doubt if he really cares about the lives of Israeli civilians any more than he does Palestinian ones.
A big question is: does Hamas have a different, better plan this time? Something that doesn’t end the normal way - with Israel beating the shit out of gaza for six months and 5000 dead Palestinians?
Coz that’s how it always ends so far. Is it possible they have something slightly more strategic in mind?
And I think that's a good question but I also think it's too early to say.
Bluntly from what I know, I cannot see how Hamas could win a full war against Israel without direct help from an outside power. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't be willing to try. As we've seen elsewhere recently it's easier to pretend to have a good army than to have one.
Or it may be a sign that analysts predicting Gaza would become uninhabitable are right (even if the date was wrong) and this is their last roll of the dice to do something drastic that would let them hang on to it before it has to be evacuated.
And civilians end up getting killed. At the moment, it's the Israelis. Later, if the IDF can retaliate, it will be Palestinians as well.
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Aaaand we're talking up ethnic cleansing before 9am
What ARE you talking about??
I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want Israelis or Palestinians to die - any of them. The whole thing is a Satanic mess and both sides are at fault - increasingly Israel but the Islamists of Hamas are hardly saints
I am speculating as to possible outcomes and what a very hardline Israeli government might do that no previous Israeli government has dared to do - actually drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. Far right Israeli politicians have talked of this in the past, plenty of times, well now they are in the government - so maybe they will do it
If it happens it would be a crime for the ages - of course - but in the end if the Gazans were given a proper amount of land to settle in Sinai - and their freedom - it might be better than the living prison they inhabit now, which is constantly at war (as we see)
There is no good easy clearly moral solution; quit your pearl clutching
There is, of course, another aspect to any ethnic cleaning of Gaza. Without Gaza, no Palestinian state could possibly be viable, as it is the largest city and the only port (including airport, not that it's operating right now).
It would also change the demographic ratio of the whole area firmly in favour of the Israelis by removing over half the Palestinians.
At that stage the West Bank would almost certainly have to accept its de facto annexation into Israel. The 'facts on the ground' strategy would have borne fruit.
Would Netanyahu do it? Certainly he would, given a pretext.
He has just been given a pretext.
And having emasculated the Israeli courts and split the Knesset, it's hard to see who would stop him.
As the LibDem MP says, it's hard to see how this ends well.
Yes I can absolutely see Netanyahu exploiting this the way you describe. His government is full of people who have PROPOSED versions of this
I once heard Netanyahu compared to Hitler, because of this very issue.
By an Israeli.
Who was not only a senior official of Yad Vashem, but had been forced to leave Iran as a boy because of its own ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Nasty human being (Netanyahu, not Yiftach).
But again, anyone making a hero out of Ismail Haniyeh and his acolytes is overlooking the fact they're just as bad, as any reasoning human being would have worked out but Corbyn apparently couldn't.
This is as OldKingCole says not a conflict where outsiders should look to take sides on moral grounds. Israel is a democracy (rather a flawed one) but it is neither an innocent victim nor an unrelieved goody.
In this particular instance, Israel is surely the victim. Hamas has launched what looks like an armed invasion, with thousands of rockets and apparently indiscriminate slaughter. The provocation was not Israel but more likely Iran's desperation to undermine the recent deals Israel has made with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Leon might be right that Israel's government will exploit this, but that is not to say they caused or invited it.
I agree this is on Hamas. All the way. They are acting as they have always sought to, on a vast scale apparently, and demonstrating why the Israelis hate and fear them.
I do wonder however whether you're altogether right about the Israeli government reaction (leaving aside, for the moment, the somewhat separate issue about the extent to which their policies over the years have caused it). Sure, this isn't what they *invited* but if Netanyahu can exploit it to capture Gaza and expel the Palestinian population there I suspect privately he will be very pleased. And whatever he says in public, I doubt if he really cares about the lives of Israeli civilians any more than he does Palestinian ones.
A big question is: does Hamas have a different, better plan this time? Something that doesn’t end the normal way - with Israel beating the shit out of gaza for six months and 5000 dead Palestinians?
Coz that’s how it always ends so far. Is it possible they have something slightly more strategic in mind?
A lot of suggestions that this is Iran's plan, rather than solely Hamas'. Perhaps Hezbollah will become involved too. Might Iran be closer to a nuclear weapon than anyone thought?
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Aaaand we're talking up ethnic cleansing before 9am
What ARE you talking about??
I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want Israelis or Palestinians to die - any of them. The whole thing is a Satanic mess and both sides are at fault - increasingly Israel but the Islamists of Hamas are hardly saints
I am speculating as to possible outcomes and what a very hardline Israeli government might do that no previous Israeli government has dared to do - actually drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. Far right Israeli politicians have talked of this in the past, plenty of times, well now they are in the government - so maybe they will do it
If it happens it would be a crime for the ages - of course - but in the end if the Gazans were given a proper amount of land to settle in Sinai - and their freedom - it might be better than the living prison they inhabit now, which is constantly at war (as we see)
There is no good easy clearly moral solution; quit your pearl clutching
There is, of course, another aspect to any ethnic cleaning of Gaza. Without Gaza, no Palestinian state could possibly be viable, as it is the largest city and the only port (including airport, not that it's operating right now).
It would also change the demographic ratio of the whole area firmly in favour of the Israelis by removing over half the Palestinians.
At that stage the West Bank would almost certainly have to accept its de facto annexation into Israel. The 'facts on the ground' strategy would have borne fruit.
Would Netanyahu do it? Certainly he would, given a pretext.
He has just been given a pretext.
And having emasculated the Israeli courts and split the Knesset, it's hard to see who would stop him.
As the LibDem MP says, it's hard to see how this ends well.
Yes I can absolutely see Netanyahu exploiting this the way you describe. His government is full of people who have PROPOSED versions of this
I once heard Netanyahu compared to Hitler, because of this very issue.
By an Israeli.
Who was not only a senior official of Yad Vashem, but had been forced to leave Iran as a boy because of its own ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Nasty human being (Netanyahu, not Yiftach).
But again, anyone making a hero out of Ismail Haniyeh and his acolytes is overlooking the fact they're just as bad, as any reasoning human being would have worked out but Corbyn apparently couldn't.
This is as OldKingCole says not a conflict where outsiders should look to take sides on moral grounds. Israel is a democracy (rather a flawed one) but it is neither an innocent victim nor an unrelieved goody.
If I am being cynical:
Hamas is strongest in the refugee camps in Jordan; the right to return is one of the most iconic arguments that the Palestinians have.
Could it be that Hamas is trying to provoke Netanyahu into driving the Gazans into Sinai in order to create more camps? Tactical loss for a strategic victory?
It’s not as if they are gaining much from having control of Gaza.
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
That is one of the many odd things about the announcement. I think it is a way to finesse future obligations but with no immediate benefit.
Recently the NHS Pensions liabilities were drastically revalued down*. I do hope that this was a genuine revaluation rather than smoke and mirrors to justify a dubious election giveaway.
*Incidentally the NHS pension scheme currently has an annual surplus of £4 billion payed into government funds, so isn't the drain on public resources that some here opine.
I would agree with you that smoking is not cool. The problem is that people who smoke look cool. That is a fact, and advertising (and tobacco) revenues over the decades prove it.
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Egypt will simply stick them all in a permanent refugee camp just across the border. It wouldn't even change anything except to move people a few miles down the coast.
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Then why doesn't Starmer commit to the project in full at Liverpool as he is heading into no 10 in the next year ?
Because, as you already know, the government is salting the earth by selling off the property.
It's like me coming around your house, setting your car on fire, then loudly wondering why you aren't committing to driving it to the supermarket this afternoon.
