"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Look if the last 75 years proves anything, rolling a huge unexploded bomb into the property next to you, battering it with a sledgehammer every so often, allowing the casing to corrode, letting the explosive become unstable and the fuse degrade has no downsides whatsoever.
Channel 4 are really giving the Israeli Ambassador a hard time. They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians. Israel has a history of lying which they have helpfully show. She is poor though not as bad as Mark Regev. My sense is that the PR is running out of Israels control
They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians
then they shouldnt describe themselves as jounalists
The Israeli government is more likely to tell the truth than Hamas, but that doesn't mean one should accept their statements uncritically.
Labour lead down to 12 points with More in Common . Fieldwork 14 to 16 October
Lab 42 Con 30 Lib Dem 12 Reform 7 Green 6 SNP 3
I think events in the Middle East are helping the Cons with attention away from domestic issues .
The combined Con and Reform at 37 would seriously worry Labour . I think a few weeks back I’d have backed Labour for both by-elections . Now I think they’re more likely to take Tamworth than Mid-Beds . The split votes there and drop in national lead might be too much of a climb . In Tamworth the Tory candidate might have harmed his hopes with Fxckgate.
This is a swing of 12% since the general election, and Labour need a 10% swing to win a majority with the old boundaries. I think we're heading for a Lab/LD coalition, (which would hopefully introduce proportional representation).
Such a coalition might want to introduce PR, but they'd probably have to have a referendum on it, and I'm not sure the public would back it, whatever the opinion polls say, since it would mean that Labour and Conservative supporters (usually around 70-75% of the electorate) would have to kiss goodbye to ever having majority governments run by their Party again. Also there's the well known tendency to default to the status quo in anoraky questions as we just saw in the Aussie referendum.
(But of course I've been wrong often before - I didn't think we'd vote to leave the EU until a day or two before the vote).
There wouldn't need to be a referendum if PR were in the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos. It is in the LibDem one. The challenge is getting it into the Labour manifesto - even if it is in very small print on page 46.
What always makes me laugh about those who want to change the constitution, is they think that people will vote exactly the same way if it was changed.
I know lots of people who have voted LD; only a few of them are actual supporters of the party. It is currently a catchall vote for both anti Tory and anti Labour depending upon constituency.
UKIP/REF, meanwhile, would do much better under PR, I suspect....
Yes - UKIP/REF and also the Greens would do much better under PR - and so they should.
I'm not in favour of a list system (too much power to the Parties and no choice for the voter and no local accountability.
I'm in favour of a Single Transferable Vote in constituencies of 4 or 5 members where there is competition between members of the same party and also local accountability.
I'm not in favour of it for party advantage. I'm in favour of it because it would be fairer and more democratic and lead to better government. It would also as a bonus avoid all the tactical voting shenanigans.
I agree that it may change which party people vote for, perhaps dramatically. But's that OK. That's good. It would be a more honest vote.
I would prefer constituencies kept the same size and just the single MP but chosen by AV.
AV avoids tactical voting which is good. But if you support a particular party, you have to vote for whoever that party puts up. There is no competition between contenders from the same party. It gives the parties too much power over voter choice, in my opinion.
You don't think they could exercise exactly the same control over 3 or 4 candidates as they do over 1? They would still be choosing who those candidates are no matter how many of them you have to choose from.
But each elector would have only one vote. So the candidates from each party group are also competing against one another.
Imagine you had a constituency where the Conservative candidates were Rory Stewart, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Dominic Cummings and Suella Braverman. You have to rank them. Which one would get your vote first?
There is always the risk that a voter, appalled by the attitude and competence of a Conservative candidate, might prefer to vote for a Socialist or Lib Dem candidate ahead o fthe appalling Conservative. So The Party would need to have a good range of candidates to stop its voters rushing off into the arms of Farage,or whatever.
Rigid party control wth identikit candidates leads only to a loss of support.
Good innit?
But that wasn't my point. It was Barnesian who is arguing for STV with multiple MPs and using the reason that it prevents parties deciding who the candidates are. I was poiting out that they can decide that just as easily with 4 candidates from each party as they can with one so it does not reduce the power of the parties at all.
It reduces the power of the party slightly.
The Conservatives put up four candidates, and you want to vote for a Conservative: well you at least get to choose which one you make top of your list. If Euroscepticism is important to you, you can choose the one who has made the right noises there. Etc. Yes, all four candidates are vetted by the party: but - unlike in the current system - it is not the party who decides exactly which one is elected in a given seat.
But as has already been pointed out, what actually usually happens under STV is the Conservatives put up the same number of candidates as there are seats available. Not least because they don't want to risk diluting their vote. So you still don't get much more of a choice than under AV as long as you want to vote Conservative.
Whilst the big downside is you weaken or lose the constituency link.
I agree that you weaken the constituency link, because there are now three or four MPs for a - larger - area than under FPTP. I don't think it's completely eliminated - someone is still MP for a geographical area, it's just a larger one.
But I would still argue that you're putting more control in peoples' hands over which members from a political party's slate gets elected.
Whether that's worth the trade off depends on your point of view.
It rather trashes the constituency link.
To take a semi-random example, take the constituency of Newcastle Under Lyme. If we went from single member constituencies, to 4 member constituencies, we'd almost certainly go from having one member dedicated to Newcastle Under Lyme . . . to seeing 4 members dedicated effectively to Stoke.
Newcastle under Lyme would be completely aborbed within and a minor player to the interests of Stoke.
You need to write out your work on the blackboard for that equation.
Within the area local to that, there are currently 4 constituencies: Newcastle under Lyme Stoke on Trent Central Stoke on Trent North Stoke on Trent South
Can you spot the odd one out?
If we had a 4 member constituency, then we'd have a solitary Stoke on Trent constituency which would incorporate Newcastle under Lyme to make up the numbers.
Stoke on Trent making up the overwhelming majority of the electorate would dwarf the concerns of Newcastle under Lyme.
You'd go from have a member for Newcastle, to having instead a Tory member for Stoke, a Labour member for Stoke and however else it breaks down too ... for Stoke.
Like I said before, you should study on actual operation of STV in actual Irish constituencies.
Where in a typical four-seater, a similar area with significant local identity, most likely would get one of its own duly elected.
Note that Irish voters frequently - even usually - jiggle their preferences based on both party AND locality.
You can't have it both ways, both locale and proportionality, as the whole reason of large constituencies is deliberately to abolish the locale vote to get proportionality. Can't have both.
Under your theory, who represents Newcastle? Rather than having a Tory for Stoke, Labour for Stoke and however else it breaks down too for Stoke?
Ain't theory, rather actuality.
Check out the facts re: how STV plays out in Ireland, before theorizing how it might turn out in England.
Please provide any evidence that's how it works in Ireland, because the facts seem to me to show the polar opposite.
Closest Irish analogy I can think of is the Waterford constituency. It has four TDs, one each for Sinn Fein, Greens, Fianna Fail and an Independent.
All 4 of them hail from Waterford.
Waterford the Constituency covers Waterford but also covers Dungarvan and Tramore, but I can't find a single TD from or specifically representing either Dungarvan or Tramore, as they've simply been absorbed by Waterford.
Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Dungarvan, before Waterford? Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Tramore, before Waterford?
Actual facts, not random unsubstantiated theorising.
Don't forget the UK! STV is used in Northern Ireland at Local and Assembly level.
Channel 4 are really giving the Israeli Ambassador a hard time. They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians. Israel has a history of lying which they have helpfully show. She is poor though not as bad as Mark Regev. My sense is that the PR is running out of Israels control
They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians
then they shouldnt describe themselves as jounalists
The Israeli government is more likely to tell the truth than Hamas, but that doesn't mean one should accept their statements uncritically.
I dont, all governments lie but the issue was who is more reliable
Labour lead down to 12 points with More in Common . Fieldwork 14 to 16 October
Lab 42 Con 30 Lib Dem 12 Reform 7 Green 6 SNP 3
I think events in the Middle East are helping the Cons with attention away from domestic issues .
The combined Con and Reform at 37 would seriously worry Labour . I think a few weeks back I’d have backed Labour for both by-elections . Now I think they’re more likely to take Tamworth than Mid-Beds . The split votes there and drop in national lead might be too much of a climb . In Tamworth the Tory candidate might have harmed his hopes with Fxckgate.
This is a swing of 12% since the general election, and Labour need a 10% swing to win a majority with the old boundaries. I think we're heading for a Lab/LD coalition, (which would hopefully introduce proportional representation).
Such a coalition might want to introduce PR, but they'd probably have to have a referendum on it, and I'm not sure the public would back it, whatever the opinion polls say, since it would mean that Labour and Conservative supporters (usually around 70-75% of the electorate) would have to kiss goodbye to ever having majority governments run by their Party again. Also there's the well known tendency to default to the status quo in anoraky questions as we just saw in the Aussie referendum.
(But of course I've been wrong often before - I didn't think we'd vote to leave the EU until a day or two before the vote).
There wouldn't need to be a referendum if PR were in the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos. It is in the LibDem one. The challenge is getting it into the Labour manifesto - even if it is in very small print on page 46.
What always makes me laugh about those who want to change the constitution, is they think that people will vote exactly the same way if it was changed.
I know lots of people who have voted LD; only a few of them are actual supporters of the party. It is currently a catchall vote for both anti Tory and anti Labour depending upon constituency.
UKIP/REF, meanwhile, would do much better under PR, I suspect....
Yes - UKIP/REF and also the Greens would do much better under PR - and so they should.
I'm not in favour of a list system (too much power to the Parties and no choice for the voter and no local accountability.
I'm in favour of a Single Transferable Vote in constituencies of 4 or 5 members where there is competition between members of the same party and also local accountability.
I'm not in favour of it for party advantage. I'm in favour of it because it would be fairer and more democratic and lead to better government. It would also as a bonus avoid all the tactical voting shenanigans.
I agree that it may change which party people vote for, perhaps dramatically. But's that OK. That's good. It would be a more honest vote.
I would prefer constituencies kept the same size and just the single MP but chosen by AV.
AV avoids tactical voting which is good. But if you support a particular party, you have to vote for whoever that party puts up. There is no competition between contenders from the same party. It gives the parties too much power over voter choice, in my opinion.
