We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
I’m still concerned about the exclusion of Geordie pensioners from the Car Parks in the city due to this mad dash to go cashless that precious few want.
Why would you exclude Geordie pensioners? You do realise pensioners can and do use contactless, in their millions, every day?
Indeed they do but there are many millions who don't and I do not understand why you cannot see the merit of both
I wouldn’t ban cash. But if businesses only want to go cashless, up to them. Cash is a rubbish, outdated and expensive system. If businesses want to be cashless, so be it.
I agree about businesses and the choice should be their's
However, while cash use is much less there will always be a demand for lose change or indeed some of our elderly who will continue to use it
Personally I only use cash at the hairdressers or where a business demands it...
Everyone who does jobs for us is paid through our banking app
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Royal Mint give figures for the number of coins minted each year.
More than 42 million 20p pieces minted in 2022 for example, compared to more than 150 million in 2003. They estimate about 29 billion coins in circulation.
The biggest barrier to you regularly coming across a KCIII coin is simply the declining number of cash transactions that you are making. So many fewer coins are travelling through your hands.
Indeed, and it's been an increasing problem for Primary School teachers for a while now. Because so few children handle coins these days (for a variety of reasons) the standard methods for inculcating practical mental arithmetic are disappearing. There's less need (and less comprehension for the need) to calculate change due, or the combinations of coins needed to buy sweets etc.
(Also, thanks for the Royal Mail info.)
Yes. Kids just don't recognise the coins. We have the same trouble with teaching the time on clocks. They just don't see them. But they're on the national curriculum. As are Roman numerals for some reason. I think this is what modern Maths is supposed to solve.
How else are they going to know when certain movies were copyrighted without Roman numerals?
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
"Digital exclusion" isn't a clear cut thing.
Are you "digitally excluded" if you refuse to touch Facebook with a 10ft pole?
What if you refuse to install 10 parking apps of unknown provenance and security?
Or you prefer not to bother paying for mobile data that you don't need?
How do all these parking apps work? You have to load credit onto them in advance, or you link them to your card to be charged each time?
It surprises me how popular cash is once you go outside metropolitan areas. Even younger people use it a bit, which they certainly don't in central London, etc.
I saw a handwritten sign in the window of a takeaway on Wigan's main drinking street recently:"We accept card payments". The fact that they need to spell it out suggests card payments aren't exactly the norm yet.
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
That’s Mumsnet for you.
I was going to say, wait till they get onto biscuits, but then I remembered that biscuits became part of the arguments about atrocities in Belgium in 1914, with German biscuits being cancelled and renamed Belgian biscuits, though oddly enough not cakes (or at least not Battenberg).
I've got a few ex squaddies as mates. They have a completely different take on Belgian Biscuits than you...
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
And Hamas are embedded in the civilian population. Hamas live there, have arms there, launch missiles there. The slaughter of the civilians of Gaza is explicitly *what Hamas want*.
I do not expect to hear reports of the IDF summarily torturing / mutilating / executing women and children. That kind of depravity isn't just a war crime, it is evil and inhuman. But sadly innocent women and children are being killed in Gaza. And I mourn them as well.
So the calls to open up a humanitarian corridor out of Gaza are right and just. Because the IDF are coming, they have to do what they are to do. There are no other options.
Re corridors - I have yet to hear anyone say where the refugees will go.
It wont be Israel obviously
Bar a handful of lucky folk ( eg Humza Yousafs rellies ) I cant see it being Europe as Europe is already saying it has enough on its hands
Half the arab world is out because its a mess - Libya, Syria, Iraq Lebanon Yemen
And the other half doesnt want the palestinians since they have been difficult citizens
I cant even see the West bank wanting many because of the Hamas\PLO emnity
So where ? Russia, Iran, North Korea ?
Until this is solved calls for corridors mean little.
Mr Yousaf's relatives are already UK subjects, anyway. So luck is not involved there. (Except obvs in getting out safely.)
Im not talking about the ones currently visiting but the ones being visited and Im picking him out only because he's a well publicised case. But across Europe there will be a handful of well connected people who have friends and relatives they can assist and will. But there will be no demand to take in a million refugees.
The French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin has ordered that Pro-Palestinian Demonstrations across the Country be Banned and that anybody who Participates in them will be Arrested.
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
It surprises me how popular cash is once you go outside metropolitan areas. Even younger people use it a bit, which they certainly don't in central London, etc.
There was a stand at the party conferences demanding that all businesses accept both cash and electronic payment - I think they were basically a pro-cash group but I didn't have time to investigate.
I mean I am a fan of people taking the knee. A visible action against racism, of which there continues to be a fuckload at footie matches and which was beyond endemic in times gone by.
Equally it gives me great pleasure to see a typical PL footie match wherein there is a united nations of races, creeds, colours (not sexuality yet but I'm sure it is coming) and I believe the game is truly colour blind. You only have to see celebrations after a goal to confirm this at least amongst the players.
However, the pickle that the FA and indeed all football clubs finds itself in wrt Israel/Gaza is as a consequence of these gestures.
Like you I have no issue with taking the knee. It’s a harmless gesture against racism and helps raise awareness so where’s the downside ?
Soccer is also happy to have players wear rainbow laces. Again. No problem there.
When people complained about the taking of the knee or the laces the FA and twitterati were quick to condemn. They’re silent now a and this silence shames them.
They’ve made a major error here. They have a chance to rectify it. They need to do it ASAP.
Their reasoning is clear. They don’t want to offend the sort of people who believe 6MWNE.
Possibly. But I suspect they also fear it might 'provoke' attacks against Jews.
6MWNE is obviously a problem but there are a whole more who don't believe it ever happened.
I don't think there's anyone who believes the Holocaust never happened.
Those who claim it just enjoy trolling Jews and/or recognise that the Holocaust is bad PR for their cause. But, the know full well that it happened, and they think it was a good thing.
I'll never forget seeing a discussion in 2004 on another forum where I became of the concept of Holocaust minimisation.
Apparently when you factor in the hype, and the gays and other undesirables only 2 million Jews died in the Holocaust which apparently is fine because it wasn't as bad as other genocides like the Great Leap Forward or some of Stalin's worst excesses or slightly worse than the Rwandan genocide.
That’s Mumsnet for you.
I was going to say, wait till they get onto biscuits, but then I remembered that biscuits became part of the arguments about atrocities in Belgium in 1914, with German biscuits being cancelled and renamed Belgian biscuits, though oddly enough not cakes (or at least not Battenberg).
I've got a few ex squaddies as mates. They have a completely different take on Belgian Biscuits than you...
Ah. The things one learns on PB, after a quick check of Urban Dictionary. Though I see Empire Biscuit also has its double meaning.
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Royal Mint give figures for the number of coins minted each year.
More than 42 million 20p pieces minted in 2022 for example, compared to more than 150 million in 2003. They estimate about 29 billion coins in circulation.
The biggest barrier to you regularly coming across a KCIII coin is simply the declining number of cash transactions that you are making. So many fewer coins are travelling through your hands.
Indeed, and it's been an increasing problem for Primary School teachers for a while now. Because so few children handle coins these days (for a variety of reasons) the standard methods for inculcating practical mental arithmetic are disappearing. There's less need (and less comprehension for the need) to calculate change due, or the combinations of coins needed to buy sweets etc.
(Also, thanks for the Royal Mail info.)
When I was knee-high to a grasshopper, my dad would get me to calculate the men's weekly wages in cash. About half of the men were paid monthly by cheque; the others wanted weekly cash. The secretary would calculate each man's wages, and my dad would write out the cheques. Then he were had to deal with the cash.
To make up the pay, one man might need (say) £154.23, and another £178.61 (figures illustrative). He would ask me to calculate how many 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 50p, £1, £5, £10 etc he would need to get from the bank to pay all the men. In the example above, we would need 2 pennies and 1 tuppence, etc.
I loved doing it. Later on, I would occasionally even go to the bank to get the cash - which caused a little alarm at the bank when a young lad with a burly labourner as munder turned up asking for a few grand out of a business account...
I think it certainly helped me with mental arithmetic.
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
"Digital exclusion" isn't a clear cut thing.
Are you "digitally excluded" if you refuse to touch Facebook with a 10ft pole?
What if you refuse to install 10 parking apps of unknown provenance and security?
Or you prefer not to bother paying for mobile data that you don't need?
How do all these parking apps work? You have to load credit onto them in advance, or you link them to your card to be charged each time?
I refuse to install any, so I can't answer fully.
I believe some store your credit card details (like Amazon do, if you let them). I know they have to jump through a lot of hoops with the card companies to do this but I still don't think it is a good idea.
"The restraints on freedom of speech and expression that exist in formally liberal societies are not imposed by a dictatorial or authoritarian government. On the whole, they’re imposed by civil institutions themselves. They’re imposed by universities, by arts associations, by museums. All the kinds of things that happen in China, because people are terrified to deviate from the government, happen by themselves spontaneously here. And that’s a profound metamorphosis. I can’t see how we can get back to a situation in which tolerance and freedom of speech and expression for some very wide range is taken for granted. Which it was — I’m old enough to remember the Seventies and Eighties, and even almost up to the Nineties, it was simply taken for granted that you could think and say what you like."
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
And Hamas are embedded in the civilian population. Hamas live there, have arms there, launch missiles there. The slaughter of the civilians of Gaza is explicitly *what Hamas want*.
I do not expect to hear reports of the IDF summarily torturing / mutilating / executing women and children. That kind of depravity isn't just a war crime, it is evil and inhuman. But sadly innocent women and children are being killed in Gaza. And I mourn them as well.
So the calls to open up a humanitarian corridor out of Gaza are right and just. Because the IDF are coming, they have to do what they are to do. There are no other options.
Re corridors - I have yet to hear anyone say where the refugees will go.
It wont be Israel obviously
Bar a handful of lucky folk ( eg Humza Yousafs rellies ) I cant see it being Europe as Europe is already saying it has enough on its hands
Half the arab world is out because its a mess - Libya, Syria, Iraq Lebanon Yemen
And the other half doesnt want the palestinians since they have been difficult citizens
I cant even see the West bank wanting many because of the Hamas\PLO emnity
So where ? Russia, Iran, North Korea ?
Until this is solved calls for corridors mean little.
Mr Yousaf's relatives are already UK subjects, anyway. So luck is not involved there. (Except obvs in getting out safely.)