Starmer unequivocal stance that he will build HS2 with a warning to all developments that he will compulsory purchase any resales without compensation would inhibit any action the government may take in the next year
Snatching land without compensation would be illegal, would it not?
Which is why I was saying compensation would be at the rate paid for the land and no more
Ah but Starmer cannot simply pay the same price because Rishi has a fly in that ointment too, since selling HS2 land back to its original owners will be at revised, higher prices than paid on compulsory purchase, thus creating the precedent that Starmer will need to pay a still-higher price to buy it back again.
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Aaaand we're talking up ethnic cleansing before 9am
What ARE you talking about??
I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want Israelis or Palestinians to die - any of them. The whole thing is a Satanic mess and both sides are at fault - increasingly Israel but the Islamists of Hamas are hardly saints
I am speculating as to possible outcomes and what a very hardline Israeli government might do that no previous Israeli government has dared to do - actually drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. Far right Israeli politicians have talked of this in the past, plenty of times, well now they are in the government - so maybe they will do it
If it happens it would be a crime for the ages - of course - but in the end if the Gazans were given a proper amount of land to settle in Sinai - and their freedom - it might be better than the living prison they inhabit now, which is constantly at war (as we see)
There is no good easy clearly moral solution; quit your pearl clutching
There is, of course, another aspect to any ethnic cleaning of Gaza. Without Gaza, no Palestinian state could possibly be viable, as it is the largest city and the only port (including airport, not that it's operating right now).
It would also change the demographic ratio of the whole area firmly in favour of the Israelis by removing over half the Palestinians.
At that stage the West Bank would almost certainly have to accept its de facto annexation into Israel. The 'facts on the ground' strategy would have borne fruit.
Would Netanyahu do it? Certainly he would, given a pretext.
He has just been given a pretext.
And having emasculated the Israeli courts and split the Knesset, it's hard to see who would stop him.
As the LibDem MP says, it's hard to see how this ends well.
Yes I can absolutely see Netanyahu exploiting this the way you describe. His government is full of people who have PROPOSED versions of this
I once heard Netanyahu compared to Hitler, because of this very issue.
By an Israeli.
Who was not only a senior official of Yad Vashem, but had been forced to leave Iran as a boy because of its own ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Nasty human being (Netanyahu, not Yiftach).
But again, anyone making a hero out of Ismail Haniyeh and his acolytes is overlooking the fact they're just as bad, as any reasoning human being would have worked out but Corbyn apparently couldn't.
This is as OldKingCole says not a conflict where outsiders should look to take sides on moral grounds. Israel is a democracy (rather a flawed one) but it is neither an innocent victim nor an unrelieved goody.
If I am being cynical:
Hamas is strongest in the refugee camps in Jordan; the right to return is one of the most iconic arguments that the Palestinians have.
Could it be that Hamas is trying to provoke Netanyahu into driving the Gazans into Sinai in order to create more camps? Tactical loss for a strategic victory?
It’s not as if they are gaining much from having control of Gaza.
I disagree with your last sentence. By controlling Gaza they deny Israel control of it. If Israel were to take control of the only port under Palestinian rule, and the only airport of any size, the dream of a Palestinian state is dead. The West Bank on its own would be lucky to be allowed the degree of autonomy Turkey allows North Cyprus.
The Jews claimed the right of return to Israel for two millennia. Much good it did them until the early twentieth century.
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Then why doesn't Starmer commit to the project in full at Liverpool as he is heading into no 10 in the next year ?
Because, as you already know, the government is salting the earth by selling off the property.
It's like me coming around your house, setting your car on fire, then loudly wondering why you aren't committing to driving it to the supermarket this afternoon.
Starmer unequivocal stance that he will build HS2 with a warning to all developments that he will compulsory purchase any resales without compensation would inhibit any action the government may take in the next year
Snatching land without compensation would be illegal, would it not?
Which is why I was saying compensation would be at the rate paid for the land and no more
Ah but Starmer cannot simply pay the same price because Rishi has a fly in that ointment too, since selling HS2 land back to its original owners will be at revised, higher prices than paid on compulsory purchase, thus creating the precedent that Starmer will need to pay a still-higher price to buy it back again.
Will people be that fussed by a bit of private jet use ? Doesn't seem to have dented Ms Swift's tour sales
A major problem has arisen in the set off industry, however. New studies have established that trees planted in carbon rich soils, such as peat, are net contributors to carbon in the atmosphere for at least 30 years and potentially longer. They leach carbon out of the soils for wood formation and then contribute CO2 from the process of growing. Once the tree is fully mature the balance may become a net retainer of carbon but it takes a very long time, much longer than we have until supposedly net zero.
This is throwing the offset industry into disarray. Many businesses, wealthy individuals and institutions buy land for forestry on the basis it allows them to carry on as normal whilst being irredeemably smug and patronising. It appears that in doing so they are actually increasing their carbon footprint, not reducing it.
Is it bad that there’s a part of me that want to laugh?
No. I’m similar
I get the same cynical amusement when I am lectured on my globetrotting by people with three dogs and two cars and big houses leaking heat. I have neither dogs nor cars and live in a flat
You make a fair point there. I feel that those of us who are worried about global warning (so most of us), and able to do so, have modified our behaviours to a degree. I doubt if even the absolute zealots do everything they could to reduce their carbon footprint, and those who claim to could probably be picked apart for some hypocrisy or other.
So I'm going to acknowledge that 'your bit' for the climate includes no dog, no car, efficient flat, etc. - well done! And you'll have to let me stick to my no flying, efficient house, ASHP, manic recycling, etc. etc. as 'my bit'.
Each to our own but if we all do a bit, it will make a difference.
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Aaaand we're talking up ethnic cleansing before 9am
What ARE you talking about??
I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want Israelis or Palestinians to die - any of them. The whole thing is a Satanic mess and both sides are at fault - increasingly Israel but the Islamists of Hamas are hardly saints
I am speculating as to possible outcomes and what a very hardline Israeli government might do that no previous Israeli government has dared to do - actually drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. Far right Israeli politicians have talked of this in the past, plenty of times, well now they are in the government - so maybe they will do it
If it happens it would be a crime for the ages - of course - but in the end if the Gazans were given a proper amount of land to settle in Sinai - and their freedom - it might be better than the living prison they inhabit now, which is constantly at war (as we see)
There is no good easy clearly moral solution; quit your pearl clutching
There is, of course, another aspect to any ethnic cleaning of Gaza. Without Gaza, no Palestinian state could possibly be viable, as it is the largest city and the only port (including airport, not that it's operating right now).
It would also change the demographic ratio of the whole area firmly in favour of the Israelis by removing over half the Palestinians.
At that stage the West Bank would almost certainly have to accept its de facto annexation into Israel. The 'facts on the ground' strategy would have borne fruit.
Would Netanyahu do it? Certainly he would, given a pretext.
He has just been given a pretext.
And having emasculated the Israeli courts and split the Knesset, it's hard to see who would stop him.
As the LibDem MP says, it's hard to see how this ends well.
Yes I can absolutely see Netanyahu exploiting this the way you describe. His government is full of people who have PROPOSED versions of this
I once heard Netanyahu compared to Hitler, because of this very issue.
By an Israeli.
Who was not only a senior official of Yad Vashem, but had been forced to leave Iran as a boy because of its own ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Nasty human being (Netanyahu, not Yiftach).
But again, anyone making a hero out of Ismail Haniyeh and his acolytes is overlooking the fact they're just as bad, as any reasoning human being would have worked out but Corbyn apparently couldn't.
This is as OldKingCole says not a conflict where outsiders should look to take sides on moral grounds. Israel is a democracy (rather a flawed one) but it is neither an innocent victim nor an unrelieved goody.