You don't think they could exercise exactly the same control over 3 or 4 candidates as they do over 1? They would still be choosing who those candidates are no matter how many of them you have to choose from.
But each elector would have only one vote. So the candidates from each party group are also competing against one another.
Imagine you had a constituency where the Conservative candidates were Rory Stewart, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Dominic Cummings and Suella Braverman. You have to rank them. Which one would get your vote first?
There is always the risk that a voter, appalled by the attitude and competence of a Conservative candidate, might prefer to vote for a Socialist or Lib Dem candidate ahead o fthe appalling Conservative. So The Party would need to have a good range of candidates to stop its voters rushing off into the arms of Farage,or whatever.
Rigid party control wth identikit candidates leads only to a loss of support.
Good innit?
But that wasn't my point. It was Barnesian who is arguing for STV with multiple MPs and using the reason that it prevents parties deciding who the candidates are. I was poiting out that they can decide that just as easily with 4 candidates from each party as they can with one so it does not reduce the power of the parties at all.
It reduces the power of the party slightly.
The Conservatives put up four candidates, and you want to vote for a Conservative: well you at least get to choose which one you make top of your list. If Euroscepticism is important to you, you can choose the one who has made the right noises there. Etc. Yes, all four candidates are vetted by the party: but - unlike in the current system - it is not the party who decides exactly which one is elected in a given seat.
But as has already been pointed out, what actually usually happens under STV is the Conservatives put up the same number of candidates as there are seats available. Not least because they don't want to risk diluting their vote. So you still don't get much more of a choice than under AV as long as you want to vote Conservative.
Whilst the big downside is you weaken or lose the constituency link.
I agree that you weaken the constituency link, because there are now three or four MPs for a - larger - area than under FPTP. I don't think it's completely eliminated - someone is still MP for a geographical area, it's just a larger one.
But I would still argue that you're putting more control in peoples' hands over which members from a political party's slate gets elected.
Whether that's worth the trade off depends on your point of view.
It rather trashes the constituency link.
To take a semi-random example, take the constituency of Newcastle Under Lyme. If we went from single member constituencies, to 4 member constituencies, we'd almost certainly go from having one member dedicated to Newcastle Under Lyme . . . to seeing 4 members dedicated effectively to Stoke.
Newcastle under Lyme would be completely aborbed within and a minor player to the interests of Stoke.
You need to write out your work on the blackboard for that equation.
Within the area local to that, there are currently 4 constituencies: Newcastle under Lyme Stoke on Trent Central Stoke on Trent North Stoke on Trent South
Can you spot the odd one out?
If we had a 4 member constituency, then we'd have a solitary Stoke on Trent constituency which would incorporate Newcastle under Lyme to make up the numbers.
Stoke on Trent making up the overwhelming majority of the electorate would dwarf the concerns of Newcastle under Lyme.
You'd go from have a member for Newcastle, to having instead a Tory member for Stoke, a Labour member for Stoke and however else it breaks down too ... for Stoke.
Like I said before, you should study on actual operation of STV in actual Irish constituencies.
Where in a typical four-seater, a similar area with significant local identity, most likely would get one of its own duly elected.
Note that Irish voters frequently - even usually - jiggle their preferences based on both party AND locality.
You can't have it both ways, both locale and proportionality, as the whole reason of large constituencies is deliberately to abolish the locale vote to get proportionality. Can't have both.
Under your theory, who represents Newcastle? Rather than having a Tory for Stoke, Labour for Stoke and however else it breaks down too for Stoke?
Ain't theory, rather actuality.
Check out the facts re: how STV plays out in Ireland, before theorizing how it might turn out in England.
Please provide any evidence that's how it works in Ireland, because the facts seem to me to show the polar opposite.
Closest Irish analogy I can think of is the Waterford constituency. It has four TDs, one each for Sinn Fein, Greens, Fianna Fail and an Independent.
All 4 of them hail from Waterford.
Waterford the Constituency covers Waterford but also covers Dungarvan and Tramore, but I can't find a single TD from or specifically representing either Dungarvan or Tramore, as they've simply been absorbed by Waterford.
Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Dungarvan, before Waterford? Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Tramore, before Waterford?
Actual facts, not random unsubstantiated theorising.
The Green in the Dail from Waterford constituency, Marc Ó Cathasaigh TD, is from Tramore.
But now please show me any evidence that Green is happy to argue for investment or other policies that would benefit Tramore over the rest of Waterford, which was the point.
Without Green Waterford voters, he would lose.
Currently we have an MP in Parliament who can argue for investment that is necessary for Newcastle, even if its unpopular in Stoke. Merge the constituencies together, have one MP representing the entire region for that party, and that's not possible anymore.
Channel 4 are really giving the Israeli Ambassador a hard time. They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians. Israel has a history of lying which they have helpfully show. She is poor though not as bad as Mark Regev. My sense is that the PR is running out of Israels control
They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians
then they shouldnt describe themselves as jounalists
The Israeli government is more likely to tell the truth than Hamas, but that doesn't mean one should accept their statements uncritically.
Ridiculous to suggest that they'd lie about missiles from Islamic Jihad.
Channel 4 are really giving the Israeli Ambassador a hard time. They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians. Israel has a history of lying which they have helpfully show. She is poor though not as bad as Mark Regev. My sense is that the PR is running out of Israels control
They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians
then they shouldnt describe themselves as jounalists
The Israeli government is more likely to tell the truth than Hamas, but that doesn't mean one should accept their statements uncritically.
Ridiculous to suggest that they'd lie about missiles from Islamic Jihad.
They did - at least - tell the truth eventually. Which is better than, for example, Donald Trump or Hamas.
Channel 4 are really giving the Israeli Ambassador a hard time. They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians. Israel has a history of lying which they have helpfully show. She is poor though not as bad as Mark Regev. My sense is that the PR is running out of Israels control
Leaving this hospital incident aside, the mutterings I've heard locally over the last couple of days suggest public sympathy is moving away from Israel to the ordinary Palestinian victims (not Hamas!). People were rightly horrified and outraged by Hamas's murderous assault including women and babies, but days of seeing homes reduced to rubble and reports of siege conditions has changed that. Whether it matters to Israel in the short term, or to Netanyahu at all, is in doubt.
Very much so. No one wants to watch the 4th most powerful army in the world go on a turkey shoot against a relatively defenceless population. It looks obscene and as you say the sympathy seems to have shifted quite markedly. Apart from on here Israel doesn't seem to be very popular.
So far the people I have discussed this with are despairing about both sides and the never ending nature of this cycle of violence, lull, more violence with no end in sight.
They do agree that Israel cutting water off is terrible.
But in my experience most take my view - we’d rather not pick sides, and despair for all, but if we must pick sides we pick Israel.
Why? BOTH sides have killed LOTS of civilians since Oct 7th.
Why?
Purely selfishly, Jihadism is a bigger threat to my way of life than Zionism.
On topic. Wife and I had a day with grandchildren in Mid Beds today. Our son and his wife have decided to vote Lab as they seem best placed to defeat the Conservatives.
What was their vote last time, if you don't mind saying?
Labour lead down to 12 points with More in Common . Fieldwork 14 to 16 October
Lab 42 Con 30 Lib Dem 12 Reform 7 Green 6 SNP 3
I think events in the Middle East are helping the Cons with attention away from domestic issues .
The combined Con and Reform at 37 would seriously worry Labour . I think a few weeks back I’d have backed Labour for both by-elections . Now I think they’re more likely to take Tamworth than Mid-Beds . The split votes there and drop in national lead might be too much of a climb . In Tamworth the Tory candidate might have harmed his hopes with Fxckgate.
This is a swing of 12% since the general election, and Labour need a 10% swing to win a majority with the old boundaries. I think we're heading for a Lab/LD coalition, (which would hopefully introduce proportional representation).
Such a coalition might want to introduce PR, but they'd probably have to have a referendum on it, and I'm not sure the public would back it, whatever the opinion polls say, since it would mean that Labour and Conservative supporters (usually around 70-75% of the electorate) would have to kiss goodbye to ever having majority governments run by their Party again. Also there's the well known tendency to default to the status quo in anoraky questions as we just saw in the Aussie referendum.
(But of course I've been wrong often before - I didn't think we'd vote to leave the EU until a day or two before the vote).
There wouldn't need to be a referendum if PR were in the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos. It is in the LibDem one. The challenge is getting it into the Labour manifesto - even if it is in very small print on page 46.
What always makes me laugh about those who want to change the constitution, is they think that people will vote exactly the same way if it was changed.
I know lots of people who have voted LD; only a few of them are actual supporters of the party. It is currently a catchall vote for both anti Tory and anti Labour depending upon constituency.
UKIP/REF, meanwhile, would do much better under PR, I suspect....
Yes - UKIP/REF and also the Greens would do much better under PR - and so they should.
I'm not in favour of a list system (too much power to the Parties and no choice for the voter and no local accountability.
I'm in favour of a Single Transferable Vote in constituencies of 4 or 5 members where there is competition between members of the same party and also local accountability.
I'm not in favour of it for party advantage. I'm in favour of it because it would be fairer and more democratic and lead to better government. It would also as a bonus avoid all the tactical voting shenanigans.
I agree that it may change which party people vote for, perhaps dramatically. But's that OK. That's good. It would be a more honest vote.
I would prefer constituencies kept the same size and just the single MP but chosen by AV.
AV avoids tactical voting which is good. But if you support a particular party, you have to vote for whoever that party puts up. There is no competition between contenders from the same party. It gives the parties too much power over voter choice, in my opinion.
You don't think they could exercise exactly the same control over 3 or 4 candidates as they do over 1? They would still be choosing who those candidates are no matter how many of them you have to choose from.
But each elector would have only one vote. So the candidates from each party group are also competing against one another.
Imagine you had a constituency where the Conservative candidates were Rory Stewart, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Dominic Cummings and Suella Braverman. You have to rank them. Which one would get your vote first?
There is always the risk that a voter, appalled by the attitude and competence of a Conservative candidate, might prefer to vote for a Socialist or Lib Dem candidate ahead o fthe appalling Conservative. So The Party would need to have a good range of candidates to stop its voters rushing off into the arms of Farage,or whatever.