Im not talking about the ones currently visiting but the ones being visited and Im picking him out only because he's a well publicised case. But across Europe there will be a handful of well connected people who have friends and relatives they can assist and will. But there will be no demand to take in a million refugees.
Had forgotten about the visitor/visitee distinction (but actually I don't know what passports the latter hold).
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
"Digital exclusion" isn't a clear cut thing.
Are you "digitally excluded" if you refuse to touch Facebook with a 10ft pole?
What if you refuse to install 10 parking apps of unknown provenance and security?
Or you prefer not to bother paying for mobile data that you don't need?
I’d answer No to all of your questions.
However, if you insist on paying cash for everything you certainly ARE digitally excluded because, apart from anything else, you are unable to buy anything online.
"The restraints on freedom of speech and expression that exist in formally liberal societies are not imposed by a dictatorial or authoritarian government. On the whole, they’re imposed by civil institutions themselves. They’re imposed by universities, by arts associations, by museums. All the kinds of things that happen in China, because people are terrified to deviate from the government, happen by themselves spontaneously here. And that’s a profound metamorphosis. I can’t see how we can get back to a situation in which tolerance and freedom of speech and expression for some very wide range is taken for granted. Which it was — I’m old enough to remember the Seventies and Eighties, and even almost up to the Nineties, it was simply taken for granted that you could think and say what you like."
Yes, we took liberalism for granted - having to fight for it now.
CNN is airing an interview with John fucking Bolton and letting him assert with no evidence that Iran directed the timing of the Hamas attack. Bolton has no access to intelligence besides the newspaper. Zero lessons learned from the Iraq war propaganda disaster. https://twitter.com/TVietor08/status/1712448711358648358
Henry Kissinger on the support for Hamas in Western countries: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that."
Those could almost be Hitler's words about the Jews in Europe.
How ? One of the things notable about European Jews is how they have successfully blended in with the country;s culture. One of the more memorable thing for me was reading accounts of Nazis beating up Jewish WW1 war veterans. people who had done their duty for country and Kaiser more than the thugs attacking them.
Our recent brush as a host country has been naive in parts and probably needed a longer period to let communities integrate. I suspect that route might be less effective as modern comms means immigrant communities can live in a cultural silo if they want. Denmark and Sweden appear to be trying to tackle this it remains to be seen what the outcome is.
Every single second generation immigrant I've ever met in the UK (which includes my Mum) has been more acculturated to British values than not. But then maybe I don't meet the people in cultural silos.
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
I’m still concerned about the exclusion of Geordie pensioners from the Car Parks in the city due to this mad dash to go cashless that precious few want.
Why would you exclude Geordie pensioners? You do realise pensioners can and do use contactless, in their millions, every day?
Indeed they do but there are many millions who don't and I do not understand why you cannot see the merit of both
I wouldn’t ban cash. But if businesses only want to go cashless, up to them. Cash is a rubbish, outdated and expensive system. If businesses want to be cashless, so be it.
I agree about businesses and the choice should be their's
However, while cash use is much less there will always be a demand for lose change or indeed some of our elderly who will continue to use it
Personally I only use cash at the hairdressers or where a business demands it...
Everyone who does jobs for us is paid through our banking app
Your hairdresser is probably dodging tax old bean.
I saw news the other day of a church that was switching its donations regimen to SumUp!
"The restraints on freedom of speech and expression that exist in formally liberal societies are not imposed by a dictatorial or authoritarian government. On the whole, they’re imposed by civil institutions themselves. They’re imposed by universities, by arts associations, by museums. All the kinds of things that happen in China, because people are terrified to deviate from the government, happen by themselves spontaneously here. And that’s a profound metamorphosis. I can’t see how we can get back to a situation in which tolerance and freedom of speech and expression for some very wide range is taken for granted. Which it was — I’m old enough to remember the Seventies and Eighties, and even almost up to the Nineties, it was simply taken for granted that you could think and say what you like."
There's a common misconception that Free Speech and Consequence Free Speech are the same thing.
They're not.
If I wanted to publish a newspaper with cartoons of Jews that could be straight out of Der Stürmer, the law shouldn't stop me.
But I have to deal with the fact that other people have agency too. They can choose not to sell my newspaper. They can choose not to advertise in it. They can organize demonstrations against it.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
How do you actually destroy Hamas?
How did we destroy the IRA? We used security forces to reduce their attacks and negotiation to persuade them to change their position.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
How do you actually destroy Hamas?
Something proximate to how the Tamil Tigers were destroyed.
2 things need to happen:
1: Take every single bit of land they have under their control off them and bring it under your own control.
2: Kill everyone who is a member of, supporting or fighting on behalf of Hamas until either they are all dead, or there is nobody left who is fighting for Hamas as they have surrendered unconditionally or fled abroad.
I read some book by Gray several decades ago, and decided he was a bit of a berk. I've not seen any reason to revise that assessment since.
It was probably Straw Dogs. I'm a big fan of Gray and think that book is a masterpiece. On first reading you'll be angry, on second you pay attention and annotate, on third you realise that he's right.
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Royal Mint give figures for the number of coins minted each year.
More than 42 million 20p pieces minted in 2022 for example, compared to more than 150 million in 2003. They estimate about 29 billion coins in circulation.
The biggest barrier to you regularly coming across a KCIII coin is simply the declining number of cash transactions that you are making. So many fewer coins are travelling through your hands.
Indeed, and it's been an increasing problem for Primary School teachers for a while now. Because so few children handle coins these days (for a variety of reasons) the standard methods for inculcating practical mental arithmetic are disappearing. There's less need (and less comprehension for the need) to calculate change due, or the combinations of coins needed to buy sweets etc.
(Also, thanks for the Royal Mail info.)
Yes. Kids just don't recognise the coins. We have the same trouble with teaching the time on clocks. They just don't see them. But they're on the national curriculum. As are Roman numerals for some reason. I think this is what modern Maths is supposed to solve.
How else are they going to know when certain movies were copyrighted without Roman numerals?
I read some book by Gray several decades ago, and decided he was a bit of a berk. I've not seen any reason to revise that assessment since.
It was probably Straw Dogs. I'm a big fan of Gray and think that book is a masterpiece. On first reading you'll be angry, on second you pay attention and annotate, on third you realise that he's right.
Yes. And he’s been proven right on far too many counts. Which is unfortunate as he’s a cultural pessimist
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
How do you actually destroy Hamas?
Something proximate to how the Tamil Tigers were destroyed.
2 things need to happen:
1: Take every single bit of land they have under their control off them and bring it under your own control.
2: Kill everyone who is a member of, supporting or fighting on behalf of Hamas until either they are all dead, or there is nobody left who is fighting for Hamas as they have surrendered unconditionally or fled abroad.
I don't think what happened in Sri Lanka is a model anyone should follow!
Killing anyone who supports Hamas... that's thought crime stuff. We punish actions, not beliefs.
"Second World War tweets from 1939 @RealTimeWWII German occupiers have begun "Blitzpogrome", lightning pogroms against Jewish Poles, often beating victims or cutting/burning their beards."
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
I’m still concerned about the exclusion of Geordie pensioners from the Car Parks in the city due to this mad dash to go cashless that precious few want.
Why would you exclude Geordie pensioners? You do realise pensioners can and do use contactless, in their millions, every day?
Indeed they do but there are many millions who don't and I do not understand why you cannot see the merit of both
I wouldn’t ban cash. But if businesses only want to go cashless, up to them. Cash is a rubbish, outdated and expensive system. If businesses want to be cashless, so be it.
I agree about businesses and the choice should be their's
However, while cash use is much less there will always be a demand for lose change or indeed some of our elderly who will continue to use it
Personally I only use cash at the hairdressers or where a business demands it...
Everyone who does jobs for us is paid through our banking app
Your hairdresser is probably dodging tax old bean.
I saw news the other day of a church that was switching its donations regimen to SumUp!
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
How do you actually destroy Hamas?
Something proximate to how the Tamil Tigers were destroyed.
2 things need to happen:
1: Take every single bit of land they have under their control off them and bring it under your own control.
2: Kill everyone who is a member of, supporting or fighting on behalf of Hamas until either they are all dead, or there is nobody left who is fighting for Hamas as they have surrendered unconditionally or fled abroad.
I don't think what happened in Sri Lanka is a model anyone should follow!
Killing anyone who supports Hamas... that's thought crime stuff. We punish actions, not beliefs.
Hamas is not the IRA. How long will it take you to realise this?
They are nearer to the Nazis, or ISIS
We had to completely obliterate Nazi Germany to defeat the Nazis, ditto ISIS
I read some book by Gray several decades ago, and decided he was a bit of a berk. I've not seen any reason to revise that assessment since.
It was probably Straw Dogs. I'm a big fan of Gray and think that book is a masterpiece. On first reading you'll be angry, on second you pay attention and annotate, on third you realise that he's right.
Yes. And he’s been proven right on far too many counts. Which is unfortunate as he’s a cultural pessimist
An anti-humanist, which he fleshes out in Straw Dogs:
"For much of their history and all of prehistory, humans did not see themselves as being any different from the other animals among which they lived. Hunter-gatherers saw their prey as equals, if not superiors, and animals were worshipped as divinities in many traditional cultures. The humanist sense of a gulf between ourselves and other animals is an aberration. Feeble as it is today, the feeling of sharing a common destiny with other living things is embedded in the human psyche. Those who struggle to conserve what is left of the natural environment are moved by the love of living things, biophilia, the frail bond of feeling that ties humankind to the Earth."
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
"Digital exclusion" isn't a clear cut thing.
Are you "digitally excluded" if you refuse to touch Facebook with a 10ft pole?
What if you refuse to install 10 parking apps of unknown provenance and security?
Or you prefer not to bother paying for mobile data that you don't need?
I’d answer No to all of your questions.
However, if you insist on paying cash for everything you certainly ARE digitally excluded because, apart from anything else, you are unable to buy anything online.
Contactless cards are one thing I think - it is when you get to 'apps' that the real problems start.
You might be surprised how many people don't buy things online, though.
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
I’m still concerned about the exclusion of Geordie pensioners from the Car Parks in the city due to this mad dash to go cashless that precious few want.
Why would you exclude Geordie pensioners? You do realise pensioners can and do use contactless, in their millions, every day?
Indeed they do but there are many millions who don't and I do not understand why you cannot see the merit of both
I wouldn’t ban cash. But if businesses only want to go cashless, up to them. Cash is a rubbish, outdated and expensive system. If businesses want to be cashless, so be it.
