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Tories take 4% lead in the “Blue Wall” – politicalbetting.com

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  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,243
    Nigelb said:

    Blimey.
    I don't think I've ever come across this novel accounting method before.

    They used a legit random number generator* lmao send them all to jail forever
    https://twitter.com/fed_speak/status/1711812054338752591

    *To calculate the amount they would publicly report as their cash holdings.

    Based on the twitter handle I thought you meant the Fed!!
  • So, given we all love Crossrail, can we all pledge to stop saying the we're shit at infrastructure, please?

    Politicians respond to public pressure. If you want more of it you need to lobby your MP. We all need to not cry blue murder because it's difficult to predict to the exact day and pound exactly where something fiendishly complex will land 15 years in advance.

    Instead, focus on the prize and the benefits, and getting it right.

    Crossrail demonstrates that we are shit at infrastructure. A single scheme delivered decades late. Whoop-de-do. Meanwhile we have shit roads and shit railways and no hub airport fit for purpose and shit schools and hospitals falling down and prisons unable to house rapists and not enough power generation and must I go on?

    We can build occasional projects very well. We build many other projects criminally badly. And most projects we don't build at all.
    And, such ignorant and cynical attitudes ensure we won't get any more of it.

    Well done. You are part of the problem.
    Why? What have I said that is wrong? We build some *superb* infrastructure. In very small quantities. We also build schools that are falling down shortly after they are opened, we fudge together expensive and dangerous motorway widening at vast cost instead of actually building new like Every Other Country.

    The rest? We just don't build at all. I can ignorantly list a long stream of roads never built, railways never reopened if that would help. Again, I am not attacking the people building the few bits of infrastructure that gets built well. I am attacking the British system which builds cheap crap at mega prices but mostly doesn't build at all.

    Unless you are here to justify the new schools which need buckets to collect the rain which constantly gets in?
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,375
    isam said:

    Imagine him in a GE campaign against anybody any good - there are about a dozen of these kind of traps he’s set himself and, under pressure, when he knows he’s wrong, he freezes, stutters or falls apart

    "When you told voters in 2017 and 2019 that Jeremy Corbyn, a man that called Hamas friends should be PM, did you mean it?" - @BethRigby

    Labour Leader @Keir_Starmer says 'between 2017 and 2019, the Labour Party lost its way'.


    #PoliticsHub trib.al/Ws0G7ow


    https://x.com/skypoliticshub/status/1712184539018150167?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

    When he becomes PM he will be under 100 times the scrutiny he is now. He will need to improve massively.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,572

    So, given we all love Crossrail, can we all pledge to stop saying the we're shit at infrastructure, please?

    Politicians respond to public pressure. If you want more of it you need to lobby your MP. We all need to not cry blue murder because it's difficult to predict to the exact day and pound exactly where something fiendishly complex will land 15 years in advance.

    Instead, focus on the prize and the benefits, and getting it right.

    Crossrail demonstrates that we are shit at infrastructure. A single scheme delivered decades late. Whoop-de-do. Meanwhile we have shit roads and shit railways and no hub airport fit for purpose and shit schools and hospitals falling down and prisons unable to house rapists and not enough power generation and must I go on?

    We can build occasional projects very well. We build many other projects criminally badly. And most projects we don't build at all.
    And, such ignorant and cynical attitudes ensure we won't get any more of it.

    Well done. You are part of the problem.
    Why? What have I said that is wrong? We build some *superb* infrastructure. In very small quantities. We also build schools that are falling down shortly after they are opened, we fudge together expensive and dangerous motorway widening at vast cost instead of actually building new like Every Other Country.

    The rest? We just don't build at all. I can ignorantly list a long stream of roads never built, railways never reopened if that would help. Again, I am not attacking the people building the few bits of infrastructure that gets built well. I am attacking the British system which builds cheap crap at mega prices but mostly doesn't build at all.

    Unless you are here to justify the new schools which need buckets to collect the rain which constantly gets in?
    "We also build schools that are falling down shortly after they are opened"

    Examples, please.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829
    edited October 2023

    So, given we all love Crossrail, can we all pledge to stop saying the we're shit at infrastructure, please?

    Politicians respond to public pressure. If you want more of it you need to lobby your MP. We all need to not cry blue murder because it's difficult to predict to the exact day and pound exactly where something fiendishly complex will land 15 years in advance.

    Instead, focus on the prize and the benefits, and getting it right.

    Crossrail demonstrates that we are shit at infrastructure. A single scheme delivered decades late. Whoop-de-do. Meanwhile we have shit roads and shit railways and no hub airport fit for purpose and shit schools and hospitals falling down and prisons unable to house rapists and not enough power generation and must I go on?

    We can build occasional projects very well. We build many other projects criminally badly. And most projects we don't build at all.
    And, such ignorant and cynical attitudes ensure we won't get any more of it.

    Well done. You are part of the problem.
    Why? What have I said that is wrong? We build some *superb* infrastructure. In very small quantities. We also build schools that are falling down shortly after they are opened, we fudge together expensive and dangerous motorway widening at vast cost instead of actually building new like Every Other Country.

    The rest? We just don't build at all. I can ignorantly list a long stream of roads never built, railways never reopened if that would help. Again, I am not attacking the people building the few bits of infrastructure that gets built well. I am attacking the British system which builds cheap crap at mega prices but mostly doesn't build at all.

    Unless you are here to justify the new schools which need buckets to collect the rain which constantly gets in?
    "We also build schools that are falling down shortly after they are opened"

    Examples, please.
    https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/06/not-just-raac-newly-built-english-schools-closing-safety-fears

    (just happen to remember this - may save some hunting)
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    edited October 2023

    The more news comes out about the Israel - Hamas war, the greater my feeling that Israel has license to do something generational.

    Some debate about what to call Hamas. They are the government of Gaza and a declaration of war has formally been made. Israel sees Hamas as terrorists and they are, but they are also a government - hence the declaration of war.

    Legally that makes it people combatants, not terrorists. Israel is therefore now under the international rules of war - as are Hamas. Whilst people are warning Israel not to act illegally, the same is now true of Hamas. And whilst Hamas combatants kidnap, rape and behead, and see martyrdom as a goal, there should be little objection to Israel's actions.

    Prisoners have rights in war. But not lunatics trying to kill everyone including themselves. Gaza's civilians need more consideration, but the enemy are hiding amongst and embedded within those civilians. As so many Israeli military leaders are saying, once you go in you have to assume that everyone is a combatant and every object a bomb - because in the past they have been. Self-defence is just and legal in war, even at individual level...

    Wiping Gaza off the face of the earth could cost up to 2.3m lives.

    Whatever the rights and wrongs of doing so, that's a very big number. It might be appropriate in the present, but history will baulk at 2.3m dead.

    Having said that, Bibi has to do what's best for Bibi.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,404

    Nigelb said:

    So, given we all love Crossrail, can we all pledge to stop saying the we're shit at infrastructure, please?

    No; we are shit at infrastructure.
    "We" in this case being governments of the last couple of decades. Not your sector.
    I was driving in the countryside between Stoke and Stone (Staffs) on Tuesday and looking at a huge length of land churned up for HS2. People were still working on it and I thought what a total waste.
    When I was last back in Leamington the scale of the work to the south and east of the town was huge. So much torn to pieces and destroyed, and for what? We’ve lost countless precious ancient landscapes and woodlands for next to nothing, it turns out.

    Round Leamington a workable railway will eventually be built. But aside from getting out of Birmingham quicker it doesnt have much point.

    North of Birmingham where the capacity is more needed its a total waste of tax payers money.

    As for woodland etc. youd better get used to that if we are to build houses.
  • Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    So, given we all love Crossrail, can we all pledge to stop saying the we're shit at infrastructure, please?

    Politicians respond to public pressure. If you want more of it you need to lobby your MP. We all need to not cry blue murder because it's difficult to predict to the exact day and pound exactly where something fiendishly complex will land 15 years in advance.

    Instead, focus on the prize and the benefits, and getting it right.

    We're mostly shit at infrastructure *outside London*, and *getting it to budget even in London*. I think that's fair, given how bad Crossrail was in the latter respect.
    Crossrail wasn't "bad" in the latter respect, still less "how bad". It had the most complex systems integration challenge in the world and was successfully completed to 98%+ reliability 3.5 years late (at least a year of which is Covid, about 10 months due to very complex civils works, and about 18 months due to bugs and testing that had to be ironed out across three different signalling systems) but only £3bn over its £15bn budget.

    That's what megaprojects are like. They take a very long time to deliver and are very hard to do. It's not like getting a quote for your patio extension.

    So it's 20% over its original estimated budget - that happens, remember any major events that might have happened between 2008 and 2022 that might have thrown out the original assumptions? - and, according to stats published today, its usage is over 60% higher than its original projections.

    So, Crossrail has easily exceeded the benefits/cost ratio in its original business case, and it's delivering more value than originally anticipated - not less.

    You strike me as someone who'd comment on the empty portion of the glass no matter how well-filled it was, and if it was filled to the brim so you spilt some complain about that too.
    I've been on here to say how great Crossrail is as a finished project. But the excess usage isn't an excuse for Crossrail screwing up the budget, because it is true of almost every single transport project.

    And budgeting? What happened to contingency budgeting? Sure, signalling etc are problems - but that should have been budgeted for, instead of pretending it would be cheap. 25% overrun is not chump change.

    The pitiful bit about Crossrail is how long it took to be built. Proposed in its current form in 1989 with a bill before parliament in 1991. Instead of building things, we prevaricate for decades - and then usually cancel them. Ask the residents of Mottram or Tintwistle whether we are good at building roads...
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,572
    Carnyx said:

    So, given we all love Crossrail, can we all pledge to stop saying the we're shit at infrastructure, please?

    Politicians respond to public pressure. If you want more of it you need to lobby your MP. We all need to not cry blue murder because it's difficult to predict to the exact day and pound exactly where something fiendishly complex will land 15 years in advance.

    Instead, focus on the prize and the benefits, and getting it right.

    Crossrail demonstrates that we are shit at infrastructure. A single scheme delivered decades late. Whoop-de-do. Meanwhile we have shit roads and shit railways and no hub airport fit for purpose and shit schools and hospitals falling down and prisons unable to house rapists and not enough power generation and must I go on?

    We can build occasional projects very well. We build many other projects criminally badly. And most projects we don't build at all.
    And, such ignorant and cynical attitudes ensure we won't get any more of it.

    Well done. You are part of the problem.
    Why? What have I said that is wrong? We build some *superb* infrastructure. In very small quantities. We also build schools that are falling down shortly after they are opened, we fudge together expensive and dangerous motorway widening at vast cost instead of actually building new like Every Other Country.

    The rest? We just don't build at all. I can ignorantly list a long stream of roads never built, railways never reopened if that would help. Again, I am not attacking the people building the few bits of infrastructure that gets built well. I am attacking the British system which builds cheap crap at mega prices but mostly doesn't build at all.

    Unless you are here to justify the new schools which need buckets to collect the rain which constantly gets in?
    "We also build schools that are falling down shortly after they are opened"

    Examples, please.
    https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/06/not-just-raac-newly-built-english-schools-closing-safety-fears

    (just happen to remember this - may save some hunting)
    Thanks. Hadn't heard of that.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,986

    Nigelb said:

    So, given we all love Crossrail, can we all pledge to stop saying the we're shit at infrastructure, please?

    No; we are shit at infrastructure.
    "We" in this case being governments of the last couple of decades. Not your sector.
    I was driving in the countryside between Stoke and Stone (Staffs) on Tuesday and looking at a huge length of land churned up for HS2. People were still working on it and I thought what a total waste.
    When I was last back in Leamington the scale of the work to the south and east of the town was huge. So much torn to pieces and destroyed, and for what? We’ve lost countless precious ancient landscapes and woodlands for next to nothing, it turns out.

    Road and rail projects always look like that during construction. I remember the M40 being built in the 80s. Then they clear up, grass over, and it looks like any other railway line or motorway. Same was true of HS1, which now few people in Kent even notice.

    The ancient woodland thing is a bit of a myth too, but sadly a very successful one - there’s some good data on it online.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,523

    The more news comes out about the Israel - Hamas war, the greater my feeling that Israel has license to do something generational.

    Some debate about what to call Hamas. They are the government of Gaza and a declaration of war has formally been made. Israel sees Hamas as terrorists and they are, but they are also a government - hence the declaration of war.

    Legally that makes it people combatants, not terrorists. Israel is therefore now under the international rules of war - as are Hamas. Whilst people are warning Israel not to act illegally, the same is now true of Hamas. And whilst Hamas combatants kidnap, rape and behead, and see martyrdom as a goal, there should be little objection to Israel's actions.

    Prisoners have rights in war. But not lunatics trying to kill everyone including themselves. Gaza's civilians need more consideration, but the enemy are hiding amongst and embedded within those civilians. As so many Israeli military leaders are saying, once you go in you have to assume that everyone is a combatant and every object a bomb - because in the past they have been. Self-defence is just and legal in war, even at individual level...

    Actually, under international law lunatics have rights too, including the right not to be denied food and water, but anyway 56% of Gazans didn't vote for Hamas. I don't quarrel with Israel's right after the murderous Hamas rampage to attack Gaza and even occupy it, but that doesn't mean endorsing anything they do in the process. In the long run, their reputation will be enhanced if they are seen to be doing all they need to win, without causing more civilian suffering than can be avoided.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,561
    TimS said:

    Nigelb said:

    Another day of massive Russian casualties in Ukraine.

    990 have been supported have been supported by personnel losses, 42 tanks, 44 armoured personnel vehicles, 32 artillery.

    If those are the Ukrainian government figures, they don't mean very much. Though they are less fantastic than Russia's.

    And there has certainly been some fierce fighting over the last few days.
    The Ukrainian numbers might be considerable overcounting - but there really isn't that much evidence of it. At least two-thirds of their numbers have been supported by independent verification (although Oryx's roll in that is at an end). There is also anecdotal stuff that Ukrainians have a mass of footage that hasn't been put in the public domain, for whatever reason. But knock off even a third and these still represent massive damage to the Russian reserves of manpower and vehicles, especially as this is the second day of it.
    I think the reason for the increased casualties of the last few days is the Russians turning from defence to offensive in Avdiivka.
    Mostly that, although there does seem to be a flare up in various other places. The most recent attacks on Adviivka by the Russians seem to have given up on blitzkrieg by mechanised troops - probably because of the scale of their losses.

    Some suggesting it looks like politicians rather than generals are running the assault on Adviivka.
  • What are the other broadcasters’ approaches to describing Hamas?

    Sky News is referring to them directly as terrorists on its website and I have heard both guests and hosts referring to them in that way on air. For what its worth GB news is the same.

    It does seem that it is the BBC that is the outlier here at present. Which I do find strange given all the other arms of the state including Government and Royalty are clearly referring to them as terrorists.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,248
    edited October 2023

    The more news comes out about the Israel - Hamas war, the greater my feeling that Israel has license to do something generational.

    Some debate about what to call Hamas. They are the government of Gaza and a declaration of war has formally been made. Israel sees Hamas as terrorists and they are, but they are also a government - hence the declaration of war.

    Legally that makes it people combatants, not terrorists. Israel is therefore now under the international rules of war - as are Hamas. Whilst people are warning Israel not to act illegally, the same is now true of Hamas. And whilst Hamas combatants kidnap, rape and behead, and see martyrdom as a goal, there should be little objection to Israel's actions.

    Prisoners have rights in war. But not lunatics trying to kill everyone including themselves. Gaza's civilians need more consideration, but the enemy are hiding amongst and embedded within those civilians. As so many Israeli military leaders are saying, once you go in you have to assume that everyone is a combatant and every object a bomb - because in the past they have been. Self-defence is just and legal in war, even at individual level...

    The laws of war don’t apply for just declared wars. All armed conflict included.

    The original Hague convention was written with input from British officers who had served on the frontline in Afghanistan. It was designed to regulate non state and semi state groups from the beginning.

    Hama easily meet the test for being an organised party in the conflict - Command structure etc.
    I appreciate the broadening of my understanding! Either way, there are rules. Which Hamas are not remotely respecting.
    The curious thing is that suggesting the Laws of War should be used against non-state actors in the modern era hits a strange wall.

    I asked some activist lawyer types about prosecuting Begum as a war criminal (which she is). I was told the idea is appalling, disgusting etc. But they couldn't seem to explain why.
  • TimS said:

    Nigelb said:

    So, given we all love Crossrail, can we all pledge to stop saying the we're shit at infrastructure, please?

    No; we are shit at infrastructure.
    "We" in this case being governments of the last couple of decades. Not your sector.
    I was driving in the countryside between Stoke and Stone (Staffs) on Tuesday and looking at a huge length of land churned up for HS2. People were still working on it and I thought what a total waste.
    When I was last back in Leamington the scale of the work to the south and east of the town was huge. So much torn to pieces and destroyed, and for what? We’ve lost countless precious ancient landscapes and woodlands for next to nothing, it turns out.

    Road and rail projects always look like that during construction. I remember the M40 being built in the 80s. Then they clear up, grass over, and it looks like any other railway line or motorway. Same was true of HS1, which now few people in Kent even notice.

    The ancient woodland thing is a bit of a myth too, but sadly a very successful one - there’s some good data on it online.
    Ancient woodland is not a myth, it is a specific legal designation for any woodland more than 400 years old.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,572

    The more news comes out about the Israel - Hamas war, the greater my feeling that Israel has license to do something generational.

    Some debate about what to call Hamas. They are the government of Gaza and a declaration of war has formally been made. Israel sees Hamas as terrorists and they are, but they are also a government - hence the declaration of war.

    Legally that makes it people combatants, not terrorists. Israel is therefore now under the international rules of war - as are Hamas. Whilst people are warning Israel not to act illegally, the same is now true of Hamas. And whilst Hamas combatants kidnap, rape and behead, and see martyrdom as a goal, there should be little objection to Israel's actions.

    Prisoners have rights in war. But not lunatics trying to kill everyone including themselves. Gaza's civilians need more consideration, but the enemy are hiding amongst and embedded within those civilians. As so many Israeli military leaders are saying, once you go in you have to assume that everyone is a combatant and every object a bomb - because in the past they have been. Self-defence is just and legal in war, even at individual level...

    Actually, under international law lunatics have rights too, including the right not to be denied food and water, but anyway 56% of Gazans didn't vote for Hamas. I don't quarrel with Israel's right after the murderous Hamas rampage to attack Gaza and even occupy it, but that doesn't mean endorsing anything they do in the process. In the long run, their reputation will be enhanced if they are seen to be doing all they need to win, without causing more civilian suffering than can be avoided.
    What good's a reputation if they're all dead? And make no mistake - that's what Hamas - and sadly many in the ME, and even some in our own country - want for Israel. For them to be driven into the sea.

    There's no easy answer here. There's probably not even a good answer. But I don't believe many of your friends on the left (including Corbyn) have the best interests of Jews at heart.
  • pm215pm215 Posts: 1,130


    Unless you are here to justify the new schools which need buckets to collect the rain which constantly gets in?

    That one isn't limited to public sector building, mind you. I have been told of a local office block that apparently came in well over budget and with issues including many rooms needing buckets to catch rainwater dripping from the ceiling, still not remedied several years into occupation...
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,404

    TimS said:

    Nigelb said:

    So, given we all love Crossrail, can we all pledge to stop saying the we're shit at infrastructure, please?

    No; we are shit at infrastructure.
    "We" in this case being governments of the last couple of decades. Not your sector.
    I was driving in the countryside between Stoke and Stone (Staffs) on Tuesday and looking at a huge length of land churned up for HS2. People were still working on it and I thought what a total waste.
    When I was last back in Leamington the scale of the work to the south and east of the town was huge. So much torn to pieces and destroyed, and for what? We’ve lost countless precious ancient landscapes and woodlands for next to nothing, it turns out.

    Road and rail projects always look like that during construction. I remember the M40 being built in the 80s. Then they clear up, grass over, and it looks like any other railway line or motorway. Same was true of HS1, which now few people in Kent even notice.

    The ancient woodland thing is a bit of a myth too, but sadly a very successful one - there’s some good data on it online.
    Ancient woodland is not a myth, it is a specific legal designation for any woodland more than 400 years old.
    If youre in to long term decisions we can always plant more woods.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    So, given we all love Crossrail, can we all pledge to stop saying the we're shit at infrastructure, please?

    Politicians respond to public pressure. If you want more of it you need to lobby your MP. We all need to not cry blue murder because it's difficult to predict to the exact day and pound exactly where something fiendishly complex will land 15 years in advance.

    Instead, focus on the prize and the benefits, and getting it right.