Rigid party control wth identikit candidates leads only to a loss of support.
Good innit?
But that wasn't my point. It was Barnesian who is arguing for STV with multiple MPs and using the reason that it prevents parties deciding who the candidates are. I was poiting out that they can decide that just as easily with 4 candidates from each party as they can with one so it does not reduce the power of the parties at all.
It reduces the power of the party slightly.
The Conservatives put up four candidates, and you want to vote for a Conservative: well you at least get to choose which one you make top of your list. If Euroscepticism is important to you, you can choose the one who has made the right noises there. Etc. Yes, all four candidates are vetted by the party: but - unlike in the current system - it is not the party who decides exactly which one is elected in a given seat.
But as has already been pointed out, what actually usually happens under STV is the Conservatives put up the same number of candidates as there are seats available. Not least because they don't want to risk diluting their vote. So you still don't get much more of a choice than under AV as long as you want to vote Conservative.
Whilst the big downside is you weaken or lose the constituency link.
I agree that you weaken the constituency link, because there are now three or four MPs for a - larger - area than under FPTP. I don't think it's completely eliminated - someone is still MP for a geographical area, it's just a larger one.
But I would still argue that you're putting more control in peoples' hands over which members from a political party's slate gets elected.
Whether that's worth the trade off depends on your point of view.
It rather trashes the constituency link.
To take a semi-random example, take the constituency of Newcastle Under Lyme. If we went from single member constituencies, to 4 member constituencies, we'd almost certainly go from having one member dedicated to Newcastle Under Lyme . . . to seeing 4 members dedicated effectively to Stoke.
Newcastle under Lyme would be completely aborbed within and a minor player to the interests of Stoke.
You need to write out your work on the blackboard for that equation.
Within the area local to that, there are currently 4 constituencies: Newcastle under Lyme Stoke on Trent Central Stoke on Trent North Stoke on Trent South
Can you spot the odd one out?
If we had a 4 member constituency, then we'd have a solitary Stoke on Trent constituency which would incorporate Newcastle under Lyme to make up the numbers.
Stoke on Trent making up the overwhelming majority of the electorate would dwarf the concerns of Newcastle under Lyme.
You'd go from have a member for Newcastle, to having instead a Tory member for Stoke, a Labour member for Stoke and however else it breaks down too ... for Stoke.
Like I said before, you should study on actual operation of STV in actual Irish constituencies.
Where in a typical four-seater, a similar area with significant local identity, most likely would get one of its own duly elected.
Note that Irish voters frequently - even usually - jiggle their preferences based on both party AND locality.
You can't have it both ways, both locale and proportionality, as the whole reason of large constituencies is deliberately to abolish the locale vote to get proportionality. Can't have both.
Under your theory, who represents Newcastle? Rather than having a Tory for Stoke, Labour for Stoke and however else it breaks down too for Stoke?
Ain't theory, rather actuality.
Check out the facts re: how STV plays out in Ireland, before theorizing how it might turn out in England.
Please provide any evidence that's how it works in Ireland, because the facts seem to me to show the polar opposite.
Closest Irish analogy I can think of is the Waterford constituency. It has four TDs, one each for Sinn Fein, Greens, Fianna Fail and an Independent.
All 4 of them hail from Waterford.
Waterford the Constituency covers Waterford but also covers Dungarvan and Tramore, but I can't find a single TD from or specifically representing either Dungarvan or Tramore, as they've simply been absorbed by Waterford.
Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Dungarvan, before Waterford? Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Tramore, before Waterford?
Actual facts, not random unsubstantiated theorising.
Don't forget the UK! STV is used in Northern Ireland at Local and Assembly level.
STV is used for Council elections in Scotland.
I think it would be a positive if it were similarly used in the rest of the UK, as one party states are very poor for council governance
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Meanwhile, a new generation of radicalised young people is created, the next generation of prospective martyrs and the cycle of violence begins anew.
I'm sure Israel is well aware of this - how could it not be? Yet the atrocity is so heinous some form of punishment or response has to be meted out otherwise it shows weakness and would invite an internal upheaval leading to an even harsher response.
This is Jewish history. Century after century.
It’s always the fault of the Jews, when bad things happen to them.
Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine
Channel 4 News comes out pretty definitively that the rockets were from Israel and they have a history of lying, Quite extraordinary!
If they're correct it'll be very embarrassing for Biden. Though after his performance today I'd be surprised if he has more than a few weeks left in him anyway.
I was listening to Biden on the radiogramme earlier and thought "This guy is barely functioning". I dread to think what another four or five years of pressure might do to him.
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Meanwhile, a new generation of radicalised young people is created, the next generation of prospective martyrs and the cycle of violence begins anew.
I'm sure Israel is well aware of this - how could it not be? Yet the atrocity is so heinous some form of punishment or response has to be meted out otherwise it shows weakness and would invite an internal upheaval leading to an even harsher response.
This is Jewish history. Century after century.
It’s always the fault of the Jews, when bad things happen to them.
It is believed by many that everything that happens to everyone is their fault. It's not that fanciful to imagine a scenario whereby the fear of persecution leads to actions that bring about that persecution.
Channel 4 are really giving the Israeli Ambassador a hard time. They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians. Israel has a history of lying which they have helpfully show. She is poor though not as bad as Mark Regev. My sense is that the PR is running out of Israels control
Leaving this hospital incident aside, the mutterings I've heard locally over the last couple of days suggest public sympathy is moving away from Israel to the ordinary Palestinian victims (not Hamas!). People were rightly horrified and outraged by Hamas's murderous assault including women and babies, but days of seeing homes reduced to rubble and reports of siege conditions has changed that. Whether it matters to Israel in the short term, or to Netanyahu at all, is in doubt.
Very much so. No one wants to watch the 4th most powerful army in the world go on a turkey shoot against a relatively defenceless population. It looks obscene and as you say the sympathy seems to have shifted quite markedly. Apart from on here Israel doesn't seem to be very popular.
So far the people I have discussed this with are despairing about both sides and the never ending nature of this cycle of violence, lull, more violence with no end in sight.
They do agree that Israel cutting water off is terrible.
But in my experience most take my view - we’d rather not pick sides, and despair for all, but if we must pick sides we pick Israel.
Why? BOTH sides have killed LOTS of civilians since Oct 7th.
Why?
Purely selfishly, Jihadism is a bigger threat to my way of life than Zionism.
This.
Whatever the rights or wrongs, the chances of fundamental Jewish terrorism killing me or my family is close to zero.
Channel 4 are really giving the Israeli Ambassador a hard time. They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians. Israel has a history of lying which they have helpfully show. She is poor though not as bad as Mark Regev. My sense is that the PR is running out of Israels control
They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians
then they shouldnt describe themselves as jounalists
The Israeli government is more likely to tell the truth than Hamas, but that doesn't mean one should accept their statements uncritically.
Ridiculous to suggest that they'd lie about missiles from Islamic Jihad.
I don’t think that story proves the point I think you’re making. They admitted they were wrong.
Channel 4 are really giving the Israeli Ambassador a hard time. They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians. Israel has a history of lying which they have helpfully show. She is poor though not as bad as Mark Regev. My sense is that the PR is running out of Israels control
They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians
then they shouldnt describe themselves as jounalists
The Israeli government is more likely to tell the truth than Hamas, but that doesn't mean one should accept their statements uncritically.
Ridiculous to suggest that they'd lie about missiles from Islamic Jihad.
They did - at least - tell the truth eventually. Which is better than, for example, Donald Trump or Hamas.
A lesson not to credulously believe their first attempts then.
"The UK is starting to accept that prison doesn’t work As the Justice Secretary has recognised, short sentences are not effective in reducing reoffending. By David Gauke"
Look at Bukele's popularity rating in El Salavador... Two inconvenient truths: being tough on crime both reduces crime, and makes you very very popular...
The US - sadly - is a bit of a counter-example. There's no evidence of any correlation between harshness of sentences and crime rates. (Indeed, the - admittedly weak - correlation is actually the other way around.)
The trick to stopping offending is not principally the harshness of the sentences for those convicted. It is about catching and convicting the right people. A twenty year sentence for shoplifting is not a deterrent if you don't think it'll ever get to court.
A fair point. We have more or less reached the point round my way where you cannot buy either a steak or a large jar of instant coffee off the shelf, along with several other goods in the £5 to 10 range. You have to go up to the checkout and ask for it over the counter.
If small acts of crime like this continue to be unpunished, I really think we're heading to a much darker, dystopian place. You can imagine having to swipe your bloody "membership card" to get through the door at Tesco (I refuse to have one of the data capturing things). And anybody who doesn't carry one is excluded from the shop. And woe betide you if you have a face that looks like someone who's been caught shoplifting, because facial camera recognition software will have you excluded from ever buying anything again. That's the dystopia we're heading towards.
I know it's just broken window theory, but I think we're at an inflection point in society now, where if we don't take action to deter the little things, society heads to a much darker place, be that omniprescent and oppressive corporate security, or lawless streets (muggings seem to be picking up again too, judging from the number of people I know who've had phones nicked in recent weeks).
The problem, though, is not about the harshness of the punishments. It's about:
(a) We have significantly fewer police now than in 2010, and we've shut a lot of police stations too. This means that the chance of a policeman being nearby when and if a crime is committed is close to zero.
(b) We've underfunded the criminal justice system, so that trials take years to happen and by the time they do, witnesses cannot be found or have often forgotten essential information. The fact that we have a staggering 15,000 people on remand in the UK is a reminder of how poorly the justice system is working.
Then those are the things we need to fix. But going back to the original article, which suggests that "prison doesn't work" and we shouldn't have custodial sentences below 12 months (i.e. no prison for "minor" offences) is not likely to be popular during a time when the shops and streets seem to be descending into lawlessness.
Blair was popular in part because of "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime".
Whereas "We're now letting anyone off with a slap on the wrist who commits a crime that used to get you six months behind bars" strikes me as a policy that won't win many votes.
In that case the government needs to build and staff more prisons, courts etc.
.... Orrrrrrr... We could just let the current prisons rot, understaff and underfund them and the courts and then blame The Blob? Or the small boats? Or ... something?