In this particular instance, Israel is surely the victim. Hamas has launched what looks like an armed invasion, with thousands of rockets and apparently indiscriminate slaughter. The provocation was not Israel but more likely Iran's desperation to undermine the recent deals Israel has made with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Leon might be right that Israel's government will exploit this, but that is not to say they caused or invited it.
I agree this is on Hamas. All the way. They are acting as they have always sought to, on a vast scale apparently, and demonstrating why the Israelis hate and fear them.
I do wonder however whether you're altogether right about the Israeli government reaction (leaving aside, for the moment, the somewhat separate issue about the extent to which their policies over the years have caused it). Sure, this isn't what they *invited* but if Netanyahu can exploit it to capture Gaza and expel the Palestinian population there I suspect privately he will be very pleased. And whatever he says in public, I doubt if he really cares about the lives of Israeli civilians any more than he does Palestinian ones.
A big question is: does Hamas have a different, better plan this time? Something that doesn’t end the normal way - with Israel beating the shit out of gaza for six months and 5000 dead Palestinians?
Coz that’s how it always ends so far. Is it possible they have something slightly more strategic in mind?
And I think that's a good question but I also think it's too early to say.
Bluntly from what I know, I cannot see how Hamas could win a full war against Israel without direct help from an outside power. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't be willing to try. As we've seen elsewhere recently it's easier to pretend to have a good army than to have one.
Or it may be a sign that analysts predicting Gaza would become uninhabitable are right (even if the date was wrong) and this is their last roll of the dice to do something drastic that would let them hang on to it before it has to be evacuated.
And civilians end up getting killed. At the moment, it's the Israelis. Later, if the IDF can retaliate, it will be Palestinians as well.
We can be fairly certain the IDF can and will retaliate
Will people be that fussed by a bit of private jet use ? Doesn't seem to have dented Ms Swift's tour sales
A major problem has arisen in the set off industry, however. New studies have established that trees planted in carbon rich soils, such as peat, are net contributors to carbon in the atmosphere for at least 30 years and potentially longer. They leach carbon out of the soils for wood formation and then contribute CO2 from the process of growing. Once the tree is fully mature the balance may become a net retainer of carbon but it takes a very long time, much longer than we have until supposedly net zero.
This is throwing the offset industry into disarray. Many businesses, wealthy individuals and institutions buy land for forestry on the basis it allows them to carry on as normal whilst being irredeemably smug and patronising. It appears that in doing so they are actually increasing their carbon footprint, not reducing it.
Is it bad that there’s a part of me that want to laugh?
No. I’m similar
I get the same cynical amusement when I am lectured on my globetrotting by people with three dogs and two cars and big houses leaking heat. I have neither dogs nor cars and live in a flat
You make a fair point there. I feel that those of us who are worried about global warning (so most of us), and able to do so, have modified our behaviours to a degree. I doubt if even the absolute zealots do everything they could to reduce their carbon footprint, and those who claim to could probably be picked apart for some hypocrisy or other.
So I'm going to acknowledge that 'your bit' for the climate includes no dog, no car, efficient flat, etc. - well done! And you'll have to let me stick to my no flying, efficient house, ASHP, manic recycling, etc. etc. as 'my bit'.
Each to our own but if we all do a bit, it will make a difference.
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Aaaand we're talking up ethnic cleansing before 9am
What ARE you talking about??
I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want Israelis or Palestinians to die - any of them. The whole thing is a Satanic mess and both sides are at fault - increasingly Israel but the Islamists of Hamas are hardly saints
I am speculating as to possible outcomes and what a very hardline Israeli government might do that no previous Israeli government has dared to do - actually drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. Far right Israeli politicians have talked of this in the past, plenty of times, well now they are in the government - so maybe they will do it
If it happens it would be a crime for the ages - of course - but in the end if the Gazans were given a proper amount of land to settle in Sinai - and their freedom - it might be better than the living prison they inhabit now, which is constantly at war (as we see)
There is no good easy clearly moral solution; quit your pearl clutching
There is, of course, another aspect to any ethnic cleaning of Gaza. Without Gaza, no Palestinian state could possibly be viable, as it is the largest city and the only port (including airport, not that it's operating right now).
It would also change the demographic ratio of the whole area firmly in favour of the Israelis by removing over half the Palestinians.
At that stage the West Bank would almost certainly have to accept its de facto annexation into Israel. The 'facts on the ground' strategy would have borne fruit.
Would Netanyahu do it? Certainly he would, given a pretext.
He has just been given a pretext.
And having emasculated the Israeli courts and split the Knesset, it's hard to see who would stop him.
As the LibDem MP says, it's hard to see how this ends well.
Yes I can absolutely see Netanyahu exploiting this the way you describe. His government is full of people who have PROPOSED versions of this
I once heard Netanyahu compared to Hitler, because of this very issue.
By an Israeli.
Who was not only a senior official of Yad Vashem, but had been forced to leave Iran as a boy because of its own ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Nasty human being (Netanyahu, not Yiftach).
But again, anyone making a hero out of Ismail Haniyeh and his acolytes is overlooking the fact they're just as bad, as any reasoning human being would have worked out but Corbyn apparently couldn't.
This is as OldKingCole says not a conflict where outsiders should look to take sides on moral grounds. Israel is a democracy (rather a flawed one) but it is neither an innocent victim nor an unrelieved goody.
In this particular instance, Israel is surely the victim. Hamas has launched what looks like an armed invasion, with thousands of rockets and apparently indiscriminate slaughter. The provocation was not Israel but more likely Iran's desperation to undermine the recent deals Israel has made with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Leon might be right that Israel's government will exploit this, but that is not to say they caused or invited it.
I agree this is on Hamas. All the way. They are acting as they have always sought to, on a vast scale apparently, and demonstrating why the Israelis hate and fear them.
I do wonder however whether you're altogether right about the Israeli government reaction (leaving aside, for the moment, the somewhat separate issue about the extent to which their policies over the years have caused it). Sure, this isn't what they *invited* but if Netanyahu can exploit it to capture Gaza and expel the Palestinian population there I suspect privately he will be very pleased. And whatever he says in public, I doubt if he really cares about the lives of Israeli civilians any more than he does Palestinian ones.
A big question is: does Hamas have a different, better plan this time? Something that doesn’t end the normal way - with Israel beating the shit out of gaza for six months and 5000 dead Palestinians?
Coz that’s how it always ends so far. Is it possible they have something slightly more strategic in mind?
And I think that's a good question but I also think it's too early to say.
Bluntly from what I know, I cannot see how Hamas could win a full war against Israel without direct help from an outside power. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't be willing to try. As we've seen elsewhere recently it's easier to pretend to have a good army than to have one.
Or it may be a sign that analysts predicting Gaza would become uninhabitable are right (even if the date was wrong) and this is their last roll of the dice to do something drastic that would let them hang on to it before it has to be evacuated.
And civilians end up getting killed. At the moment, it's the Israelis. Later, if the IDF can retaliate, it will be Palestinians as well.
We can be fairly certain the IDF can and will retaliate
I'm certain they will want to.
I want to see more about their actual capabilities in this situation before I definitely say they can.
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
That is one of the many odd things about the announcement. I think it is a way to finesse future obligations but with no immediate benefit.
Recently the NHS Pensions liabilities were drastically revalued down*. I do hope that this was a genuine revaluation rather than smoke and mirrors to justify a dubious election giveaway.
*Incidentally the NHS pension scheme currently has an annual surplus of £4 billion payed into government funds, so isn't the drain on public resources that some here opine.
Tax cuts next spring, and eye catching ones are inevitable. Particularly as the current Government have been called out as the highest taxing government since the Second World War.
Will the voters buy that when tax cuts are clearly unaffordable? And from personal perspectives their mortgage payments and weekly food bills have gone through the roof.
Maybe.