    We're mostly shit at infrastructure *outside London*, and *getting it to budget even in London*. I think that's fair, given how bad Crossrail was in the latter respect.
    Crossrail wasn't "bad" in the latter respect, still less "how bad". It had the most complex systems integration challenge in the world and was successfully completed to 98%+ reliability 3.5 years late (at least a year of which is Covid, about 10 months due to very complex civils works, and about 18 months due to bugs and testing that had to be ironed out across three different signalling systems) but only £3bn over its £15bn budget.

    That's what megaprojects are like. They take a very long time to deliver and are very hard to do. It's not like getting a quote for your patio extension.

    So it's 20% over its original estimated budget - that happens, remember any major events that might have happened between 2008 and 2022 that might have thrown out the original assumptions? - and, according to stats published today, its usage is over 60% higher than its original projections.

    So, Crossrail has easily exceeded the benefits/cost ratio in its original business case, and it's delivering more value than originally anticipated - not less.

    You strike me as someone who'd comment on the empty portion of the glass no matter how well-filled it was, and if it was filled to the brim so you spilt some complain about that too.
    I've been on here to say how great Crossrail is as a finished project. But the excess usage isn't an excuse for Crossrail screwing up the budget, because it is true of almost every single transport project.

    And budgeting? What happened to contingency budgeting? Sure, signalling etc are problems - but that should have been budgeted for, instead of pretending it would be cheap. 25% overrun is not chump change.

    The pitiful bit about Crossrail is how long it took to be built. Proposed in its current form in 1989 with a bill before parliament in 1991. Instead of building things, we prevaricate for decades - and then usually cancel them. Ask the residents of Mottram or Tintwistle whether we are good at building roads...
    Still unhappy about the recurrent pattern of the system pretending to build cheaply (and therefore actually doing a substandard job, e.g. incomplete doubling of the Borders Railway) because of the same methodology pretending nobody will want it ... but that in turn rests also in the cheapskate mentality.

    TBF to CR and the engineers, tunnelling through the honeycombed bits of London is always going to be hellish - and unpredictable - and a great achievement. But London tunnelling is hardly news. Once a fixed budget was proclaimed, the political jelly was set.
  • The more news comes out about the Israel - Hamas war, the greater my feeling that Israel has license to do something generational.

    Some debate about what to call Hamas. They are the government of Gaza and a declaration of war has formally been made. Israel sees Hamas as terrorists and they are, but they are also a government - hence the declaration of war.

    Legally that makes it people combatants, not terrorists. Israel is therefore now under the international rules of war - as are Hamas. Whilst people are warning Israel not to act illegally, the same is now true of Hamas. And whilst Hamas combatants kidnap, rape and behead, and see martyrdom as a goal, there should be little objection to Israel's actions.

    Prisoners have rights in war. But not lunatics trying to kill everyone including themselves. Gaza's civilians need more consideration, but the enemy are hiding amongst and embedded within those civilians. As so many Israeli military leaders are saying, once you go in you have to assume that everyone is a combatant and every object a bomb - because in the past they have been. Self-defence is just and legal in war, even at individual level...

    Israel needs to ask itself whether doing what its enemy wants it to do is a wise course of action.
    Hamas wants Israel to smash Gaza and slaughter civilians. It thinks that way it wins a moral victory (though it is sacrificing its own people...). Problem for Hamas is that it is slaughtering, kidnapping, raping, beheading. In large numbers. There is a knee-jerk reaction from a decreasing few against Israel. The rest of the world looks on in horror and asks Israel how it can help.
    For now. But this is Israel's dilemma. That will change very quickly if the numbers of civilian dead in Gaza rise into the tens of thousands.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,188
    edited October 2023
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    So, given we all love Crossrail, can we all pledge to stop saying the we're shit at infrastructure, please?

    Politicians respond to public pressure. If you want more of it you need to lobby your MP. We all need to not cry blue murder because it's difficult to predict to the exact day and pound exactly where something fiendishly complex will land 15 years in advance.

    Instead, focus on the prize and the benefits, and getting it right.

    We're mostly shit at infrastructure *outside London*, and *getting it to budget even in London*. I think that's fair, given how bad Crossrail was in the latter respect.
    Crossrail wasn't "bad" in the latter respect, still less "how bad". It had the most complex systems integration challenge in the world and was successfully completed to 98%+ reliability 3.5 years late (at least a year of which is Covid, about 10 months due to very complex civils works, and about 18 months due to bugs and testing that had to be ironed out across three different signalling systems) but only £3bn over its £15bn budget.

    That's what megaprojects are like. They take a very long time to deliver and are very hard to do. It's not like getting a quote for your patio extension.

    So it's 20% over its original estimated budget - that happens, remember any major events that might have happened between 2008 and 2022 that might have thrown out the original assumptions? - and, according to stats published today, its usage is over 60% higher than its original projections.

    So, Crossrail has easily exceeded the benefits/cost ratio in its original business case, and it's delivering more value than originally anticipated - not less.

    You strike me as someone who'd comment on the empty portion of the glass no matter how well-filled it was, and if it was filled to the brim so you spilt some complain about that too.
    I've been on here to say how great Crossrail is as a finished project. But the excess usage isn't an excuse for Crossrail screwing up the budget, because it is true of almost every single transport project.

    And budgeting? What happened to contingency budgeting? Sure, signalling etc are problems - but that should have been budgeted for, instead of pretending it would be cheap. 25% overrun is not chump change.

    25% is a bit high, we'd be in financial difficulty if a project was that much over budget - but steel for instance prices have risen probably 100% within the lifetime of Crossrail.

    @Casino_Royale What contingency level was there in the original budget ? 5% of material costs to 4% of sales is what I normally use... our projects are max 2 years though (And much smaller)
    I'd have thought given the lifetime of the project you'd have the budget increasing generally with inflation over time and perhaps an overall 10-15% bunce in there ?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,248

    TimS said:

    Nigelb said:

    So, given we all love Crossrail, can we all pledge to stop saying the we're shit at infrastructure, please?

    No; we are shit at infrastructure.
    "We" in this case being governments of the last couple of decades. Not your sector.
    I was driving in the countryside between Stoke and Stone (Staffs) on Tuesday and looking at a huge length of land churned up for HS2. People were still working on it and I thought what a total waste.
    When I was last back in Leamington the scale of the work to the south and east of the town was huge. So much torn to pieces and destroyed, and for what? We’ve lost countless precious ancient landscapes and woodlands for next to nothing, it turns out.

    Road and rail projects always look like that during construction. I remember the M40 being built in the 80s. Then they clear up, grass over, and it looks like any other railway line or motorway. Same was true of HS1, which now few people in Kent even notice.

    The ancient woodland thing is a bit of a myth too, but sadly a very successful one - there’s some good data on it online.
    Ancient woodland is not a myth, it is a specific legal designation for any woodland more than 400 years old.
    If youre in to long term decisions we can always plant more woods.
    There is quite a history of (re-)planting oak forests for future ship building.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829
    Pulpstar said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    So, given we all love Crossrail, can we all pledge to stop saying the we're shit at infrastructure, please?

    Politicians respond to public pressure. If you want more of it you need to lobby your MP. We all need to not cry blue murder because it's difficult to predict to the exact day and pound exactly where something fiendishly complex will land 15 years in advance.

    Instead, focus on the prize and the benefits, and getting it right.

    We're mostly shit at infrastructure *outside London*, and *getting it to budget even in London*. I think that's fair, given how bad Crossrail was in the latter respect.
    Crossrail wasn't "bad" in the latter respect, still less "how bad". It had the most complex systems integration challenge in the world and was successfully completed to 98%+ reliability 3.5 years late (at least a year of which is Covid, about 10 months due to very complex civils works, and about 18 months due to bugs and testing that had to be ironed out across three different signalling systems) but only £3bn over its £15bn budget.

    That's what megaprojects are like. They take a very long time to deliver and are very hard to do. It's not like getting a quote for your patio extension.

    So it's 20% over its original estimated budget - that happens, remember any major events that might have happened between 2008 and 2022 that might have thrown out the original assumptions? - and, according to stats published today, its usage is over 60% higher than its original projections.

    So, Crossrail has easily exceeded the benefits/cost ratio in its original business case, and it's delivering more value than originally anticipated - not less.

    You strike me as someone who'd comment on the empty portion of the glass no matter how well-filled it was, and if it was filled to the brim so you spilt some complain about that too.
    I've been on here to say how great Crossrail is as a finished project. But the excess usage isn't an excuse for Crossrail screwing up the budget, because it is true of almost every single transport project.

    And budgeting? What happened to contingency budgeting? Sure, signalling etc are problems - but that should have been budgeted for, instead of pretending it would be cheap. 25% overrun is not chump change.

    25% is a bit high, we'd be in financial difficulty if a project was that much over budget - but steel for instance prices have risen probably 100% within the lifetime of Crossrail.

    @Casino_Royale What contingency level was there in the original budget ? 5% of material costs to 4% of sales is what I normally use... our projects are max 2 years though (And much smaller)
    I'd have thought given the lifetime of the project you'd have the budget increasing generally with inflation over time and perhaps an overall 10-15% bunce in there ?
    Quite right - I should have put 20% not 25%. Apologies.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,523
    biggles said:



    As I say, I am not a fan of the letter writing campaigns. Bit like the open letter to the papers nonsense we now get in every general election campaign.

    However, the BBC really aren't doing themselves any favours here. Not exactly hard for somebody in management to send a memo saying in this specific case, it is absolutely undeniable what it is.

    John Simpson looks a berk trying to say well "its a loaded term which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It's simply not the BBC's job to tell people who to support and who to condemn - who are the good guys and who are the bad guys"......"Our business is to present our audiences with the facts, and let them make up their own minds".

    If you can't disapprove of decapitating babies and call that terrorism, you have serious issues with your morality settings. I am reminded of the Mitchell and Webb sketch about the Nazi's, going maybe we are the bad guys....

    The real issue for me is the tone of “what Israel is GOING to do WILL be dreadful”. There’s a sense of breathless excitement about that. Will it? Well let’s judge it when it happens shall we?

    But then I’m old fashioned and find even the modern style of “today the PM WILL say XYZ” really annoying, I am forever shouting at the radio/TV saying “first let them speak and then let’s dissect it - ignore the advance press release”.

    And don’t get be started on the BBC online style of “X is a bastard - Y” as opposed to “Y says X is a bastard”. The former is the usual approach and I think implies BBC endorsement.
    The more serious issue than choice of words is selective reporting. I think the BBC is doing a pretty good job at reporting the horrors of the Hamas pogrom while also reporting the situation of civilians in Gaza. They are less good at reporting both sides where the UK has a strong position, e.g. Ukraine, or where the UK has lost interest altogether, e.g. much of Africa. They are, perhaps understandably, driven to some extent by what they feel many viewers will want to hear about, but it weakens their position as a provider of news from the entire world.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,051
    Nigelb said:

    Trump Attacks Israel and Calls Them Weak: They "Let Us Down"
    Donald Trump unleashed on Israel during a bizarre and dangerous speech in West Palm Beach and called Hamas "smart."
    https://www.meidastouch.com/news/trump-attacks-israel-and-calls-them-weak-they-let-us-down

    Why are people quibbling about the BBC’s use of “terrorism” when we have this abuse of language going on?
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486

    The more news comes out about the Israel - Hamas war, the greater my feeling that Israel has license to do something generational.

    Some debate about what to call Hamas. They are the government of Gaza and a declaration of war has formally been made. Israel sees Hamas as terrorists and they are, but they are also a government - hence the declaration of war.

    Legally that makes it people combatants, not terrorists. Israel is therefore now under the international rules of war - as are Hamas. Whilst people are warning Israel not to act illegally, the same is now true of Hamas. And whilst Hamas combatants kidnap, rape and behead, and see martyrdom as a goal, there should be little objection to Israel's actions.

    Prisoners have rights in war. But not lunatics trying to kill everyone including themselves. Gaza's civilians need more consideration, but the enemy are hiding amongst and embedded within those civilians. As so many Israeli military leaders are saying, once you go in you have to assume that everyone is a combatant and every object a bomb - because in the past they have been. Self-defence is just and legal in war, even at individual level...

    Israel needs to ask itself whether doing what its enemy wants it to do is a wise course of action.
    Hamas wants Israel to smash Gaza and slaughter civilians. It thinks that way it wins a moral victory (though it is sacrificing its own people...). Problem for Hamas is that it is slaughtering, kidnapping, raping, beheading. In large numbers. There is a knee-jerk reaction from a decreasing few against Israel. The rest of the world looks on in horror and asks Israel how it can help.
    For now. But this is Israel's dilemma. That will change very quickly if the numbers of civilian dead in Gaza rise into the tens of thousands.
    I wonder if it makes sense for Israel to mass troops on the border (as they have) and declare that the blockade will continue until the Gazans hand over all members of Hamas in the territory. Send in regular snatch squads backed by the heavy support on the border and air cover to avoid Black Hawk Down situations where possible, and just keep that up until they feel they have gutted Hamas and importantly made the Gazans realise that they are going through hell because of Hamas and the sooner they get rid the sooner they can rebuild and the killing stops.

    Allow telephone networks to work and give out reporting lines so non Hamas Gazans can dob in Hamas people anonymously (and inevitably Hamas will try and draw in IDF to traps) and make Hamas paranoid to the point that some will flee rather than get whacked.

    Possibly the way to achieve a clean out of Hamas with the least civilian blood spilt.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,991
    edited October 2023
    FA unlikely to light Wembley arch with colours of Israel flag

    The Football Association is unlikely to light the Wembley arch in the colours of the Israel flag because of fears of a backlash from some communities.

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/67084936

    This is the problem, as some of us have warned, where sport insert yourself into issues time and time again, taking sides, you then are expected to do your virtue signalling for the next thing, and then you get yourself in a mess.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829

    TimS said:

    Nigelb said:

    So, given we all love Crossrail, can we all pledge to stop saying the we're shit at infrastructure, please?

    No; we are shit at infrastructure.
    "We" in this case being governments of the last couple of decades. Not your sector.
    I was driving in the countryside between Stoke and Stone (Staffs) on Tuesday and looking at a huge length of land churned up for HS2. People were still working on it and I thought what a total waste.
    When I was last back in Leamington the scale of the work to the south and east of the town was huge. So much torn to pieces and destroyed, and for what? We’ve lost countless precious ancient landscapes and woodlands for next to nothing, it turns out.

    Road and rail projects always look like that during construction. I remember the M40 being built in the 80s. Then they clear up, grass over, and it looks like any other railway line or motorway. Same was true of HS1, which now few people in Kent even notice.

    The ancient woodland thing is a bit of a myth too, but sadly a very successful one - there’s some good data on it online.
    Ancient woodland is not a myth, it is a specific legal designation for any woodland more than 400 years old.
    If youre in to long term decisions we can always plant more woods.
    There is quite a history of (re-)planting oak forests for future ship building.
    One of the earliest, and certainly one of the most influential, books in English on forestry was written precisely to maintain English maritime power ...

    https://www.rct.uk/collection/1057442/silva-or-a-discourse-of-forest-trees-and-the-propagation-of-timber-in-his
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,348

    The more news comes out about the Israel - Hamas war, the greater my feeling that Israel has license to do something generational.

    Some debate about what to call Hamas. They are the government of Gaza and a declaration of war has formally been made. Israel sees Hamas as terrorists and they are, but they are also a government - hence the declaration of war.

    Legally that makes it people combatants, not terrorists. Israel is therefore now under the international rules of war - as are Hamas. Whilst people are warning Israel not to act illegally, the same is now true of Hamas. And whilst Hamas combatants kidnap, rape and behead, and see martyrdom as a goal, there should be little objection to Israel's actions.

    Prisoners have rights in war. But not lunatics trying to kill everyone including themselves. Gaza's civilians need more consideration, but the enemy are hiding amongst and embedded within those civilians. As so many Israeli military leaders are saying, once you go in you have to assume that everyone is a combatant and every object a bomb - because in the past they have been. Self-defence is just and legal in war, even at individual level...

    The laws of war don’t apply for just declared wars. All armed conflict included.

    The original Hague convention was written with input from British officers who had served on the frontline in Afghanistan. It was designed to regulate non state and semi state groups from the beginning.

    Hama easily meet the test for being an organised party in the conflict - Command structure etc.
    I appreciate the broadening of my understanding! Either way, there are rules. Which Hamas are not remotely respecting.
    The curious thing is that suggesting the Laws of War should be used against non-state actors in the modern era hits a strange wall.

    I asked some activist lawyer types about prosecuting Begum as a war criminal (which she is). I was told the idea is appalling, disgusting etc. But they couldn't seem to explain why.
    That’s always struck me as strange also.

    If the Laws of Armed Conflict apply to States and those who serve them, then they should also to those non-State organisations that fight them.

    The very fact that they are not in uniform ought, of itself, to be treated as a war crime.
  • It seems that Saudi is actually attempting to build the NEOM meglomaniac megaprojects:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkJupJRTcoA

    Given that its is north-western Saudi Arabia perhaps its a good place to relocate the Gazans to.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,792
    Carnyx said:

    Eabhal said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Uncle Barty always makes Warrington sound bloody awful, soulless identikit housing surrounded by motorways. I have been to Warrington, it’s not that bad in real life. At least not the bit I visited.

    Hmm, a look at TripAdvisor throws up cultural activities like Zombie Scavenger Hunts (not sure if the undead are doinf the scavenging or being eaten), though there is a nice looking trad municipal museum with mummy and paintings and dino and all. Okay. Walton Hall is No 1 Best Thing to Do in Warrington, and the Museum is No 3., but it 's a bit worrying that Gullivers World Theme Park is no 2 and an alpaca farm is no 4. Really trad Lanc culture that, of a part with parkin and faggot and so on. It thins out a bit later, No 105 being a bcobblestoned street, which at least doesn't take long to inspect.
    Of course people are mobile and via motorways you can get elsewhere within the NW within a very reasonable time too. Want to be in Liverpool, or Manchester, or Chester, or North Wales? All easily accessible.
    "Of course people are mobile [...] via motorways [...]".

    Lots of people don't have cars. As much reminded on here.
    Not a problem.

    There's these things called buses and coaches that can go on motorways for the small minority who have no access to private transport.

    Maybe you have heard of them before?
    Sadly, the cost of bus travel has increased even while fuel duty has been cut, punishing the disabled, poor and young.

    That's if the bus actually exists. 1,500 routes have been cut just since 2021. 10% of all services were cut in the last year. 50% since 2010.

    I extend a compromise - no new motorways until bus travel costs are cut to the same extent as fuel duty, and the number of services return to pre-2010 levels?
    The one all-day last service through this small town was recently re-routed. We can get to Stansted Airport on one bus. However, getting to either of the two local hospitals requires two buses. We used to be able to get a bus directly to one.

    Good morning to all. That’s a greeting, not a comment on the weather, grey and damp.
    Good morning too. On the contrary, for a change in Scotland the weather here is bright and sunny, if chilly at night - have had to put the heating on briefly in the morning and evening as it was otherwise too cold for comfort at the desk all day.
    Beautiful and Autumnal in South Manchester too.
    Off to Scotland in a week and a half (Dunkeld) - a few days like this would do very nicely.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,404

    FA unlikely to light Wembley arch with colours of Israel flag

    The Football Association is unlikely to light the Wembley arch in the colours of the Israel flag because of fears of a backlash from some communities.

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/67084936

    This is the problem, as some of us have warned, where sport insert yourself into issues time and time again, you then are expected to do your virtue signalling for the next thing, and then you get yourself in a mess.

    How will they deal with the last lot. BLM have come down on one side so what now for taking the knee ?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134
    edited October 2023

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:


    "Aren't doing themselves any favours" is in no way the same as being in breach of the Broadcasting Code. Eldorado didn't do the BBC any favours, but wasn't in breach of anything.

    And Simpson's point clearly isn't that you "can't disapprove of decapitating babies". It's that you don't need to. You simply report what happened and the moral judgment is utterly obvious.

    Like I say, I'd not take the same editorial approach as the BBC on this one. But it is easily within allowed boundaries and there is no question whatsoever of a breach of due impartiality in this case, nor any other breach. The KCs know this.

    Simpson's problem is he hasn't always done this, he has engaged in the use of these terms before.....as have the BBC.

    In reality, we all know what is really going on, they are shit scared of upsetting a small group of people over a conflict that has gone on forever and no sign it will ever stop. Same with all the celebs keeping their heads down when they are normally super quick to have their I support the latest cause flag on their twitter pic. Some might suggest its cowardice.

    You only have to compare the usual I stand with Ukraine, France after Bataclan, etc etc etc, none are doing that for Israel.

    But the KCs writing to Ofcom is nonsense.
    This whole dare call it terrorism debate is misguided. It's not terrorism, it's war. To call it terrorism is an understatement.
    War criminals seems the best descriptor imo for the little its worth. But as per normal it is the self defined defenders of free speech who seem most put out by someone else using different words to those they would use themselves.
    I have very little care what words the BBC chooses to use. News reporting terminology is not a very big deal.