Channel 4 News comes out pretty definitively that the rockets were from Israel and they have a history of lying, Quite extraordinary!
If they're correct it'll be very embarrassing for Biden. Though after his performance today I'd be surprised if he has more than a few weeks left in him anyway.
I was listening to Biden on the radiogramme earlier and thought "This guy is barely functioning". I dread to think what another four or five years of pressure might do to him.
Is it just me, or did Biden appear REALLY uncomfortable sitting next to Bibi?
Channel 4 are really giving the Israeli Ambassador a hard time. They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians. Israel has a history of lying which they have helpfully show. She is poor though not as bad as Mark Regev. My sense is that the PR is running out of Israels control
Leaving this hospital incident aside, the mutterings I've heard locally over the last couple of days suggest public sympathy is moving away from Israel to the ordinary Palestinian victims (not Hamas!). People were rightly horrified and outraged by Hamas's murderous assault including women and babies, but days of seeing homes reduced to rubble and reports of siege conditions has changed that. Whether it matters to Israel in the short term, or to Netanyahu at all, is in doubt.
Very much so. No one wants to watch the 4th most powerful army in the world go on a turkey shoot against a relatively defenceless population. It looks obscene and as you say the sympathy seems to have shifted quite markedly. Apart from on here Israel doesn't seem to be very popular.
So far the people I have discussed this with are despairing about both sides and the never ending nature of this cycle of violence, lull, more violence with no end in sight.
They do agree that Israel cutting water off is terrible.
But in my experience most take my view - we’d rather not pick sides, and despair for all, but if we must pick sides we pick Israel.
Why? BOTH sides have killed LOTS of civilians since Oct 7th.
Because despite all the complications it does boil down to something simple. Hamas launched missiles at Israel and soldiers into it. Israel has the right to fire back. Like it or lump it, legally Israel is in the right
And on that bombshell, I'm shutting up about the 2023 Israel-Hamas conflict for the rest of 2023. Any further posts will be to provide data and links, not opinion and conclusions. You will have to make your own mistakes from here on in. 😀
Channel 4 are really giving the Israeli Ambassador a hard time. They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians. Israel has a history of lying which they have helpfully show. She is poor though not as bad as Mark Regev. My sense is that the PR is running out of Israels control
Leaving this hospital incident aside, the mutterings I've heard locally over the last couple of days suggest public sympathy is moving away from Israel to the ordinary Palestinian victims (not Hamas!). People were rightly horrified and outraged by Hamas's murderous assault including women and babies, but days of seeing homes reduced to rubble and reports of siege conditions has changed that. Whether it matters to Israel in the short term, or to Netanyahu at all, is in doubt.
Very much so. No one wants to watch the 4th most powerful army in the world go on a turkey shoot against a relatively defenceless population. It looks obscene and as you say the sympathy seems to have shifted quite markedly. Apart from on here Israel doesn't seem to be very popular.
So far the people I have discussed this with are despairing about both sides and the never ending nature of this cycle of violence, lull, more violence with no end in sight.
They do agree that Israel cutting water off is terrible.
But in my experience most take my view - we’d rather not pick sides, and despair for all, but if we must pick sides we pick Israel.
Why? BOTH sides have killed LOTS of civilians since Oct 7th.
One was a deliberate attack against civilians. The others were unintended civilian casualties whilst attacking the perpetrators of the former, who clearly wouldn’t otherwise stop until every Israeli citizen was dead.
Not morally equivalent. Anyone who thinks they are is malevolent or stupid. No other choices.
Since some of you have been discussing crime, I will share this recent Megan McArdle column on US crime with you: "Fortunately, we already know a simple, effective way to reduce crime: Put more cops on the street. As economist Alex Tabarrok has been pointing out for years, America has long been over-prisoned and under-policed, and reversing this could go a long way toward both deterring crime and reducing the prison population. “Defund the police” had it exactly backward: Cities need more cops, better trained and better paid.
Speculation: One of the things many American cities and states are doing wrong is allowing delays in trials. Many, probably most, American criminals have short time horizons. But the time they are actually tried for a crime, they may no long connect any sentence to what they did, years ago.
(For the record: I'm still thinking about her overall argument, but am inclined to agree with her.)
Channel 4 are really giving the Israeli Ambassador a hard time. They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians. Israel has a history of lying which they have helpfully show. She is poor though not as bad as Mark Regev. My sense is that the PR is running out of Israels control
Leaving this hospital incident aside, the mutterings I've heard locally over the last couple of days suggest public sympathy is moving away from Israel to the ordinary Palestinian victims (not Hamas!). People were rightly horrified and outraged by Hamas's murderous assault including women and babies, but days of seeing homes reduced to rubble and reports of siege conditions has changed that. Whether it matters to Israel in the short term, or to Netanyahu at all, is in doubt.
Very much so. No one wants to watch the 4th most powerful army in the world go on a turkey shoot against a relatively defenceless population. It looks obscene and as you say the sympathy seems to have shifted quite markedly. Apart from on here Israel doesn't seem to be very popular.
So far the people I have discussed this with are despairing about both sides and the never ending nature of this cycle of violence, lull, more violence with no end in sight.
They do agree that Israel cutting water off is terrible.
But in my experience most take my view - we’d rather not pick sides, and despair for all, but if we must pick sides we pick Israel.
Why? BOTH sides have killed LOTS of civilians since Oct 7th.
Why?
Purely selfishly, Jihadism is a bigger threat to my way of life than Zionism.
This too, also selfishly. No Jewish inspired ideology wishes me harm.
Channel 4 are really giving the Israeli Ambassador a hard time. They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians. Israel has a history of lying which they have helpfully show. She is poor though not as bad as Mark Regev. My sense is that the PR is running out of Israels control
They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians
then they shouldnt describe themselves as jounalists
The Israeli government is more likely to tell the truth than Hamas, but that doesn't mean one should accept their statements uncritically.
Ridiculous to suggest that they'd lie about missiles from Islamic Jihad.
They did - at least - tell the truth eventually. Which is better than, for example, Donald Trump or Hamas.
A lesson not to credulously believe their first attempts then.
Many didn't. Indeed, even some defenders of their current plans initially believed the opposite.
Channel 4 are really giving the Israeli Ambassador a hard time. They don't accept the premise that a statement is more reliable because it's from the Israelis than the Palestinians. Israel has a history of lying which they have helpfully show. She is poor though not as bad as Mark Regev. My sense is that the PR is running out of Israels control
Leaving this hospital incident aside, the mutterings I've heard locally over the last couple of days suggest public sympathy is moving away from Israel to the ordinary Palestinian victims (not Hamas!). People were rightly horrified and outraged by Hamas's murderous assault including women and babies, but days of seeing homes reduced to rubble and reports of siege conditions has changed that. Whether it matters to Israel in the short term, or to Netanyahu at all, is in doubt.
Very much so. No one wants to watch the 4th most powerful army in the world go on a turkey shoot against a relatively defenceless population. It looks obscene and as you say the sympathy seems to have shifted quite markedly. Apart from on here Israel doesn't seem to be very popular.
So far the people I have discussed this with are despairing about both sides and the never ending nature of this cycle of violence, lull, more violence with no end in sight.
They do agree that Israel cutting water off is terrible.
But in my experience most take my view - we’d rather not pick sides, and despair for all, but if we must pick sides we pick Israel.
Why? BOTH sides have killed LOTS of civilians since Oct 7th.
Because despite all the complications it does boil down to something simple. Hamas launched missiles at Israel and soldiers into it. Israel has the right to fire back. Like it or lump it, legally Israel is in the right
And on that bombshell, I'm shutting up about the 2023 Israel-Hamas conflict for the rest of 2023. Any further posts will be to provide data and links, not opinion and conclusions. You will have to make your own mistakes from here on in. 😀
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Meanwhile, a new generation of radicalised young people is created, the next generation of prospective martyrs and the cycle of violence begins anew.
I'm sure Israel is well aware of this - how could it not be? Yet the atrocity is so heinous some form of punishment or response has to be meted out otherwise it shows weakness and would invite an internal upheaval leading to an even harsher response.
This is Jewish history. Century after century.
It’s always the fault of the Jews, when bad things happen to them.
Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine
This is the worst take of all the utterly shit takes you’ve put forward on here over the years. And that’s saying something.
Jewish culture is distinct and they have struggled to preserve it against state attempts to enforce uniformity over two millennia. The Jews were the original victims of European monoculturalism and intolerance. When England and Spain expelled them it was not because they were confirming too much to the mainstream. The Spanish Inquisition was not part of the Woke Blob.
This is such a glaringly obvious point I’m stunned I have to explain it to you.
Labour lead down to 12 points with More in Common . Fieldwork 14 to 16 October
Lab 42 Con 30 Lib Dem 12 Reform 7 Green 6 SNP 3
I think events in the Middle East are helping the Cons with attention away from domestic issues .
The combined Con and Reform at 37 would seriously worry Labour . I think a few weeks back I’d have backed Labour for both by-elections . Now I think they’re more likely to take Tamworth than Mid-Beds . The split votes there and drop in national lead might be too much of a climb . In Tamworth the Tory candidate might have harmed his hopes with Fxckgate.
This is a swing of 12% since the general election, and Labour need a 10% swing to win a majority with the old boundaries. I think we're heading for a Lab/LD coalition, (which would hopefully introduce proportional representation).
Such a coalition might want to introduce PR, but they'd probably have to have a referendum on it, and I'm not sure the public would back it, whatever the opinion polls say, since it would mean that Labour and Conservative supporters (usually around 70-75% of the electorate) would have to kiss goodbye to ever having majority governments run by their Party again. Also there's the well known tendency to default to the status quo in anoraky questions as we just saw in the Aussie referendum.
(But of course I've been wrong often before - I didn't think we'd vote to leave the EU until a day or two before the vote).
There wouldn't need to be a referendum if PR were in the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos. It is in the LibDem one. The challenge is getting it into the Labour manifesto - even if it is in very small print on page 46.
What always makes me laugh about those who want to change the constitution, is they think that people will vote exactly the same way if it was changed.