I suspect the one truth Rishi can promote is Labour can't afford tax cuts. The reality is neither can he.
Line of the day in today's Times, from a profile of Morgan McSweeney, the latest most powerful man you have never heard of;
“He has the sort of restlessness and data-driven mentality you associate with Dominic Cummings, but without the madness,” another adviser to Starmer said.
Deeply concerned by reports from Gaza and Israel. Civilians must be protected, I am especially horrified to hear about hostage taking, and all violence condemned. This is a significant escalation. I can't see how it ends well for anyone.
The problem we have with infrastructure in this country isn't the delivery or even necessarily the funding.
It's the process. The root cause being a lack of political courage - to make brave decisions and lead - and then consistency in the follow-through:
"Failing to build things we need is a sure-fire way to get poorer. It gradually strangles an economy, making it harder and harder to live, work and innovate. Yet we seem to have become world leaders in how to not build things. The costs for our infrastructure projects are markedly above those of other countries. The planning and legal processes take longer. The outcomes are less certain.
There are plenty of technical reasons why this is happening, not least a lack of training to produce skilled planners or workers, and fiscal rules that push governments to plan in five-year cycles instead of the 10 to 20 years required. But there is a political and moral reason too. Governments have become incapable of accepting that serving the national interest sometimes involves doing things that are unfair — often deeply unfair — to certain, highly visible, organised groups
The failure to accept this means they instead preside over a much greater, more terrible unfairness: the inexorable decline of British competitiveness. Building more runways or huge pylons or wider roads damages the quality of life of those who live near them. These are unpalatable facts. But somehow we have allowed these facts to overwhelm the greater, pressing national need to modernise the country.
The government avoids grappling directly with these issues by effectively outsourcing policy to the courts, which are then charged with sorting out, over years, which of the various contradictory sets of environmental, human rights or economic policies ought to have priority in each particular case."
I’d like to think the Starmer government will get to grips with this. He will surely have the majority to do it; it should be top of his to-do list. Fix the planning system so we can build things
This government could have been trumpeting first zero-carbon power from Swansea tidal lagoon, had Hinkley C-sized Cardiff - 3.2 GW - well under construction and five + more similar nuclear plant sized lagoons out through planning with earth being broken before going to the voters. With all but a tiny amount of seed corn money coming from the private sector. (The amount required equated to three years at 75 yards of HS2 track per year....)
As someone who comes from a sector that built small towns on stilts in the middle of the North Sea, each tasked with being capable of withstanding a once in a hundred-year wave, it is very obviously Government that can't build things. (And if the budget overrun exceeded 10%, you'd get booted out as operator and replaced.)
Tbf it was Tezzie May who foolishly canned your project. And it was a short sighted and ridiculous justification for so doing. This is Rishi's argument for change. All that went before was rubbish so let's look forward and issue petrochemical and gas extraction licences to secure our energy future.
I don't suppose there was too much opportunity for grift with your project. Best to stick up another foreign operated nuclear power plant, trebles all round.
If Rishi REALLY is looking at things on a value for money basis, hard to see Sizewell C ever happening....
Hinkley C - life of project costs now £50bn. To produce 3.26 GW of energy. Lasts 60 years (tops) so to compare with say a Cardiff tidal lagoon - producing 3.2 GW of energy for 120 years minimum - you will need a Hinkley D. Let's be generous and say the life of project costs in 60 years for Hinkley D are £75bn.
Nuclear option - 120 years producing 3.26 GW of energy - £125 bn.
Tidal option - 120 years producing 3.20 GW of energy - £10bn (plus say a pessimistic £10bn for a couple of sets of replacement turbines in that 120 years - £20 bn
That extra 60 MW of production is costing the UK tax payer and bill payer £105 billion...
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Aaaand we're talking up ethnic cleansing before 9am
What ARE you talking about??
I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want Israelis or Palestinians to die - any of them. The whole thing is a Satanic mess and both sides are at fault - increasingly Israel but the Islamists of Hamas are hardly saints
I am speculating as to possible outcomes and what a very hardline Israeli government might do that no previous Israeli government has dared to do - actually drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. Far right Israeli politicians have talked of this in the past, plenty of times, well now they are in the government - so maybe they will do it
If it happens it would be a crime for the ages - of course - but in the end if the Gazans were given a proper amount of land to settle in Sinai - and their freedom - it might be better than the living prison they inhabit now, which is constantly at war (as we see)
There is no good easy clearly moral solution; quit your pearl clutching
There is, of course, another aspect to any ethnic cleaning of Gaza. Without Gaza, no Palestinian state could possibly be viable, as it is the largest city and the only port (including airport, not that it's operating right now).
It would also change the demographic ratio of the whole area firmly in favour of the Israelis by removing over half the Palestinians.
At that stage the West Bank would almost certainly have to accept its de facto annexation into Israel. The 'facts on the ground' strategy would have borne fruit.
Would Netanyahu do it? Certainly he would, given a pretext.
He has just been given a pretext.
And having emasculated the Israeli courts and split the Knesset, it's hard to see who would stop him.
As the LibDem MP says, it's hard to see how this ends well.
Yes I can absolutely see Netanyahu exploiting this the way you describe. His government is full of people who have PROPOSED versions of this
I once heard Netanyahu compared to Hitler, because of this very issue.
By an Israeli.
Who was not only a senior official of Yad Vashem, but had been forced to leave Iran as a boy because of its own ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Nasty human being (Netanyahu, not Yiftach).
But again, anyone making a hero out of Ismail Haniyeh and his acolytes is overlooking the fact they're just as bad, as any reasoning human being would have worked out but Corbyn apparently couldn't.
This is as OldKingCole says not a conflict where outsiders should look to take sides on moral grounds. Israel is a democracy (rather a flawed one) but it is neither an innocent victim nor an unrelieved goody.
In this particular instance, Israel is surely the victim. Hamas has launched what looks like an armed invasion, with thousands of rockets and apparently indiscriminate slaughter. The provocation was not Israel but more likely Iran's desperation to undermine the recent deals Israel has made with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Leon might be right that Israel's government will exploit this, but that is not to say they caused or invited it.
I agree this is on Hamas. All the way. They are acting as they have always sought to, on a vast scale apparently, and demonstrating why the Israelis hate and fear them.
I do wonder however whether you're altogether right about the Israeli government reaction (leaving aside, for the moment, the somewhat separate issue about the extent to which their policies over the years have caused it). Sure, this isn't what they *invited* but if Netanyahu can exploit it to capture Gaza and expel the Palestinian population there I suspect privately he will be very pleased. And whatever he says in public, I doubt if he really cares about the lives of Israeli civilians any more than he does Palestinian ones.
A big question is: does Hamas have a different, better plan this time? Something that doesn’t end the normal way - with Israel beating the shit out of gaza for six months and 5000 dead Palestinians?
Coz that’s how it always ends so far. Is it possible they have something slightly more strategic in mind?
And I think that's a good question but I also think it's too early to say.
Bluntly from what I know, I cannot see how Hamas could win a full war against Israel without direct help from an outside power. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't be willing to try. As we've seen elsewhere recently it's easier to pretend to have a good army than to have one.
Or it may be a sign that analysts predicting Gaza would become uninhabitable are right (even if the date was wrong) and this is their last roll of the dice to do something drastic that would let them hang on to it before it has to be evacuated.
And civilians end up getting killed. At the moment, it's the Israelis. Later, if the IDF can retaliate, it will be Palestinians as well.
We can be fairly certain the IDF can and will retaliate
I'm certain they will want to.
I want to see more about their actual capabilities in this situation before I definitely say they can.
Er, what? Israel can just send endless missiles into Gaza and strafe it with dozens of jets. The Gazans have zero protection and no way of stopping this
No one will rein in the Israelis. It’s what always happens. Why should this time be different?