    However, the explanation of their editorial choice was clearly nonsense given past examples to the contrary, and that makes it more interesting. It reasonably invites further questions on their choices if it has not been their consistent position.

    So whilst going to OfCom etc is silly, I see no issue with people saying "you've used term x before without attribution despite saying that is not your policy: can you explain why?"

    I think FrancisUrquhart has it right that we know what is really going on, and the lack of consistency demonstrates that.
    It's editorial guidance.
    Clearly they will, from time to time, be inconsistent.
    I happen to disagree with their not using "terrorist" in this case - but I don't think it's particularly important.

    As for "we know what's going on", that's just projection. What is actually means is "I am convinced this is their particular motivation".
    Yes, because that's what the evidence is.

    Hamas are literally conducting the most vile terrorism and are legally on the proscribed terrorist list - but the Beeb won't call them terrorists despite using the word in other situations?

    There's no excuse for that, its pure prejudice.
    It's probably seen as being 'complicated' because Hamas claim they are a government. It'd be a bit like Sinn Fein being in power in Eire, whilst also openly running the IRA's campaign against the UK.

    I wonder if that makes Israel's position a little easier? If Hamas is just a terrorist group, Israeli attacks on Gaza might hit non-terrorists. If Hamas are the government, then it's a war. P'haps.

    But anyway, IMV Hamas are a government *and* terrorists...
    I think the duality does help Israel and it’s rhetorically useful for its more unequivocal supporters. Call Hamas a terrorist group (100% true) and this rebuts any equivalence between their actions and the actions of the Israeli military. It frames the conflict as a simple right vs wrong affair, a democratic state dealing with the terrorists who have attacked it.

    At the same time call Hamas the government of Gaza (true and not true), then the terrorists become Palestinian forces and the enemy is now not just a terrorist group but a place and a people - Gaza and its population. This is who Israel is at war with. In which case it’s easier to try and justify the horror unleashed on them with things like WW2 comparisons.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,991
    edited October 2023
    Totally tarnishing the name of her father...

    Captain Tom ‘gave me profits’, says daughter
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/11/captain-sir-tom-moore-daughter-kept-money-from-books/
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,792
    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    Eabhal said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Uncle Barty always makes Warrington sound bloody awful, soulless identikit housing surrounded by motorways. I have been to Warrington, it’s not that bad in real life. At least not the bit I visited.

    Hmm, a look at TripAdvisor throws up cultural activities like Zombie Scavenger Hunts (not sure if the undead are doinf the scavenging or being eaten), though there is a nice looking trad municipal museum with mummy and paintings and dino and all. Okay. Walton Hall is No 1 Best Thing to Do in Warrington, and the Museum is No 3., but it 's a bit worrying that Gullivers World Theme Park is no 2 and an alpaca farm is no 4. Really trad Lanc culture that, of a part with parkin and faggot and so on. It thins out a bit later, No 105 being a bcobblestoned street, which at least doesn't take long to inspect.
    Of course people are mobile and via motorways you can get elsewhere within the NW within a very reasonable time too. Want to be in Liverpool, or Manchester, or Chester, or North Wales? All easily accessible.
    "Of course people are mobile [...] via motorways [...]".

    Lots of people don't have cars. As much reminded on here.
    Not a problem.

    There's these things called buses and coaches that can go on motorways for the small minority who have no access to private transport.

    Maybe you have heard of them before?
    Sadly, the cost of bus travel has increased even while fuel duty has been cut, punishing the disabled, poor and young.

    That's if the bus actually exists. 1,500 routes have been cut just since 2021. 10% of all services were cut in the last year. 50% since 2010.

    I extend a compromise - no new motorways until bus travel costs are cut to the same extent as fuel duty, and the number of services return to pre-2010 levels?
    The one all-day last service through this small town was recently re-routed. We can get to Stansted Airport on one bus. However, getting to either of the two local hospitals requires two buses. We used to be able to get a bus directly to one.

    Good morning to all. That’s a greeting, not a comment on the weather, grey and damp.
    Good morning too. On the contrary, for a change in Scotland the weather here is bright and sunny, if chilly at night - have had to put the heating on briefly in the morning and evening as it was otherwise too cold for comfort at the desk all day.
    Beautiful and Autumnal in South Manchester too.
    Off to Scotland in a week and a half (Dunkeld) - a few days like this would do very nicely.
    Anyway, looking back up this thread - Bart is being a tad obtuse. You COULD get tge bus from Warrington to Manchester or Liverpool or Chester, but 99% of people making those journeys by public transport would take the train, what with Warrington also having really good rail connections to those places.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,906
    .

    FA unlikely to light Wembley arch with colours of Israel flag

    The Football Association is unlikely to light the Wembley arch in the colours of the Israel flag because of fears of a backlash from some communities.

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/67084936

    This is the problem, as some of us have warned, where sport insert yourself into issues time and time again, taking sides, you then are expected to do your virtue signalling for the next thing, and then you get yourself in a mess.

    The whole damn sport is now so blatantly corrupted by money and malign foreign influences that the idea that football can take a moral stance on anything is absurd. They should give up the pretence and stick to the entertaining and sportswashing.
  • glw said:

    .

    FA unlikely to light Wembley arch with colours of Israel flag

    The Football Association is unlikely to light the Wembley arch in the colours of the Israel flag because of fears of a backlash from some communities.

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/67084936

    This is the problem, as some of us have warned, where sport insert yourself into issues time and time again, taking sides, you then are expected to do your virtue signalling for the next thing, and then you get yourself in a mess.

    The whole damn sport is now so blatantly corrupted by money and malign foreign influences that the idea that football can take a moral stance on anything is absurd. They should give up the pretence and stick to the entertaining and sportswashing.
    We will now be treated to the likes of Southgate having to answer questions about this, giving carefully crafted politician style responses.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,248
    Sean_F said:

    The more news comes out about the Israel - Hamas war, the greater my feeling that Israel has license to do something generational.

    Some debate about what to call Hamas. They are the government of Gaza and a declaration of war has formally been made. Israel sees Hamas as terrorists and they are, but they are also a government - hence the declaration of war.

    Legally that makes it people combatants, not terrorists. Israel is therefore now under the international rules of war - as are Hamas. Whilst people are warning Israel not to act illegally, the same is now true of Hamas. And whilst Hamas combatants kidnap, rape and behead, and see martyrdom as a goal, there should be little objection to Israel's actions.

    Prisoners have rights in war. But not lunatics trying to kill everyone including themselves. Gaza's civilians need more consideration, but the enemy are hiding amongst and embedded within those civilians. As so many Israeli military leaders are saying, once you go in you have to assume that everyone is a combatant and every object a bomb - because in the past they have been. Self-defence is just and legal in war, even at individual level...

    The laws of war don’t apply for just declared wars. All armed conflict included.

    The original Hague convention was written with input from British officers who had served on the frontline in Afghanistan. It was designed to regulate non state and semi state groups from the beginning.

    Hama easily meet the test for being an organised party in the conflict - Command structure etc.
    I appreciate the broadening of my understanding! Either way, there are rules. Which Hamas are not remotely respecting.
    The curious thing is that suggesting the Laws of War should be used against non-state actors in the modern era hits a strange wall.

    I asked some activist lawyer types about prosecuting Begum as a war criminal (which she is). I was told the idea is appalling, disgusting etc. But they couldn't seem to explain why.
    That’s always struck me as strange also.

    If the Laws of Armed Conflict apply to States and those who serve them, then they should also to those non-State organisations that fight them.

    The very fact that they are not in uniform ought, of itself, to be treated as a war crime.
    Not wearing a uniform isn't a war crime, by itself. The methods of determining if you belong to a legitimate non-state group*, under the laws of war, exist. Even if they are necessarily vague at the edges and mean lots of $ for lawyers working it out.

    Hamas would meet the case - command structure etc - I think.

    *As opposed to armed criminals.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829

    Totally tarnishing the name of her father...

    Captain Tom ‘gave me profits’, says daughter
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/11/captain-sir-tom-moore-daughter-kept-money-from-books/

    Can't read, but from having read the Graun report earlier, surely that would have been resolved/documented in the probate and IHT process after the good Captain passed away. So not, in itself, a subject for complaint.
  • Cookie said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    Eabhal said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Uncle Barty always makes Warrington sound bloody awful, soulless identikit housing surrounded by motorways. I have been to Warrington, it’s not that bad in real life. At least not the bit I visited.

    Hmm, a look at TripAdvisor throws up cultural activities like Zombie Scavenger Hunts (not sure if the undead are doinf the scavenging or being eaten), though there is a nice looking trad municipal museum with mummy and paintings and dino and all. Okay. Walton Hall is No 1 Best Thing to Do in Warrington, and the Museum is No 3., but it 's a bit worrying that Gullivers World Theme Park is no 2 and an alpaca farm is no 4. Really trad Lanc culture that, of a part with parkin and faggot and so on. It thins out a bit later, No 105 being a bcobblestoned street, which at least doesn't take long to inspect.
    Of course people are mobile and via motorways you can get elsewhere within the NW within a very reasonable time too. Want to be in Liverpool, or Manchester, or Chester, or North Wales? All easily accessible.
    "Of course people are mobile [...] via motorways [...]".

    Lots of people don't have cars. As much reminded on here.
    Not a problem.

    There's these things called buses and coaches that can go on motorways for the small minority who have no access to private transport.

    Maybe you have heard of them before?
    Sadly, the cost of bus travel has increased even while fuel duty has been cut, punishing the disabled, poor and young.

    That's if the bus actually exists. 1,500 routes have been cut just since 2021. 10% of all services were cut in the last year. 50% since 2010.

    I extend a compromise - no new motorways until bus travel costs are cut to the same extent as fuel duty, and the number of services return to pre-2010 levels?
    The one all-day last service through this small town was recently re-routed. We can get to Stansted Airport on one bus. However, getting to either of the two local hospitals requires two buses. We used to be able to get a bus directly to one.

    Good morning to all. That’s a greeting, not a comment on the weather, grey and damp.
    Good morning too. On the contrary, for a change in Scotland the weather here is bright and sunny, if chilly at night - have had to put the heating on briefly in the morning and evening as it was otherwise too cold for comfort at the desk all day.
    Beautiful and Autumnal in South Manchester too.
    Off to Scotland in a week and a half (Dunkeld) - a few days like this would do very nicely.
    Anyway, looking back up this thread - Bart is being a tad obtuse. You COULD get tge bus from Warrington to Manchester or Liverpool or Chester, but 99% of people making those journeys by public transport would take the train, what with Warrington also having really good rail connections to those places.
    He is defending the road mode of transport which isn't outrageous - especially as he backs all of the other public transport stuff. He is right that we need to build more roads and that not everyone has the option to use a train or wants to make that choice if they do.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,348
    glw said:

    .

    FA unlikely to light Wembley arch with colours of Israel flag

    The Football Association is unlikely to light the Wembley arch in the colours of the Israel flag because of fears of a backlash from some communities.

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/67084936

    This is the problem, as some of us have warned, where sport insert yourself into issues time and time again, taking sides, you then are expected to do your virtue signalling for the next thing, and then you get yourself in a mess.

    The whole damn sport is now so blatantly corrupted by money and malign foreign influences that the idea that football can take a moral stance on anything is absurd. They should give up the pretence and stick to the entertaining and sportswashing.
    It’s like banks taking an “ethical” stance.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,991
    edited October 2023
    Carnyx said:

    Totally tarnishing the name of her father...

    Captain Tom ‘gave me profits’, says daughter
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/11/captain-sir-tom-moore-daughter-kept-money-from-books/

    Can't read, but from having read the Graun report earlier, surely that would have been resolved/documented in the probate and IHT process after the good Captain passed away. So not, in itself, a subject for complaint.
    I meant in general, her actions have been tarnishing it. Where ever there has been money to be made, there she is sucking money out and exploiting the story. Be it her consultancy business charging the charity or the crazy story of wanting a gym but planning permission might be tricky, so lets call the Sir Captain Tom Foundation wing.
  • It seems that the 'cost of living extremely well index', ie the inflation of very expensive luxury goods, has risen twice as fast as general consumer prices during the last 40 years:

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2023/oct/11/ai-revolution-is-coming-invest-handbags-lvmh-dior

    So if the extremely rich suffer higher than average inflation and the poor, as we're continually told, suffer higher than average inflation then there must be plenty of people in the middle ranks who have been enjoying lower than average inflation.
  • kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:


    "Aren't doing themselves any favours" is in no way the same as being in breach of the Broadcasting Code. Eldorado didn't do the BBC any favours, but wasn't in breach of anything.

    And Simpson's point clearly isn't that you "can't disapprove of decapitating babies". It's that you don't need to. You simply report what happened and the moral judgment is utterly obvious.

    Like I say, I'd not take the same editorial approach as the BBC on this one. But it is easily within allowed boundaries and there is no question whatsoever of a breach of due impartiality in this case, nor any other breach. The KCs know this.

    Simpson's problem is he hasn't always done this, he has engaged in the use of these terms before.....as have the BBC.

    In reality, we all know what is really going on, they are shit scared of upsetting a small group of people over a conflict that has gone on forever and no sign it will ever stop. Same with all the celebs keeping their heads down when they are normally super quick to have their I support the latest cause flag on their twitter pic. Some might suggest its cowardice.

    You only have to compare the usual I stand with Ukraine, France after Bataclan, etc etc etc, none are doing that for Israel.

    But the KCs writing to Ofcom is nonsense.
    This whole dare call it terrorism debate is misguided. It's not terrorism, it's war. To call it terrorism is an understatement.
    War criminals seems the best descriptor imo for the little its worth. But as per normal it is the self defined defenders of free speech who seem most put out by someone else using different words to those they would use themselves.
    I have very little care what words the BBC chooses to use. News reporting terminology is not a very big deal.

    However, the explanation of their editorial choice was clearly nonsense given past examples to the contrary, and that makes it more interesting. It reasonably invites further questions on their choices if it has not been their consistent position.

    So whilst going to OfCom etc is silly, I see no issue with people saying "you've used term x before without attribution despite saying that is not your policy: can you explain why?"

    I think FrancisUrquhart has it right that we know what is really going on, and the lack of consistency demonstrates that.
    It's editorial guidance.
    Clearly they will, from time to time, be inconsistent.
    I happen to disagree with their not using "terrorist" in this case - but I don't think it's particularly important.

    As for "we know what's going on", that's just projection. What is actually means is "I am convinced this is their particular motivation".
    Yes, because that's what the evidence is.

    Hamas are literally conducting the most vile terrorism and are legally on the proscribed terrorist list - but the Beeb won't call them terrorists despite using the word in other situations?

    There's no excuse for that, its pure prejudice.
    It's probably seen as being 'complicated' because Hamas claim they are a government. It'd be a bit like Sinn Fein being in power in Eire, whilst also openly running the IRA's campaign against the UK.

    I wonder if that makes Israel's position a little easier? If Hamas is just a terrorist group, Israeli attacks on Gaza might hit non-terrorists. If Hamas are the government, then it's a war. P'haps.

    But anyway, IMV Hamas are a government *and* terrorists...
    I think the duality does help Israel and it’s rhetorically useful for its more unequivocal supporters. Call Hamas a terrorist group (100% true) and this rebuts any equivalence between their actions and the actions of the Israeli military. It frames the conflict as a simple right vs wrong affair, a democratic state defending itself against the terrorists who have attacked it.

    At the same time call Hamas the government of Gaza (true and not true), then the terrorists become Palestinian forces and the enemy is now not just a terrorist group but a place and a people - Gaza and its population. This is who Israel is at war with. In which case it’s easier to try and justify the horror unleashed on them with things like WW2 comparisons.
    Except of course the world has moved on from WW2 - at least in terms of internationally understood legality. Many of the things done by the Allies in WW2 would now be clearly defined as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 'civilised' world of democracies and freedoms has tried to learn the lessons of WW2 and has put in place rules to limit what is considered acceptable. The constant use of WW2 as a reference point for attacks on civilians is as obsolete as claiming that the use of chemical weapons should be acceptable because we all used them in WW1.
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,005
    Didn't see this coming.

    Exclusive: Lisa Cameron has quit the SNP and joined the Tories because of 'toxic and bullying' treatment from colleagues.
    mol.im/a/12622289 via @MailOnline

    https://twitter.com/Mike_Blackley/status/1712377843303252286
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,348

    It seems that the 'cost of living extremely well index', ie the inflation of very expensive luxury goods, has risen twice as fast as general consumer prices during the last 40 years:

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2023/oct/11/ai-revolution-is-coming-invest-handbags-lvmh-dior

    So if the extremely rich suffer higher than average inflation and the poor, as we're continually told, suffer higher than average inflation then there must be plenty of people in the middle ranks who have been enjoying lower than average inflation.

    Private school fees and servant’s wages have outstripped inflation for years.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,248
    Sean_F said:

    glw said:

    .

    FA unlikely to light Wembley arch with colours of Israel flag

    The Football Association is unlikely to light the Wembley arch in the colours of the Israel flag because of fears of a backlash from some communities.

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/67084936

    This is the problem, as some of us have warned, where sport insert yourself into issues time and time again, taking sides, you then are expected to do your virtue signalling for the next thing, and then you get yourself in a mess.

    The whole damn sport is now so blatantly corrupted by money and malign foreign influences that the idea that football can take a moral stance on anything is absurd. They should give up the pretence and stick to the entertaining and sportswashing.
    It’s like banks taking an “ethical” stance.
    I've actually seen decisions in banks where they took a moral vs profit stance. For reputational reasons, of course.

  • darkage said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Uncle Barty always makes Warrington sound bloody awful, soulless identikit housing surrounded by motorways. I have been to Warrington, it’s not that bad in real life. At least not the bit I visited.

    Hmm, a look at TripAdvisor throws up cultural activities like Zombie Scavenger Hunts (not sure if the undead are doinf the scavenging or being eaten), though there is a nice looking trad municipal museum with mummy and paintings and dino and all. Okay. Walton Hall is No 1 Best Thing to Do in Warrington, and the Museum is No 3., but it 's a bit worrying that Gullivers World Theme Park is no 2 and an alpaca farm is no 4. Really trad Lanc culture that, of a part with parkin and faggot and so on. It thins out a bit later, No 105 being a bcobblestoned street, which at least doesn't take long to inspect.
    Of course people are mobile and via motorways you can get elsewhere within the NW within a very reasonable time too. Want to be in Liverpool, or Manchester, or Chester, or North Wales? All easily accessible.
    "Of course people are mobile [...] via motorways [...]".

    Lots of people don't have cars. As much reminded on here.
    Warrington is not a model that can be transposed on to more densely populated parts of the country, particularly not the south east. You can't just build 10 lane motorways through AONB's and National Parks, which is what would happen if you try and fulfil the demand for car use through building new roads, at some point you need to start reducing the demand for car use and developing other options (public transport) - something we realised about 30-40 years ago.

    Also the situation in Warrington and this part of the north west is a product of town planning, not something that has happened because town planning has been swept away. All the roads, infrastructure to go with the housing have to be planned and co-ordinated, along with policies that direct growth to certain areas. You don't just create it by throwing up a few motorways and letting people build wherever they want on vaguely defined zones. Even if you create a zonal system, like Japan and many other countries in Europe, it still has to be planned, it is just a slightly different type of planning.
    Yes. I haven't ever advocated anarchy, I advocate zonal planning. Which contrary to what @Richard_Tyndall keeps claiming is not what we have in this country.

    In a sensible zonal system, like Japan, you can build whatever you want subject without asking permission first if three conditions are met.

    1. You own the land (obviously)
    2. It is already zoned for housing.
    3. You build to building codes.

    Neighbours or Councils don't get a say if you want to demolish your home and rebuild it to something else as it's already zoned.

    Plan the public infrastructure absolutely. But the land zoned for housing is NOT the public infrastructure land. Leave that to fill in with whatever people want.
  • Sean_F said:

    The more news comes out about the Israel - Hamas war, the greater my feeling that Israel has license to do something generational.

    Some debate about what to call Hamas. They are the government of Gaza and a declaration of war has formally been made. Israel sees Hamas as terrorists and they are, but they are also a government - hence the declaration of war.

    Legally that makes it people combatants, not terrorists. Israel is therefore now under the international rules of war - as are Hamas. Whilst people are warning Israel not to act illegally, the same is now true of Hamas. And whilst Hamas combatants kidnap, rape and behead, and see martyrdom as a goal, there should be little objection to Israel's actions.

    Prisoners have rights in war. But not lunatics trying to kill everyone including themselves. Gaza's civilians need more consideration, but the enemy are hiding amongst and embedded within those civilians. As so many Israeli military leaders are saying, once you go in you have to assume that everyone is a combatant and every object a bomb - because in the past they have been. Self-defence is just and legal in war, even at individual level...