I agree about businesses and the choice should be their's
However, while cash use is much less there will always be a demand for lose change or indeed some of our elderly who will continue to use it
Personally I only use cash at the hairdressers or where a business demands it...
Everyone who does jobs for us is paid through our banking app
Your hairdresser is probably dodging tax old bean.
I saw news the other day of a church that was switching its donations regimen to SumUp!
A few months ago, I was amused to wander into a church (as I sometimes do) and find a contactless donation system inside it. This was a small village church, not a cathedral.
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
"Digital exclusion" isn't a clear cut thing.
Are you "digitally excluded" if you refuse to touch Facebook with a 10ft pole?
What if you refuse to install 10 parking apps of unknown provenance and security?
Or you prefer not to bother paying for mobile data that you don't need?
I’d answer No to all of your questions.
However, if you insist on paying cash for everything you certainly ARE digitally excluded because, apart from anything else, you are unable to buy anything online.
Contactless cards are one thing I think - it is when you get to 'apps' that the real problems start.
You might be surprised how many people don't buy things online, though.
I read some book by Gray several decades ago, and decided he was a bit of a berk. I've not seen any reason to revise that assessment since.
It was probably Straw Dogs. I'm a big fan of Gray and think that book is a masterpiece. On first reading you'll be angry, on second you pay attention and annotate, on third you realise that he's right.
I went through an opposite cycle: I read Straw Dogs and found it exhilerating and exciting, even though I didn't agree with all of it. I recommended it to my friends, and several poor sods even ended up with copies for their birthday.
And then five years later I got it on the Kindle, and started to reread it.
This time, I found it rather shallow. I found too many straw man arguments and too much - and we're all guilty of this I know - decide the conclusion, and then find the argument to back it up.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
How do you actually destroy Hamas?
Something proximate to how the Tamil Tigers were destroyed.
2 things need to happen:
1: Take every single bit of land they have under their control off them and bring it under your own control.
2: Kill everyone who is a member of, supporting or fighting on behalf of Hamas until either they are all dead, or there is nobody left who is fighting for Hamas as they have surrendered unconditionally or fled abroad.
I don't think what happened in Sri Lanka is a model anyone should follow!
Killing anyone who supports Hamas... that's thought crime stuff. We punish actions, not beliefs.
Hamas is not the IRA. How long will it take you to realise this?
They are nearer to the Nazis, or ISIS
We had to completely obliterate Nazi Germany to defeat the Nazis, ditto ISIS
We were pretty lenient on the Nazis, actually. Only a few of the senior leadership and some of the other most blatant war criminals ever faced trial. Anyone that knew anything about missile technology got a free pass.
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
I’m still concerned about the exclusion of Geordie pensioners from the Car Parks in the city due to this mad dash to go cashless that precious few want.
Why would you exclude Geordie pensioners? You do realise pensioners can and do use contactless, in their millions, every day?
Indeed they do but there are many millions who don't and I do not understand why you cannot see the merit of both
I wouldn’t ban cash. But if businesses only want to go cashless, up to them. Cash is a rubbish, outdated and expensive system. If businesses want to be cashless, so be it.
I agree about businesses and the choice should be their's
However, while cash use is much less there will always be a demand for lose change or indeed some of our elderly who will continue to use it
Personally I only use cash at the hairdressers or where a business demands it...
Everyone who does jobs for us is paid through our banking app
Your hairdresser is probably dodging tax old bean.
I saw news the other day of a church that was switching its donations regimen to SumUp!
How on earth can you make such an allegation
I’m saying probably- as in on the balance of probability. They might not be, of course…
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
"Digital exclusion" isn't a clear cut thing.
Are you "digitally excluded" if you refuse to touch Facebook with a 10ft pole?
What if you refuse to install 10 parking apps of unknown provenance and security?
Or you prefer not to bother paying for mobile data that you don't need?
I’d answer No to all of your questions.
However, if you insist on paying cash for everything you certainly ARE digitally excluded because, apart from anything else, you are unable to buy anything online.
Contactless cards are one thing I think - it is when you get to 'apps' that the real problems start.
You might be surprised how many people don't buy things online, though.
Parking apps are evil. Officially.
Really like the one near me. Keeps me updated how long I have got left, very easy to use. The problem is the proliferation of them, not the app per se.
"A woman who spent 20 years saving for her dream wedding has thrown herself her own big day after not meeting the right partner.
Sarah Wilkinson, 42, decided to hold a wedding ceremony conducted by her celebrant friend at Harvest House in Felixstowe, Suffolk. The credit controller said the occasion was a natural progression after she treated herself to an engagement ring. "It was a lovely day for me to be centre of attention," she said. "The ceremony wasn't an official wedding, but I had my wedding day. "I think you get to the point where you think 'I might not have this with a partner by my side, but why should I miss out?' "That money was reserved for my wedding - it was a case of it's there and why not use it for something I want to do."
"Second World War tweets from 1939 @RealTimeWWII German occupiers have begun "Blitzpogrome", lightning pogroms against Jewish Poles, often beating victims or cutting/burning their beards."
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
"Digital exclusion" isn't a clear cut thing.
Are you "digitally excluded" if you refuse to touch Facebook with a 10ft pole?
What if you refuse to install 10 parking apps of unknown provenance and security?
Or you prefer not to bother paying for mobile data that you don't need?
I’d answer No to all of your questions.
However, if you insist on paying cash for everything you certainly ARE digitally excluded because, apart from anything else, you are unable to buy anything online.
Contactless cards are one thing I think - it is when you get to 'apps' that the real problems start.
You might be surprised how many people don't buy things online, though.
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
"Digital exclusion" isn't a clear cut thing.
Are you "digitally excluded" if you refuse to touch Facebook with a 10ft pole?
What if you refuse to install 10 parking apps of unknown provenance and security?
Or you prefer not to bother paying for mobile data that you don't need?
I’d answer No to all of your questions.
However, if you insist on paying cash for everything you certainly ARE digitally excluded because, apart from anything else, you are unable to buy anything online.
Contactless cards are one thing I think - it is when you get to 'apps' that the real problems start.
You might be surprised how many people don't buy things online, though.
How do they pay their mortgages?
Lots of people do not have mortgages not least the elderly
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
"Digital exclusion" isn't a clear cut thing.
Are you "digitally excluded" if you refuse to touch Facebook with a 10ft pole?
What if you refuse to install 10 parking apps of unknown provenance and security?
Or you prefer not to bother paying for mobile data that you don't need?
I’d answer No to all of your questions.
However, if you insist on paying cash for everything you certainly ARE digitally excluded because, apart from anything else, you are unable to buy anything online.
Contactless cards are one thing I think - it is when you get to 'apps' that the real problems start.
You might be surprised how many people don't buy things online, though.
Parking apps are evil. Officially.
Really like the one near me. Keeps me updated how long I have got left, very easy to use. The problem is the proliferation of them, not the app per se.
I always find it slightly strange there seems to be 27,000 different ones. Economies of scale, combined platform / developed etc you would think by now one or two would be winning out, as in most tech opportunities.
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
I’m still concerned about the exclusion of Geordie pensioners from the Car Parks in the city due to this mad dash to go cashless that precious few want.
Why would you exclude Geordie pensioners? You do realise pensioners can and do use contactless, in their millions, every day?
Indeed they do but there are many millions who don't and I do not understand why you cannot see the merit of both
I wouldn’t ban cash. But if businesses only want to go cashless, up to them. Cash is a rubbish, outdated and expensive system. If businesses want to be cashless, so be it.
I agree about businesses and the choice should be their's
However, while cash use is much less there will always be a demand for lose change or indeed some of our elderly who will continue to use it
Personally I only use cash at the hairdressers or where a business demands it...
Everyone who does jobs for us is paid through our banking app
Wouldn’t a business threat was cashless be discriminating against people who weren’t capable of handling electronic payments?
Some of the elderly, the terminally stupid (must be deemed a disability), those who don’t like debt etc?
"An SNP MP has announced she has quit the party and joined the Tories because of ‘toxic and bullying’ treatment from colleagues.
Lisa Cameron has today announced the bombshell decision to become a Conservative MP after she revealed that the deterioration of her mental health led to her being put on antidepressants.
She said that she has received support from the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in recent weeks after opening up about her mental wellbeing, but no contact from the SNP leadership."
"Second World War tweets from 1939 @RealTimeWWII German occupiers have begun "Blitzpogrome", lightning pogroms against Jewish Poles, often beating victims or cutting/burning their beards."
If you thought WW2 couldn't get any worse than it already was... WW2 with twitter.
Worse than WWII with twitter would be WWII with X, Musky Elon spreading his 'I'm only asking questions and supporting free speech' crap all over the shop.
He'd definitely have Lindbergh signed up for one of his space missions.
We are at a very dangerous point in this discussion as I think we are flirting with the idea of turning the subject of the entire thread into that most sensitive of topics - the use or not of cash.
Before I head off I will just ask one question - what about Big Issue sellers.
*and flees*
I’m still concerned about the exclusion of Geordie pensioners from the Car Parks in the city due to this mad dash to go cashless that precious few want.
Why would you exclude Geordie pensioners? You do realise pensioners can and do use contactless, in their millions, every day?
Indeed they do but there are many millions who don't and I do not understand why you cannot see the merit of both
I wouldn’t ban cash. But if businesses only want to go cashless, up to them. Cash is a rubbish, outdated and expensive system. If businesses want to be cashless, so be it.
I agree about businesses and the choice should be their's
However, while cash use is much less there will always be a demand for lose change or indeed some of our elderly who will continue to use it
Personally I only use cash at the hairdressers or where a business demands it...
Everyone who does jobs for us is paid through our banking app
Wouldn’t a business threat was cashless be discriminating against people who weren’t capable of handling electronic payments?
Some of the elderly, the terminally stupid (must be deemed a disability), those who don’t like debt etc?
I cannot answer your question as I really do not know
"Second World War tweets from 1939 @RealTimeWWII German occupiers have begun "Blitzpogrome", lightning pogroms against Jewish Poles, often beating victims or cutting/burning their beards."
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
How do you actually destroy Hamas?
Something proximate to how the Tamil Tigers were destroyed.
2 things need to happen:
1: Take every single bit of land they have under their control off them and bring it under your own control.
2: Kill everyone who is a member of, supporting or fighting on behalf of Hamas until either they are all dead, or there is nobody left who is fighting for Hamas as they have surrendered unconditionally or fled abroad.
I don't think what happened in Sri Lanka is a model anyone should follow!