I know lots of people who have voted LD; only a few of them are actual supporters of the party. It is currently a catchall vote for both anti Tory and anti Labour depending upon constituency.
UKIP/REF, meanwhile, would do much better under PR, I suspect....
Yes - UKIP/REF and also the Greens would do much better under PR - and so they should.
I'm not in favour of a list system (too much power to the Parties and no choice for the voter and no local accountability.
I'm in favour of a Single Transferable Vote in constituencies of 4 or 5 members where there is competition between members of the same party and also local accountability.
I'm not in favour of it for party advantage. I'm in favour of it because it would be fairer and more democratic and lead to better government. It would also as a bonus avoid all the tactical voting shenanigans.
I agree that it may change which party people vote for, perhaps dramatically. But's that OK. That's good. It would be a more honest vote.
I would prefer constituencies kept the same size and just the single MP but chosen by AV.
AV avoids tactical voting which is good. But if you support a particular party, you have to vote for whoever that party puts up. There is no competition between contenders from the same party. It gives the parties too much power over voter choice, in my opinion.
You don't think they could exercise exactly the same control over 3 or 4 candidates as they do over 1? They would still be choosing who those candidates are no matter how many of them you have to choose from.
But each elector would have only one vote. So the candidates from each party group are also competing against one another.
Imagine you had a constituency where the Conservative candidates were Rory Stewart, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Dominic Cummings and Suella Braverman. You have to rank them. Which one would get your vote first?
There is always the risk that a voter, appalled by the attitude and competence of a Conservative candidate, might prefer to vote for a Socialist or Lib Dem candidate ahead o fthe appalling Conservative. So The Party would need to have a good range of candidates to stop its voters rushing off into the arms of Farage,or whatever.
Rigid party control wth identikit candidates leads only to a loss of support.
Good innit?
But that wasn't my point. It was Barnesian who is arguing for STV with multiple MPs and using the reason that it prevents parties deciding who the candidates are. I was poiting out that they can decide that just as easily with 4 candidates from each party as they can with one so it does not reduce the power of the parties at all.
It reduces the power of the party slightly.
The Conservatives put up four candidates, and you want to vote for a Conservative: well you at least get to choose which one you make top of your list. If Euroscepticism is important to you, you can choose the one who has made the right noises there. Etc. Yes, all four candidates are vetted by the party: but - unlike in the current system - it is not the party who decides exactly which one is elected in a given seat.
But as has already been pointed out, what actually usually happens under STV is the Conservatives put up the same number of candidates as there are seats available. Not least because they don't want to risk diluting their vote. So you still don't get much more of a choice than under AV as long as you want to vote Conservative.
Whilst the big downside is you weaken or lose the constituency link.
I agree that you weaken the constituency link, because there are now three or four MPs for a - larger - area than under FPTP. I don't think it's completely eliminated - someone is still MP for a geographical area, it's just a larger one.
But I would still argue that you're putting more control in peoples' hands over which members from a political party's slate gets elected.
Whether that's worth the trade off depends on your point of view.
It rather trashes the constituency link.
To take a semi-random example, take the constituency of Newcastle Under Lyme. If we went from single member constituencies, to 4 member constituencies, we'd almost certainly go from having one member dedicated to Newcastle Under Lyme . . . to seeing 4 members dedicated effectively to Stoke.
Newcastle under Lyme would be completely aborbed within and a minor player to the interests of Stoke.
You need to write out your work on the blackboard for that equation.
Within the area local to that, there are currently 4 constituencies: Newcastle under Lyme Stoke on Trent Central Stoke on Trent North Stoke on Trent South
Can you spot the odd one out?
If we had a 4 member constituency, then we'd have a solitary Stoke on Trent constituency which would incorporate Newcastle under Lyme to make up the numbers.
Stoke on Trent making up the overwhelming majority of the electorate would dwarf the concerns of Newcastle under Lyme.
You'd go from have a member for Newcastle, to having instead a Tory member for Stoke, a Labour member for Stoke and however else it breaks down too ... for Stoke.
Like I said before, you should study on actual operation of STV in actual Irish constituencies.
Where in a typical four-seater, a similar area with significant local identity, most likely would get one of its own duly elected.
Note that Irish voters frequently - even usually - jiggle their preferences based on both party AND locality.
You can't have it both ways, both locale and proportionality, as the whole reason of large constituencies is deliberately to abolish the locale vote to get proportionality. Can't have both.
Under your theory, who represents Newcastle? Rather than having a Tory for Stoke, Labour for Stoke and however else it breaks down too for Stoke?
Ain't theory, rather actuality.
Check out the facts re: how STV plays out in Ireland, before theorizing how it might turn out in England.
Please provide any evidence that's how it works in Ireland, because the facts seem to me to show the polar opposite.
Closest Irish analogy I can think of is the Waterford constituency. It has four TDs, one each for Sinn Fein, Greens, Fianna Fail and an Independent.
All 4 of them hail from Waterford.
Waterford the Constituency covers Waterford but also covers Dungarvan and Tramore, but I can't find a single TD from or specifically representing either Dungarvan or Tramore, as they've simply been absorbed by Waterford.
Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Dungarvan, before Waterford? Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Tramore, before Waterford?
Actual facts, not random unsubstantiated theorising.
Don't forget the UK! STV is used in Northern Ireland at Local and Assembly level.
STV is used for Council elections in Scotland.
I think it would be a positive if it were similarly used in the rest of the UK, as one party states are very poor for council governance
Even if you approve of First Past The Post, the First Three Past The Post (see London boroughs) is pretty hard to justify.
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Meanwhile, a new generation of radicalised young people is created, the next generation of prospective martyrs and the cycle of violence begins anew.
I'm sure Israel is well aware of this - how could it not be? Yet the atrocity is so heinous some form of punishment or response has to be meted out otherwise it shows weakness and would invite an internal upheaval leading to an even harsher response.
This is Jewish history. Century after century.
It’s always the fault of the Jews, when bad things happen to them.
Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine
Though Jews almost invented Multiculturism in Britain by forming distinctive communities, with their own religion, foods and customs via mass immigration in the latter years of the nineteenth century.
Labour lead down to 12 points with More in Common . Fieldwork 14 to 16 October
Lab 42 Con 30 Lib Dem 12 Reform 7 Green 6 SNP 3
I think events in the Middle East are helping the Cons with attention away from domestic issues .
The combined Con and Reform at 37 would seriously worry Labour . I think a few weeks back I’d have backed Labour for both by-elections . Now I think they’re more likely to take Tamworth than Mid-Beds . The split votes there and drop in national lead might be too much of a climb . In Tamworth the Tory candidate might have harmed his hopes with Fxckgate.
This is a swing of 12% since the general election, and Labour need a 10% swing to win a majority with the old boundaries. I think we're heading for a Lab/LD coalition, (which would hopefully introduce proportional representation).
Such a coalition might want to introduce PR, but they'd probably have to have a referendum on it, and I'm not sure the public would back it, whatever the opinion polls say, since it would mean that Labour and Conservative supporters (usually around 70-75% of the electorate) would have to kiss goodbye to ever having majority governments run by their Party again. Also there's the well known tendency to default to the status quo in anoraky questions as we just saw in the Aussie referendum.
(But of course I've been wrong often before - I didn't think we'd vote to leave the EU until a day or two before the vote).
There wouldn't need to be a referendum if PR were in the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos. It is in the LibDem one. The challenge is getting it into the Labour manifesto - even if it is in very small print on page 46.
What always makes me laugh about those who want to change the constitution, is they think that people will vote exactly the same way if it was changed.
I know lots of people who have voted LD; only a few of them are actual supporters of the party. It is currently a catchall vote for both anti Tory and anti Labour depending upon constituency.
UKIP/REF, meanwhile, would do much better under PR, I suspect....
Yes - UKIP/REF and also the Greens would do much better under PR - and so they should.
I'm not in favour of a list system (too much power to the Parties and no choice for the voter and no local accountability.
I'm in favour of a Single Transferable Vote in constituencies of 4 or 5 members where there is competition between members of the same party and also local accountability.
I'm not in favour of it for party advantage. I'm in favour of it because it would be fairer and more democratic and lead to better government. It would also as a bonus avoid all the tactical voting shenanigans.
I agree that it may change which party people vote for, perhaps dramatically. But's that OK. That's good. It would be a more honest vote.
I would prefer constituencies kept the same size and just the single MP but chosen by AV.
AV avoids tactical voting which is good. But if you support a particular party, you have to vote for whoever that party puts up. There is no competition between contenders from the same party. It gives the parties too much power over voter choice, in my opinion.
You don't think they could exercise exactly the same control over 3 or 4 candidates as they do over 1? They would still be choosing who those candidates are no matter how many of them you have to choose from.
But each elector would have only one vote. So the candidates from each party group are also competing against one another.
Imagine you had a constituency where the Conservative candidates were Rory Stewart, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Dominic Cummings and Suella Braverman. You have to rank them. Which one would get your vote first?
There is always the risk that a voter, appalled by the attitude and competence of a Conservative candidate, might prefer to vote for a Socialist or Lib Dem candidate ahead o fthe appalling Conservative. So The Party would need to have a good range of candidates to stop its voters rushing off into the arms of Farage,or whatever.
Rigid party control wth identikit candidates leads only to a loss of support.
Good innit?
But that wasn't my point. It was Barnesian who is arguing for STV with multiple MPs and using the reason that it prevents parties deciding who the candidates are. I was poiting out that they can decide that just as easily with 4 candidates from each party as they can with one so it does not reduce the power of the parties at all.
It reduces the power of the party slightly.
The Conservatives put up four candidates, and you want to vote for a Conservative: well you at least get to choose which one you make top of your list. If Euroscepticism is important to you, you can choose the one who has made the right noises there. Etc. Yes, all four candidates are vetted by the party: but - unlike in the current system - it is not the party who decides exactly which one is elected in a given seat.
But as has already been pointed out, what actually usually happens under STV is the Conservatives put up the same number of candidates as there are seats available. Not least because they don't want to risk diluting their vote. So you still don't get much more of a choice than under AV as long as you want to vote Conservative.
Whilst the big downside is you weaken or lose the constituency link.