    The laws of war don’t apply for just declared wars. All armed conflict included.

    The original Hague convention was written with input from British officers who had served on the frontline in Afghanistan. It was designed to regulate non state and semi state groups from the beginning.

    Hama easily meet the test for being an organised party in the conflict - Command structure etc.
    I appreciate the broadening of my understanding! Either way, there are rules. Which Hamas are not remotely respecting.
    The curious thing is that suggesting the Laws of War should be used against non-state actors in the modern era hits a strange wall.

    I asked some activist lawyer types about prosecuting Begum as a war criminal (which she is). I was told the idea is appalling, disgusting etc. But they couldn't seem to explain why.
    That’s always struck me as strange also.

    If the Laws of Armed Conflict apply to States and those who serve them, then they should also to those non-State organisations that fight them.

    The very fact that they are not in uniform ought, of itself, to be treated as a war crime.
    That would make every resistance group in every occupied country in the world guilty of war crimes.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,908

    Totally tarnishing the name of her father...

    Captain Tom ‘gave me profits’, says daughter
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/11/captain-sir-tom-moore-daughter-kept-money-from-books/

    A perfect obituary for Johnson's 'Get Rich Quick while Covid lasts' government
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,188

    It seems that the 'cost of living extremely well index', ie the inflation of very expensive luxury goods, has risen twice as fast as general consumer prices during the last 40 years:

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2023/oct/11/ai-revolution-is-coming-invest-handbags-lvmh-dior

    So if the extremely rich suffer higher than average inflation and the poor, as we're continually told, suffer higher than average inflation then there must be plenty of people in the middle ranks who have been enjoying lower than average inflation.

    Aren't the middle ranks the most likely to cut back on non essentials ?

    The rich just see a bit less, and probably don't really truly notice their accounts accumulating or diminishing a bit less each month. The poor can't cut back on anything to begin with so the greatest variability in propensity for non essentials is probably the middle.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,248

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:


    "Aren't doing themselves any favours" is in no way the same as being in breach of the Broadcasting Code. Eldorado didn't do the BBC any favours, but wasn't in breach of anything.

    And Simpson's point clearly isn't that you "can't disapprove of decapitating babies". It's that you don't need to. You simply report what happened and the moral judgment is utterly obvious.

    Like I say, I'd not take the same editorial approach as the BBC on this one. But it is easily within allowed boundaries and there is no question whatsoever of a breach of due impartiality in this case, nor any other breach. The KCs know this.

    Simpson's problem is he hasn't always done this, he has engaged in the use of these terms before.....as have the BBC.

    In reality, we all know what is really going on, they are shit scared of upsetting a small group of people over a conflict that has gone on forever and no sign it will ever stop. Same with all the celebs keeping their heads down when they are normally super quick to have their I support the latest cause flag on their twitter pic. Some might suggest its cowardice.

    You only have to compare the usual I stand with Ukraine, France after Bataclan, etc etc etc, none are doing that for Israel.

    But the KCs writing to Ofcom is nonsense.
    This whole dare call it terrorism debate is misguided. It's not terrorism, it's war. To call it terrorism is an understatement.
    War criminals seems the best descriptor imo for the little its worth. But as per normal it is the self defined defenders of free speech who seem most put out by someone else using different words to those they would use themselves.
    I have very little care what words the BBC chooses to use. News reporting terminology is not a very big deal.

    However, the explanation of their editorial choice was clearly nonsense given past examples to the contrary, and that makes it more interesting. It reasonably invites further questions on their choices if it has not been their consistent position.

    So whilst going to OfCom etc is silly, I see no issue with people saying "you've used term x before without attribution despite saying that is not your policy: can you explain why?"

    I think FrancisUrquhart has it right that we know what is really going on, and the lack of consistency demonstrates that.
    It's editorial guidance.
    Clearly they will, from time to time, be inconsistent.
    I happen to disagree with their not using "terrorist" in this case - but I don't think it's particularly important.

    As for "we know what's going on", that's just projection. What is actually means is "I am convinced this is their particular motivation".
    Yes, because that's what the evidence is.

    Hamas are literally conducting the most vile terrorism and are legally on the proscribed terrorist list - but the Beeb won't call them terrorists despite using the word in other situations?

    There's no excuse for that, its pure prejudice.
    It's probably seen as being 'complicated' because Hamas claim they are a government. It'd be a bit like Sinn Fein being in power in Eire, whilst also openly running the IRA's campaign against the UK.

    I wonder if that makes Israel's position a little easier? If Hamas is just a terrorist group, Israeli attacks on Gaza might hit non-terrorists. If Hamas are the government, then it's a war. P'haps.

    But anyway, IMV Hamas are a government *and* terrorists...
    I think the duality does help Israel and it’s rhetorically useful for its more unequivocal supporters. Call Hamas a terrorist group (100% true) and this rebuts any equivalence between their actions and the actions of the Israeli military. It frames the conflict as a simple right vs wrong affair, a democratic state defending itself against the terrorists who have attacked it.

    At the same time call Hamas the government of Gaza (true and not true), then the terrorists become Palestinian forces and the enemy is now not just a terrorist group but a place and a people - Gaza and its population. This is who Israel is at war with. In which case it’s easier to try and justify the horror unleashed on them with things like WW2 comparisons.
    Except of course the world has moved on from WW2 - at least in terms of internationally understood legality. Many of the things done by the Allies in WW2 would now be clearly defined as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 'civilised' world of democracies and freedoms has tried to learn the lessons of WW2 and has put in place rules to limit what is considered acceptable. The constant use of WW2 as a reference point for attacks on civilians is as obsolete as claiming that the use of chemical weapons should be acceptable because we all used them in WW1.
    It was noticeable that chemical weapons weren't used against parties with the means of retaliation, in WWII

    The Japanese used them against the Chinese, I believe.
  • kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:


    "Aren't doing themselves any favours" is in no way the same as being in breach of the Broadcasting Code. Eldorado didn't do the BBC any favours, but wasn't in breach of anything.

    And Simpson's point clearly isn't that you "can't disapprove of decapitating babies". It's that you don't need to. You simply report what happened and the moral judgment is utterly obvious.

    Like I say, I'd not take the same editorial approach as the BBC on this one. But it is easily within allowed boundaries and there is no question whatsoever of a breach of due impartiality in this case, nor any other breach. The KCs know this.

    Simpson's problem is he hasn't always done this, he has engaged in the use of these terms before.....as have the BBC.

    In reality, we all know what is really going on, they are shit scared of upsetting a small group of people over a conflict that has gone on forever and no sign it will ever stop. Same with all the celebs keeping their heads down when they are normally super quick to have their I support the latest cause flag on their twitter pic. Some might suggest its cowardice.

    You only have to compare the usual I stand with Ukraine, France after Bataclan, etc etc etc, none are doing that for Israel.

    But the KCs writing to Ofcom is nonsense.
    This whole dare call it terrorism debate is misguided. It's not terrorism, it's war. To call it terrorism is an understatement.
    War criminals seems the best descriptor imo for the little its worth. But as per normal it is the self defined defenders of free speech who seem most put out by someone else using different words to those they would use themselves.
    I have very little care what words the BBC chooses to use. News reporting terminology is not a very big deal.

    However, the explanation of their editorial choice was clearly nonsense given past examples to the contrary, and that makes it more interesting. It reasonably invites further questions on their choices if it has not been their consistent position.

    So whilst going to OfCom etc is silly, I see no issue with people saying "you've used term x before without attribution despite saying that is not your policy: can you explain why?"

    I think FrancisUrquhart has it right that we know what is really going on, and the lack of consistency demonstrates that.
    It's editorial guidance.
    Clearly they will, from time to time, be inconsistent.
    I happen to disagree with their not using "terrorist" in this case - but I don't think it's particularly important.

    As for "we know what's going on", that's just projection. What is actually means is "I am convinced this is their particular motivation".
    Yes, because that's what the evidence is.

    Hamas are literally conducting the most vile terrorism and are legally on the proscribed terrorist list - but the Beeb won't call them terrorists despite using the word in other situations?

    There's no excuse for that, its pure prejudice.
    It's probably seen as being 'complicated' because Hamas claim they are a government. It'd be a bit like Sinn Fein being in power in Eire, whilst also openly running the IRA's campaign against the UK.

    I wonder if that makes Israel's position a little easier? If Hamas is just a terrorist group, Israeli attacks on Gaza might hit non-terrorists. If Hamas are the government, then it's a war. P'haps.

    But anyway, IMV Hamas are a government *and* terrorists...
    I think the duality does help Israel and it’s rhetorically useful for its more unequivocal supporters. Call Hamas a terrorist group (100% true) and this rebuts any equivalence between their actions and the actions of the Israeli military. It frames the conflict as a simple right vs wrong affair, a democratic state defending itself against the terrorists who have attacked it.

    At the same time call Hamas the government of Gaza (true and not true), then the terrorists become Palestinian forces and the enemy is now not just a terrorist group but a place and a people - Gaza and its population. This is who Israel is at war with. In which case it’s easier to try and justify the horror unleashed on them with things like WW2 comparisons.
    Except of course the world has moved on from WW2 - at least in terms of internationally understood legality. Many of the things done by the Allies in WW2 would now be clearly defined as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 'civilised' world of democracies and freedoms has tried to learn the lessons of WW2 and has put in place rules to limit what is considered acceptable. The constant use of WW2 as a reference point for attacks on civilians is as obsolete as claiming that the use of chemical weapons should be acceptable because we all used them in WW1.
    Last month over 100k Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh were forced out while the world did nothing.

    Previous to that Nagorno-Karabakh was blockaded for months with food, energy and medical supplies being stopped while the world did nothing.
  • Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Uncle Barty always makes Warrington sound bloody awful, soulless identikit housing surrounded by motorways. I have been to Warrington, it’s not that bad in real life. At least not the bit I visited.

    Hmm, a look at TripAdvisor throws up cultural activities like Zombie Scavenger Hunts (not sure if the undead are doinf the scavenging or being eaten), though there is a nice looking trad municipal museum with mummy and paintings and dino and all. Okay. Walton Hall is No 1 Best Thing to Do in Warrington, and the Museum is No 3., but it 's a bit worrying that Gullivers World Theme Park is no 2 and an alpaca farm is no 4. Really trad Lanc culture that, of a part with parkin and faggot and so on. It thins out a bit later, No 105 being a bcobblestoned street, which at least doesn't take long to inspect.
    Of course people are mobile and via motorways you can get elsewhere within the NW within a very reasonable time too. Want to be in Liverpool, or Manchester, or Chester, or North Wales? All easily accessible.
    "Of course people are mobile [...] via motorways [...]".

    Lots of people don't have cars. As much reminded on here.
    Not a problem.

    There's these things called buses and coaches that can go on motorways for the small minority who have no access to private transport.

    Maybe you have heard of them before?
    Some of us actually like to be able to access stuff on foot, you know. Not like ****ing LA without the sun.
    And some of us actually don't.

    Some of us actually want our home to be a quiet residential area with a street our children can play football or ride their bikes on, and a private back or front garden our kids can play on.

    So allow both. If people choose to go live in a compact city, I'm entirely fine with that. And if people choose to live in suburbia, I'm entirely fine with that too.

    We don't need one size fits all. Let people choose.

    PS people's demands can change too, and they can move as appropriate. As a student I loved living in a city, and going clubbing at night. My clubbing data are long behind me, I have no interest in that anymore. Now my family is what matters.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067

    biggles said:



    As I say, I am not a fan of the letter writing campaigns. Bit like the open letter to the papers nonsense we now get in every general election campaign.

    However, the BBC really aren't doing themselves any favours here. Not exactly hard for somebody in management to send a memo saying in this specific case, it is absolutely undeniable what it is.

    John Simpson looks a berk trying to say well "its a loaded term which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It's simply not the BBC's job to tell people who to support and who to condemn - who are the good guys and who are the bad guys"......"Our business is to present our audiences with the facts, and let them make up their own minds".

    If you can't disapprove of decapitating babies and call that terrorism, you have serious issues with your morality settings. I am reminded of the Mitchell and Webb sketch about the Nazi's, going maybe we are the bad guys....

    The real issue for me is the tone of “what Israel is GOING to do WILL be dreadful”. There’s a sense of breathless excitement about that. Will it? Well let’s judge it when it happens shall we?

    But then I’m old fashioned and find even the modern style of “today the PM WILL say XYZ” really annoying, I am forever shouting at the radio/TV saying “first let them speak and then let’s dissect it - ignore the advance press release”.

    And don’t get be started on the BBC online style of “X is a bastard - Y” as opposed to “Y says X is a bastard”. The former is the usual approach and I think implies BBC endorsement.
    The more serious issue than choice of words is selective reporting. I think the BBC is doing a pretty good job at reporting the horrors of the Hamas pogrom while also reporting the situation of civilians in Gaza. They are less good at reporting both sides where the UK has a strong position, e.g. Ukraine, or where the UK has lost interest altogether, e.g. much of Africa. They are, perhaps understandably, driven to some extent by what they feel many viewers will want to hear about, but it weakens their position as a provider of news from the entire world.
    What is it that you object to about their reporting in Ukraine, Nick ?

    (I'd agree with your point about Africa - though it's rather more that the UK has lost interest than the BBC itself.)
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,248

    Sean_F said:

    The more news comes out about the Israel - Hamas war, the greater my feeling that Israel has license to do something generational.

    Some debate about what to call Hamas. They are the government of Gaza and a declaration of war has formally been made. Israel sees Hamas as terrorists and they are, but they are also a government - hence the declaration of war.

    Legally that makes it people combatants, not terrorists. Israel is therefore now under the international rules of war - as are Hamas. Whilst people are warning Israel not to act illegally, the same is now true of Hamas. And whilst Hamas combatants kidnap, rape and behead, and see martyrdom as a goal, there should be little objection to Israel's actions.

    Prisoners have rights in war. But not lunatics trying to kill everyone including themselves. Gaza's civilians need more consideration, but the enemy are hiding amongst and embedded within those civilians. As so many Israeli military leaders are saying, once you go in you have to assume that everyone is a combatant and every object a bomb - because in the past they have been. Self-defence is just and legal in war, even at individual level...

    The laws of war don’t apply for just declared wars. All armed conflict included.

    The original Hague convention was written with input from British officers who had served on the frontline in Afghanistan. It was designed to regulate non state and semi state groups from the beginning.

    Hama easily meet the test for being an organised party in the conflict - Command structure etc.
    I appreciate the broadening of my understanding! Either way, there are rules. Which Hamas are not remotely respecting.
    The curious thing is that suggesting the Laws of War should be used against non-state actors in the modern era hits a strange wall.

    I asked some activist lawyer types about prosecuting Begum as a war criminal (which she is). I was told the idea is appalling, disgusting etc. But they couldn't seem to explain why.
    That’s always struck me as strange also.

    If the Laws of Armed Conflict apply to States and those who serve them, then they should also to those non-State organisations that fight them.

    The very fact that they are not in uniform ought, of itself, to be treated as a war crime.
    That would make every resistance group in every occupied country in the world guilty of war crimes.
    And which is why the Laws of War, quite specifically, don't do that.

    See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Geneva_Convention - Article 3 and 4 especially.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,792

    Cookie said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    Eabhal said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Uncle Barty always makes Warrington sound bloody awful, soulless identikit housing surrounded by motorways. I have been to Warrington, it’s not that bad in real life. At least not the bit I visited.

    Hmm, a look at TripAdvisor throws up cultural activities like Zombie Scavenger Hunts (not sure if the undead are doinf the scavenging or being eaten), though there is a nice looking trad municipal museum with mummy and paintings and dino and all. Okay. Walton Hall is No 1 Best Thing to Do in Warrington, and the Museum is No 3., but it 's a bit worrying that Gullivers World Theme Park is no 2 and an alpaca farm is no 4. Really trad Lanc culture that, of a part with parkin and faggot and so on. It thins out a bit later, No 105 being a bcobblestoned street, which at least doesn't take long to inspect.
    Of course people are mobile and via motorways you can get elsewhere within the NW within a very reasonable time too. Want to be in Liverpool, or Manchester, or Chester, or North Wales? All easily accessible.
    "Of course people are mobile [...] via motorways [...]".

    Lots of people don't have cars. As much reminded on here.
    Not a problem.

    There's these things called buses and coaches that can go on motorways for the small minority who have no access to private transport.

    Maybe you have heard of them before?
    Sadly, the cost of bus travel has increased even while fuel duty has been cut, punishing the disabled, poor and young.

    That's if the bus actually exists. 1,500 routes have been cut just since 2021. 10% of all services were cut in the last year. 50% since 2010.

    I extend a compromise - no new motorways until bus travel costs are cut to the same extent as fuel duty, and the number of services return to pre-2010 levels?
    The one all-day last service through this small town was recently re-routed. We can get to Stansted Airport on one bus. However, getting to either of the two local hospitals requires two buses. We used to be able to get a bus directly to one.

    Good morning to all. That’s a greeting, not a comment on the weather, grey and damp.
    Good morning too. On the contrary, for a change in Scotland the weather here is bright and sunny, if chilly at night - have had to put the heating on briefly in the morning and evening as it was otherwise too cold for comfort at the desk all day.
    Beautiful and Autumnal in South Manchester too.
    Off to Scotland in a week and a half (Dunkeld) - a few days like this would do very nicely.
    Anyway, looking back up this thread - Bart is being a tad obtuse. You COULD get tge bus from Warrington to Manchester or Liverpool or Chester, but 99% of people making those journeys by public transport would take the train, what with Warrington also having really good rail connections to those places.
    He is defending the road mode of transport which isn't outrageous - especially as he backs all of the other public transport stuff. He is right that we need to build more roads and that not everyone has the option to use a train or wants to make that choice if they do.
    Yes, fair enough, sort of. But if you want to get from Warrington to Manchester by public transport - which many people do - you get the train.

    If I can throw in my two pennorth on Warrington - it's fine. If the hand life had dealt me was living in Warrington, I don't think I'd complain. It's doing massively better than most of the other North West ex-industrial medium sized towns - Bolton, Wigan, Rochdale, St. Helens, Oldham, Ashton ... Bury and Stockport are also doing ok. Not sure why this should be so. Connectivity is part of it, but all these other towns have motorway connections too. Warrington (and Stockport) have better rail connectivity than most. I'd argue both rail and road links are important, but there is a bigger discrepancy between towns' quality of rail links. Though Bury doesn't even have heavy rail at all.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,424
    boulay said:

    The more news comes out about the Israel - Hamas war, the greater my feeling that Israel has license to do something generational.

    Some debate about what to call Hamas. They are the government of Gaza and a declaration of war has formally been made. Israel sees Hamas as terrorists and they are, but they are also a government - hence the declaration of war.

    Legally that makes it people combatants, not terrorists. Israel is therefore now under the international rules of war - as are Hamas. Whilst people are warning Israel not to act illegally, the same is now true of Hamas. And whilst Hamas combatants kidnap, rape and behead, and see martyrdom as a goal, there should be little objection to Israel's actions.

    Prisoners have rights in war. But not lunatics trying to kill everyone including themselves. Gaza's civilians need more consideration, but the enemy are hiding amongst and embedded within those civilians. As so many Israeli military leaders are saying, once you go in you have to assume that everyone is a combatant and every object a bomb - because in the past they have been. Self-defence is just and legal in war, even at individual level...

    Israel needs to ask itself whether doing what its enemy wants it to do is a wise course of action.
    Hamas wants Israel to smash Gaza and slaughter civilians. It thinks that way it wins a moral victory (though it is sacrificing its own people...). Problem for Hamas is that it is slaughtering, kidnapping, raping, beheading. In large numbers. There is a knee-jerk reaction from a decreasing few against Israel. The rest of the world looks on in horror and asks Israel how it can help.
    For now. But this is Israel's dilemma. That will change very quickly if the numbers of civilian dead in Gaza rise into the tens of thousands.
    I wonder if it makes sense for Israel to mass troops on the border (as they have) and declare that the blockade will continue until the Gazans hand over all members of Hamas in the territory. Send in regular snatch squads backed by the heavy support on the border and air cover to avoid Black Hawk Down situations where possible, and just keep that up until they feel they have gutted Hamas and importantly made the Gazans realise that they are going through hell because of Hamas and the sooner they get rid the sooner they can rebuild and the killing stops.

    Allow telephone networks to work and give out reporting lines so non Hamas Gazans can dob in Hamas people anonymously (and inevitably Hamas will try and draw in IDF to traps) and make Hamas paranoid to the point that some will flee rather than get whacked.