Killing anyone who supports Hamas... that's thought crime stuff. We punish actions, not beliefs.
Hamas is not the IRA. How long will it take you to realise this?
They are nearer to the Nazis, or ISIS
We had to completely obliterate Nazi Germany to defeat the Nazis, ditto ISIS
You think we killed everyone in Germany who had supported the Nazis??
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
"Digital exclusion" isn't a clear cut thing.
Are you "digitally excluded" if you refuse to touch Facebook with a 10ft pole?
What if you refuse to install 10 parking apps of unknown provenance and security?
Or you prefer not to bother paying for mobile data that you don't need?
I’d answer No to all of your questions.
However, if you insist on paying cash for everything you certainly ARE digitally excluded because, apart from anything else, you are unable to buy anything online.
Contactless cards are one thing I think - it is when you get to 'apps' that the real problems start.
You might be surprised how many people don't buy things online, though.
Parking apps are evil. Officially.
Govt run car parks and those with over 200 spaces should be obliged to offer at least 2 from 3 out of cash, card and phone options.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges While the focus is on the FA I understand the anger from the Jewish community about the silence from Spurs and Arsenal is also growing.
I wonder if we will have sponsors withdrawing their support as a consequence.
Highly unlikely as there is no co-ordinated online twitter campaign bombarding their feed with threats to not use them.
The moral cowardice of the like of the FA and Arsenal and Spurs truly shames the beautiful game. Soccer was happy to take the knee for George Floyd yet it won't show solidarity with the nation that suffered, among other things, beheaded babies for fear of offending "communities"
Spinless trash
BLM UK seem to be on the side of the Palestinians. So is taking the knee tacit support for them?
Comment on the Twitter post by the FA said that their statement could.have been written by Jeremy Corbyn. They are spot on.
Anyone taking the knee is now, in effect, supporting Hamas.
Not wanting dead Palestinian civilians is not the same as supporting Hamas. What's the relative value of a Palestinian life versus an Israeli? 3? 5? 10? Do you want to say for every Israeli death they can kill 15 Palestinian kids, get the bloodlust out of the system? The average age in Gaza, as has been noted, is 18. 42% are under 15. Do you think every building bombed, every hospital shut due to power off, everyone starving or dying of thirst is magically going to be a member of Hamas, or a Hamas sympathiser? Everyone wringing their hands over the objectively horrific attacks on Israeli civilians is now happy to wade through waves of Palestinian blood for what - justice? Revenge? To make a point? This is the immediate post 9-11 bullshit again, where all that people have is a desire for blood, ignoring a) the original policy failures and violence that obviously caused this reaction in the first place and b) will lead to worse horrors beyond our thinking in the future. If Israel kills indiscriminately and no one flutters an eyelid, where's the moral high ground to say Russia or Ukraine shouldn't do the same? If Gaza is flattened and starved and pulverised with no recourse, what nation will look at war crimes and international law with any seriousness again? What is the lesson this will teach?
“William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”
I've said before but studying that play at school persuaded me to take law at University. I may forgive Bolt one day.
The real Moore allowed all kinds of dodgy evidence as a judge, and was involved with illegally imprisoning a man (for example), who’d pled not guilty to heresy and then had the impudence to be acquitted at trial. “To save the Bishop’s credit” was the phrase used.
That's a new one to me in the euphemism line. I look forward to someone on PB using it. Very learned humour.
It was kinda literal - the Bishop in question had brought the original prosecution.
More was worried that the Bishop’s street cred and (by extension) the church’s would suffer
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
How do you actually destroy Hamas?
Something proximate to how the Tamil Tigers were destroyed.
2 things need to happen:
1: Take every single bit of land they have under their control off them and bring it under your own control.
2: Kill everyone who is a member of, supporting or fighting on behalf of Hamas until either they are all dead, or there is nobody left who is fighting for Hamas as they have surrendered unconditionally or fled abroad.
I don't think what happened in Sri Lanka is a model anyone should follow!
Killing anyone who supports Hamas... that's thought crime stuff. We punish actions, not beliefs.
Hamas is not the IRA. How long will it take you to realise this?
They are nearer to the Nazis, or ISIS
We had to completely obliterate Nazi Germany to defeat the Nazis, ditto ISIS
You think we killed everyone in Germany who had supported the Nazis??
What planet are you on?
I said we completely obliterated Nazi GERMANY. Which we did. By the end all their big cities were in ruins, half the country was starving, and the entire country was occupied - often in a brutal way
I hope this doesn’t happen to Gaza but it’s illustrative of the lengths you have to go to, if you want to really defeat a dangerous enemy
The French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin has ordered that Pro-Palestinian Demonstrations across the Country be Banned and that anybody who Participates in them will be Arrested.
While they're at it they could ban Unnecessary Use of Capitals.
Still can't believe the news about Lisa Cameron defecting.
There have historically been a broad range of political views within the SNP, independence aside.
Lisa Cameron voted against her party on legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland and on a bill to prevent anti-abortion protests in the vicinity of clinics. So, as with Kate Forbes, I think there's a strong religious conservatism that put her at odds with mainstream SNP views. Her argument is that she was, at best, ostracised by the SNP in Westminster and her constituency due to these views - whether that's wholly correct or whether other clashes were involved, I don't know.
Going Tory rather than just resigning the whip does seem a bit of a pointed FU to her former colleagues, and is quite a stark illustration of one of the major divides in the SNP. Being pro-independence doesn't mean you agree on other things, and that's a real problem for the SNP.
Others have asked on here why she didn't defect to Labour. Possibly it's due to her being closer to the Tories, but I note she was a union rep in her past career. I'd actually not be hugely surprised if she had conversations with Labour - parties don't necessary welcome defectors with open arms where the backstory is problematic, and she wouldn't be the first prospective defector by any means to make a confidential approach and have it politely brushed off.
Forcing Ecclestone to cough up £653m is a real achievement for HMRC
The million he gave Blair was small change
The urban slang dictionary still has an amount of £1m known as a “Bernie”. That’s 100,000 Ayrtons.
Where does an "Ayrton" come from? to add: ok, I've worked it out - rhyming slang
GRATUITOUS GENDER STEREOTYPING WARNING:
Women don't get rhyming slang. There, I've said it.
Ask what plates of meat, brown bread, Ayrton or chalfonts mean and they can't figure it out. Men usually can.
Tin hat on.
An atm near my aunt used to have the option for cockney rhyming slang - which was weird considering she lives almost as north as you can get in North London...
FWIW, most local gas stations in my area charge extra (10 cents a gallon) for using any card not their own, instead of cash. (In spite of the state's high taxes, the price per gallon just dropped below 5 dollars in Washington state.)
For many years, I avoided using cards for purchases of less than 200 dollars, in spite of the legal advantages credit cards give you here in the US. It just seemed simpler.
But now Chase bank bribes me a little for almost every purchase I make with their credit card, 1.5 to 2.5 percent, and more on special deals. So I use the card for purchases of over 20 dollars.
Even though I an nearly certain that practice contributes to the inflation that I see at, for example, inexpensive restaurants.
The French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin has ordered that Pro-Palestinian Demonstrations across the Country be Banned and that anybody who Participates in them will be Arrested.
No people here who usually like to defend "freedom of speech" want to shout about authoritarians on this one? Again - what is wrong with demonstrating in favour of the Palestinian people and making it clear you don't want them to be war crimed? If anyone openly supports Hamas or says Israelis deserve to die - sure, that sounds like hate speech / incitement. But just being pro Palestinian?
Still can't believe the news about Lisa Cameron defecting.
There have historically been a broad range of political views within the SNP, independence aside.
Lisa Cameron voted against her party on legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland and on a bill to prevent anti-abortion protests in the vicinity of clinics. So, as with Kate Forbes, I think there's a strong religious conservatism that put her at odds with mainstream SNP views. Her argument is that she was, at best, ostracised by the SNP in Westminster and her constituency due to these views - whether that's wholly correct or whether other clashes were involved, I don't know.
Going Tory rather than just resigning the whip does seem a bit of a pointed FU to her former colleagues, and is quite a stark illustration of one of the major divides in the SNP. Being pro-independence doesn't mean you agree on other things, and that's a real problem for the SNP.
Others have asked on here why she didn't defect to Labour. Possibly it's due to her being closer to the Tories, but I note she was a union rep in her past career. I'd actually not be hugely surprised if she had conversations with Labour - parties don't necessary welcome defectors with open arms where the backstory is problematic, and she wouldn't be the first prospective defector by any means to make a confidential approach and have it politely brushed off.
FWIW, most local gas stations in my area charge extra (10 cents a gallon) for using any card not their own, instead of cash. (In spite of the state's high taxes, the price per gallon just dropped below 5 dollars in Washington state.)
For many years, I avoided using cards for purchases of less than 200 dollars, in spite of the legal advantages credit cards give you here in the US. It just seemed simpler.
But now Chase bank bribes me a little for almost every purchase I make with their credit card, 1.5 to 2.5 percent, and more on special deals. So I use the card for purchases of over 20 dollars.
Even though I an nearly certain that practice contributes to the inflation that I see at, for example, inexpensive restaurants.
It is something I really dislike about the US, all this kind of nonsense (same with adding the tax at check-out rather than on the shelf price and the crazy variance in ATM fees). Its anti-consumer and just adds friction to the whole process of life.
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
"Digital exclusion" isn't a clear cut thing.
Are you "digitally excluded" if you refuse to touch Facebook with a 10ft pole?
What if you refuse to install 10 parking apps of unknown provenance and security?
Or you prefer not to bother paying for mobile data that you don't need?
I’d answer No to all of your questions.
However, if you insist on paying cash for everything you certainly ARE digitally excluded because, apart from anything else, you are unable to buy anything online.
Contactless cards are one thing I think - it is when you get to 'apps' that the real problems start.
You might be surprised how many people don't buy things online, though.
Parking apps are evil. Officially.
Govt run car parks and those with over 200 spaces should be obliged to offer at least 2 from 3 out of cash, card and phone options.
Why on earth is a central diktat needed on this sort of stuff?
For private car parks, if people don't find it convenient enough, they don't use it and the operator loses out financially. With Council car parks, it's the same plus people can vote them out.
Still can't believe the news about Lisa Cameron defecting.
There have historically been a broad range of political views within the SNP, independence aside.