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Then why doesn't Starmer commit to the project in full at Liverpool as he is heading into no 10 in the next year ?
Because, as you already know, the government is salting the earth by selling off the property.
It's like me coming around your house, setting your car on fire, then loudly wondering why you aren't committing to driving it to the supermarket this afternoon.
Starmer unequivocal stance that he will build HS2 with a warning to all developments that he will compulsory purchase any resales without compensation would inhibit any action the government may take in the next year
Not legally. It might have the effect of dicking around with the price of properties, but it doesn't inhibit the actual sale.
Any uncertainty will have an adverse effect on sales
I experienced this when the A55 through Colwyn Bay was planned and the years of blight, not just on the properties directly affected, but those in the immediate vicinity
Which will affect the price. But if the government wants to play hardball they can sell off everything for pennies.
I'm not sure you're right, actually. I'm no lawyer, but AIUI not only do they have to get the best possible price for the land but if it has development potential they have to apply for planning permission first.
Coupled with the need to offer it to the original owner before offering it to the wider public this could get very complicated.
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Aaaand we're talking up ethnic cleansing before 9am
What ARE you talking about??
I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want Israelis or Palestinians to die - any of them. The whole thing is a Satanic mess and both sides are at fault - increasingly Israel but the Islamists of Hamas are hardly saints
I am speculating as to possible outcomes and what a very hardline Israeli government might do that no previous Israeli government has dared to do - actually drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. Far right Israeli politicians have talked of this in the past, plenty of times, well now they are in the government - so maybe they will do it
If it happens it would be a crime for the ages - of course - but in the end if the Gazans were given a proper amount of land to settle in Sinai - and their freedom - it might be better than the living prison they inhabit now, which is constantly at war (as we see)
There is no good easy clearly moral solution; quit your pearl clutching
There is, of course, another aspect to any ethnic cleaning of Gaza. Without Gaza, no Palestinian state could possibly be viable, as it is the largest city and the only port (including airport, not that it's operating right now).
It would also change the demographic ratio of the whole area firmly in favour of the Israelis by removing over half the Palestinians.
At that stage the West Bank would almost certainly have to accept its de facto annexation into Israel. The 'facts on the ground' strategy would have borne fruit.
Would Netanyahu do it? Certainly he would, given a pretext.
He has just been given a pretext.
And having emasculated the Israeli courts and split the Knesset, it's hard to see who would stop him.
As the LibDem MP says, it's hard to see how this ends well.
Yes I can absolutely see Netanyahu exploiting this the way you describe. His government is full of people who have PROPOSED versions of this
I once heard Netanyahu compared to Hitler, because of this very issue.
By an Israeli.
Who was not only a senior official of Yad Vashem, but had been forced to leave Iran as a boy because of its own ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Nasty human being (Netanyahu, not Yiftach).
But again, anyone making a hero out of Ismail Haniyeh and his acolytes is overlooking the fact they're just as bad, as any reasoning human being would have worked out but Corbyn apparently couldn't.
This is as OldKingCole says not a conflict where outsiders should look to take sides on moral grounds. Israel is a democracy (rather a flawed one) but it is neither an innocent victim nor an unrelieved goody.
In this particular instance, Israel is surely the victim. Hamas has launched what looks like an armed invasion, with thousands of rockets and apparently indiscriminate slaughter. The provocation was not Israel but more likely Iran's desperation to undermine the recent deals Israel has made with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Leon might be right that Israel's government will exploit this, but that is not to say they caused or invited it.
I agree this is on Hamas. All the way. They are acting as they have always sought to, on a vast scale apparently, and demonstrating why the Israelis hate and fear them.
I do wonder however whether you're altogether right about the Israeli government reaction (leaving aside, for the moment, the somewhat separate issue about the extent to which their policies over the years have caused it). Sure, this isn't what they *invited* but if Netanyahu can exploit it to capture Gaza and expel the Palestinian population there I suspect privately he will be very pleased. And whatever he says in public, I doubt if he really cares about the lives of Israeli civilians any more than he does Palestinian ones.
A big question is: does Hamas have a different, better plan this time? Something that doesn’t end the normal way - with Israel beating the shit out of gaza for six months and 5000 dead Palestinians?
Coz that’s how it always ends so far. Is it possible they have something slightly more strategic in mind?
And I think that's a good question but I also think it's too early to say.
Bluntly from what I know, I cannot see how Hamas could win a full war against Israel without direct help from an outside power. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't be willing to try. As we've seen elsewhere recently it's easier to pretend to have a good army than to have one.
Or it may be a sign that analysts predicting Gaza would become uninhabitable are right (even if the date was wrong) and this is their last roll of the dice to do something drastic that would let them hang on to it before it has to be evacuated.
And civilians end up getting killed. At the moment, it's the Israelis. Later, if the IDF can retaliate, it will be Palestinians as well.
We can be fairly certain the IDF can and will retaliate
I'm certain they will want to.
I want to see more about their actual capabilities in this situation before I definitely say they can.
Er, what? Israel can just send endless missiles into Gaza and strafe it with dozens of jets. The Gazans have zero protection and no way of stopping this
No one will rein in the Israelis. It’s what always happens. Why should this time be different?
I don't know whether it will.
I'm just wondering if Hamas have been able to plan this and spring a surprise on the Israelis, what else they've been able to do and who has been helping them.
Israel looks very weak right now so I am concerned the response is going to be awful.
Hard to see how it won’t be, I’m afraid. With the rhetoric coming out of Israeli politicians (and the “war” word being mentioned) this is going to have a very unhappy outcome.
Horrific scenes in Israel. Families slaughtered at bus stops
The fear is that this Israeli government, the most far right ever, will now enact a Permanent Solution to the Gaza Problem: ejecting them all into Sinai. Perhaps, in a macabre way, that would be better than the endless agony of the last decades
Aaaand we're talking up ethnic cleansing before 9am
What ARE you talking about??
I don’t want this to happen. I don’t want Israelis or Palestinians to die - any of them. The whole thing is a Satanic mess and both sides are at fault - increasingly Israel but the Islamists of Hamas are hardly saints
I am speculating as to possible outcomes and what a very hardline Israeli government might do that no previous Israeli government has dared to do - actually drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. Far right Israeli politicians have talked of this in the past, plenty of times, well now they are in the government - so maybe they will do it
If it happens it would be a crime for the ages - of course - but in the end if the Gazans were given a proper amount of land to settle in Sinai - and their freedom - it might be better than the living prison they inhabit now, which is constantly at war (as we see)
There is no good easy clearly moral solution; quit your pearl clutching
There is, of course, another aspect to any ethnic cleaning of Gaza. Without Gaza, no Palestinian state could possibly be viable, as it is the largest city and the only port (including airport, not that it's operating right now).
It would also change the demographic ratio of the whole area firmly in favour of the Israelis by removing over half the Palestinians.
At that stage the West Bank would almost certainly have to accept its de facto annexation into Israel. The 'facts on the ground' strategy would have borne fruit.
Would Netanyahu do it? Certainly he would, given a pretext.
He has just been given a pretext.
And having emasculated the Israeli courts and split the Knesset, it's hard to see who would stop him.
As the LibDem MP says, it's hard to see how this ends well.
Yes I can absolutely see Netanyahu exploiting this the way you describe. His government is full of people who have PROPOSED versions of this
I once heard Netanyahu compared to Hitler, because of this very issue.
By an Israeli.
Who was not only a senior official of Yad Vashem, but had been forced to leave Iran as a boy because of its own ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Nasty human being (Netanyahu, not Yiftach).
But again, anyone making a hero out of Ismail Haniyeh and his acolytes is overlooking the fact they're just as bad, as any reasoning human being would have worked out but Corbyn apparently couldn't.