    Possibly the way to achieve a clean out of Hamas with the least civilian blood spilt.
    Many of Gaza’s families will, I would expect, have members who are ‘soldiers’ in Hamas.
    For the avoidance of doubt, that’s not to be read as support for Hamas. While initially I felt a lot of sympathy for Isreal…. I grew up with the full horror of the Holocaust becoming clear, it’s later become clear that the ordinary Palestinian has had a very rough deal indeed.
    I’ve often wondered, too, if ‘the ordinary Palestinian’ is descended from Jews who kept their heads down in Roman times and stayed.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,991
    edited October 2023

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:


    "Aren't doing themselves any favours" is in no way the same as being in breach of the Broadcasting Code. Eldorado didn't do the BBC any favours, but wasn't in breach of anything.

    And Simpson's point clearly isn't that you "can't disapprove of decapitating babies". It's that you don't need to. You simply report what happened and the moral judgment is utterly obvious.

    Like I say, I'd not take the same editorial approach as the BBC on this one. But it is easily within allowed boundaries and there is no question whatsoever of a breach of due impartiality in this case, nor any other breach. The KCs know this.

    Simpson's problem is he hasn't always done this, he has engaged in the use of these terms before.....as have the BBC.

    In reality, we all know what is really going on, they are shit scared of upsetting a small group of people over a conflict that has gone on forever and no sign it will ever stop. Same with all the celebs keeping their heads down when they are normally super quick to have their I support the latest cause flag on their twitter pic. Some might suggest its cowardice.

    You only have to compare the usual I stand with Ukraine, France after Bataclan, etc etc etc, none are doing that for Israel.

    But the KCs writing to Ofcom is nonsense.
    This whole dare call it terrorism debate is misguided. It's not terrorism, it's war. To call it terrorism is an understatement.
    War criminals seems the best descriptor imo for the little its worth. But as per normal it is the self defined defenders of free speech who seem most put out by someone else using different words to those they would use themselves.
    I have very little care what words the BBC chooses to use. News reporting terminology is not a very big deal.

    However, the explanation of their editorial choice was clearly nonsense given past examples to the contrary, and that makes it more interesting. It reasonably invites further questions on their choices if it has not been their consistent position.

    So whilst going to OfCom etc is silly, I see no issue with people saying "you've used term x before without attribution despite saying that is not your policy: can you explain why?"

    I think FrancisUrquhart has it right that we know what is really going on, and the lack of consistency demonstrates that.
    It's editorial guidance.
    Clearly they will, from time to time, be inconsistent.
    I happen to disagree with their not using "terrorist" in this case - but I don't think it's particularly important.

    As for "we know what's going on", that's just projection. What is actually means is "I am convinced this is their particular motivation".
    Yes, because that's what the evidence is.

    Hamas are literally conducting the most vile terrorism and are legally on the proscribed terrorist list - but the Beeb won't call them terrorists despite using the word in other situations?

    There's no excuse for that, its pure prejudice.
    It's probably seen as being 'complicated' because Hamas claim they are a government. It'd be a bit like Sinn Fein being in power in Eire, whilst also openly running the IRA's campaign against the UK.

    I wonder if that makes Israel's position a little easier? If Hamas is just a terrorist group, Israeli attacks on Gaza might hit non-terrorists. If Hamas are the government, then it's a war. P'haps.

    But anyway, IMV Hamas are a government *and* terrorists...
    I think the duality does help Israel and it’s rhetorically useful for its more unequivocal supporters. Call Hamas a terrorist group (100% true) and this rebuts any equivalence between their actions and the actions of the Israeli military. It frames the conflict as a simple right vs wrong affair, a democratic state defending itself against the terrorists who have attacked it.

    At the same time call Hamas the government of Gaza (true and not true), then the terrorists become Palestinian forces and the enemy is now not just a terrorist group but a place and a people - Gaza and its population. This is who Israel is at war with. In which case it’s easier to try and justify the horror unleashed on them with things like WW2 comparisons.
    Except of course the world has moved on from WW2 - at least in terms of internationally understood legality. Many of the things done by the Allies in WW2 would now be clearly defined as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 'civilised' world of democracies and freedoms has tried to learn the lessons of WW2 and has put in place rules to limit what is considered acceptable. The constant use of WW2 as a reference point for attacks on civilians is as obsolete as claiming that the use of chemical weapons should be acceptable because we all used them in WW1.
    It was noticeable that chemical weapons weren't used against parties with the means of retaliation, in WWII

    The Japanese used them against the Chinese, I believe.
    I don't know if you heard the story of German's use of chemical weapons in WWI....

    One Mr Fritz Haber played a major role in the development and deploy of them, in fact he was a vocal advocate for their use in WWI...that would be the same Fritz Haber who developed the Haber process i.e. allowed the mass production of synthetic nitrogen based fertiliser....and under his guidance the development of Zyklon, used for mass killing of his fellow Jews in WWII.
  • Energy bills could rise by £17 to stop firms going bust
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67087043
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:


    "Aren't doing themselves any favours" is in no way the same as being in breach of the Broadcasting Code. Eldorado didn't do the BBC any favours, but wasn't in breach of anything.

    And Simpson's point clearly isn't that you "can't disapprove of decapitating babies". It's that you don't need to. You simply report what happened and the moral judgment is utterly obvious.

    Like I say, I'd not take the same editorial approach as the BBC on this one. But it is easily within allowed boundaries and there is no question whatsoever of a breach of due impartiality in this case, nor any other breach. The KCs know this.

    Simpson's problem is he hasn't always done this, he has engaged in the use of these terms before.....as have the BBC.

    In reality, we all know what is really going on, they are shit scared of upsetting a small group of people over a conflict that has gone on forever and no sign it will ever stop. Same with all the celebs keeping their heads down when they are normally super quick to have their I support the latest cause flag on their twitter pic. Some might suggest its cowardice.

    You only have to compare the usual I stand with Ukraine, France after Bataclan, etc etc etc, none are doing that for Israel.

    But the KCs writing to Ofcom is nonsense.
    This whole dare call it terrorism debate is misguided. It's not terrorism, it's war. To call it terrorism is an understatement.
    War criminals seems the best descriptor imo for the little its worth. But as per normal it is the self defined defenders of free speech who seem most put out by someone else using different words to those they would use themselves.
    I have very little care what words the BBC chooses to use. News reporting terminology is not a very big deal.

    However, the explanation of their editorial choice was clearly nonsense given past examples to the contrary, and that makes it more interesting. It reasonably invites further questions on their choices if it has not been their consistent position.

    So whilst going to OfCom etc is silly, I see no issue with people saying "you've used term x before without attribution despite saying that is not your policy: can you explain why?"

    I think FrancisUrquhart has it right that we know what is really going on, and the lack of consistency demonstrates that.
    It's editorial guidance.
    Clearly they will, from time to time, be inconsistent.
    I happen to disagree with their not using "terrorist" in this case - but I don't think it's particularly important.

    As for "we know what's going on", that's just projection. What is actually means is "I am convinced this is their particular motivation".
    Yes, because that's what the evidence is.

    Hamas are literally conducting the most vile terrorism and are legally on the proscribed terrorist list - but the Beeb won't call them terrorists despite using the word in other situations?

    There's no excuse for that, its pure prejudice.
    It's probably seen as being 'complicated' because Hamas claim they are a government. It'd be a bit like Sinn Fein being in power in Eire, whilst also openly running the IRA's campaign against the UK.

    I wonder if that makes Israel's position a little easier? If Hamas is just a terrorist group, Israeli attacks on Gaza might hit non-terrorists. If Hamas are the government, then it's a war. P'haps.

    But anyway, IMV Hamas are a government *and* terrorists...
    I think the duality does help Israel and it’s rhetorically useful for its more unequivocal supporters. Call Hamas a terrorist group (100% true) and this rebuts any equivalence between their actions and the actions of the Israeli military. It frames the conflict as a simple right vs wrong affair, a democratic state defending itself against the terrorists who have attacked it.

    At the same time call Hamas the government of Gaza (true and not true), then the terrorists become Palestinian forces and the enemy is now not just a terrorist group but a place and a people - Gaza and its population. This is who Israel is at war with. In which case it’s easier to try and justify the horror unleashed on them with things like WW2 comparisons.
    Except of course the world has moved on from WW2 - at least in terms of internationally understood legality. Many of the things done by the Allies in WW2 would now be clearly defined as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 'civilised' world of democracies and freedoms has tried to learn the lessons of WW2 and has put in place rules to limit what is considered acceptable. The constant use of WW2 as a reference point for attacks on civilians is as obsolete as claiming that the use of chemical weapons should be acceptable because we all used them in WW1.
    Totally agree. It's a bad faith and spurious comparison. But it's doing the rounds.
  • kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:


    "Aren't doing themselves any favours" is in no way the same as being in breach of the Broadcasting Code. Eldorado didn't do the BBC any favours, but wasn't in breach of anything.

    And Simpson's point clearly isn't that you "can't disapprove of decapitating babies". It's that you don't need to. You simply report what happened and the moral judgment is utterly obvious.

    Like I say, I'd not take the same editorial approach as the BBC on this one. But it is easily within allowed boundaries and there is no question whatsoever of a breach of due impartiality in this case, nor any other breach. The KCs know this.

    Simpson's problem is he hasn't always done this, he has engaged in the use of these terms before.....as have the BBC.

    In reality, we all know what is really going on, they are shit scared of upsetting a small group of people over a conflict that has gone on forever and no sign it will ever stop. Same with all the celebs keeping their heads down when they are normally super quick to have their I support the latest cause flag on their twitter pic. Some might suggest its cowardice.

    You only have to compare the usual I stand with Ukraine, France after Bataclan, etc etc etc, none are doing that for Israel.

    But the KCs writing to Ofcom is nonsense.
    This whole dare call it terrorism debate is misguided. It's not terrorism, it's war. To call it terrorism is an understatement.
    War criminals seems the best descriptor imo for the little its worth. But as per normal it is the self defined defenders of free speech who seem most put out by someone else using different words to those they would use themselves.
    I have very little care what words the BBC chooses to use. News reporting terminology is not a very big deal.

    However, the explanation of their editorial choice was clearly nonsense given past examples to the contrary, and that makes it more interesting. It reasonably invites further questions on their choices if it has not been their consistent position.

    So whilst going to OfCom etc is silly, I see no issue with people saying "you've used term x before without attribution despite saying that is not your policy: can you explain why?"

    I think FrancisUrquhart has it right that we know what is really going on, and the lack of consistency demonstrates that.
    It's editorial guidance.
    Clearly they will, from time to time, be inconsistent.
    I happen to disagree with their not using "terrorist" in this case - but I don't think it's particularly important.

    As for "we know what's going on", that's just projection. What is actually means is "I am convinced this is their particular motivation".
    Yes, because that's what the evidence is.

    Hamas are literally conducting the most vile terrorism and are legally on the proscribed terrorist list - but the Beeb won't call them terrorists despite using the word in other situations?

    There's no excuse for that, its pure prejudice.
    It's probably seen as being 'complicated' because Hamas claim they are a government. It'd be a bit like Sinn Fein being in power in Eire, whilst also openly running the IRA's campaign against the UK.

    I wonder if that makes Israel's position a little easier? If Hamas is just a terrorist group, Israeli attacks on Gaza might hit non-terrorists. If Hamas are the government, then it's a war. P'haps.

    But anyway, IMV Hamas are a government *and* terrorists...
    I think the duality does help Israel and it’s rhetorically useful for its more unequivocal supporters. Call Hamas a terrorist group (100% true) and this rebuts any equivalence between their actions and the actions of the Israeli military. It frames the conflict as a simple right vs wrong affair, a democratic state defending itself against the terrorists who have attacked it.

    At the same time call Hamas the government of Gaza (true and not true), then the terrorists become Palestinian forces and the enemy is now not just a terrorist group but a place and a people - Gaza and its population. This is who Israel is at war with. In which case it’s easier to try and justify the horror unleashed on them with things like WW2 comparisons.
    Except of course the world has moved on from WW2 - at least in terms of internationally understood legality. Many of the things done by the Allies in WW2 would now be clearly defined as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 'civilised' world of democracies and freedoms has tried to learn the lessons of WW2 and has put in place rules to limit what is considered acceptable. The constant use of WW2 as a reference point for attacks on civilians is as obsolete as claiming that the use of chemical weapons should be acceptable because we all used them in WW1.
    Last month over 100k Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh were forced out while the world did nothing.

    Previous to that Nagorno-Karabakh was blockaded for months with food, energy and medical supplies being stopped while the world did nothing.
    Yep and those were crimes in my eyes and I assume yours. But that is a classic case of what-aboutism. Do we use the argument that because one crime is commited and not successfully prosecuted, all other similar crimes should be ignored?
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,647

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Uncle Barty always makes Warrington sound bloody awful, soulless identikit housing surrounded by motorways. I have been to Warrington, it’s not that bad in real life. At least not the bit I visited.

    Hmm, a look at TripAdvisor throws up cultural activities like Zombie Scavenger Hunts (not sure if the undead are doinf the scavenging or being eaten), though there is a nice looking trad municipal museum with mummy and paintings and dino and all. Okay. Walton Hall is No 1 Best Thing to Do in Warrington, and the Museum is No 3., but it 's a bit worrying that Gullivers World Theme Park is no 2 and an alpaca farm is no 4. Really trad Lanc culture that, of a part with parkin and faggot and so on. It thins out a bit later, No 105 being a bcobblestoned street, which at least doesn't take long to inspect.
    Of course people are mobile and via motorways you can get elsewhere within the NW within a very reasonable time too. Want to be in Liverpool, or Manchester, or Chester, or North Wales? All easily accessible.
    "Of course people are mobile [...] via motorways [...]".

    Lots of people don't have cars. As much reminded on here.
    Not a problem.

    There's these things called buses and coaches that can go on motorways for the small minority who have no access to private transport.

    Maybe you have heard of them before?
    Some of us actually like to be able to access stuff on foot, you know. Not like ****ing LA without the sun.
    And some of us actually don't.

    Some of us actually want our home to be a quiet residential area with a street our children can play football or ride their bikes on, and a private back or front garden our kids can play on.

    So allow both. If people choose to go live in a compact city, I'm entirely fine with that. And if people choose to live in suburbia, I'm entirely fine with that too.

    We don't need one size fits all. Let people choose.

    PS people's demands can change too, and they can move as appropriate. As a student I loved living in a city, and going clubbing at night. My clubbing data are long behind me, I have no interest in that anymore. Now my family is what matters.
    Are you ok? That sounds remarkably like an LTN.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,376

    The more news comes out about the Israel - Hamas war, the greater my feeling that Israel has license to do something generational.

    Some debate about what to call Hamas. They are the government of Gaza and a declaration of war has formally been made. Israel sees Hamas as terrorists and they are, but they are also a government - hence the declaration of war.

    Legally that makes it people combatants, not terrorists. Israel is therefore now under the international rules of war - as are Hamas. Whilst people are warning Israel not to act illegally, the same is now true of Hamas. And whilst Hamas combatants kidnap, rape and behead, and see martyrdom as a goal, there should be little objection to Israel's actions.

    Prisoners have rights in war. But not lunatics trying to kill everyone including themselves. Gaza's civilians need more consideration, but the enemy are hiding amongst and embedded within those civilians. As so many Israeli military leaders are saying, once you go in you have to assume that everyone is a combatant and every object a bomb - because in the past they have been. Self-defence is just and legal in war, even at individual level...

    Wiping Gaza off the face of the earth could cost up to 2.3m lives.

    Whatever the rights and wrongs of doing so, that's a very big number. It might be appropriate in the present, but history will baulk at 2.3m dead.

    Having said that, Bibi has to do what's best for Bibi.
    Which is try to defer and avoid his domestic legal troubles.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829
    edited October 2023

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Uncle Barty always makes Warrington sound bloody awful, soulless identikit housing surrounded by motorways. I have been to Warrington, it’s not that bad in real life. At least not the bit I visited.

    Hmm, a look at TripAdvisor throws up cultural activities like Zombie Scavenger Hunts (not sure if the undead are doinf the scavenging or being eaten), though there is a nice looking trad municipal museum with mummy and paintings and dino and all. Okay. Walton Hall is No 1 Best Thing to Do in Warrington, and the Museum is No 3., but it 's a bit worrying that Gullivers World Theme Park is no 2 and an alpaca farm is no 4. Really trad Lanc culture that, of a part with parkin and faggot and so on. It thins out a bit later, No 105 being a bcobblestoned street, which at least doesn't take long to inspect.
    Of course people are mobile and via motorways you can get elsewhere within the NW within a very reasonable time too. Want to be in Liverpool, or Manchester, or Chester, or North Wales? All easily accessible.
    "Of course people are mobile [...] via motorways [...]".

    Lots of people don't have cars. As much reminded on here.
    Not a problem.

    There's these things called buses and coaches that can go on motorways for the small minority who have no access to private transport.

    Maybe you have heard of them before?
    Some of us actually like to be able to access stuff on foot, you know. Not like ****ing LA without the sun.
    And some of us actually don't.

    Some of us actually want our home to be a quiet residential area with a street our children can play football or ride their bikes on, and a private back or front garden our kids can play on.

    So allow both. If people choose to go live in a compact city, I'm entirely fine with that. And if people choose to live in suburbia, I'm entirely fine with that too.

    We don't need one size fits all. Let people choose.

    PS people's demands can change too, and they can move as appropriate. As a student I loved living in a city, and going clubbing at night. My clubbing data are long behind me, I have no interest in that anymore. Now my family is what matters.
    The discussion began with Leon's asseretion IIRC that Warrington was nothing but a wasteland of developer redbricj semis, or words to that effect, and I was slightly ironically exploring the degree to which that was true. In other words, what was there to do in the area? And was it true that as another poster reported, Warrington Railway Station (or in your case the sliproad to the motorway) was locally regarded as the best thing to see in the town, as being the way out? So I was looking at that aspect of it. if slightly sardonically. Not too bad at all, seen a lot worse - and even the alpacas etc. would be great for small children.

    To me, I live in "a quiet residential area with a street our children can play football or ride their bikes on, and a private back or front garden our kids can play on" and having some things to go and do locally without a car is very important to me. Library, shops, sports centre, countryside walks, etc.
  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Posts: 1,293
    AlistairM said:

    Didn't see this coming.

    Exclusive: Lisa Cameron has quit the SNP and joined the Tories because of 'toxic and bullying' treatment from colleagues.
    mol.im/a/12622289 via @MailOnline

    https://twitter.com/Mike_Blackley/status/1712377843303252286

    No by-election in East Kilbride, what a shame. Wonder if she approached Labour first and got turned down.
    Anyway it increases the chance of a SNP hold at the GE. I'm not sure SLAB will be able to cannibalise the SCON vote as effectively as they did in Rutherglen in if the incumbent MP is a Tory.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,348

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:


    "Aren't doing themselves any favours" is in no way the same as being in breach of the Broadcasting Code. Eldorado didn't do the BBC any favours, but wasn't in breach of anything.

    And Simpson's point clearly isn't that you "can't disapprove of decapitating babies". It's that you don't need to. You simply report what happened and the moral judgment is utterly obvious.

    Like I say, I'd not take the same editorial approach as the BBC on this one. But it is easily within allowed boundaries and there is no question whatsoever of a breach of due impartiality in this case, nor any other breach. The KCs know this.

    Simpson's problem is he hasn't always done this, he has engaged in the use of these terms before.....as have the BBC.

    In reality, we all know what is really going on, they are shit scared of upsetting a small group of people over a conflict that has gone on forever and no sign it will ever stop. Same with all the celebs keeping their heads down when they are normally super quick to have their I support the latest cause flag on their twitter pic. Some might suggest its cowardice.

    You only have to compare the usual I stand with Ukraine, France after Bataclan, etc etc etc, none are doing that for Israel.

    But the KCs writing to Ofcom is nonsense.
    This whole dare call it terrorism debate is misguided. It's not terrorism, it's war. To call it terrorism is an understatement.
    War criminals seems the best descriptor imo for the little its worth. But as per normal it is the self defined defenders of free speech who seem most put out by someone else using different words to those they would use themselves.
    I have very little care what words the BBC chooses to use. News reporting terminology is not a very big deal.

    However, the explanation of their editorial choice was clearly nonsense given past examples to the contrary, and that makes it more interesting. It reasonably invites further questions on their choices if it has not been their consistent position.

    So whilst going to OfCom etc is silly, I see no issue with people saying "you've used term x before without attribution despite saying that is not your policy: can you explain why?"

    I think FrancisUrquhart has it right that we know what is really going on, and the lack of consistency demonstrates that.
    It's editorial guidance.
    Clearly they will, from time to time, be inconsistent.
    I happen to disagree with their not using "terrorist" in this case - but I don't think it's particularly important.

    As for "we know what's going on", that's just projection. What is actually means is "I am convinced this is their particular motivation".
    Yes, because that's what the evidence is.

    Hamas are literally conducting the most vile terrorism and are legally on the proscribed terrorist list - but the Beeb won't call them terrorists despite using the word in other situations?