Lisa Cameron voted against her party on legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland and on a bill to prevent anti-abortion protests in the vicinity of clinics. So, as with Kate Forbes, I think there's a strong religious conservatism that put her at odds with mainstream SNP views. Her argument is that she was, at best, ostracised by the SNP in Westminster and her constituency due to these views - whether that's wholly correct or whether other clashes were involved, I don't know.
Going Tory rather than just resigning the whip does seem a bit of a pointed FU to her former colleagues, and is quite a stark illustration of one of the major divides in the SNP. Being pro-independence doesn't mean you agree on other things, and that's a real problem for the SNP.
Others have asked on here why she didn't defect to Labour. Possibly it's due to her being closer to the Tories, but I note she was a union rep in her past career. I'd actually not be hugely surprised if she had conversations with Labour - parties don't necessary welcome defectors with open arms where the backstory is problematic, and she wouldn't be the first prospective defector by any means to make a confidential approach and have it politely brushed off.
Ms Cameron says she is no longer pro-independence, so that's probably nothing she agrees on with (most of) her former colleagues.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
How do you actually destroy Hamas?
Something proximate to how the Tamil Tigers were destroyed.
2 things need to happen:
1: Take every single bit of land they have under their control off them and bring it under your own control.
2: Kill everyone who is a member of, supporting or fighting on behalf of Hamas until either they are all dead, or there is nobody left who is fighting for Hamas as they have surrendered unconditionally or fled abroad.
I don't think what happened in Sri Lanka is a model anyone should follow!
Killing anyone who supports Hamas... that's thought crime stuff. We punish actions, not beliefs.
Hamas is not the IRA. How long will it take you to realise this?
They are nearer to the Nazis, or ISIS
We had to completely obliterate Nazi Germany to defeat the Nazis, ditto ISIS
You think we killed everyone in Germany who had supported the Nazis??
What planet are you on?
I said we completely obliterated Nazi GERMANY. Which we did. By the end all their big cities were in ruins, half the country was starving, and the entire country was occupied - often in a brutal way
I hope this doesn’t happen to Gaza but it’s illustrative of the lengths you have to go to, if you want to really defeat a dangerous enemy
You seem to have already forgotten what you were replying to in that post. Admittedly it must be difficult to keep track.
The French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin has ordered that Pro-Palestinian Demonstrations across the Country be Banned and that anybody who Participates in them will be Arrested.
No people here who usually like to defend "freedom of speech" want to shout about authoritarians on this one? Again - what is wrong with demonstrating in favour of the Palestinian people and making it clear you don't want them to be war crimed? If anyone openly supports Hamas or says Israelis deserve to die - sure, that sounds like hate speech / incitement. But just being pro Palestinian?
Personally, I think its a terrible decision from the French. Particularly given it is a nation who prides itself on protest, often excusing even violent protest, as their right to express their feelings. It also rather plays into those claims of racism in how the French authorities treat different types of people.
The French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin has ordered that Pro-Palestinian Demonstrations across the Country be Banned and that anybody who Participates in them will be Arrested.
No people here who usually like to defend "freedom of speech" want to shout about authoritarians on this one? Again - what is wrong with demonstrating in favour of the Palestinian people and making it clear you don't want them to be war crimed? If anyone openly supports Hamas or says Israelis deserve to die - sure, that sounds like hate speech / incitement. But just being pro Palestinian?
Personally, I think its a terrible decision from the French.
The French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin has ordered that Pro-Palestinian Demonstrations across the Country be Banned and that anybody who Participates in them will be Arrested.
No people here who usually like to defend "freedom of speech" want to shout about authoritarians on this one? Again - what is wrong with demonstrating in favour of the Palestinian people and making it clear you don't want them to be war crimed? If anyone openly supports Hamas or says Israelis deserve to die - sure, that sounds like hate speech / incitement. But just being pro Palestinian?
Personally, I think its a terrible decision from the French.
They probably figure that such demonstrations are de facto Le Pen electoral rallies.
Still can't believe the news about Lisa Cameron defecting.
There have historically been a broad range of political views within the SNP, independence aside.
Lisa Cameron voted against her party on legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland and on a bill to prevent anti-abortion protests in the vicinity of clinics. So, as with Kate Forbes, I think there's a strong religious conservatism that put her at odds with mainstream SNP views. Her argument is that she was, at best, ostracised by the SNP in Westminster and her constituency due to these views - whether that's wholly correct or whether other clashes were involved, I don't know.
Going Tory rather than just resigning the whip does seem a bit of a pointed FU to her former colleagues, and is quite a stark illustration of one of the major divides in the SNP. Being pro-independence doesn't mean you agree on other things, and that's a real problem for the SNP.
Others have asked on here why she didn't defect to Labour. Possibly it's due to her being closer to the Tories, but I note she was a union rep in her past career. I'd actually not be hugely surprised if she had conversations with Labour - parties don't necessary welcome defectors with open arms where the backstory is problematic, and she wouldn't be the first prospective defector by any means to make a confidential approach and have it politely brushed off.
Of course it may well be the case the Tories reached out to her.
J @Beyond_Topline Let's be honest, the seat she's in now, there's no point defecting to the Tories, there's nothing in her interest to do so. She obviously didn't come cap in hand.
They've given her something, we just don't know what yet.
Still can't believe the news about Lisa Cameron defecting.
There have historically been a broad range of political views within the SNP, independence aside.
Lisa Cameron voted against her party on legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland and on a bill to prevent anti-abortion protests in the vicinity of clinics. So, as with Kate Forbes, I think there's a strong religious conservatism that put her at odds with mainstream SNP views. Her argument is that she was, at best, ostracised by the SNP in Westminster and her constituency due to these views - whether that's wholly correct or whether other clashes were involved, I don't know.
Going Tory rather than just resigning the whip does seem a bit of a pointed FU to her former colleagues, and is quite a stark illustration of one of the major divides in the SNP. Being pro-independence doesn't mean you agree on other things, and that's a real problem for the SNP.
Others have asked on here why she didn't defect to Labour. Possibly it's due to her being closer to the Tories, but I note she was a union rep in her past career. I'd actually not be hugely surprised if she had conversations with Labour - parties don't necessary welcome defectors with open arms where the backstory is problematic, and she wouldn't be the first prospective defector by any means to make a confidential approach and have it politely brushed off.
Ms Cameron says she is no longer pro-independence, so that's probably nothing she agrees on with (most of) her former colleagues.
Feels like that should be a pretty fundamental and unshakeable belief for someone standing as an SNP MP. Unless they were in it for the job and saw some convenient coattails.
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
How do you actually destroy Hamas?
Something proximate to how the Tamil Tigers were destroyed.
2 things need to happen:
1: Take every single bit of land they have under their control off them and bring it under your own control.
2: Kill everyone who is a member of, supporting or fighting on behalf of Hamas until either they are all dead, or there is nobody left who is fighting for Hamas as they have surrendered unconditionally or fled abroad.
I don't think what happened in Sri Lanka is a model anyone should follow!
Killing anyone who supports Hamas... that's thought crime stuff. We punish actions, not beliefs.
Why not follow that model, Sri Lanka won.
Providing material support to the enemy is an action and makes people a combatant under the rules of war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_combatant On October 27, 2008, Leon ruled that the definition of "enemy combatant" he would use was that set forth in the 2004 rules for Combatant Status Review Tribunals.[14][15][16]
"Enemy combatant" shall mean an individual who was part of or supporting Taliban or al Qaeda forces, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners. This includes any person who has committed belligerent act or has directly supported hostilities in aid of enemy armed forces.
Scottish Nationalism is full of bigotry, we see it on here with Scotch experts.
An SNP councillor who called a Sri Lankan-born Labour opponent a “new Scot” has been reported to a watchdog over the “racist” remarks.
Kairin van Sweeden, an Aberdeen city councillor, made the comments about Deena Tissera during a heated meeting on Wednesday on the cost of living crisis and how to spend city funds.
“I realise as a ‘new Scot’, councillor Tissera maybe doesn’t know about the mitigations [to austerity] that the SNP government have had to put in over the years,” Van Sweeden said. “For example, the bedroom tax . . . Maybe you’re not aware of the bedroom tax?”
Tissera, councillor for Hilton, Woodside and Stockethill, moved to Aberdeen for university and became a British citizen in June. Last year she became the first woman of colour to be elected as an Aberdeen city councillor.
She has reported the incident to the Standards Commission, the body that policies the conduct of councillors in Scotland. She has also written to Humza Yousaf, asking him to suspend Van Sweeden and investigate her comment
M Tauqeer Malik, the Labour group leader, interrupted Van Sweeden to protest at her comments, leaving David Cameron, the lord provost, unable to regain control of the chamber.
“I would like to be respected,” Tissera told the chamber. “I do not appreciate those comments. I have taken the Life in the UK test to become a citizen. I probably know more than you do.”
Cameron adjourned the council meeting in an attempt to calm the situation.
Van Sweeden later told the meeting: “I would like to apologise to councillor Tissera unreservedly if anything I said to you has caused personal offence in any way. I hope you can accept my apology.”
Tissera said that the comments made her feel like “an outsider” and that she was “absolutely hurt” by her words. “I’m not a second-class citizen. I am a citizen of this country,” she added.
Tissera later told the Press and Journal that she believed Van Sweeden’s comments were “absolutely racist” and criticised her “empty apology”.
“The innuendo was that I had just come off the boat and, as a so-called new Scot, I was not as Scottish as others in the room,” she said.
“And therefore, it insinuates I do not know about Scotland despite being a British citizen.
South First Responders is now publishing pages from a 14 page document found on a dead Hamas fighter, dated October 2022, and contains intelligence and operational details
Still can't believe the news about Lisa Cameron defecting.
There have historically been a broad range of political views within the SNP, independence aside.
Lisa Cameron voted against her party on legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland and on a bill to prevent anti-abortion protests in the vicinity of clinics. So, as with Kate Forbes, I think there's a strong religious conservatism that put her at odds with mainstream SNP views. Her argument is that she was, at best, ostracised by the SNP in Westminster and her constituency due to these views - whether that's wholly correct or whether other clashes were involved, I don't know.
Going Tory rather than just resigning the whip does seem a bit of a pointed FU to her former colleagues, and is quite a stark illustration of one of the major divides in the SNP. Being pro-independence doesn't mean you agree on other things, and that's a real problem for the SNP.
Others have asked on here why she didn't defect to Labour. Possibly it's due to her being closer to the Tories, but I note she was a union rep in her past career. I'd actually not be hugely surprised if she had conversations with Labour - parties don't necessary welcome defectors with open arms where the backstory is problematic, and she wouldn't be the first prospective defector by any means to make a confidential approach and have it politely brushed off.