This is as OldKingCole says not a conflict where outsiders should look to take sides on moral grounds. Israel is a democracy (rather a flawed one) but it is neither an innocent victim nor an unrelieved goody.
In this particular instance, Israel is surely the victim. Hamas has launched what looks like an armed invasion, with thousands of rockets and apparently indiscriminate slaughter. The provocation was not Israel but more likely Iran's desperation to undermine the recent deals Israel has made with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Leon might be right that Israel's government will exploit this, but that is not to say they caused or invited it.
I agree this is on Hamas. All the way. They are acting as they have always sought to, on a vast scale apparently, and demonstrating why the Israelis hate and fear them.
I do wonder however whether you're altogether right about the Israeli government reaction (leaving aside, for the moment, the somewhat separate issue about the extent to which their policies over the years have caused it). Sure, this isn't what they *invited* but if Netanyahu can exploit it to capture Gaza and expel the Palestinian population there I suspect privately he will be very pleased. And whatever he says in public, I doubt if he really cares about the lives of Israeli civilians any more than he does Palestinian ones.
A big question is: does Hamas have a different, better plan this time? Something that doesn’t end the normal way - with Israel beating the shit out of gaza for six months and 5000 dead Palestinians?
Coz that’s how it always ends so far. Is it possible they have something slightly more strategic in mind?
Sadly it recruits the next generation of activists.
"According to the Reuters news agency, who are translating Netanyahu's statement, the Israeli prime minister goes on to say "our enemy will pay a price, the type of which it has never known"."
Netanyahu declares Israel to be at war: - Hamas gunmen are still wreaking havoc in southern Israeli communities - hostages have been taken, reports suggesting as many as 35 Israelis - Hamas have also paraded what appears to be the body of a dead Israeli woman. 1/2
It is intelligence failure on a grand scale - but is it as in 1973 a failure of those in charge to heed warnings, or complete surprise for Hamas? Given this morning’s shocking events, Israel now highly likely to order major ops against Gaza, at great human cost 2/2
"According to the Reuters news agency, who are translating Netanyahu's statement, the Israeli prime minister goes on to say "our enemy will pay a price, the type of which it has never known"."
The reprisal motive rarely ends well, and is a big part of the problem.
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Then why doesn't Starmer commit to the project in full at Liverpool as he is heading into no 10 in the next year ?
Because, as you already know, the government is salting the earth by selling off the property.
It's like me coming around your house, setting your car on fire, then loudly wondering why you aren't committing to driving it to the supermarket this afternoon.
Starmer unequivocal stance that he will build HS2 with a warning to all developments that he will compulsory purchase any resales without compensation would inhibit any action the government may take in the next year
Not legally. It might have the effect of dicking around with the price of properties, but it doesn't inhibit the actual sale.
Any uncertainty will have an adverse effect on sales
I experienced this when the A55 through Colwyn Bay was planned and the years of blight, not just on the properties directly affected, but those in the immediate vicinity
Which will affect the price. But if the government wants to play hardball they can sell off everything for pennies.
I'm not sure you're right, actually. I'm no lawyer, but AIUI not only do they have to get the best possible price for the land but if it has development potential they have to apply for planning permission first.
Coupled with the need to offer it to the original owner before offering it to the wider public this could get very complicated.
Sky's reporting on Israel is extremely worrying and they expect Israel to retaliate in a massive retaliatory attack
Indeed and shades of Yom Kippur in 1973 albeit not on such a large scale.
There are plenty already trying to analyse the long term ramifications for Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel and of course Gaza as well and as you imply the conclusions are not positive.
I've long argued the solution to the Middle East is money - Saudi Arabia and the UAE have huge amounts of money. Investing in the Gazan economy - rebuilding infrastructure, investing in businesses and people would lead to peace. It did in Northern Ireland, it has in Iraq, it will in Gaza as well.
There's an old adage - if people are busy making money, they are too busy to make trouble. Poverty is the biggest recruiting sergeant for exteremism - mitigate poverty and you weaken the hand of terrorists.
An economically improving Gaza and West Bank would allow Israel to start to cut back its huge defence expenditure and improve its own economic situation.
The Israeli government has no intention of ever agreeing to any sort of peace plan unless it’s a total surrender where they get 95% of the pie and the scraps are left for the Palestinians.
"I want them to deliver the high speed rail they promised to the North" - Angela Raynor
Has she spoken to Starmer?
I don't see the two points are incompatible.
Starmer is saying HS2 will be forever unaffordable if Rishi scorches the earth and resells the already procured land to developers etc. Rayner I think is saying "Rishi, don't salt the earth, just build HS2"
Sunak has little over a year before he faces the electorate and if Starmer really was committed to the Birmingham - Manchester link he only needs to state Labour will build the line and warn against any developments in the meantime
I really do believe Starmer is quietly pleased as he can attack Sunak's decision while saying he is the one who will see that all the savings will be spent in the north as proposed
I don't think you understand that there is not a piggy bank full of £36b in cash to spend on Northern infrastructure projects. Canning HS2 allows an accounting sleight of hand which in reality doesn't exist. Hence the majority of projects proposed by Rishi have either already been delivered some as long ago as 2014, are already in the pipeline or will never be built.
Then why doesn't Starmer commit to the project in full at Liverpool as he is heading into no 10 in the next year ?
Because Sunak may well have made it all but physically impossible by the time he leaves office.
If the unprotected route is sold off, or the unwanted bit of Euston has even the beginnings of flats on them, that's it. HS2 delenda est.
Frankly, that's the politically inexplicable bit. If Rishi wanted to put Keir in a pickle, he should have left the door fractionally ajar. Instead, he's gluing it shut with araldite.
Did Rishi have an unfortunate childhood incident involving a train or something?
(And just to check- I trust that everyone agrees that a state resorting to these sort of measures should be condemned if it proposes pre-election tax cuts.)
Donations from property developers might be conditional on it.
Then they are really stupid property developers - anything with great transport links is usually worth an awful lot more
Nah - land that HS2 was going through would still have had typically rubbish transport connections, with no bus/tram to the HS2 stations or the existing stations with freed up capacity.
There is a reason why developers build car-dependent houses with no parks, schools, trams or other infrastructure - it offloads the costs, both direct and indirect, onto Local Authorities.
I would agree with you that smoking is not cool. The problem is that people who smoke look cool. That is a fact, and advertising (and tobacco) revenues over the decades prove it.
Oh, look at that cool person over there, giving themselves cancer....
"According to the Reuters news agency, who are translating Netanyahu's statement, the Israeli prime minister goes on to say "our enemy will pay a price, the type of which it has never known"."
The reprisal motive rarely ends well, and is a big part of the problem.
As Gallowgate says upthread. Israel looks weak. His concern as to the response, I think, is well placed.
Deeply concerned by reports from Gaza and Israel. Civilians must be protected, I am especially horrified to hear about hostage taking, and all violence condemned. This is a significant escalation. I can't see how it ends well for anyone.
Does she tweet most days when the Palestinians are getting their regular doings, wells filled in , property stolen etc. No votes in that so silent.
She’s being condemned on Twitter for her tweet being too weak in condemning Hamas, so I suppose you critiquing it as not pro-Palestinian enough (Layla is herself half Palestinian) helps to balance things a bit.
The problem we have with infrastructure in this country isn't the delivery or even necessarily the funding.
It's the process. The root cause being a lack of political courage - to make brave decisions and lead - and then consistency in the follow-through:
"Failing to build things we need is a sure-fire way to get poorer. It gradually strangles an economy, making it harder and harder to live, work and innovate. Yet we seem to have become world leaders in how to not build things. The costs for our infrastructure projects are markedly above those of other countries. The planning and legal processes take longer. The outcomes are less certain.