    There's no excuse for that, its pure prejudice.
    It's probably seen as being 'complicated' because Hamas claim they are a government. It'd be a bit like Sinn Fein being in power in Eire, whilst also openly running the IRA's campaign against the UK.

    I wonder if that makes Israel's position a little easier? If Hamas is just a terrorist group, Israeli attacks on Gaza might hit non-terrorists. If Hamas are the government, then it's a war. P'haps.

    But anyway, IMV Hamas are a government *and* terrorists...
    I think the duality does help Israel and it’s rhetorically useful for its more unequivocal supporters. Call Hamas a terrorist group (100% true) and this rebuts any equivalence between their actions and the actions of the Israeli military. It frames the conflict as a simple right vs wrong affair, a democratic state defending itself against the terrorists who have attacked it.

    At the same time call Hamas the government of Gaza (true and not true), then the terrorists become Palestinian forces and the enemy is now not just a terrorist group but a place and a people - Gaza and its population. This is who Israel is at war with. In which case it’s easier to try and justify the horror unleashed on them with things like WW2 comparisons.
    Except of course the world has moved on from WW2 - at least in terms of internationally understood legality. Many of the things done by the Allies in WW2 would now be clearly defined as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 'civilised' world of democracies and freedoms has tried to learn the lessons of WW2 and has put in place rules to limit what is considered acceptable. The constant use of WW2 as a reference point for attacks on civilians is as obsolete as claiming that the use of chemical weapons should be acceptable because we all used them in WW1.
    WW2 is seen as a very just war, which is why people refer back to it, and the German and Japanese leaders were unequivocally depraved.

    In some cases, like precision bombing, it is possible now, in a way that was not possible then, to limit harm to civilians. So, incendiary bombing gets treated as a war crime.

    When it comes to things like blockades of food and medicines, and ethnic cleansing, my own view is that if we faced an enemy as dangerous and depraved as the Axis, today, we’d pretty rapidly revert to such measures, if we had to. In fact, we’d resort to any measure necessary to win.

    Many of the Laws of Armed Conflict depend, in practice, upon reciprocity. If we faced enemies who routinely starved and tortured POW’s, carried out genocide, murdered medical workers, we’d become more brutal in response.
  • Energy bills could rise by £17 to stop firms going bust
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67087043

    They, especially the smaller poorly capitalisted ones will still go bust. The system and limited liability for companies encourages them to commit to below market value contracts and hope wholesale prices don't rise - if they don't then they make money, if not the losses get passed onto someone else. Not many details on the BBC page, but I suspect this goes to a fund to reduce the costs of going bust to other companies and ultimately customers of the other firms.

    Suppliers need to be properly capitalised to have enough shareholder risk to make this strategy unpalatable.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,376
    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    Eabhal said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Uncle Barty always makes Warrington sound bloody awful, soulless identikit housing surrounded by motorways. I have been to Warrington, it’s not that bad in real life. At least not the bit I visited.

    Hmm, a look at TripAdvisor throws up cultural activities like Zombie Scavenger Hunts (not sure if the undead are doinf the scavenging or being eaten), though there is a nice looking trad municipal museum with mummy and paintings and dino and all. Okay. Walton Hall is No 1 Best Thing to Do in Warrington, and the Museum is No 3., but it 's a bit worrying that Gullivers World Theme Park is no 2 and an alpaca farm is no 4. Really trad Lanc culture that, of a part with parkin and faggot and so on. It thins out a bit later, No 105 being a bcobblestoned street, which at least doesn't take long to inspect.
    Of course people are mobile and via motorways you can get elsewhere within the NW within a very reasonable time too. Want to be in Liverpool, or Manchester, or Chester, or North Wales? All easily accessible.
    "Of course people are mobile [...] via motorways [...]".

    Lots of people don't have cars. As much reminded on here.
    Not a problem.

    There's these things called buses and coaches that can go on motorways for the small minority who have no access to private transport.

    Maybe you have heard of them before?
    Sadly, the cost of bus travel has increased even while fuel duty has been cut, punishing the disabled, poor and young.

    That's if the bus actually exists. 1,500 routes have been cut just since 2021. 10% of all services were cut in the last year. 50% since 2010.

    I extend a compromise - no new motorways until bus travel costs are cut to the same extent as fuel duty, and the number of services return to pre-2010 levels?
    The one all-day last service through this small town was recently re-routed. We can get to Stansted Airport on one bus. However, getting to either of the two local hospitals requires two buses. We used to be able to get a bus directly to one.

    Good morning to all. That’s a greeting, not a comment on the weather, grey and damp.
    Good morning too. On the contrary, for a change in Scotland the weather here is bright and sunny, if chilly at night - have had to put the heating on briefly in the morning and evening as it was otherwise too cold for comfort at the desk all day.
    Beautiful and Autumnal in South Manchester too.
    Off to Scotland in a week and a half (Dunkeld) - a few days like this would do very nicely.
    Frost here in my part of Durham.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663

    Energy bills could rise by £17 to stop firms going bust
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67087043

    On how many levels is this totally insane? The concept, the amount, the reporting,...
  • Energy bills could rise by £17 to stop firms going bust
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67087043

    If that is 'a year' then I would almost welcome it given how big the recent rises have been.

    Of course I am being a bit facetious there.

    And why should firms not go bust? If you favour privatisation as I generally do then private companies going bust is what happens at times. The only proviso for that is that the Government should be able to step in and take over for essential services but no private company has a 'right' not to lose money.
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,747

    AlistairM said:

    Didn't see this coming.

    Exclusive: Lisa Cameron has quit the SNP and joined the Tories because of 'toxic and bullying' treatment from colleagues.
    mol.im/a/12622289 via @MailOnline

    https://twitter.com/Mike_Blackley/status/1712377843303252286

    No by-election in East Kilbride, what a shame. Wonder if she approached Labour first and got turned down.
    Anyway it increases the chance of a SNP hold at the GE. I'm not sure SLAB will be able to cannibalise the SCON vote as effectively as they did in Rutherglen in if the incumbent MP is a Tory.
    Its a very courageous decision. You have to live in Scotland to understand why.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829
    Taz said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    Eabhal said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Uncle Barty always makes Warrington sound bloody awful, soulless identikit housing surrounded by motorways. I have been to Warrington, it’s not that bad in real life. At least not the bit I visited.

    Hmm, a look at TripAdvisor throws up cultural activities like Zombie Scavenger Hunts (not sure if the undead are doinf the scavenging or being eaten), though there is a nice looking trad municipal museum with mummy and paintings and dino and all. Okay. Walton Hall is No 1 Best Thing to Do in Warrington, and the Museum is No 3., but it 's a bit worrying that Gullivers World Theme Park is no 2 and an alpaca farm is no 4. Really trad Lanc culture that, of a part with parkin and faggot and so on. It thins out a bit later, No 105 being a bcobblestoned street, which at least doesn't take long to inspect.
    Of course people are mobile and via motorways you can get elsewhere within the NW within a very reasonable time too. Want to be in Liverpool, or Manchester, or Chester, or North Wales? All easily accessible.
    "Of course people are mobile [...] via motorways [...]".

    Lots of people don't have cars. As much reminded on here.
    Not a problem.

    There's these things called buses and coaches that can go on motorways for the small minority who have no access to private transport.

    Maybe you have heard of them before?
    Sadly, the cost of bus travel has increased even while fuel duty has been cut, punishing the disabled, poor and young.

    That's if the bus actually exists. 1,500 routes have been cut just since 2021. 10% of all services were cut in the last year. 50% since 2010.

    I extend a compromise - no new motorways until bus travel costs are cut to the same extent as fuel duty, and the number of services return to pre-2010 levels?
    The one all-day last service through this small town was recently re-routed. We can get to Stansted Airport on one bus. However, getting to either of the two local hospitals requires two buses. We used to be able to get a bus directly to one.

    Good morning to all. That’s a greeting, not a comment on the weather, grey and damp.
    Good morning too. On the contrary, for a change in Scotland the weather here is bright and sunny, if chilly at night - have had to put the heating on briefly in the morning and evening as it was otherwise too cold for comfort at the desk all day.
    Beautiful and Autumnal in South Manchester too.
    Off to Scotland in a week and a half (Dunkeld) - a few days like this would do very nicely.
    Frost here in my part of Durham.
    Nearly had it last night - looks like radiation frost for the next two nights. So excuse to put off the patio and front steps repair work some more.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,067

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:


    "Aren't doing themselves any favours" is in no way the same as being in breach of the Broadcasting Code. Eldorado didn't do the BBC any favours, but wasn't in breach of anything.

    And Simpson's point clearly isn't that you "can't disapprove of decapitating babies". It's that you don't need to. You simply report what happened and the moral judgment is utterly obvious.

    Like I say, I'd not take the same editorial approach as the BBC on this one. But it is easily within allowed boundaries and there is no question whatsoever of a breach of due impartiality in this case, nor any other breach. The KCs know this.

    Simpson's problem is he hasn't always done this, he has engaged in the use of these terms before.....as have the BBC.

    In reality, we all know what is really going on, they are shit scared of upsetting a small group of people over a conflict that has gone on forever and no sign it will ever stop. Same with all the celebs keeping their heads down when they are normally super quick to have their I support the latest cause flag on their twitter pic. Some might suggest its cowardice.

    You only have to compare the usual I stand with Ukraine, France after Bataclan, etc etc etc, none are doing that for Israel.

    But the KCs writing to Ofcom is nonsense.
    This whole dare call it terrorism debate is misguided. It's not terrorism, it's war. To call it terrorism is an understatement.
    War criminals seems the best descriptor imo for the little its worth. But as per normal it is the self defined defenders of free speech who seem most put out by someone else using different words to those they would use themselves.
    I have very little care what words the BBC chooses to use. News reporting terminology is not a very big deal.

    However, the explanation of their editorial choice was clearly nonsense given past examples to the contrary, and that makes it more interesting. It reasonably invites further questions on their choices if it has not been their consistent position.

    So whilst going to OfCom etc is silly, I see no issue with people saying "you've used term x before without attribution despite saying that is not your policy: can you explain why?"

    I think FrancisUrquhart has it right that we know what is really going on, and the lack of consistency demonstrates that.
    It's editorial guidance.
    Clearly they will, from time to time, be inconsistent.
    I happen to disagree with their not using "terrorist" in this case - but I don't think it's particularly important.

    As for "we know what's going on", that's just projection. What is actually means is "I am convinced this is their particular motivation".
    Yes, because that's what the evidence is.

    Hamas are literally conducting the most vile terrorism and are legally on the proscribed terrorist list - but the Beeb won't call them terrorists despite using the word in other situations?

    There's no excuse for that, its pure prejudice.
    It's probably seen as being 'complicated' because Hamas claim they are a government. It'd be a bit like Sinn Fein being in power in Eire, whilst also openly running the IRA's campaign against the UK.

    I wonder if that makes Israel's position a little easier? If Hamas is just a terrorist group, Israeli attacks on Gaza might hit non-terrorists. If Hamas are the government, then it's a war. P'haps.

    But anyway, IMV Hamas are a government *and* terrorists...
    I think the duality does help Israel and it’s rhetorically useful for its more unequivocal supporters. Call Hamas a terrorist group (100% true) and this rebuts any equivalence between their actions and the actions of the Israeli military. It frames the conflict as a simple right vs wrong affair, a democratic state defending itself against the terrorists who have attacked it.

    At the same time call Hamas the government of Gaza (true and not true), then the terrorists become Palestinian forces and the enemy is now not just a terrorist group but a place and a people - Gaza and its population. This is who Israel is at war with. In which case it’s easier to try and justify the horror unleashed on them with things like WW2 comparisons.
    Except of course the world has moved on from WW2 - at least in terms of internationally understood legality. Many of the things done by the Allies in WW2 would now be clearly defined as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 'civilised' world of democracies and freedoms has tried to learn the lessons of WW2 and has put in place rules to limit what is considered acceptable. The constant use of WW2 as a reference point for attacks on civilians is as obsolete as claiming that the use of chemical weapons should be acceptable because we all used them in WW1.
    It was noticeable that chemical weapons weren't used against parties with the means of retaliation, in WWII

    The Japanese used them against the Chinese, I believe.
    I don't know if you heard the story of German's use of chemical weapons in WWI....

    One Mr Fritz Haber played a major role in the development and deploy of them, in fact he was a vocal advocate for their use in WWI...
    He wasn't the only Nobel laureate involved.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber#World_War_I
    ..In addition to leading the teams developing chlorine gas and other deadly gases for use in trench warfare, Haber was on hand personally when it was first released by the German military at the Second Battle of Ypres (22 April to 25 May 1915) in Belgium. The team Haber assembled consisted of more than 150 scientists and 1300 technical personnel. Haber also helped to develop gas masks with adsorbent filters which could protect against such weapons.

    A special troop was formed for gas warfare (Pioneer Regiments 35 and 36) under the command of Otto Peterson, with Haber and Friedrich Kerschbaum as advisors. Haber actively recruited physicists, chemists, and other scientists to be transferred to the unit. Future Nobel laureates James Franck, Gustav Hertz, and Otto Hahn served as gas troops in Haber's unit...
  • Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:


    "Aren't doing themselves any favours" is in no way the same as being in breach of the Broadcasting Code. Eldorado didn't do the BBC any favours, but wasn't in breach of anything.

    And Simpson's point clearly isn't that you "can't disapprove of decapitating babies". It's that you don't need to. You simply report what happened and the moral judgment is utterly obvious.

    Like I say, I'd not take the same editorial approach as the BBC on this one. But it is easily within allowed boundaries and there is no question whatsoever of a breach of due impartiality in this case, nor any other breach. The KCs know this.

    Simpson's problem is he hasn't always done this, he has engaged in the use of these terms before.....as have the BBC.

    In reality, we all know what is really going on, they are shit scared of upsetting a small group of people over a conflict that has gone on forever and no sign it will ever stop. Same with all the celebs keeping their heads down when they are normally super quick to have their I support the latest cause flag on their twitter pic. Some might suggest its cowardice.

    You only have to compare the usual I stand with Ukraine, France after Bataclan, etc etc etc, none are doing that for Israel.

    But the KCs writing to Ofcom is nonsense.
    This whole dare call it terrorism debate is misguided. It's not terrorism, it's war. To call it terrorism is an understatement.
    War criminals seems the best descriptor imo for the little its worth. But as per normal it is the self defined defenders of free speech who seem most put out by someone else using different words to those they would use themselves.
    I have very little care what words the BBC chooses to use. News reporting terminology is not a very big deal.

    However, the explanation of their editorial choice was clearly nonsense given past examples to the contrary, and that makes it more interesting. It reasonably invites further questions on their choices if it has not been their consistent position.

    So whilst going to OfCom etc is silly, I see no issue with people saying "you've used term x before without attribution despite saying that is not your policy: can you explain why?"

    I think FrancisUrquhart has it right that we know what is really going on, and the lack of consistency demonstrates that.
    It's editorial guidance.
    Clearly they will, from time to time, be inconsistent.
    I happen to disagree with their not using "terrorist" in this case - but I don't think it's particularly important.

    As for "we know what's going on", that's just projection. What is actually means is "I am convinced this is their particular motivation".
    Yes, because that's what the evidence is.

    Hamas are literally conducting the most vile terrorism and are legally on the proscribed terrorist list - but the Beeb won't call them terrorists despite using the word in other situations?

    There's no excuse for that, its pure prejudice.
    It's probably seen as being 'complicated' because Hamas claim they are a government. It'd be a bit like Sinn Fein being in power in Eire, whilst also openly running the IRA's campaign against the UK.

    I wonder if that makes Israel's position a little easier? If Hamas is just a terrorist group, Israeli attacks on Gaza might hit non-terrorists. If Hamas are the government, then it's a war. P'haps.

    But anyway, IMV Hamas are a government *and* terrorists...
    I think the duality does help Israel and it’s rhetorically useful for its more unequivocal supporters. Call Hamas a terrorist group (100% true) and this rebuts any equivalence between their actions and the actions of the Israeli military. It frames the conflict as a simple right vs wrong affair, a democratic state defending itself against the terrorists who have attacked it.

    At the same time call Hamas the government of Gaza (true and not true), then the terrorists become Palestinian forces and the enemy is now not just a terrorist group but a place and a people - Gaza and its population. This is who Israel is at war with. In which case it’s easier to try and justify the horror unleashed on them with things like WW2 comparisons.
    Except of course the world has moved on from WW2 - at least in terms of internationally understood legality. Many of the things done by the Allies in WW2 would now be clearly defined as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 'civilised' world of democracies and freedoms has tried to learn the lessons of WW2 and has put in place rules to limit what is considered acceptable. The constant use of WW2 as a reference point for attacks on civilians is as obsolete as claiming that the use of chemical weapons should be acceptable because we all used them in WW1.
    WW2 is seen as a very just war, which is why people refer back to it, and the German and Japanese leaders were unequivocally depraved.

    In some cases, like precision bombing, it is possible now, in a way that was not possible then, to limit harm to civilians. So, incendiary bombing gets treated as a war crime.

    When it comes to things like blockades of food and medicines, and ethnic cleansing, my own view is that if we faced an enemy as dangerous and depraved as the Axis, today, we’d pretty rapidly revert to such measures, if we had to. In fact, we’d resort to any measure necessary to win.

    Many of the Laws of Armed Conflict depend, in practice, upon reciprocity. If we faced enemies who routinely starved and tortured POW’s, carried out genocide, murdered medical workers, we’d become more brutal in response.
    Except we did face enemies who did that and with very few exceptions we did not reciprocate.
  • Cookie said:

    Cookie said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    Eabhal said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Uncle Barty always makes Warrington sound bloody awful, soulless identikit housing surrounded by motorways. I have been to Warrington, it’s not that bad in real life. At least not the bit I visited.

    Hmm, a look at TripAdvisor throws up cultural activities like Zombie Scavenger Hunts (not sure if the undead are doinf the scavenging or being eaten), though there is a nice looking trad municipal museum with mummy and paintings and dino and all. Okay. Walton Hall is No 1 Best Thing to Do in Warrington, and the Museum is No 3., but it 's a bit worrying that Gullivers World Theme Park is no 2 and an alpaca farm is no 4. Really trad Lanc culture that, of a part with parkin and faggot and so on. It thins out a bit later, No 105 being a bcobblestoned street, which at least doesn't take long to inspect.
    Of course people are mobile and via motorways you can get elsewhere within the NW within a very reasonable time too. Want to be in Liverpool, or Manchester, or Chester, or North Wales? All easily accessible.
    "Of course people are mobile [...] via motorways [...]".

    Lots of people don't have cars. As much reminded on here.
    Not a problem.

    There's these things called buses and coaches that can go on motorways for the small minority who have no access to private transport.

    Maybe you have heard of them before?
    Sadly, the cost of bus travel has increased even while fuel duty has been cut, punishing the disabled, poor and young.

    That's if the bus actually exists. 1,500 routes have been cut just since 2021. 10% of all services were cut in the last year. 50% since 2010.

    I extend a compromise - no new motorways until bus travel costs are cut to the same extent as fuel duty, and the number of services return to pre-2010 levels?
    The one all-day last service through this small town was recently re-routed. We can get to Stansted Airport on one bus. However, getting to either of the two local hospitals requires two buses. We used to be able to get a bus directly to one.

    Good morning to all. That’s a greeting, not a comment on the weather, grey and damp.
    Good morning too. On the contrary, for a change in Scotland the weather here is bright and sunny, if chilly at night - have had to put the heating on briefly in the morning and evening as it was otherwise too cold for comfort at the desk all day.
    Beautiful and Autumnal in South Manchester too.
    Off to Scotland in a week and a half (Dunkeld) - a few days like this would do very nicely.
    Anyway, looking back up this thread - Bart is being a tad obtuse. You COULD get tge bus from Warrington to Manchester or Liverpool or Chester, but 99% of people making those journeys by public transport would take the train, what with Warrington also having really good rail connections to those places.
    He is defending the road mode of transport which isn't outrageous - especially as he backs all of the other public transport stuff. He is right that we need to build more roads and that not everyone has the option to use a train or wants to make that choice if they do.
    Yes, fair enough, sort of. But if you want to get from Warrington to Manchester by public transport - which many people do - you get the train.

    If I can throw in my two pennorth on Warrington - it's fine. If the hand life had dealt me was living in Warrington, I don't think I'd complain. It's doing massively better than most of the other North West ex-industrial medium sized towns - Bolton, Wigan, Rochdale, St. Helens, Oldham, Ashton ... Bury and Stockport are also doing ok. Not sure why this should be so. Connectivity is part of it, but all these other towns have motorway connections too. Warrington (and Stockport) have better rail connectivity than most. I'd argue both rail and road links are important, but there is a bigger discrepancy between towns' quality of rail links. Though Bury doesn't even have heavy rail at all.
    I can speak about Rochdale and observe a few of its neighbours.