I agree that you weaken the constituency link, because there are now three or four MPs for a - larger - area than under FPTP. I don't think it's completely eliminated - someone is still MP for a geographical area, it's just a larger one.
But I would still argue that you're putting more control in peoples' hands over which members from a political party's slate gets elected.
Whether that's worth the trade off depends on your point of view.
It rather trashes the constituency link.
To take a semi-random example, take the constituency of Newcastle Under Lyme. If we went from single member constituencies, to 4 member constituencies, we'd almost certainly go from having one member dedicated to Newcastle Under Lyme . . . to seeing 4 members dedicated effectively to Stoke.
Newcastle under Lyme would be completely aborbed within and a minor player to the interests of Stoke.
You need to write out your work on the blackboard for that equation.
Within the area local to that, there are currently 4 constituencies: Newcastle under Lyme Stoke on Trent Central Stoke on Trent North Stoke on Trent South
Can you spot the odd one out?
If we had a 4 member constituency, then we'd have a solitary Stoke on Trent constituency which would incorporate Newcastle under Lyme to make up the numbers.
Stoke on Trent making up the overwhelming majority of the electorate would dwarf the concerns of Newcastle under Lyme.
You'd go from have a member for Newcastle, to having instead a Tory member for Stoke, a Labour member for Stoke and however else it breaks down too ... for Stoke.
Like I said before, you should study on actual operation of STV in actual Irish constituencies.
Where in a typical four-seater, a similar area with significant local identity, most likely would get one of its own duly elected.
Note that Irish voters frequently - even usually - jiggle their preferences based on both party AND locality.
You can't have it both ways, both locale and proportionality, as the whole reason of large constituencies is deliberately to abolish the locale vote to get proportionality. Can't have both.
Under your theory, who represents Newcastle? Rather than having a Tory for Stoke, Labour for Stoke and however else it breaks down too for Stoke?
Ain't theory, rather actuality.
Check out the facts re: how STV plays out in Ireland, before theorizing how it might turn out in England.
Please provide any evidence that's how it works in Ireland, because the facts seem to me to show the polar opposite.
Closest Irish analogy I can think of is the Waterford constituency. It has four TDs, one each for Sinn Fein, Greens, Fianna Fail and an Independent.
All 4 of them hail from Waterford.
Waterford the Constituency covers Waterford but also covers Dungarvan and Tramore, but I can't find a single TD from or specifically representing either Dungarvan or Tramore, as they've simply been absorbed by Waterford.
Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Dungarvan, before Waterford? Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Tramore, before Waterford?
Actual facts, not random unsubstantiated theorising.
Don't forget the UK! STV is used in Northern Ireland at Local and Assembly level.
STV is used for Council elections in Scotland.
I think it would be a positive if it were similarly used in the rest of the UK, as one party states are very poor for council governance
Even if you approve of First Past The Post, the First Three Past The Post (see London boroughs) is pretty hard to justify.
On that one I wholeheartedly agree with you, I dislike multimember constituencies, and multimember FPTP is every bit as bad as multimember STV.
Labour lead down to 12 points with More in Common . Fieldwork 14 to 16 October
Lab 42 Con 30 Lib Dem 12 Reform 7 Green 6 SNP 3
I think events in the Middle East are helping the Cons with attention away from domestic issues .
The combined Con and Reform at 37 would seriously worry Labour . I think a few weeks back I’d have backed Labour for both by-elections . Now I think they’re more likely to take Tamworth than Mid-Beds . The split votes there and drop in national lead might be too much of a climb . In Tamworth the Tory candidate might have harmed his hopes with Fxckgate.
This is a swing of 12% since the general election, and Labour need a 10% swing to win a majority with the old boundaries. I think we're heading for a Lab/LD coalition, (which would hopefully introduce proportional representation).
Such a coalition might want to introduce PR, but they'd probably have to have a referendum on it, and I'm not sure the public would back it, whatever the opinion polls say, since it would mean that Labour and Conservative supporters (usually around 70-75% of the electorate) would have to kiss goodbye to ever having majority governments run by their Party again. Also there's the well known tendency to default to the status quo in anoraky questions as we just saw in the Aussie referendum.
(But of course I've been wrong often before - I didn't think we'd vote to leave the EU until a day or two before the vote).
There wouldn't need to be a referendum if PR were in the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos. It is in the LibDem one. The challenge is getting it into the Labour manifesto - even if it is in very small print on page 46.
What always makes me laugh about those who want to change the constitution, is they think that people will vote exactly the same way if it was changed.
I know lots of people who have voted LD; only a few of them are actual supporters of the party. It is currently a catchall vote for both anti Tory and anti Labour depending upon constituency.
UKIP/REF, meanwhile, would do much better under PR, I suspect....
Yes - UKIP/REF and also the Greens would do much better under PR - and so they should.
I'm not in favour of a list system (too much power to the Parties and no choice for the voter and no local accountability.
I'm in favour of a Single Transferable Vote in constituencies of 4 or 5 members where there is competition between members of the same party and also local accountability.
I'm not in favour of it for party advantage. I'm in favour of it because it would be fairer and more democratic and lead to better government. It would also as a bonus avoid all the tactical voting shenanigans.
I agree that it may change which party people vote for, perhaps dramatically. But's that OK. That's good. It would be a more honest vote.
I would prefer constituencies kept the same size and just the single MP but chosen by AV.
AV avoids tactical voting which is good. But if you support a particular party, you have to vote for whoever that party puts up. There is no competition between contenders from the same party. It gives the parties too much power over voter choice, in my opinion.
You don't think they could exercise exactly the same control over 3 or 4 candidates as they do over 1? They would still be choosing who those candidates are no matter how many of them you have to choose from.
But each elector would have only one vote. So the candidates from each party group are also competing against one another.
Imagine you had a constituency where the Conservative candidates were Rory Stewart, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Dominic Cummings and Suella Braverman. You have to rank them. Which one would get your vote first?
There is always the risk that a voter, appalled by the attitude and competence of a Conservative candidate, might prefer to vote for a Socialist or Lib Dem candidate ahead o fthe appalling Conservative. So The Party would need to have a good range of candidates to stop its voters rushing off into the arms of Farage,or whatever.
Rigid party control wth identikit candidates leads only to a loss of support.
Good innit?
But that wasn't my point. It was Barnesian who is arguing for STV with multiple MPs and using the reason that it prevents parties deciding who the candidates are. I was poiting out that they can decide that just as easily with 4 candidates from each party as they can with one so it does not reduce the power of the parties at all.
It reduces the power of the party slightly.
The Conservatives put up four candidates, and you want to vote for a Conservative: well you at least get to choose which one you make top of your list. If Euroscepticism is important to you, you can choose the one who has made the right noises there. Etc. Yes, all four candidates are vetted by the party: but - unlike in the current system - it is not the party who decides exactly which one is elected in a given seat.
But as has already been pointed out, what actually usually happens under STV is the Conservatives put up the same number of candidates as there are seats available. Not least because they don't want to risk diluting their vote. So you still don't get much more of a choice than under AV as long as you want to vote Conservative.
Whilst the big downside is you weaken or lose the constituency link.
I agree that you weaken the constituency link, because there are now three or four MPs for a - larger - area than under FPTP. I don't think it's completely eliminated - someone is still MP for a geographical area, it's just a larger one.
But I would still argue that you're putting more control in peoples' hands over which members from a political party's slate gets elected.
Whether that's worth the trade off depends on your point of view.
It rather trashes the constituency link.
To take a semi-random example, take the constituency of Newcastle Under Lyme. If we went from single member constituencies, to 4 member constituencies, we'd almost certainly go from having one member dedicated to Newcastle Under Lyme . . . to seeing 4 members dedicated effectively to Stoke.
Newcastle under Lyme would be completely aborbed within and a minor player to the interests of Stoke.
You need to write out your work on the blackboard for that equation.
Within the area local to that, there are currently 4 constituencies: Newcastle under Lyme Stoke on Trent Central Stoke on Trent North Stoke on Trent South
Can you spot the odd one out?
If we had a 4 member constituency, then we'd have a solitary Stoke on Trent constituency which would incorporate Newcastle under Lyme to make up the numbers.
Stoke on Trent making up the overwhelming majority of the electorate would dwarf the concerns of Newcastle under Lyme.
You'd go from have a member for Newcastle, to having instead a Tory member for Stoke, a Labour member for Stoke and however else it breaks down too ... for Stoke.
Like I said before, you should study on actual operation of STV in actual Irish constituencies.
Where in a typical four-seater, a similar area with significant local identity, most likely would get one of its own duly elected.
Note that Irish voters frequently - even usually - jiggle their preferences based on both party AND locality.
You can't have it both ways, both locale and proportionality, as the whole reason of large constituencies is deliberately to abolish the locale vote to get proportionality. Can't have both.
Under your theory, who represents Newcastle? Rather than having a Tory for Stoke, Labour for Stoke and however else it breaks down too for Stoke?
Ain't theory, rather actuality.
Check out the facts re: how STV plays out in Ireland, before theorizing how it might turn out in England.
Please provide any evidence that's how it works in Ireland, because the facts seem to me to show the polar opposite.
Closest Irish analogy I can think of is the Waterford constituency. It has four TDs, one each for Sinn Fein, Greens, Fianna Fail and an Independent.
All 4 of them hail from Waterford.
Waterford the Constituency covers Waterford but also covers Dungarvan and Tramore, but I can't find a single TD from or specifically representing either Dungarvan or Tramore, as they've simply been absorbed by Waterford.
Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Dungarvan, before Waterford? Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Tramore, before Waterford?
Actual facts, not random unsubstantiated theorising.
Don't forget the UK! STV is used in Northern Ireland at Local and Assembly level.
STV is used for Council elections in Scotland.
I think it would be a positive if it were similarly used in the rest of the UK, as one party states are very poor for council governance
Even if you approve of First Past The Post, the First Three Past The Post (see London boroughs) is pretty hard to justify.
Labour lead down to 12 points with More in Common . Fieldwork 14 to 16 October
Lab 42 Con 30 Lib Dem 12 Reform 7 Green 6 SNP 3
I think events in the Middle East are helping the Cons with attention away from domestic issues .