There are plenty of technical reasons why this is happening, not least a lack of training to produce skilled planners or workers, and fiscal rules that push governments to plan in five-year cycles instead of the 10 to 20 years required. But there is a political and moral reason too. Governments have become incapable of accepting that serving the national interest sometimes involves doing things that are unfair — often deeply unfair — to certain, highly visible, organised groups
The failure to accept this means they instead preside over a much greater, more terrible unfairness: the inexorable decline of British competitiveness. Building more runways or huge pylons or wider roads damages the quality of life of those who live near them. These are unpalatable facts. But somehow we have allowed these facts to overwhelm the greater, pressing national need to modernise the country.
The government avoids grappling directly with these issues by effectively outsourcing policy to the courts, which are then charged with sorting out, over years, which of the various contradictory sets of environmental, human rights or economic policies ought to have priority in each particular case."
I’d like to think the Starmer government will get to grips with this. He will surely have the majority to do it; it should be top of his to-do list. Fix the planning system so we can build things
This government could have been trumpeting first zero-carbon power from Swansea tidal lagoon, had Hinkley C-sized Cardiff - 3.2 GW - well under construction and five + more similar nuclear plant sized lagoons out through planning with earth being broken before going to the voters. With all but a tiny amount of seed corn money coming from the private sector. (The amount required equated to three years at 75 yards of HS2 track per year....)
As someone who comes from a sector that built small towns on stilts in the middle of the North Sea, each tasked with being capable of withstanding a once in a hundred-year wave, it is very obviously Government that can't build things. (And if the budget overrun exceeded 10%, you'd get booted out as operator and replaced.)
Tbf it was Tezzie May who foolishly canned your project. And it was a short sighted and ridiculous justification for so doing. This is Rishi's argument for change. All that went before was rubbish so let's look forward and issue petrochemical and gas extraction licences to secure our energy future.
I don't suppose there was too much opportunity for grift with your project. Best to stick up another foreign operated nuclear power plant, trebles all round.
If Rishi REALLY is looking at things on a value for money basis, hard to see Sizewell C ever happening....
Hinkley C - life of project costs now £50bn. To produce 3.26 GW of energy. Lasts 60 years (tops) so to compare with say a Cardiff tidal lagoon - producing 3.2 GW of energy for 120 years minimum - you will need a Hinkley D. Let's be generous and say the life of project costs in 60 years for Hinkley D are £75bn.
Nuclear option - 120 years producing 3.26 GW of energy - £125 bn.
Tidal option - 120 years producing 3.20 GW of energy - £10bn (plus say a pessimistic £10bn for a couple of sets of replacement turbines in that 120 years - £20 bn
That extra 60 MW of production is costing the UK tax payer and bill payer £105 billion...
Happy to talk, RIshi.
We agree on tidal not least as one lagoon is proposed for our area and the investment should have been made
I would agree with you that smoking is not cool. The problem is that people who smoke look cool. That is a fact, and advertising (and tobacco) revenues over the decades prove it.
"According to the Reuters news agency, who are translating Netanyahu's statement, the Israeli prime minister goes on to say "our enemy will pay a price, the type of which it has never known"."
The reprisal motive rarely ends well, and is a big part of the problem.
As Gallowgate says upthread. Israel looks weak. His concern as to the response, I think, is well placed.
Israel looks weak, but Netanyahu has never been stronger.
It'll be nothing compared to what the Gaza strip gets in return.
Israel’s long term policy with Gaza has pretty obviously always been to make it uninhabitable. Issues with the water supply were thought to make that likely by 2020 but obviously that date wasn’t accurate.
I am just wondering if this latest attack might lead Israel to take a more direct approach a la Azerbaijan and Artsekh. In which case, if I were the Egyptian government I would be really worried right now.
Was this attack by Hamas provoked by anything? Or are they just taking advantage of the Jewish holidays?
If it came as a surprise to the Israelis - and it clearly did - it seems unlikely they had been doing anything (more than the usual) to provoke Hamas.
There’s just been a news item about this particular issue. Mrs C asked me “which side are we on?” I had to say that I didn’t know; both as bad as each other, perhaps. At the beginning, back in the 40’s and 50’s, one could, reasonably, have sympathy for the Israelis, but now???
I’m sorry but WTAF?
These are innocent civilians who have been attacked by terrorists.
Are you really unable to separate that from the actions of the Israeli government?
You think the Israeli's doing the same thing in Gaza is any different. Two cheeks of the same arse at the top , civilians have little say in it, though they must vote for these clowns.
I would agree with you that smoking is not cool. The problem is that people who smoke look cool. That is a fact, and advertising (and tobacco) revenues over the decades prove it.
Oh, look at that cool person over there, giving themselves cancer....
That's exactly the point.
"Hey, that person over there is giving themselves cancer!"
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/06/i-love-campaigning-its-like-playtime-angela-rayner-on-her-rising-appeal
By an Israeli.
Who was not only a senior official of Yad Vashem, but had been forced to leave Iran as a boy because of its own ethnic cleansing of Jews.
Nasty human being (Netanyahu, not Yiftach).
But again, anyone making a hero out of Ismail Haniyeh and his acolytes is overlooking the fact they're just as bad, as any reasoning human being would have worked out but Corbyn apparently couldn't.
This is as OldKingCole says not a conflict where outsiders should look to take sides on moral grounds. Israel is a democracy (rather a flawed one) but it is neither an innocent victim nor an unrelieved goody.
As someone who comes from a sector that built small towns on stilts in the middle of the North Sea, each tasked with being capable of withstanding a once in a hundred-year wave, it is very obviously Government that can't build things. (And if the budget overrun exceeded 10%, you'd get booted out as operator and replaced.)
She tweeted before I was even properly aware of what was going on.
The world is weary of this endless horror. The only outcome that might work is if the international community offered the Gazans a place nearby to settle in peace and freedom and showered them with money (and also reimbursed the Egyptian government, of course)
Likely impossible. Eyes down for more obscene killing, then
Journalist: Secretary of State who got their sums wrong?
SOS: I don’t know - I’m going to find out
Journalist: SOS launches an investigation!!
Still feckin stupid though.
She just looks, for want of a better word, cool
That they got the opportunity *is* a surprise, given the efficiency of Israel's intelligence services and armed forces. It should be a career ending surprise for Netanyahu and his government. Which is why we should again not be surprised to see something similar done in Gaza when (and unless Hamas has been armed to a very high standard in secret, I am pretty sure it will be when) the IDF move in.
I don't suppose there was too much opportunity for grift with your project. Best to stick up another foreign operated nuclear power plant, trebles all round.
Lets see if greater insight leads to more focussed concerns.
Though I suspect the inevitable Israeli response will lead to general deprecation of all violence. We'll see.
These are innocent civilians who have been attacked by terrorists.
Are you really unable to separate that from the actions of the Israeli government?
Utterly appalled by the news from Israel. There can be no justification for terrorism.
We condemn Hamas’ attacks unequivocally and stand in solidarity with Israel at this terrible time.
https://x.com/davidlammy/status/1710570750434750836?s=46
Expect fierce ratioing from Corbynites.
"£80 billion for drivers with fuel duty freeze - vote Conservative".
*Massive operation/incursion by Hamas inside Israel. V different from anything in past.
*Well planned, must have taken months.
*Must have had outside support - Iran/Hezb.
*Huge intel failure by Israel, caught totally unaware, barley any response in first hours 1/4
All still unfolding.
See this as :
*Iran axis response to Israel normalization talks with Saudi. Also undermines Iran-Saudi normalization
*Palestinian response to worsening/unbearable oppression under occupation. But operation will only make things worse for Pal civilians. 2/4
*Intel failure clear consequence of Israeli domestic political turmoil.