    Rochdale has a train station up a big hill from the town centre, which always cut it off a little. Fast trains into Manchester help, the arrival of Metrolink makes for easier connections to Oldham and elsewhere.

    The issue with connectivity is that the town is built nestled in the foothills of the pennines and has a series of sub-towns - Heywood, Middleton, Littleborough etc - which are hard to interconnect because the road network is poor. I grew up at the Littleborough end and the place is swamped with new houses - literally.

    One primary road in and out with no ability to add infrastructure after the only possible place they could have built a new spine road was built over with a housing estate. Buses get stuck in the traffic jams. And the policy today? Build on the flood plains. Which are larger than before because of previous mad development which literally now floods the town centre when the weather is bad.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,248
    edited October 2023
    deleted
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    Pulpstar said:

    It seems that the 'cost of living extremely well index', ie the inflation of very expensive luxury goods, has risen twice as fast as general consumer prices during the last 40 years:

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2023/oct/11/ai-revolution-is-coming-invest-handbags-lvmh-dior

    So if the extremely rich suffer higher than average inflation and the poor, as we're continually told, suffer higher than average inflation then there must be plenty of people in the middle ranks who have been enjoying lower than average inflation.

    Aren't the middle ranks the most likely to cut back on non essentials ?

    The rich just see a bit less, and probably don't really truly notice their accounts accumulating or diminishing a bit less each month. The poor can't cut back on anything to begin with so the greatest variability in propensity for non essentials is probably the middle.
    Is there an argument for an additional band of VAT on luxury goods? Not something I like the idea of for various reasons but it could be justifiable if it raised a lot more than it cost.

    For example, Cars over a certain cost (for the sake of argument £100,000) incur the luxury VAt - if you want that Ferrari and can afford it then you aren’t going to be put off by an extra 5%. If an extra 5% means you are struggling to buy it then maybe it’s answering if you can really afford it.

    The same with, for example, handbags. People don’t “need” a £75,000 Mulberry handbag so if all handbags over £1,000 attract the extra 5% then good extra revenue that isn’t hitting the average or poor household.

    There are probably loads of things you can add this to without it being “unfair” whilst those who want to splash out can still do so, very expensive booze for example - someone who is struggling to pay £50 for a bottle of wine is going to struggle still to pay £52.50 and probably shouldn’t be paying £50 in the first place if it’s a struggle but those who can comfortably afford it won’t notice.

    It goes against my low tax principles but at least it’s only targeting those who really can afford it.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663

    It seems that the 'cost of living extremely well index', ie the inflation of very expensive luxury goods, has risen twice as fast as general consumer prices during the last 40 years:

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2023/oct/11/ai-revolution-is-coming-invest-handbags-lvmh-dior

    So if the extremely rich suffer higher than average inflation and the poor, as we're continually told, suffer higher than average inflation then there must be plenty of people in the middle ranks who have been enjoying lower than average inflation.

    Comprehension fail: that's not what this article is saying.

    Luxury goods have gone up by more than average inflation; the poor have suffered from higher than average inflation. Both statements are perfectly compatible.
  • kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:


    "Aren't doing themselves any favours" is in no way the same as being in breach of the Broadcasting Code. Eldorado didn't do the BBC any favours, but wasn't in breach of anything.

    And Simpson's point clearly isn't that you "can't disapprove of decapitating babies". It's that you don't need to. You simply report what happened and the moral judgment is utterly obvious.

    Like I say, I'd not take the same editorial approach as the BBC on this one. But it is easily within allowed boundaries and there is no question whatsoever of a breach of due impartiality in this case, nor any other breach. The KCs know this.

    Simpson's problem is he hasn't always done this, he has engaged in the use of these terms before.....as have the BBC.

    In reality, we all know what is really going on, they are shit scared of upsetting a small group of people over a conflict that has gone on forever and no sign it will ever stop. Same with all the celebs keeping their heads down when they are normally super quick to have their I support the latest cause flag on their twitter pic. Some might suggest its cowardice.

    You only have to compare the usual I stand with Ukraine, France after Bataclan, etc etc etc, none are doing that for Israel.

    But the KCs writing to Ofcom is nonsense.
    This whole dare call it terrorism debate is misguided. It's not terrorism, it's war. To call it terrorism is an understatement.
    War criminals seems the best descriptor imo for the little its worth. But as per normal it is the self defined defenders of free speech who seem most put out by someone else using different words to those they would use themselves.
    I have very little care what words the BBC chooses to use. News reporting terminology is not a very big deal.

    However, the explanation of their editorial choice was clearly nonsense given past examples to the contrary, and that makes it more interesting. It reasonably invites further questions on their choices if it has not been their consistent position.

    So whilst going to OfCom etc is silly, I see no issue with people saying "you've used term x before without attribution despite saying that is not your policy: can you explain why?"

    I think FrancisUrquhart has it right that we know what is really going on, and the lack of consistency demonstrates that.
    It's editorial guidance.
    Clearly they will, from time to time, be inconsistent.
    I happen to disagree with their not using "terrorist" in this case - but I don't think it's particularly important.

    As for "we know what's going on", that's just projection. What is actually means is "I am convinced this is their particular motivation".
    Yes, because that's what the evidence is.

    Hamas are literally conducting the most vile terrorism and are legally on the proscribed terrorist list - but the Beeb won't call them terrorists despite using the word in other situations?

    There's no excuse for that, its pure prejudice.
    It's probably seen as being 'complicated' because Hamas claim they are a government. It'd be a bit like Sinn Fein being in power in Eire, whilst also openly running the IRA's campaign against the UK.

    I wonder if that makes Israel's position a little easier? If Hamas is just a terrorist group, Israeli attacks on Gaza might hit non-terrorists. If Hamas are the government, then it's a war. P'haps.

    But anyway, IMV Hamas are a government *and* terrorists...
    I think the duality does help Israel and it’s rhetorically useful for its more unequivocal supporters. Call Hamas a terrorist group (100% true) and this rebuts any equivalence between their actions and the actions of the Israeli military. It frames the conflict as a simple right vs wrong affair, a democratic state defending itself against the terrorists who have attacked it.

    At the same time call Hamas the government of Gaza (true and not true), then the terrorists become Palestinian forces and the enemy is now not just a terrorist group but a place and a people - Gaza and its population. This is who Israel is at war with. In which case it’s easier to try and justify the horror unleashed on them with things like WW2 comparisons.
    Except of course the world has moved on from WW2 - at least in terms of internationally understood legality. Many of the things done by the Allies in WW2 would now be clearly defined as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 'civilised' world of democracies and freedoms has tried to learn the lessons of WW2 and has put in place rules to limit what is considered acceptable. The constant use of WW2 as a reference point for attacks on civilians is as obsolete as claiming that the use of chemical weapons should be acceptable because we all used them in WW1.
    Last month over 100k Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh were forced out while the world did nothing.

    Previous to that Nagorno-Karabakh was blockaded for months with food, energy and medical supplies being stopped while the world did nothing.
    Yep and those were crimes in my eyes and I assume yours. But that is a classic case of what-aboutism. Do we use the argument that because one crime is commited and not successfully prosecuted, all other similar crimes should be ignored?
    No, we accept there is a difference between what people on the internet say what the 'rules' are and what someone can get away with in reality.

    And just as Azerbaijan took a realistic decision on the cost/benefit of its ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh compared to the cost/benefit of the status quo then Israel will be doing likewise regarding Gaza.

    So people on the internet viewing Israeli actions as a war crime will be a definite cost to Israel but does it alter the cost/benefit equations enough ?
  • Sean_F said:

    The more news comes out about the Israel - Hamas war, the greater my feeling that Israel has license to do something generational.

    Some debate about what to call Hamas. They are the government of Gaza and a declaration of war has formally been made. Israel sees Hamas as terrorists and they are, but they are also a government - hence the declaration of war.

    Legally that makes it people combatants, not terrorists. Israel is therefore now under the international rules of war - as are Hamas. Whilst people are warning Israel not to act illegally, the same is now true of Hamas. And whilst Hamas combatants kidnap, rape and behead, and see martyrdom as a goal, there should be little objection to Israel's actions.

    Prisoners have rights in war. But not lunatics trying to kill everyone including themselves. Gaza's civilians need more consideration, but the enemy are hiding amongst and embedded within those civilians. As so many Israeli military leaders are saying, once you go in you have to assume that everyone is a combatant and every object a bomb - because in the past they have been. Self-defence is just and legal in war, even at individual level...

    The laws of war don’t apply for just declared wars. All armed conflict included.

    The original Hague convention was written with input from British officers who had served on the frontline in Afghanistan. It was designed to regulate non state and semi state groups from the beginning.

    Hama easily meet the test for being an organised party in the conflict - Command structure etc.
    I appreciate the broadening of my understanding! Either way, there are rules. Which Hamas are not remotely respecting.
    The curious thing is that suggesting the Laws of War should be used against non-state actors in the modern era hits a strange wall.

    I asked some activist lawyer types about prosecuting Begum as a war criminal (which she is). I was told the idea is appalling, disgusting etc. But they couldn't seem to explain why.
    That’s always struck me as strange also.

    If the Laws of Armed Conflict apply to States and those who serve them, then they should also to those non-State organisations that fight them.

    The very fact that they are not in uniform ought, of itself, to be treated as a war crime.
    That would make every resistance group in every occupied country in the world guilty of war crimes.
    And which is why the Laws of War, quite specifically, don't do that.

    See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Geneva_Convention - Article 3 and 4 especially.
    Indeed and rightly so.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,792

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    Uncle Barty always makes Warrington sound bloody awful, soulless identikit housing surrounded by motorways. I have been to Warrington, it’s not that bad in real life. At least not the bit I visited.

    Hmm, a look at TripAdvisor throws up cultural activities like Zombie Scavenger Hunts (not sure if the undead are doinf the scavenging or being eaten), though there is a nice looking trad municipal museum with mummy and paintings and dino and all. Okay. Walton Hall is No 1 Best Thing to Do in Warrington, and the Museum is No 3., but it 's a bit worrying that Gullivers World Theme Park is no 2 and an alpaca farm is no 4. Really trad Lanc culture that, of a part with parkin and faggot and so on. It thins out a bit later, No 105 being a bcobblestoned street, which at least doesn't take long to inspect.
    Of course people are mobile and via motorways you can get elsewhere within the NW within a very reasonable time too. Want to be in Liverpool, or Manchester, or Chester, or North Wales? All easily accessible.
    "Of course people are mobile [...] via motorways [...]".

    Lots of people don't have cars. As much reminded on here.
    Not a problem.

    There's these things called buses and coaches that can go on motorways for the small minority who have no access to private transport.

    Maybe you have heard of them before?
    Some of us actually like to be able to access stuff on foot, you know. Not like ****ing LA without the sun.
    And some of us actually don't.

    Some of us actually want our home to be a quiet residential area with a street our children can play football or ride their bikes on, and a private back or front garden our kids can play on.

    So allow both. If people choose to go live in a compact city, I'm entirely fine with that. And if people choose to live in suburbia, I'm entirely fine with that too.

    We don't need one size fits all. Let people choose.

    PS people's demands can change too, and they can move as appropriate. As a student I loved living in a city, and going clubbing at night. My clubbing data are long behind me, I have no interest in that anymore. Now my family is what matters.
    But - and I'm trying to tread carefully here, because you're being super-reasonable; I'm not saying you're wrong, just that my preferences are different - I'm probably at a similar life stage to you, and I value that my kids have access to all the opportunities an urban area affords them and that they can reach them without me having to ferry them there in a car - because we live in an area which is sufficiently high density to be able to support a good quality public transport offer. I would sacrifice a large garden for a good park close by. I would sacrifice 'quiet' for good quality public transport.
    If it were just me, I'd live in Windermere. I'd sacrifice accessibility to a city centre for accessibility to a national park, while still living in a functional town - albeit one offering far more than a town of that size normally would because of the tourism factor. And because the Lake District makes my heart sing with happiness. But I'm not sure it's the best place to bring up kids.

    Actually, what I most want - even more than accessibility - is to live somewhere which makes my heart sing with happiness. Some urban areas have that (Didsbury), some small towns do (Windermere), some villages do (Newton in Bowland); some do not (Cheetham Hill, Skelmersdale, No Man's Heath). But that leads on to arguments about architecture and urban design and so on.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,248

    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:


    "Aren't doing themselves any favours" is in no way the same as being in breach of the Broadcasting Code. Eldorado didn't do the BBC any favours, but wasn't in breach of anything.

    And Simpson's point clearly isn't that you "can't disapprove of decapitating babies". It's that you don't need to. You simply report what happened and the moral judgment is utterly obvious.

    Like I say, I'd not take the same editorial approach as the BBC on this one. But it is easily within allowed boundaries and there is no question whatsoever of a breach of due impartiality in this case, nor any other breach. The KCs know this.

    Simpson's problem is he hasn't always done this, he has engaged in the use of these terms before.....as have the BBC.

    In reality, we all know what is really going on, they are shit scared of upsetting a small group of people over a conflict that has gone on forever and no sign it will ever stop. Same with all the celebs keeping their heads down when they are normally super quick to have their I support the latest cause flag on their twitter pic. Some might suggest its cowardice.

    You only have to compare the usual I stand with Ukraine, France after Bataclan, etc etc etc, none are doing that for Israel.

    But the KCs writing to Ofcom is nonsense.
    This whole dare call it terrorism debate is misguided. It's not terrorism, it's war. To call it terrorism is an understatement.
    War criminals seems the best descriptor imo for the little its worth. But as per normal it is the self defined defenders of free speech who seem most put out by someone else using different words to those they would use themselves.
    I have very little care what words the BBC chooses to use. News reporting terminology is not a very big deal.

    However, the explanation of their editorial choice was clearly nonsense given past examples to the contrary, and that makes it more interesting. It reasonably invites further questions on their choices if it has not been their consistent position.

    So whilst going to OfCom etc is silly, I see no issue with people saying "you've used term x before without attribution despite saying that is not your policy: can you explain why?"

    I think FrancisUrquhart has it right that we know what is really going on, and the lack of consistency demonstrates that.
    It's editorial guidance.
    Clearly they will, from time to time, be inconsistent.
    I happen to disagree with their not using "terrorist" in this case - but I don't think it's particularly important.

    As for "we know what's going on", that's just projection. What is actually means is "I am convinced this is their particular motivation".
    Yes, because that's what the evidence is.

    Hamas are literally conducting the most vile terrorism and are legally on the proscribed terrorist list - but the Beeb won't call them terrorists despite using the word in other situations?

    There's no excuse for that, its pure prejudice.
    It's probably seen as being 'complicated' because Hamas claim they are a government. It'd be a bit like Sinn Fein being in power in Eire, whilst also openly running the IRA's campaign against the UK.

    I wonder if that makes Israel's position a little easier? If Hamas is just a terrorist group, Israeli attacks on Gaza might hit non-terrorists. If Hamas are the government, then it's a war. P'haps.

    But anyway, IMV Hamas are a government *and* terrorists...
    I think the duality does help Israel and it’s rhetorically useful for its more unequivocal supporters. Call Hamas a terrorist group (100% true) and this rebuts any equivalence between their actions and the actions of the Israeli military. It frames the conflict as a simple right vs wrong affair, a democratic state defending itself against the terrorists who have attacked it.

    At the same time call Hamas the government of Gaza (true and not true), then the terrorists become Palestinian forces and the enemy is now not just a terrorist group but a place and a people - Gaza and its population. This is who Israel is at war with. In which case it’s easier to try and justify the horror unleashed on them with things like WW2 comparisons.
    Except of course the world has moved on from WW2 - at least in terms of internationally understood legality. Many of the things done by the Allies in WW2 would now be clearly defined as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 'civilised' world of democracies and freedoms has tried to learn the lessons of WW2 and has put in place rules to limit what is considered acceptable. The constant use of WW2 as a reference point for attacks on civilians is as obsolete as claiming that the use of chemical weapons should be acceptable because we all used them in WW1.
    It was noticeable that chemical weapons weren't used against parties with the means of retaliation, in WWII

    The Japanese used them against the Chinese, I believe.
    I don't know if you heard the story of German's use of chemical weapons in WWI....

    One Mr Fritz Haber played a major role in the development and deploy of them, in fact he was a vocal advocate for their use in WWI...that would be the same Fritz Haber who developed the Haber process i.e. allowed the mass production of synthetic nitrogen based fertiliser....and under his guidance the development of Zyklon, used for mass killing of his fellow Jews in WWII.
    Yup - and his wife's suicide over the matter.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Immerwahr
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,188

    Energy bills could rise by £17 to stop firms going bust
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67087043

    On how many levels is this totally insane? The concept, the amount, the reporting,...
    The reporting should REALLY REALLY specify the time period in the headline. £17 a year is quite different to the £17 a month I was half expecting when I clicked the link.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663

    AlistairM said:

    Didn't see this coming.

    Exclusive: Lisa Cameron has quit the SNP and joined the Tories because of 'toxic and bullying' treatment from colleagues.
    mol.im/a/12622289 via @MailOnline

    https://twitter.com/Mike_Blackley/status/1712377843303252286

    No by-election in East Kilbride, what a shame. Wonder if she approached Labour first and got turned down.
    Anyway it increases the chance of a SNP hold at the GE. I'm not sure SLAB will be able to cannibalise the SCON vote as effectively as they did in Rutherglen in if the incumbent MP is a Tory.
    I am sure SLAB will be using it to their advantage: 'Vote SNP, get a Tory'.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155


    I have missed much of the conversation here due to work and other commitments the last few days, but I have continued to notice in the tv and print new media a sense that this many Israeli dead justifies whatever comes next. But never, never, has the same been said about the number of Palestinians killed as a justification for Palestinian or Hamas reaction. There is an implicit suggestion, always, that Israeli lives matter in a way that Palestinian lives do not - and it is that what causes some people to, wrongly, support Hamas in moments like this.

    The only way to stop the violence is for the state of Israel to stop corralling 2 million Palestinians into an open air prison in Gaza, and recognising that the oppression of the Palestinians is why Hamas have the power they do (as well as it being part of Netanyahu's strategy to weaken the possibility of a two state solution) . This is being published in Haaretz, and yet is somehow treated as unacceptable to discuss in the UK and US. When Owen Jones said this to Margaret Hodge on Sky News, he was told he was bringing up the same old issues, despite the fact that this violence didn't spring our of nowhere like Athena from the head of Zeus but has a root cause. The "free speech" Home Secretary wants people potentially arrested for flying the Palestinian flag - as if support for the Palestinian people is in and of itself support for Hamas. And no matter how many times people say that what Hamas did was morally indefensible, any time anyone tries to point out that it is materially understandable and arguably politically inevitable, they get told they are defending terrorists.

    Obviously none of our words spilled into the void matter. But if dead Israeli children are unacceptable - and it is unacceptable - so are dead Palestinian children. And yet every time I turn on the news someone is defending actions that were, rightly, called war crimes when done by Russia to Ukraine; or someone saying that violence against civilians is never acceptable, and that's why Israel must be allowed to defend itself by... targeting civilian areas of Gaza; that Israel has a right to exist, but really, why can't all 2 million Palestinians just move into Egypt or other nearby countries, as if the same decision that made Israel was not also supposed to create Palestinian states. It has been Israeli policy for years to "mow the grass" in Palestine - creating the sense of perpetual war - and yet it must be Hamas who is the sole wrongdoer in the conflict. Well, they aren't. Even after the atrocities last weekend and throughout this week, and they are atrocities, Israeli have also done atrocities and we need to recognise that. If we don't we're writing a blank cheque for wiping out every Palestinian.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/14/israel-gaza-history/
  • Energy bills could rise by £17 to stop firms going bust
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67087043

    Seizure of assets of directors of bankrupt energy firms might be a better safeguard.

    Limited liability for directors often means unlimited liability for taxpayers.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829
    edited October 2023
    boulay said:

    Pulpstar said:

    It seems that the 'cost of living extremely well index', ie the inflation of very expensive luxury goods, has risen twice as fast as general consumer prices during the last 40 years:

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2023/oct/11/ai-revolution-is-coming-invest-handbags-lvmh-dior

    So if the extremely rich suffer higher than average inflation and the poor, as we're continually told, suffer higher than average inflation then there must be plenty of people in the middle ranks who have been enjoying lower than average inflation.

    Aren't the middle ranks the most likely to cut back on non essentials ?

    The rich just see a bit less, and probably don't really truly notice their accounts accumulating or diminishing a bit less each month. The poor can't cut back on anything to begin with so the greatest variability in propensity for non essentials is probably the middle.
    Is there an argument for an additional band of VAT on luxury goods? Not something I like the idea of for various reasons but it could be justifiable if it raised a lot more than it cost.

    For example, Cars over a certain cost (for the sake of argument £100,000) incur the luxury VAt - if you want that Ferrari and can afford it then you aren’t going to be put off by an extra 5%. If an extra 5% means you are struggling to buy it then maybe it’s answering if you can really afford it.