Ms Cameron says she is no longer pro-independence, so that's probably nothing she agrees on with (most of) her former colleagues.
Stuart Campbell claims she still is pro-indy. Though, as I imagine you'd agree, I'd take anything he says with a very large pinch of salt. "Contrary to a report in The National, Dr Cameron told Wings this morning that she had NOT “had a significant change of heart about independence”, but that like many other people – including this site – she would have grave misgivings about it being achieved under the current SNP leadership."
The French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin has ordered that Pro-Palestinian Demonstrations across the Country be Banned and that anybody who Participates in them will be Arrested.
No people here who usually like to defend "freedom of speech" want to shout about authoritarians on this one? Again - what is wrong with demonstrating in favour of the Palestinian people and making it clear you don't want them to be war crimed? If anyone openly supports Hamas or says Israelis deserve to die - sure, that sounds like hate speech / incitement. But just being pro Palestinian?
I will. I think this is wrong and, worse, a mistake
People saying “gas the Jews” like the crowd in Sydney should be arrested immediately. But a simple protest? No
I am old enough to remember when Israel was being pressed to give up land for peace. Well it did that in Gaza. It gave up land. It removed the settlers. And what it got in return was Hamas and rockets and now massacres.
Israel has made many mistakes over the years. Netanyahu is unquestionably the wrong leader for it, especially at such a time. I fear that an invasion of Gaza now will be a strategic error and lead to all sorts of casualties for the innocent.
But the Palestinians have consistently made huge errors, the biggest one of all being their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel and the killing of every Jew everywhere - not just in Israel. This is explicitly genocidal. There is no negotiation with such a movement. Eliminating it is the only answer. Just as we sought to eliminate Nazism and ISIS and other similar genocidal movements.
Those who worry about what happens next need to provide an alternative to Israel, one that will not make that country prey to genocidal maniacs. Lots of people are willing to speak hard truths to Israel about obeying the laws of war and civilian deaths and the rest of it. Very few are telling Hamas that it is their genocidal ideology which has brought Gaza to the point it is, that it is their deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians which is putting Palestinians at risk, it is their refusal to accept Israel's right to exist which means there is not the remotest hope of starting any peace talks.
There is plenty of pressure which needs putting on Israel but Hamas must first be eliminated. It cannot - until it changes what it wants - be a player. It has taken itself outside the universe of civilised decency. So if invasion of Gaza is not the solution, what is? And if we don't have an alternative solution, then we can hardly be surprised if Israel does what it thinks necessary to save itself. What would we do were we in their position?
I sometimes feel that commentators are unwilling to provide or even begin to think about what an alternative might be because - after all the condemnations of Hamas - they give up at expecting anything better from the Palestinians and it is, after all, so much easier and more comfortable to revert to criticising Israel.
I was saying something similar the other day. Gaza allows itself to be ruled by Hamas. It does this in the knowledge that Hamas is committed to the death of all Jews. The murderous assaults came from their territory and seem to have been a source of glee.
I fully get that the residents of Gaza have a terrible life, that they are economically repressed by Israel and made to beg for water and electricity. Israel’s policies have been unenlightened at best and self harming all too often. If I lived in Gaza I would hate the Israeli government and want to resist that oppression.
But if you want to be listened to, if you want things to change, you do not start with the beheading of babies because they are Jews.
It is 17 years since there was an election in Gaza. 17 years during which Hamas has done it's best to kill anyone who actively opposes them. The Palestinians there 'allow' themselves to be ruled by Hamas about as much as the inhabitants of Kabul 'allow' themselves to be ruled by the Taliban.
So send the military in to liberate the populace and destroy Hamas.
2 birds, one stone.
If they were willing to do it in a way that we generally tried to in Afghanistan then I would agree all the way. But they won't. They are simply flattening the place with no regard for Palestinian casualties.
Its war, that happens. They need to flatten the places which Hamas are using.
There are no easy or peaceful solutions in warfare.
Safe refuge out of Gaza should be allowed for those who don't want to be fighting, many towns or cities have lost 95% of their population in Eastern Ukraine, no reason that won't or shouldn't happen in Gaza City too.
The civilians in Eastern Ukraine were allowed to leave. The civilians in Gaza are not.
But interesting that you are now (inadvetently) comparing the what is being done to the Palestinians with what was done to the Ukrainians.
I've made the comparison repeatedly.
Hamas = Russia Ukraine = Israel
Only difference is that Israel has the strength to take the fight onto the invaders territory rather than being forced to have it on their own.
That's not a bad thing, the situations are parallel rather than identical.
That is no excuse for killing civilians no matter how much you might want to. Neither Russia nor Hamas are civilised democratic entities. Israel is supposed to be. Hopefully they will remember that.
There is no excuse for deliberately killing civilians.
Killing civilians who are caught in the crossfire while you are acting in a way proportional to the objective is regrettable but acceptable.
The destruction of Hamas has to be the objective.
How do you actually destroy Hamas?
Something proximate to how the Tamil Tigers were destroyed.
2 things need to happen:
1: Take every single bit of land they have under their control off them and bring it under your own control.
2: Kill everyone who is a member of, supporting or fighting on behalf of Hamas until either they are all dead, or there is nobody left who is fighting for Hamas as they have surrendered unconditionally or fled abroad.
I don't think what happened in Sri Lanka is a model anyone should follow!
Killing anyone who supports Hamas... that's thought crime stuff. We punish actions, not beliefs.
Hamas is not the IRA. How long will it take you to realise this?
They are nearer to the Nazis, or ISIS
We had to completely obliterate Nazi Germany to defeat the Nazis, ditto ISIS
You think we killed everyone in Germany who had supported the Nazis??
What planet are you on?
I said we completely obliterated Nazi GERMANY. Which we did. By the end all their big cities were in ruins, half the country was starving, and the entire country was occupied - often in a brutal way
I hope this doesn’t happen to Gaza but it’s illustrative of the lengths you have to go to, if you want to really defeat a dangerous enemy
You seem to have already forgotten what you were replying to in that post. Admittedly it must be difficult to keep track.
No, you have. This is the original comment that sparked the chain.
2: Kill everyone who is a member of, supporting or fighting on behalf of Hamas until either they are all dead, or there is nobody left who is fighting for Hamas as they have surrendered unconditionally or fled abroad.
BiB: Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally, that ended the war.
Until they did, we absolutely were quite rightly killing the frontline soldiers and those who were supporting them.
Still can't believe the news about Lisa Cameron defecting.
There have historically been a broad range of political views within the SNP, independence aside.
Lisa Cameron voted against her party on legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland and on a bill to prevent anti-abortion protests in the vicinity of clinics. So, as with Kate Forbes, I think there's a strong religious conservatism that put her at odds with mainstream SNP views. Her argument is that she was, at best, ostracised by the SNP in Westminster and her constituency due to these views - whether that's wholly correct or whether other clashes were involved, I don't know.
Going Tory rather than just resigning the whip does seem a bit of a pointed FU to her former colleagues, and is quite a stark illustration of one of the major divides in the SNP. Being pro-independence doesn't mean you agree on other things, and that's a real problem for the SNP.
Others have asked on here why she didn't defect to Labour. Possibly it's due to her being closer to the Tories, but I note she was a union rep in her past career. I'd actually not be hugely surprised if she had conversations with Labour - parties don't necessary welcome defectors with open arms where the backstory is problematic, and she wouldn't be the first prospective defector by any means to make a confidential approach and have it politely brushed off.
Ms Cameron says she is no longer pro-independence, so that's probably nothing she agrees on with (most of) her former colleagues.
She hasn't quite even said that - the form of words is around the SNP approach to independence being "divisive" and wanting to "focus on other issues".
She kind of has no option but to distance herself from independence if she's to join any unionist party, particularly the Tories. I think it's pretty clear she's not had a Damascene conversion though... she was standing for nomination as an SNP candidate at the next election until five minutes ago, so it's pretty clear she saw the gate closing on her political career and just wanted to stick two fingers up to her former party. It seems incredibly unlikely she just woke up one morning and had a vision of the benefits of the Acts of Union.
Scottish Nationalism is full of bigotry, we see it on here with Scotch experts.
An SNP councillor who called a Sri Lankan-born Labour opponent a “new Scot” has been reported to a watchdog over the “racist” remarks.
Kairin van Sweeden, an Aberdeen city councillor, made the comments about Deena Tissera during a heated meeting on Wednesday on the cost of living crisis and how to spend city funds.
“I realise as a ‘new Scot’, councillor Tissera maybe doesn’t know about the mitigations [to austerity] that the SNP government have had to put in over the years,” Van Sweeden said. “For example, the bedroom tax . . . Maybe you’re not aware of the bedroom tax?”
Tissera, councillor for Hilton, Woodside and Stockethill, moved to Aberdeen for university and became a British citizen in June. Last year she became the first woman of colour to be elected as an Aberdeen city councillor.
She has reported the incident to the Standards Commission, the body that policies the conduct of councillors in Scotland. She has also written to Humza Yousaf, asking him to suspend Van Sweeden and investigate her comment
M Tauqeer Malik, the Labour group leader, interrupted Van Sweeden to protest at her comments, leaving David Cameron, the lord provost, unable to regain control of the chamber.
“I would like to be respected,” Tissera told the chamber. “I do not appreciate those comments. I have taken the Life in the UK test to become a citizen. I probably know more than you do.”
Cameron adjourned the council meeting in an attempt to calm the situation.
Van Sweeden later told the meeting: “I would like to apologise to councillor Tissera unreservedly if anything I said to you has caused personal offence in any way. I hope you can accept my apology.”
Tissera said that the comments made her feel like “an outsider” and that she was “absolutely hurt” by her words. “I’m not a second-class citizen. I am a citizen of this country,” she added.
Tissera later told the Press and Journal that she believed Van Sweeden’s comments were “absolutely racist” and criticised her “empty apology”.
“The innuendo was that I had just come off the boat and, as a so-called new Scot, I was not as Scottish as others in the room,” she said.
“And therefore, it insinuates I do not know about Scotland despite being a British citizen.
Scottish Nationalism is full of bigotry, we see it on here with Scotch experts.
An SNP councillor who called a Sri Lankan-born Labour opponent a “new Scot” has been reported to a watchdog over the “racist” remarks.