*Watershed moment on many levels. Extent of consequences will take time to determine.
*Israel wrath against Gaza will be unprecedented.
*Watch for Saudi reaction.
*All happening as region in huge flux
3/4
https://x.com/KimGhattas/status/1710553676392132716?s=20
If the unprotected route is sold off, or the unwanted bit of Euston has even the beginnings of flats on them, that's it. HS2 delenda est.
Frankly, that's the politically inexplicable bit. If Rishi wanted to put Keir in a pickle, he should have left the door fractionally ajar. Instead, he's gluing it shut with araldite.
Did Rishi have an unfortunate childhood incident involving a train or something?
(And just to check- I trust that everyone agrees that a state resorting to these sort of measures should be condemned if it proposes pre-election tax cuts.)
I would agree with you that smoking is not cool. The problem is that people who smoke look cool. That is a fact, and advertising (and tobacco) revenues over the decades prove it.
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I do wonder however whether you're altogether right about the Israeli government reaction (leaving aside, for the moment, the somewhat separate issue about the extent to which their policies over the years have caused it). Sure, this isn't what they *invited* but if Netanyahu can exploit it to capture Gaza and expel the Palestinian population there I suspect privately he will be very pleased. And whatever he says in public, I doubt if he really cares about the lives of Israeli civilians any more than he does Palestinian ones.
I get the same cynical amusement when I am lectured on my globetrotting by people with three dogs and two cars and big houses leaking heat. I have neither dogs nor cars and live in a flat
Coz that’s how it always ends so far. Is it possible they have something slightly more strategic in mind?
I agree though far too indirectly linked for Israel to be involved.
Donations from property developers might be conditional on it.Then they are really stupid property developers - anything with great transport links is usually worth an awful lot more
I experienced this when the A55 through Colwyn Bay was planned and the years of blight, not just on the properties directly affected, but those in the immediate vicinity
Unless of course you want to abandon our legal system and adopt Napoleonic law?
I get the enough is enough argument but lots and lots and lots of Palestinians will die now due to this action. 100 to 1 would be my guess at the ratio.
War is just stupid when will we get some proper solution to Palestine. Never in my lifetime I fear.
More bloodshed incoming.
Bluntly from what I know, I cannot see how Hamas could win a full war against Israel without direct help from an outside power. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't be willing to try. As we've seen elsewhere recently it's easier to pretend to have a good army than to have one.
Or it may be a sign that analysts predicting Gaza would become uninhabitable are right (even if the date was wrong) and this is their last roll of the dice to do something drastic that would let them hang on to it before it has to be evacuated.
And civilians end up getting killed. At the moment, it's the Israelis. Later, if the IDF can retaliate, it will be Palestinians as well.
Hamas is strongest in the refugee camps in Jordan; the right to return is one of the most iconic arguments that the Palestinians have.
Could it be that Hamas is trying to provoke Netanyahu into driving the Gazans into Sinai in order to create more camps? Tactical loss for a strategic victory?
It’s not as if they are gaining much from having control of Gaza.
Recently the NHS Pensions liabilities were drastically revalued down*. I do hope that this was a genuine revaluation rather than smoke and mirrors to justify a dubious election giveaway.
https://twitter.com/goldstone_tony/status/1708166748845846657?t=GYl7vtdHdLEm3tu6SR_w3Q&s=19
*Incidentally the NHS pension scheme currently has an annual surplus of £4 billion payed into government funds, so isn't the drain on public resources that some here opine.
The Jews claimed the right of return to Israel for two millennia. Much good it did them until the early twentieth century.
So I'm going to acknowledge that 'your bit' for the climate includes no dog, no car, efficient flat, etc. - well done! And you'll have to let me stick to my no flying, efficient house, ASHP, manic recycling, etc. etc. as 'my bit'.
Each to our own but if we all do a bit, it will make a difference.
I want to see more about their actual capabilities in this situation before I definitely say they can.
Will the voters buy that when tax cuts are clearly unaffordable? And from personal perspectives their mortgage payments and weekly food bills have gone through the roof.
Maybe.
I suspect the one truth Rishi can promote is Labour can't afford tax cuts. The reality is neither can he.
“He has the sort of restlessness and data-driven mentality you associate with Dominic Cummings, but without the madness,” another adviser to Starmer said.
"We are at war".
Hinkley C - life of project costs now £50bn. To produce 3.26 GW of energy. Lasts 60 years (tops) so to compare with say a Cardiff tidal lagoon - producing 3.2 GW of energy for 120 years minimum - you will need a Hinkley D. Let's be generous and say the life of project costs in 60 years for Hinkley D are £75bn.
Nuclear option - 120 years producing 3.26 GW of energy - £125 bn.
Tidal option - 120 years producing 3.20 GW of energy - £10bn (plus say a pessimistic £10bn for a couple of sets of replacement turbines in that 120 years - £20 bn
That extra 60 MW of production is costing the UK tax payer and bill payer £105 billion...
Happy to talk, RIshi.
No one will rein in the Israelis. It’s what always happens. Why should this time be different?
Coupled with the need to offer it to the original owner before offering it to the wider public this could get very complicated.
The UK will always support Israel’s right to defend itself.
https://x.com/JamesCleverly/status/1710573119813845462?s=20
I'm just wondering if Hamas have been able to plan this and spring a surprise on the Israelis, what else they've been able to do and who has been helping them.
"According to the Reuters news agency, who are translating Netanyahu's statement, the Israeli prime minister goes on to say "our enemy will pay a price, the type of which it has never known"."
- Hamas gunmen are still wreaking havoc in southern Israeli communities
- hostages have been taken, reports suggesting as many as 35 Israelis
- Hamas have also paraded what appears to be the body of a dead Israeli woman.
1/2
It is intelligence failure on a grand scale - but is it as in 1973 a failure of those in charge to heed warnings, or complete surprise for Hamas? Given this morning’s shocking events, Israel now highly likely to order major ops against Gaza, at great human cost 2/2
https://x.com/MarkUrban01/status/1710578960050831822?s=20
There is no justification for this act of terror which is being perpetrated by those who seek to undermine any chance for future peace in the region.
Israel has a right to defend herself.
https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1710578659415757310?s=20
There are plenty already trying to analyse the long term ramifications for Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel and of course Gaza as well and as you imply the conclusions are not positive.
I've long argued the solution to the Middle East is money - Saudi Arabia and the UAE have huge amounts of money. Investing in the Gazan economy - rebuilding infrastructure, investing in businesses and people would lead to peace. It did in Northern Ireland, it has in Iraq, it will in Gaza as well.
There's an old adage - if people are busy making money, they are too busy to make trouble. Poverty is the biggest recruiting sergeant for exteremism - mitigate poverty and you weaken the hand of terrorists.
An economically improving Gaza and West Bank would allow Israel to start to cut back its huge defence expenditure and improve its own economic situation.
The Israeli government has no intention of ever agreeing to any sort of peace plan unless it’s a total surrender where they get 95% of the pie and the scraps are left for the Palestinians.
Nah - land that HS2 was going through would still have had typically rubbish transport connections, with no bus/tram to the HS2 stations or the existing stations with freed up capacity.
There is a reason why developers build car-dependent houses with no parks, schools, trams or other infrastructure - it offloads the costs, both direct and indirect, onto Local Authorities.
Two cheeks of the same arse at the top , civilians have little say in it, though they must vote for these clowns.
"Hey, that person over there is giving themselves cancer!"
"Yeah, but they look really cool doing it...!"
https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1710581119513497727?s=46
And will be smashed by Israel in short order. This is the equivalent of Armenia deciding to send tanks and rockets into Turkey. Suicide.
Unless Iran has something more up its sleeve. But what?