    The same with, for example, handbags. People don’t “need” a £75,000 Mulberry handbag so if all handbags over £1,000 attract the extra 5% then good extra revenue that isn’t hitting the average or poor household.

    There are probably loads of things you can add this to without it being “unfair” whilst those who want to splash out can still do so, very expensive booze for example - someone who is struggling to pay £50 for a bottle of wine is going to struggle still to pay £52.50 and probably shouldn’t be paying £50 in the first place if it’s a struggle but those who can comfortably afford it won’t notice.

    It goes against my low tax principles but at least it’s only targeting those who really can afford it.
    Not unsympathetic but I recall the extra VAT on sailing in the 1970s as a luxury good etc - I was into sailing at the time but fortunately it didn't affect me personally in contrast to the yacht owners. Trouble was, if I recall rightly, it also cauight the teenagers buying sails for a Mirror dinghy and the middle class chap buying antifouling for his very un-luxury yacht. You'd need to structure things somehow, presumably by price, as you suggest.
  • kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:


    "Aren't doing themselves any favours" is in no way the same as being in breach of the Broadcasting Code. Eldorado didn't do the BBC any favours, but wasn't in breach of anything.

    And Simpson's point clearly isn't that you "can't disapprove of decapitating babies". It's that you don't need to. You simply report what happened and the moral judgment is utterly obvious.

    Like I say, I'd not take the same editorial approach as the BBC on this one. But it is easily within allowed boundaries and there is no question whatsoever of a breach of due impartiality in this case, nor any other breach. The KCs know this.

    Simpson's problem is he hasn't always done this, he has engaged in the use of these terms before.....as have the BBC.

    In reality, we all know what is really going on, they are shit scared of upsetting a small group of people over a conflict that has gone on forever and no sign it will ever stop. Same with all the celebs keeping their heads down when they are normally super quick to have their I support the latest cause flag on their twitter pic. Some might suggest its cowardice.

    You only have to compare the usual I stand with Ukraine, France after Bataclan, etc etc etc, none are doing that for Israel.

    But the KCs writing to Ofcom is nonsense.
    This whole dare call it terrorism debate is misguided. It's not terrorism, it's war. To call it terrorism is an understatement.
    War criminals seems the best descriptor imo for the little its worth. But as per normal it is the self defined defenders of free speech who seem most put out by someone else using different words to those they would use themselves.
    I have very little care what words the BBC chooses to use. News reporting terminology is not a very big deal.

    However, the explanation of their editorial choice was clearly nonsense given past examples to the contrary, and that makes it more interesting. It reasonably invites further questions on their choices if it has not been their consistent position.

    So whilst going to OfCom etc is silly, I see no issue with people saying "you've used term x before without attribution despite saying that is not your policy: can you explain why?"

    I think FrancisUrquhart has it right that we know what is really going on, and the lack of consistency demonstrates that.
    It's editorial guidance.
    Clearly they will, from time to time, be inconsistent.
    I happen to disagree with their not using "terrorist" in this case - but I don't think it's particularly important.

    As for "we know what's going on", that's just projection. What is actually means is "I am convinced this is their particular motivation".
    Yes, because that's what the evidence is.

    Hamas are literally conducting the most vile terrorism and are legally on the proscribed terrorist list - but the Beeb won't call them terrorists despite using the word in other situations?

    There's no excuse for that, its pure prejudice.
    It's probably seen as being 'complicated' because Hamas claim they are a government. It'd be a bit like Sinn Fein being in power in Eire, whilst also openly running the IRA's campaign against the UK.

    I wonder if that makes Israel's position a little easier? If Hamas is just a terrorist group, Israeli attacks on Gaza might hit non-terrorists. If Hamas are the government, then it's a war. P'haps.

    But anyway, IMV Hamas are a government *and* terrorists...
    I think the duality does help Israel and it’s rhetorically useful for its more unequivocal supporters. Call Hamas a terrorist group (100% true) and this rebuts any equivalence between their actions and the actions of the Israeli military. It frames the conflict as a simple right vs wrong affair, a democratic state defending itself against the terrorists who have attacked it.

    At the same time call Hamas the government of Gaza (true and not true), then the terrorists become Palestinian forces and the enemy is now not just a terrorist group but a place and a people - Gaza and its population. This is who Israel is at war with. In which case it’s easier to try and justify the horror unleashed on them with things like WW2 comparisons.
    Except of course the world has moved on from WW2 - at least in terms of internationally understood legality. Many of the things done by the Allies in WW2 would now be clearly defined as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 'civilised' world of democracies and freedoms has tried to learn the lessons of WW2 and has put in place rules to limit what is considered acceptable. The constant use of WW2 as a reference point for attacks on civilians is as obsolete as claiming that the use of chemical weapons should be acceptable because we all used them in WW1.
    Last month over 100k Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh were forced out while the world did nothing.

    Previous to that Nagorno-Karabakh was blockaded for months with food, energy and medical supplies being stopped while the world did nothing.
    Yep and those were crimes in my eyes and I assume yours. But that is a classic case of what-aboutism. Do we use the argument that because one crime is commited and not successfully prosecuted, all other similar crimes should be ignored?
    No, we accept there is a difference between what people on the internet say what the 'rules' are and what someone can get away with in reality.

    And just as Azerbaijan took a realistic decision on the cost/benefit of its ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh compared to the cost/benefit of the status quo then Israel will be doing likewise regarding Gaza.

    So people on the internet viewing Israeli actions as a war crime will be a definite cost to Israel but does it alter the cost/benefit equations enough ?
    Yes because, to specificly answer your cost/benefit question for a minute, whether we like it or not the world's eyes are on Israel and Gaza. And more importantly in the longer term Israel really does need to be able to normalise relations with its neighbours. Something it has been doing very slowly for a long time. Azerbaijan is (with the exception of Georgia) surrounded by countries that support its claims and really won't bat an eyelid whatever it does to the Armenians. That is Realpolitik. Israel needs the support of the West. Azerbaijan does not.

    This is all to put aside the basic legality and morality of the actions. I am referring specifically to your cost/benefit question.
  • 148grss said:



    I have missed much of the conversation here due to work and other commitments the last few days, but I have continued to notice in the tv and print new media a sense that this many Israeli dead justifies whatever comes next. But never, never, has the same been said about the number of Palestinians killed as a justification for Palestinian or Hamas reaction. There is an implicit suggestion, always, that Israeli lives matter in a way that Palestinian lives do not - and it is that what causes some people to, wrongly, support Hamas in moments like this.

    The only way to stop the violence is for the state of Israel to stop corralling 2 million Palestinians into an open air prison in Gaza, and recognising that the oppression of the Palestinians is why Hamas have the power they do (as well as it being part of Netanyahu's strategy to weaken the possibility of a two state solution) . This is being published in Haaretz, and yet is somehow treated as unacceptable to discuss in the UK and US. When Owen Jones said this to Margaret Hodge on Sky News, he was told he was bringing up the same old issues, despite the fact that this violence didn't spring our of nowhere like Athena from the head of Zeus but has a root cause. The "free speech" Home Secretary wants people potentially arrested for flying the Palestinian flag - as if support for the Palestinian people is in and of itself support for Hamas. And no matter how many times people say that what Hamas did was morally indefensible, any time anyone tries to point out that it is materially understandable and arguably politically inevitable, they get told they are defending terrorists.

    Obviously none of our words spilled into the void matter. But if dead Israeli children are unacceptable - and it is unacceptable - so are dead Palestinian children. And yet every time I turn on the news someone is defending actions that were, rightly, called war crimes when done by Russia to Ukraine; or someone saying that violence against civilians is never acceptable, and that's why Israel must be allowed to defend itself by... targeting civilian areas of Gaza; that Israel has a right to exist, but really, why can't all 2 million Palestinians just move into Egypt or other nearby countries, as if the same decision that made Israel was not also supposed to create Palestinian states. It has been Israeli policy for years to "mow the grass" in Palestine - creating the sense of perpetual war - and yet it must be Hamas who is the sole wrongdoer in the conflict. Well, they aren't. Even after the atrocities last weekend and throughout this week, and they are atrocities, Israeli have also done atrocities and we need to recognise that. If we don't we're writing a blank cheque for wiping out every Palestinian.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/14/israel-gaza-history/

    Terror is still terror regardless of who does it. And Gaza especially has been terrorised. But there is a rather basic problem - it elected terrorists as its government! I always say that you get what you vote for, and Gaza chose Hamas.
  • Energy bills could rise by £17 to stop firms going bust
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67087043

    Seizure of assets of directors of bankrupt energy firms might be a better safeguard.

    Limited liability for directors often means unlimited liability for taxpayers.
    We made a massive mistake as a country by not letting banks go bust in 2008. The Government should have protected deposits and put in place systems for the transfer of business to other banks but as far as the institutions themselves and their shareholders were concerned they should have been allowed to fail.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,188

    Energy bills could rise by £17 to stop firms going bust
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67087043

    Seizure of assets of directors of bankrupt energy firms might be a better safeguard.

    Limited liability for directors often means unlimited liability for taxpayers.
    We made a massive mistake as a country by not letting banks go bust in 2008. The Government should have protected deposits and put in place systems for the transfer of business to other banks but as far as the institutions themselves and their shareholders were concerned they should have been allowed to fail.
    Come on Richard, everyone knows Iceland became an uninhabitable wasteland after they did the very same back in 2008.
  • boulay said:

    Pulpstar said:

    It seems that the 'cost of living extremely well index', ie the inflation of very expensive luxury goods, has risen twice as fast as general consumer prices during the last 40 years:

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2023/oct/11/ai-revolution-is-coming-invest-handbags-lvmh-dior

    So if the extremely rich suffer higher than average inflation and the poor, as we're continually told, suffer higher than average inflation then there must be plenty of people in the middle ranks who have been enjoying lower than average inflation.

    Aren't the middle ranks the most likely to cut back on non essentials ?

    The rich just see a bit less, and probably don't really truly notice their accounts accumulating or diminishing a bit less each month. The poor can't cut back on anything to begin with so the greatest variability in propensity for non essentials is probably the middle.
    Is there an argument for an additional band of VAT on luxury goods? Not something I like the idea of for various reasons but it could be justifiable if it raised a lot more than it cost.

    For example, Cars over a certain cost (for the sake of argument £100,000) incur the luxury VAt - if you want that Ferrari and can afford it then you aren’t going to be put off by an extra 5%. If an extra 5% means you are struggling to buy it then maybe it’s answering if you can really afford it.

    The same with, for example, handbags. People don’t “need” a £75,000 Mulberry handbag so if all handbags over £1,000 attract the extra 5% then good extra revenue that isn’t hitting the average or poor household.

    There are probably loads of things you can add this to without it being “unfair” whilst those who want to splash out can still do so, very expensive booze for example - someone who is struggling to pay £50 for a bottle of wine is going to struggle still to pay £52.50 and probably shouldn’t be paying £50 in the first place if it’s a struggle but those who can comfortably afford it won’t notice.

    It goes against my low tax principles but at least it’s only targeting those who really can afford it.
    There did used to be a luxury rate of VAT. Mrs Thatcher's government inherited a standard VAT rate of 8 per cent and luxury rate of 12.5 per cent. Mrs Thatcher had pledged not to double VAT and kept her word because increasing VAT from 8 to 15 per cent is not quite double; let's say it was a political promise. The luxury rate was removed at the same time.

    When your putative luxury band is introduced, can we have the standard rate of 8 per cent back please?
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    Carnyx said:

    boulay said:

    Pulpstar said:

    It seems that the 'cost of living extremely well index', ie the inflation of very expensive luxury goods, has risen twice as fast as general consumer prices during the last 40 years:

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2023/oct/11/ai-revolution-is-coming-invest-handbags-lvmh-dior

    So if the extremely rich suffer higher than average inflation and the poor, as we're continually told, suffer higher than average inflation then there must be plenty of people in the middle ranks who have been enjoying lower than average inflation.

    Aren't the middle ranks the most likely to cut back on non essentials ?

    The rich just see a bit less, and probably don't really truly notice their accounts accumulating or diminishing a bit less each month. The poor can't cut back on anything to begin with so the greatest variability in propensity for non essentials is probably the middle.
    Is there an argument for an additional band of VAT on luxury goods? Not something I like the idea of for various reasons but it could be justifiable if it raised a lot more than it cost.

    For example, Cars over a certain cost (for the sake of argument £100,000) incur the luxury VAt - if you want that Ferrari and can afford it then you aren’t going to be put off by an extra 5%. If an extra 5% means you are struggling to buy it then maybe it’s answering if you can really afford it.

    The same with, for example, handbags. People don’t “need” a £75,000 Mulberry handbag so if all handbags over £1,000 attract the extra 5% then good extra revenue that isn’t hitting the average or poor household.

    There are probably loads of things you can add this to without it being “unfair” whilst those who want to splash out can still do so, very expensive booze for example - someone who is struggling to pay £50 for a bottle of wine is going to struggle still to pay £52.50 and probably shouldn’t be paying £50 in the first place if it’s a struggle but those who can comfortably afford it won’t notice.

    It goes against my low tax principles but at least it’s only targeting those who really can afford it.
    Not unsympathetic but I recall the extra VAT on sailing in the 1970s as a luxury good etc - I was into sailing at the time but fortunately it didn't affect me personally in contrast to the yacht owners. Trouble was, if I recall rightly, it also cauight the teenagers buying sails for a Mirror dinghy and the middle class chap buying antifouling for his very un-luxury yacht. You'd need to structure things somehow, presumably by price, as you suggest.
    I would try and keep it as simple as possible so the lux VAT would be on the boats themselves (exempt for working boats) so a mirror dingy isn’t going to fall into it but a 30 foot sun seeker certainly is.

    I know it’s simplistic but it’s about taxing things you really dont “need” but want and if you want it that much then great but if a 5% extra VaT means you can’t buy it then you probably couldn’t really afford it in the first place.

    Ideally if it raised enough it could be used to offset VAT on more essential items that would benefit poorer households.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663
    Pulpstar said:

    Energy bills could rise by £17 to stop firms going bust
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67087043

    On how many levels is this totally insane? The concept, the amount, the reporting,...
    The reporting should REALLY REALLY specify the time period in the headline. £17 a year is quite different to the £17 a month I was half expecting when I clicked the link.
    Is it a flat rate £17 or is that just what the mythical 'average bill' be charged?

    But more importantly, as Richard T points out, Why TF should we be bailing out energy companies? Are Centrica, EDF, EON, OVO, Scottish Power, all in danger of going bust?
  • 148grss said:



    I have missed much of the conversation here due to work and other commitments the last few days, but I have continued to notice in the tv and print new media a sense that this many Israeli dead justifies whatever comes next. But never, never, has the same been said about the number of Palestinians killed as a justification for Palestinian or Hamas reaction. There is an implicit suggestion, always, that Israeli lives matter in a way that Palestinian lives do not - and it is that what causes some people to, wrongly, support Hamas in moments like this.

    The only way to stop the violence is for the state of Israel to stop corralling 2 million Palestinians into an open air prison in Gaza, and recognising that the oppression of the Palestinians is why Hamas have the power they do (as well as it being part of Netanyahu's strategy to weaken the possibility of a two state solution) . This is being published in Haaretz, and yet is somehow treated as unacceptable to discuss in the UK and US. When Owen Jones said this to Margaret Hodge on Sky News, he was told he was bringing up the same old issues, despite the fact that this violence didn't spring our of nowhere like Athena from the head of Zeus but has a root cause. The "free speech" Home Secretary wants people potentially arrested for flying the Palestinian flag - as if support for the Palestinian people is in and of itself support for Hamas. And no matter how many times people say that what Hamas did was morally indefensible, any time anyone tries to point out that it is materially understandable and arguably politically inevitable, they get told they are defending terrorists.

    Obviously none of our words spilled into the void matter. But if dead Israeli children are unacceptable - and it is unacceptable - so are dead Palestinian children. And yet every time I turn on the news someone is defending actions that were, rightly, called war crimes when done by Russia to Ukraine; or someone saying that violence against civilians is never acceptable, and that's why Israel must be allowed to defend itself by... targeting civilian areas of Gaza; that Israel has a right to exist, but really, why can't all 2 million Palestinians just move into Egypt or other nearby countries, as if the same decision that made Israel was not also supposed to create Palestinian states. It has been Israeli policy for years to "mow the grass" in Palestine - creating the sense of perpetual war - and yet it must be Hamas who is the sole wrongdoer in the conflict. Well, they aren't. Even after the atrocities last weekend and throughout this week, and they are atrocities, Israeli have also done atrocities and we need to recognise that. If we don't we're writing a blank cheque for wiping out every Palestinian.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/14/israel-gaza-history/

    Terror is still terror regardless of who does it. And Gaza especially has been terrorised. But there is a rather basic problem - it elected terrorists as its government! I always say that you get what you vote for, and Gaza chose Hamas.
    That's what that nice Mr Putin says about Ukrainians electing the fascist, terrorist Zelensky government.
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,747

    AlistairM said:

    Didn't see this coming.

    Exclusive: Lisa Cameron has quit the SNP and joined the Tories because of 'toxic and bullying' treatment from colleagues.
    mol.im/a/12622289 via @MailOnline

    https://twitter.com/Mike_Blackley/status/1712377843303252286

    No by-election in East Kilbride, what a shame. Wonder if she approached Labour first and got turned down.
    Anyway it increases the chance of a SNP hold at the GE. I'm not sure SLAB will be able to cannibalise the SCON vote as effectively as they did in Rutherglen in if the incumbent MP is a Tory.
    I am sure SLAB will be using it to their advantage: 'Vote SNP, get a Tory'.
    I doubt very much that she will stand. She's a consultant clinical psychologist and will probably revert back to that. The sharp leftwards swing of SNP under Sturgeon and Yousaf is putting the party's coalition under stress. SLAB will win East Kilbride as they will slice through the Central Belt like a knife through butter. And the Tories will do rather better in their target areas than people may expect.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155

    148grss said:



    I have missed much of the conversation here due to work and other commitments the last few days, but I have continued to notice in the tv and print new media a sense that this many Israeli dead justifies whatever comes next. But never, never, has the same been said about the number of Palestinians killed as a justification for Palestinian or Hamas reaction. There is an implicit suggestion, always, that Israeli lives matter in a way that Palestinian lives do not - and it is that what causes some people to, wrongly, support Hamas in moments like this.

    The only way to stop the violence is for the state of Israel to stop corralling 2 million Palestinians into an open air prison in Gaza, and recognising that the oppression of the Palestinians is why Hamas have the power they do (as well as it being part of Netanyahu's strategy to weaken the possibility of a two state solution) . This is being published in Haaretz, and yet is somehow treated as unacceptable to discuss in the UK and US. When Owen Jones said this to Margaret Hodge on Sky News, he was told he was bringing up the same old issues, despite the fact that this violence didn't spring our of nowhere like Athena from the head of Zeus but has a root cause. The "free speech" Home Secretary wants people potentially arrested for flying the Palestinian flag - as if support for the Palestinian people is in and of itself support for Hamas. And no matter how many times people say that what Hamas did was morally indefensible, any time anyone tries to point out that it is materially understandable and arguably politically inevitable, they get told they are defending terrorists.

    Obviously none of our words spilled into the void matter. But if dead Israeli children are unacceptable - and it is unacceptable - so are dead Palestinian children. And yet every time I turn on the news someone is defending actions that were, rightly, called war crimes when done by Russia to Ukraine; or someone saying that violence against civilians is never acceptable, and that's why Israel must be allowed to defend itself by... targeting civilian areas of Gaza; that Israel has a right to exist, but really, why can't all 2 million Palestinians just move into Egypt or other nearby countries, as if the same decision that made Israel was not also supposed to create Palestinian states. It has been Israeli policy for years to "mow the grass" in Palestine - creating the sense of perpetual war - and yet it must be Hamas who is the sole wrongdoer in the conflict. Well, they aren't. Even after the atrocities last weekend and throughout this week, and they are atrocities, Israeli have also done atrocities and we need to recognise that. If we don't we're writing a blank cheque for wiping out every Palestinian.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/05/14/israel-gaza-history/

    Terror is still terror regardless of who does it. And Gaza especially has been terrorised. But there is a rather basic problem - it elected terrorists as its government! I always say that you get what you vote for, and Gaza chose Hamas.
    Because all other avenues failed. The West Bank is supposedly where peaceful coexistence "works" and settlers still just turn up and steal houses and land. The PLO tried peaceful solutions, accepting the state of Israel with the Oslo Accords 30 years ago, and have been rebuffed, whilst Hamas rose because the people of Gaza, seeing justice as impossible, opted for revenge. And Netanyahu and others in the government made sure money went to Hamas, to make sure peace wasn't possible.

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
This discussion has been closed.