Kairin van Sweeden, an Aberdeen city councillor, made the comments about Deena Tissera during a heated meeting on Wednesday on the cost of living crisis and how to spend city funds.
“I realise as a ‘new Scot’, councillor Tissera maybe doesn’t know about the mitigations [to austerity] that the SNP government have had to put in over the years,” Van Sweeden said. “For example, the bedroom tax . . . Maybe you’re not aware of the bedroom tax?”
Tissera, councillor for Hilton, Woodside and Stockethill, moved to Aberdeen for university and became a British citizen in June. Last year she became the first woman of colour to be elected as an Aberdeen city councillor.
She has reported the incident to the Standards Commission, the body that policies the conduct of councillors in Scotland. She has also written to Humza Yousaf, asking him to suspend Van Sweeden and investigate her comment
M Tauqeer Malik, the Labour group leader, interrupted Van Sweeden to protest at her comments, leaving David Cameron, the lord provost, unable to regain control of the chamber.
“I would like to be respected,” Tissera told the chamber. “I do not appreciate those comments. I have taken the Life in the UK test to become a citizen. I probably know more than you do.”
Cameron adjourned the council meeting in an attempt to calm the situation.
Van Sweeden later told the meeting: “I would like to apologise to councillor Tissera unreservedly if anything I said to you has caused personal offence in any way. I hope you can accept my apology.”
Tissera said that the comments made her feel like “an outsider” and that she was “absolutely hurt” by her words. “I’m not a second-class citizen. I am a citizen of this country,” she added.
Tissera later told the Press and Journal that she believed Van Sweeden’s comments were “absolutely racist” and criticised her “empty apology”.
“The innuendo was that I had just come off the boat and, as a so-called new Scot, I was not as Scottish as others in the room,” she said.
“And therefore, it insinuates I do not know about Scotland despite being a British citizen.
With regard to the cash/cashless economy, perhaps it might be interesting to do a quick thought experiment.....
Suppose that at some time in the future, in the UK, you need to carry out a cash transaction; furthermore, that transaction requires you to receive some coins in change. What do you think the chances are of any of those coins bearing King Charles III's head?
No doubt the Royal Mint will strike King Charles coins, and a few might go into circulation, but most will be collector's proofs and the like. The few that make it into the public domain will be quickly snapped up as souvenirs. There are already so many QEII coins in the marketplace that are doing a perfectly good job that it's probably not worth the Bank of England or the Mint recalling them, other than for standard wear and tear - but that's a diminishing problem because so few people are using coins nowadays....
There's no blinding revelation at the end of this - but I reckon that in all probability I will never see the new King's head on a coin in general circulation. But I did recently buy a book of stamps, which are probably going the same way as the coin of the Realm.
Is Chas on stamps now? Stopped using those a while back - just do click and collect with the postman nowadays.
(P.S. find the prejudice that elderly folk can’t/won’t use contactless bizarre. Why don’t we put our efforts into reducing digital exclusion rather than propping up an obsolete form of barter?)
"Digital exclusion" isn't a clear cut thing.
Are you "digitally excluded" if you refuse to touch Facebook with a 10ft pole?
What if you refuse to install 10 parking apps of unknown provenance and security?
Or you prefer not to bother paying for mobile data that you don't need?
I’d answer No to all of your questions.
However, if you insist on paying cash for everything you certainly ARE digitally excluded because, apart from anything else, you are unable to buy anything online.
Contactless cards are one thing I think - it is when you get to 'apps' that the real problems start.
You might be surprised how many people don't buy things online, though.
Parking apps are evil. Officially.
Govt run car parks and those with over 200 spaces should be obliged to offer at least 2 from 3 out of cash, card and phone options.
Why on earth is a central diktat needed on this sort of stuff?
For private car parks, if people don't find it convenient enough, they don't use it and the operator loses out financially. With Council car parks, it's the same plus people can vote them out.
Public services have been regulated by government throughout my lifetime and many generations before me, with a view to ensuring wide access to them. Car parks should be part of that, and recent changes have been bad for the consumer and wider economy, imo of course.
When asked what his reaction to the “gruesome” photos of dead children, Antony Blinken said: “We did see photos and videos the Israeli government showed us.
“A baby, and infant riddled with bullets... Soldiers beheaded, young people burned alive in their cars. I could go on but it’s simply depravity in the worst imaginable way, it almost defies comprehension and in the most immediate future harkens back to ISIS and some of the things we saw when it was on his rampage, which thankfully was stopped.
“So I think for any human being to see this is really beyond anything we can comprehend or digest.” Blinken said: “Images are worth one thousand words, these images may be worth a million”.
It comes after shocking pictures of dead babies were shown to him by the Israeli government.
South First Responders is now publishing pages from a 14 page document found on a dead Hamas fighter, dated October 2022, and contains intelligence and operational details
Scottish Nationalism is full of bigotry, we see it on here with Scotch experts.
An SNP councillor who called a Sri Lankan-born Labour opponent a “new Scot” has been reported to a watchdog over the “racist” remarks.
Kairin van Sweeden, an Aberdeen city councillor, made the comments about Deena Tissera during a heated meeting on Wednesday on the cost of living crisis and how to spend city funds.
“I realise as a ‘new Scot’, councillor Tissera maybe doesn’t know about the mitigations [to austerity] that the SNP government have had to put in over the years,” Van Sweeden said. “For example, the bedroom tax . . . Maybe you’re not aware of the bedroom tax?”
Tissera, councillor for Hilton, Woodside and Stockethill, moved to Aberdeen for university and became a British citizen in June. Last year she became the first woman of colour to be elected as an Aberdeen city councillor.
She has reported the incident to the Standards Commission, the body that policies the conduct of councillors in Scotland. She has also written to Humza Yousaf, asking him to suspend Van Sweeden and investigate her comment
M Tauqeer Malik, the Labour group leader, interrupted Van Sweeden to protest at her comments, leaving David Cameron, the lord provost, unable to regain control of the chamber.
“I would like to be respected,” Tissera told the chamber. “I do not appreciate those comments. I have taken the Life in the UK test to become a citizen. I probably know more than you do.”
Cameron adjourned the council meeting in an attempt to calm the situation.
Van Sweeden later told the meeting: “I would like to apologise to councillor Tissera unreservedly if anything I said to you has caused personal offence in any way. I hope you can accept my apology.”
Tissera said that the comments made her feel like “an outsider” and that she was “absolutely hurt” by her words. “I’m not a second-class citizen. I am a citizen of this country,” she added.
Tissera later told the Press and Journal that she believed Van Sweeden’s comments were “absolutely racist” and criticised her “empty apology”.
“The innuendo was that I had just come off the boat and, as a so-called new Scot, I was not as Scottish as others in the room,” she said.
“And therefore, it insinuates I do not know about Scotland despite being a British citizen.
Still can't believe the news about Lisa Cameron defecting.
There have historically been a broad range of political views within the SNP, independence aside.
Lisa Cameron voted against her party on legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland and on a bill to prevent anti-abortion protests in the vicinity of clinics. So, as with Kate Forbes, I think there's a strong religious conservatism that put her at odds with mainstream SNP views. Her argument is that she was, at best, ostracised by the SNP in Westminster and her constituency due to these views - whether that's wholly correct or whether other clashes were involved, I don't know.
Going Tory rather than just resigning the whip does seem a bit of a pointed FU to her former colleagues, and is quite a stark illustration of one of the major divides in the SNP. Being pro-independence doesn't mean you agree on other things, and that's a real problem for the SNP.
Others have asked on here why she didn't defect to Labour. Possibly it's due to her being closer to the Tories, but I note she was a union rep in her past career. I'd actually not be hugely surprised if she had conversations with Labour - parties don't necessary welcome defectors with open arms where the backstory is problematic, and she wouldn't be the first prospective defector by any means to make a confidential approach and have it politely brushed off.
Of course it may well be the case the Tories reached out to her.
J @Beyond_Topline Let's be honest, the seat she's in now, there's no point defecting to the Tories, there's nothing in her interest to do so. She obviously didn't come cap in hand.
They've given her something, we just don't know what yet.
I don't know. The Tories need a bit of a boost, and she wants to stick two fingers up to the SNP.
Does there need to be more to it than that? And what can the Tories offer her realistically? They're not going to waste a peerage on her, and she's leaving Parliament at the same time as they are likely to leave Government. She'll get a bit of a hero's welcome, and that'll be nice for her. But I'm not sure there's more to it than the obvious.
Still can't believe the news about Lisa Cameron defecting.
There have historically been a broad range of political views within the SNP, independence aside.
Lisa Cameron voted against her party on legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland and on a bill to prevent anti-abortion protests in the vicinity of clinics. So, as with Kate Forbes, I think there's a strong religious conservatism that put her at odds with mainstream SNP views. Her argument is that she was, at best, ostracised by the SNP in Westminster and her constituency due to these views - whether that's wholly correct or whether other clashes were involved, I don't know.
Going Tory rather than just resigning the whip does seem a bit of a pointed FU to her former colleagues, and is quite a stark illustration of one of the major divides in the SNP. Being pro-independence doesn't mean you agree on other things, and that's a real problem for the SNP.
Others have asked on here why she didn't defect to Labour. Possibly it's due to her being closer to the Tories, but I note she was a union rep in her past career. I'd actually not be hugely surprised if she had conversations with Labour - parties don't necessary welcome defectors with open arms where the backstory is problematic, and she wouldn't be the first prospective defector by any means to make a confidential approach and have it politely brushed off.
Of course it may well be the case the Tories reached out to her.
J @Beyond_Topline Let's be honest, the seat she's in now, there's no point defecting to the Tories, there's nothing in her interest to do so. She obviously didn't come cap in hand.
They've given her something, we just don't know what yet.
I don't know. The Tories need a bit of a boost, and she wants to stick two fingers up to the SNP.
Does there need to be more to it than that? And what can the Tories offer her realistically? They're not going to waste a peerage on her, and she's leaving Parliament at the same time as they are likely to leave Government. She'll get a bit of a hero's welcome, and that'll be nice for her. But I'm not sure there's more to it than the obvious.
The insinuation is that she was bribed into doing it. It’s just a smear.
Comments
However, while cash use is much less there will always be a demand for lose change or indeed some of our elderly who will continue to use it
Personally I only use cash at the hairdressers or where a business demands it...
Everyone who does jobs for us is paid through our banking app
https://youtu.be/S9qom1xMSiU?si=IFhPDRX1TgWWnTsq
https://www.anpost.com/Post-Parcels/Sending/Digital-Stamp
I've not seen any reason to revise that assessment since.