The combined Con and Reform at 37 would seriously worry Labour . I think a few weeks back I’d have backed Labour for both by-elections . Now I think they’re more likely to take Tamworth than Mid-Beds . The split votes there and drop in national lead might be too much of a climb . In Tamworth the Tory candidate might have harmed his hopes with Fxckgate.
This is a swing of 12% since the general election, and Labour need a 10% swing to win a majority with the old boundaries. I think we're heading for a Lab/LD coalition, (which would hopefully introduce proportional representation).
Such a coalition might want to introduce PR, but they'd probably have to have a referendum on it, and I'm not sure the public would back it, whatever the opinion polls say, since it would mean that Labour and Conservative supporters (usually around 70-75% of the electorate) would have to kiss goodbye to ever having majority governments run by their Party again. Also there's the well known tendency to default to the status quo in anoraky questions as we just saw in the Aussie referendum.
(But of course I've been wrong often before - I didn't think we'd vote to leave the EU until a day or two before the vote).
There wouldn't need to be a referendum if PR were in the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos. It is in the LibDem one. The challenge is getting it into the Labour manifesto - even if it is in very small print on page 46.
What always makes me laugh about those who want to change the constitution, is they think that people will vote exactly the same way if it was changed.
I know lots of people who have voted LD; only a few of them are actual supporters of the party. It is currently a catchall vote for both anti Tory and anti Labour depending upon constituency.
UKIP/REF, meanwhile, would do much better under PR, I suspect....
Yes - UKIP/REF and also the Greens would do much better under PR - and so they should.
I'm not in favour of a list system (too much power to the Parties and no choice for the voter and no local accountability.
I'm in favour of a Single Transferable Vote in constituencies of 4 or 5 members where there is competition between members of the same party and also local accountability.
I'm not in favour of it for party advantage. I'm in favour of it because it would be fairer and more democratic and lead to better government. It would also as a bonus avoid all the tactical voting shenanigans.
I agree that it may change which party people vote for, perhaps dramatically. But's that OK. That's good. It would be a more honest vote.
I would prefer constituencies kept the same size and just the single MP but chosen by AV.
AV avoids tactical voting which is good. But if you support a particular party, you have to vote for whoever that party puts up. There is no competition between contenders from the same party. It gives the parties too much power over voter choice, in my opinion.
You don't think they could exercise exactly the same control over 3 or 4 candidates as they do over 1? They would still be choosing who those candidates are no matter how many of them you have to choose from.
But each elector would have only one vote. So the candidates from each party group are also competing against one another.
Imagine you had a constituency where the Conservative candidates were Rory Stewart, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Dominic Cummings and Suella Braverman. You have to rank them. Which one would get your vote first?
There is always the risk that a voter, appalled by the attitude and competence of a Conservative candidate, might prefer to vote for a Socialist or Lib Dem candidate ahead o fthe appalling Conservative. So The Party would need to have a good range of candidates to stop its voters rushing off into the arms of Farage,or whatever.
Rigid party control wth identikit candidates leads only to a loss of support.
Good innit?
But that wasn't my point. It was Barnesian who is arguing for STV with multiple MPs and using the reason that it prevents parties deciding who the candidates are. I was poiting out that they can decide that just as easily with 4 candidates from each party as they can with one so it does not reduce the power of the parties at all.
It reduces the power of the party slightly.
The Conservatives put up four candidates, and you want to vote for a Conservative: well you at least get to choose which one you make top of your list. If Euroscepticism is important to you, you can choose the one who has made the right noises there. Etc. Yes, all four candidates are vetted by the party: but - unlike in the current system - it is not the party who decides exactly which one is elected in a given seat.
But as has already been pointed out, what actually usually happens under STV is the Conservatives put up the same number of candidates as there are seats available. Not least because they don't want to risk diluting their vote. So you still don't get much more of a choice than under AV as long as you want to vote Conservative.
Whilst the big downside is you weaken or lose the constituency link.
I agree that you weaken the constituency link, because there are now three or four MPs for a - larger - area than under FPTP. I don't think it's completely eliminated - someone is still MP for a geographical area, it's just a larger one.
But I would still argue that you're putting more control in peoples' hands over which members from a political party's slate gets elected.
Whether that's worth the trade off depends on your point of view.
It rather trashes the constituency link.
To take a semi-random example, take the constituency of Newcastle Under Lyme. If we went from single member constituencies, to 4 member constituencies, we'd almost certainly go from having one member dedicated to Newcastle Under Lyme . . . to seeing 4 members dedicated effectively to Stoke.
Newcastle under Lyme would be completely aborbed within and a minor player to the interests of Stoke.
You need to write out your work on the blackboard for that equation.
Within the area local to that, there are currently 4 constituencies: Newcastle under Lyme Stoke on Trent Central Stoke on Trent North Stoke on Trent South
Can you spot the odd one out?
If we had a 4 member constituency, then we'd have a solitary Stoke on Trent constituency which would incorporate Newcastle under Lyme to make up the numbers.
Stoke on Trent making up the overwhelming majority of the electorate would dwarf the concerns of Newcastle under Lyme.
You'd go from have a member for Newcastle, to having instead a Tory member for Stoke, a Labour member for Stoke and however else it breaks down too ... for Stoke.
Like I said before, you should study on actual operation of STV in actual Irish constituencies.
Where in a typical four-seater, a similar area with significant local identity, most likely would get one of its own duly elected.
Note that Irish voters frequently - even usually - jiggle their preferences based on both party AND locality.
You can't have it both ways, both locale and proportionality, as the whole reason of large constituencies is deliberately to abolish the locale vote to get proportionality. Can't have both.
Under your theory, who represents Newcastle? Rather than having a Tory for Stoke, Labour for Stoke and however else it breaks down too for Stoke?
Ain't theory, rather actuality.
Check out the facts re: how STV plays out in Ireland, before theorizing how it might turn out in England.
Please provide any evidence that's how it works in Ireland, because the facts seem to me to show the polar opposite.
Closest Irish analogy I can think of is the Waterford constituency. It has four TDs, one each for Sinn Fein, Greens, Fianna Fail and an Independent.
All 4 of them hail from Waterford.
Waterford the Constituency covers Waterford but also covers Dungarvan and Tramore, but I can't find a single TD from or specifically representing either Dungarvan or Tramore, as they've simply been absorbed by Waterford.
Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Dungarvan, before Waterford? Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Tramore, before Waterford?
Actual facts, not random unsubstantiated theorising.
Don't forget the UK! STV is used in Northern Ireland at Local and Assembly level.
STV is used for Council elections in Scotland.
I think it would be a positive if it were similarly used in the rest of the UK, as one party states are very poor for council governance
Even if you approve of First Past The Post, the First Three Past The Post (see London boroughs) is pretty hard to justify.
On that one I wholeheartedly agree with you, I dislike multimember constituencies, and multimember FPTP is every bit as bad as multimember STV.
No it's, not. The seats are (roughly) awarded proportional to votes received, as opposed to winner take all FPTP.
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Meanwhile, a new generation of radicalised young people is created, the next generation of prospective martyrs and the cycle of violence begins anew.
I'm sure Israel is well aware of this - how could it not be? Yet the atrocity is so heinous some form of punishment or response has to be meted out otherwise it shows weakness and would invite an internal upheaval leading to an even harsher response.
This is Jewish history. Century after century.
It’s always the fault of the Jews, when bad things happen to them.
Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine
This is the worst take of all the utterly shit takes you’ve put forward on here over the years. And that’s saying something.
Jewish culture is distinct and they have struggled to preserve it against state attempts attempts to enforce uniformity over two millennia. The Jews were the original victims of European monoculturalism and intolerance. When England and Spain expelled them it was not because they were confirming too much to the mainstream. The Spanish Inquisition was not part of the Woke Blob.
This is such a glaringly obvious point I’m stunned I have to explain it to you.
But of course. It made sense for Jewish people to seek and encourage multicultural societies, over history, as they have tended to be more tolerant of minorities - and, as you say, monocultures are not going to be like this
But the history of postwar Europe has showed that this is no longer true, and hasn't been true for a long time. And people have been warning about this for decades. We have imported new forms of anti-Semitism utterly inimical to Jews
Look at that scary march for Palestine in Whitehall, see who was on that march. It wasn't gammon-faced colonels from Tunbridge Wells with an old streak of Arabianism. It wasn't white skinheads from Deptford. These people don't exist any more. The new anti-Semites are new and largely imported
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Meanwhile, a new generation of radicalised young people is created, the next generation of prospective martyrs and the cycle of violence begins anew.
I'm sure Israel is well aware of this - how could it not be? Yet the atrocity is so heinous some form of punishment or response has to be meted out otherwise it shows weakness and would invite an internal upheaval leading to an even harsher response.
This is Jewish history. Century after century.
It’s always the fault of the Jews, when bad things happen to them.
Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine
This is the worst take of all the utterly shit takes you’ve put forward on here over the years. And that’s saying something.
Jewish culture is distinct and they have struggled to preserve it against state attempts to enforce uniformity over two millennia. The Jews were the original victims of European monoculturalism and intolerance. When England and Spain expelled them it was not because they were confirming too much to the mainstream. The Spanish Inquisition was not part of the Woke Blob.
This is such a glaringly obvious point I’m stunned I have to explain it to you.
Do you seriously think that state-enforced religious conformity is an active threat in modern secular Western states?
Remind, me @Leon, which religion fought to ensure separate schools in the UK, and that they wouldn't be forced to take people who didn't belong to it...
Remind, me @Leon, which religion fought to ensure separate schools in the UK, and that they wouldn't be forced to take people who didn't belong to it...
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Meanwhile, a new generation of radicalised young people is created, the next generation of prospective martyrs and the cycle of violence begins anew.
I'm sure Israel is well aware of this - how could it not be? Yet the atrocity is so heinous some form of punishment or response has to be meted out otherwise it shows weakness and would invite an internal upheaval leading to an even harsher response.
This is Jewish history. Century after century.
It’s always the fault of the Jews, when bad things happen to them.
Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine
This is the worst take of all the utterly shit takes you’ve put forward on here over the years. And that’s saying something.