To make up the pay, one man might need (say) £154.23, and another £178.61 (figures illustrative). He would ask me to calculate how many 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 50p, £1, £5, £10 etc he would need to get from the bank to pay all the men. In the example above, we would need 2 pennies and 1 tuppence, etc.
I loved doing it. Later on, I would occasionally even go to the bank to get the cash - which caused a little alarm at the bank when a young lad with a burly labourner as munder turned up asking for a few grand out of a business account...
I think it certainly helped me with mental arithmetic.
I believe some store your credit card details (like Amazon do, if you let them). I know they have to jump through a lot of hoops with the card companies to do this but I still don't think it is a good idea.
Women don't get rhyming slang. There, I've said it.
Ask what plates of meat, brown bread, Ayrton or chalfonts mean and they can't figure it out. Men usually can.
Tin hat on.
However, if you insist on paying cash for everything you certainly ARE digitally excluded because, apart from anything else, you are unable to buy anything online.
https://twitter.com/TVietor08/status/1712448711358648358
I saw news the other day of a church that was switching its donations regimen to SumUp!
They're not.
If I wanted to publish a newspaper with cartoons of Jews that could be straight out of Der Stürmer, the law shouldn't stop me.
But I have to deal with the fact that other people have agency too. They can choose not to sell my newspaper. They can choose not to advertise in it. They can organize demonstrations against it.
All those thing, see, are free speech as well.
Truly depressing we have to do this
2 things need to happen:
1: Take every single bit of land they have under their control off them and bring it under your own control.
2: Kill everyone who is a member of, supporting or fighting on behalf of Hamas until either they are all dead, or there is nobody left who is fighting for Hamas as they have surrendered unconditionally or fled abroad.
Killing anyone who supports Hamas... that's thought crime stuff. We punish actions, not beliefs.
@RealTimeWWII
German occupiers have begun "Blitzpogrome", lightning pogroms against Jewish Poles, often beating victims or cutting/burning their beards."
https://twitter.com/RealTimeWWII/status/1712497672077115622
BREAKING: France has banned pro-Palestinian protests.
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1712501885293285590?s=20
They are nearer to the Nazis, or ISIS
We had to completely obliterate Nazi Germany to defeat the Nazis, ditto ISIS
"For much of their history and all of prehistory, humans did not see themselves as being any different from the other animals among which they lived. Hunter-gatherers saw their prey as equals, if not superiors, and animals were worshipped as divinities in many traditional cultures. The humanist sense of a gulf between ourselves and other animals is an aberration. Feeble as it is today, the feeling of sharing a common destiny with other living things is embedded in the human psyche. Those who struggle to conserve what is left of the natural environment are moved by the love of living things, biophilia, the frail bond of feeling that ties humankind to the Earth."
You might be surprised how many people don't buy things online, though.
And then five years later I got it on the Kindle, and started to reread it.
This time, I found it rather shallow. I found too many straw man arguments and too much - and we're all guilty of this I know - decide the conclusion, and then find the argument to back it up.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-67093649
Some of the elderly, the terminally stupid (must be deemed a disability), those who don’t like debt etc?
Nikki Haley gains momentum in GOP presidential primary race
Washington Times
https://order-order.com/2023/10/12/libdems-revive-dodgy-bar-charts/
Lisa Cameron has today announced the bombshell decision to become a Conservative MP after she revealed that the deterioration of her mental health led to her being put on antidepressants.
She said that she has received support from the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in recent weeks after opening up about her mental wellbeing, but no contact from the SNP leadership."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12622289/SNP-MP-Lisa-Cameron-quits-party-joins-Conservatives-Tories-conference-bulling-toxic.html
He'd definitely have Lindbergh signed up for one of his space missions.
Three million followers on X.
What planet are you on?
More was worried that the Bishop’s street cred and (by extension) the church’s would suffer
I hope this doesn’t happen to Gaza but it’s illustrative of the lengths you have to go to, if you want to really defeat a dangerous enemy
Going Tory rather than just resigning the whip does seem a bit of a pointed FU to her former colleagues, and is quite a stark illustration of one of the major divides in the SNP. Being pro-independence doesn't mean you agree on other things, and that's a real problem for the SNP.
Others have asked on here why she didn't defect to Labour. Possibly it's due to her being closer to the Tories, but I note she was a union rep in her past career. I'd actually not be hugely surprised if she had conversations with Labour - parties don't necessary welcome defectors with open arms where the backstory is problematic, and she wouldn't be the first prospective defector by any means to make a confidential approach and have it politely brushed off.
For many years, I avoided using cards for purchases of less than 200 dollars, in spite of the legal advantages credit cards give you here in the US. It just seemed simpler.
But now Chase bank bribes me a little for almost every purchase I make with their credit card, 1.5 to 2.5 percent, and more on special deals. So I use the card for purchases of over 20 dollars.
Even though I an nearly certain that practice contributes to the inflation that I see at, for example, inexpensive restaurants.
Aris for arse always makes me laugh. A double rhyme.
One of the things I love watching old episodes of the sweeney and minder is the language.
https://news.sky.com/story/snp-mp-lisa-cameron-defects-to-conservatives-over-bullying-in-westminster-group-12982971
For private car parks, if people don't find it convenient enough, they don't use it and the operator loses out financially. With Council car parks, it's the same plus people can vote them out.
J
@Beyond_Topline
Let's be honest, the seat she's in now, there's no point defecting to the Tories, there's nothing in her interest to do so. She obviously didn't come cap in hand.
They've given her something, we just don't know what yet.
One if the charms of this most peculiar linguistic quirk is the variation, flexibility and the way it changes over the years.
Providing material support to the enemy is an action and makes people a combatant under the rules of war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_combatant
On October 27, 2008, Leon ruled that the definition of "enemy combatant" he would use was that set forth in the 2004 rules for Combatant Status Review Tribunals.[14][15][16]
"Enemy combatant" shall mean an individual who was part of or supporting Taliban or al Qaeda forces, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners. This includes any person who has committed belligerent act or has directly supported hostilities in aid of enemy armed forces.
An SNP councillor who called a Sri Lankan-born Labour opponent a “new Scot” has been reported to a watchdog over the “racist” remarks.
Kairin van Sweeden, an Aberdeen city councillor, made the comments about Deena Tissera during a heated meeting on Wednesday on the cost of living crisis and how to spend city funds.
“I realise as a ‘new Scot’, councillor Tissera maybe doesn’t know about the mitigations [to austerity] that the SNP government have had to put in over the years,” Van Sweeden said. “For example, the bedroom tax . . . Maybe you’re not aware of the bedroom tax?”
Tissera, councillor for Hilton, Woodside and Stockethill, moved to Aberdeen for university and became a British citizen in June. Last year she became the first woman of colour to be elected as an Aberdeen city councillor.
She has reported the incident to the Standards Commission, the body that policies the conduct of councillors in Scotland. She has also written to Humza Yousaf, asking him to suspend Van Sweeden and investigate her comment
M Tauqeer Malik, the Labour group leader, interrupted Van Sweeden to protest at her comments, leaving David Cameron, the lord provost, unable to regain control of the chamber.
“I would like to be respected,” Tissera told the chamber. “I do not appreciate those comments. I have taken the Life in the UK test to become a citizen. I probably know more than you do.”
Cameron adjourned the council meeting in an attempt to calm the situation.
Van Sweeden later told the meeting: “I would like to apologise to councillor Tissera unreservedly if anything I said to you has caused personal offence in any way. I hope you can accept my apology.”
Tissera said that the comments made her feel like “an outsider” and that she was “absolutely hurt” by her words. “I’m not a second-class citizen. I am a citizen of this country,” she added.
Tissera later told the Press and Journal that she believed Van Sweeden’s comments were “absolutely racist” and criticised her “empty apology”.
“The innuendo was that I had just come off the boat and, as a so-called new Scot, I was not as Scottish as others in the room,” she said.
“And therefore, it insinuates I do not know about Scotland despite being a British citizen.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labour-councillor-called-a-new-scot-in-racism-row-rbtdhlh7m
South First Responders is now publishing pages from a 14 page document found on a dead Hamas fighter, dated October 2022, and contains intelligence and operational details
https://x.com/EliotHiggins/status/1712497643924943190?s=20
Raid plan page says June 15, 2023. If this is verifiable, could suggest the attack maybe was originally supposed to happen 4 months ago.
https://x.com/azelin/status/1712505142879142305?s=20
"Contrary to a report in The National, Dr Cameron told Wings this morning that she had NOT “had a significant change of heart about independence”, but that like many other people – including this site – she would have grave misgivings about it being achieved under the current SNP leadership."
People saying “gas the Jews” like the crowd in Sydney should be arrested immediately. But a simple protest? No
2: Kill everyone who is a member of, supporting or fighting on behalf of Hamas until either they are all dead, or there is nobody left who is fighting for Hamas as they have surrendered unconditionally or fled abroad.
BiB: Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally, that ended the war.
Until they did, we absolutely were quite rightly killing the frontline soldiers and those who were supporting them.
She kind of has no option but to distance herself from independence if she's to join any unionist party, particularly the Tories. I think it's pretty clear she's not had a Damascene conversion though... she was standing for nomination as an SNP candidate at the next election until five minutes ago, so it's pretty clear she saw the gate closing on her political career and just wanted to stick two fingers up to her former party. It seems incredibly unlikely she just woke up one morning and had a vision of the benefits of the Acts of Union.
When asked what his reaction to the “gruesome” photos of dead children, Antony Blinken said: “We did see photos and videos the Israeli government showed us.
“A baby, and infant riddled with bullets... Soldiers beheaded, young people burned alive in their cars. I could go on but it’s simply depravity in the worst imaginable way, it almost defies comprehension and in the most immediate future harkens back to ISIS and some of the things we saw when it was on his rampage, which thankfully was stopped.
“So I think for any human being to see this is really beyond anything we can comprehend or digest.”
Blinken said: “Images are worth one thousand words, these images may be worth a million”.
It comes after shocking pictures of dead babies were shown to him by the Israeli government.
Because Hamas organised this in just a few days...
Does there need to be more to it than that? And what can the Tories offer her realistically? They're not going to waste a peerage on her, and she's leaving Parliament at the same time as they are likely to leave Government. She'll get a bit of a hero's welcome, and that'll be nice for her. But I'm not sure there's more to it than the obvious.