Jewish culture is distinct and they have struggled to preserve it against state attempts attempts to enforce uniformity over two millennia. The Jews were the original victims of European monoculturalism and intolerance. When England and Spain expelled them it was not because they were confirming too much to the mainstream. The Spanish Inquisition was not part of the Woke Blob.
This is such a glaringly obvious point I’m stunned I have to explain it to you.
But of course. It made sense for Jewish people to seek and encourage multicultural societies, over history, as they have tended to be more tolerant of minorities - and, as you say, monocultures are not going to be like this
But the history of postwar Europe has showed that this is no longer true, and hasn't been true for a long time. And people have been warning about this for decades. We have imported new forms of anti-Semitism utterly inimical to Jews
Look at that scary march for Palestine in Whitehall, see who was on that march. It wasn't gammon-faced colonels from Tunbridge Wells with an old streak of Arabianism. It wasn't white skinheads from Deptford. These people don't exist any more. The new anti-Semites are new and largely imported
Anti-Semitism re-emerges and can do so quite suddenly. Until 1932 if you were going to peg the most antisemitic country in Europe your money would probably be on Post-Dreyfus Affair France - Berlin opened a Jewish cultural museum the week Hitler was appointed chancellor. England has had waves of anti-semitism. History has shown the Jews that no country, especially no European country, has a monopoly on it - hence Israel.
Labour lead down to 12 points with More in Common . Fieldwork 14 to 16 October
Lab 42 Con 30 Lib Dem 12 Reform 7 Green 6 SNP 3
I think events in the Middle East are helping the Cons with attention away from domestic issues .
The combined Con and Reform at 37 would seriously worry Labour . I think a few weeks back I’d have backed Labour for both by-elections . Now I think they’re more likely to take Tamworth than Mid-Beds . The split votes there and drop in national lead might be too much of a climb . In Tamworth the Tory candidate might have harmed his hopes with Fxckgate.
This is a swing of 12% since the general election, and Labour need a 10% swing to win a majority with the old boundaries. I think we're heading for a Lab/LD coalition, (which would hopefully introduce proportional representation).
Such a coalition might want to introduce PR, but they'd probably have to have a referendum on it, and I'm not sure the public would back it, whatever the opinion polls say, since it would mean that Labour and Conservative supporters (usually around 70-75% of the electorate) would have to kiss goodbye to ever having majority governments run by their Party again. Also there's the well known tendency to default to the status quo in anoraky questions as we just saw in the Aussie referendum.
(But of course I've been wrong often before - I didn't think we'd vote to leave the EU until a day or two before the vote).
There wouldn't need to be a referendum if PR were in the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos. It is in the LibDem one. The challenge is getting it into the Labour manifesto - even if it is in very small print on page 46.
What always makes me laugh about those who want to change the constitution, is they think that people will vote exactly the same way if it was changed.
I know lots of people who have voted LD; only a few of them are actual supporters of the party. It is currently a catchall vote for both anti Tory and anti Labour depending upon constituency.
UKIP/REF, meanwhile, would do much better under PR, I suspect....
Yes - UKIP/REF and also the Greens would do much better under PR - and so they should.
I'm not in favour of a list system (too much power to the Parties and no choice for the voter and no local accountability.
I'm in favour of a Single Transferable Vote in constituencies of 4 or 5 members where there is competition between members of the same party and also local accountability.
I'm not in favour of it for party advantage. I'm in favour of it because it would be fairer and more democratic and lead to better government. It would also as a bonus avoid all the tactical voting shenanigans.
I agree that it may change which party people vote for, perhaps dramatically. But's that OK. That's good. It would be a more honest vote.
I would prefer constituencies kept the same size and just the single MP but chosen by AV.
AV avoids tactical voting which is good. But if you support a particular party, you have to vote for whoever that party puts up. There is no competition between contenders from the same party. It gives the parties too much power over voter choice, in my opinion.
You don't think they could exercise exactly the same control over 3 or 4 candidates as they do over 1? They would still be choosing who those candidates are no matter how many of them you have to choose from.
But each elector would have only one vote. So the candidates from each party group are also competing against one another.
Imagine you had a constituency where the Conservative candidates were Rory Stewart, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Dominic Cummings and Suella Braverman. You have to rank them. Which one would get your vote first?
There is always the risk that a voter, appalled by the attitude and competence of a Conservative candidate, might prefer to vote for a Socialist or Lib Dem candidate ahead o fthe appalling Conservative. So The Party would need to have a good range of candidates to stop its voters rushing off into the arms of Farage,or whatever.
Rigid party control wth identikit candidates leads only to a loss of support.
Good innit?
But that wasn't my point. It was Barnesian who is arguing for STV with multiple MPs and using the reason that it prevents parties deciding who the candidates are. I was poiting out that they can decide that just as easily with 4 candidates from each party as they can with one so it does not reduce the power of the parties at all.
It reduces the power of the party slightly.
The Conservatives put up four candidates, and you want to vote for a Conservative: well you at least get to choose which one you make top of your list. If Euroscepticism is important to you, you can choose the one who has made the right noises there. Etc. Yes, all four candidates are vetted by the party: but - unlike in the current system - it is not the party who decides exactly which one is elected in a given seat.
But as has already been pointed out, what actually usually happens under STV is the Conservatives put up the same number of candidates as there are seats available. Not least because they don't want to risk diluting their vote. So you still don't get much more of a choice than under AV as long as you want to vote Conservative.
Whilst the big downside is you weaken or lose the constituency link.
I agree that you weaken the constituency link, because there are now three or four MPs for a - larger - area than under FPTP. I don't think it's completely eliminated - someone is still MP for a geographical area, it's just a larger one.
But I would still argue that you're putting more control in peoples' hands over which members from a political party's slate gets elected.
Whether that's worth the trade off depends on your point of view.
It rather trashes the constituency link.
To take a semi-random example, take the constituency of Newcastle Under Lyme. If we went from single member constituencies, to 4 member constituencies, we'd almost certainly go from having one member dedicated to Newcastle Under Lyme . . . to seeing 4 members dedicated effectively to Stoke.
Newcastle under Lyme would be completely aborbed within and a minor player to the interests of Stoke.
You need to write out your work on the blackboard for that equation.
Within the area local to that, there are currently 4 constituencies: Newcastle under Lyme Stoke on Trent Central Stoke on Trent North Stoke on Trent South
Can you spot the odd one out?
If we had a 4 member constituency, then we'd have a solitary Stoke on Trent constituency which would incorporate Newcastle under Lyme to make up the numbers.
Stoke on Trent making up the overwhelming majority of the electorate would dwarf the concerns of Newcastle under Lyme.
You'd go from have a member for Newcastle, to having instead a Tory member for Stoke, a Labour member for Stoke and however else it breaks down too ... for Stoke.
Like I said before, you should study on actual operation of STV in actual Irish constituencies.
Where in a typical four-seater, a similar area with significant local identity, most likely would get one of its own duly elected.
Note that Irish voters frequently - even usually - jiggle their preferences based on both party AND locality.
You can't have it both ways, both locale and proportionality, as the whole reason of large constituencies is deliberately to abolish the locale vote to get proportionality. Can't have both.
Under your theory, who represents Newcastle? Rather than having a Tory for Stoke, Labour for Stoke and however else it breaks down too for Stoke?
Ain't theory, rather actuality.
Check out the facts re: how STV plays out in Ireland, before theorizing how it might turn out in England.
Please provide any evidence that's how it works in Ireland, because the facts seem to me to show the polar opposite.
Closest Irish analogy I can think of is the Waterford constituency. It has four TDs, one each for Sinn Fein, Greens, Fianna Fail and an Independent.
All 4 of them hail from Waterford.
Waterford the Constituency covers Waterford but also covers Dungarvan and Tramore, but I can't find a single TD from or specifically representing either Dungarvan or Tramore, as they've simply been absorbed by Waterford.
Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Dungarvan, before Waterford? Who in the Dail is representing the interests of Tramore, before Waterford?
Actual facts, not random unsubstantiated theorising.
Dungarvan is in County Waterford so your point is a bit weird.
It also has a population of less than 10,000 so it would be entitled to a third of a TD in the Dail if they had the same number of TDs but representing single member plurality seats.
There is occasionally a bit of a fuss if all the TDs in a seat are thought to be representing only one area of the seat, and the TDs either respond to that or the voters vote for candidates who will.
For example, with the new boundaries there will be a new Wicklow/Wexford constituency with no sitting TDs resident in the constituency. If that bothers the voters, which my brief exposure to parochial Irish politics suggests it will, then either do some of the TDs will move, or they will be replaced by other candidates.
I'm sure that if you try you'd find a lot of stories in the local papers of the Waterford TDs trying to convince the voters of Dungarvan that they were doing right by them. Generally TDs try to claim credit for anything good that happens from every playground to every new job.
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Look if the last 75 years proves anything, rolling a huge unexploded bomb into the property next to you, battering it with a sledgehammer every so often, allowing the casing to corrode, letting the explosive become unstable and the fuse degrade has no downsides whatsoever.
Since some of you have been discussing crime, I will share this recent Megan McArdle column on US crime with you: "Fortunately, we already know a simple, effective way to reduce crime: Put more cops on the street. As economist Alex Tabarrok has been pointing out for years, America has long been over-prisoned and under-policed, and reversing this could go a long way toward both deterring crime and reducing the prison population. “Defund the police” had it exactly backward: Cities need more cops, better trained and better paid.
Speculation: One of the things many American cities and states are doing wrong is allowing delays in trials. Many, probably most, American criminals have short time horizons. But the time they are actually tried for a crime, they may no long connect any sentence to what they did, years ago.
(For the record: I'm still thinking about her overall argument, but am inclined to agree with her.)
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Meanwhile, a new generation of radicalised young people is created, the next generation of prospective martyrs and the cycle of violence begins anew.
I'm sure Israel is well aware of this - how could it not be? Yet the atrocity is so heinous some form of punishment or response has to be meted out otherwise it shows weakness and would invite an internal upheaval leading to an even harsher response.
This is Jewish history. Century after century.
It’s always the fault of the Jews, when bad things happen to them.
Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine
This is the worst take of all the utterly shit takes you’ve put forward on here over the years. And that’s saying something.
Jewish culture is distinct and they have struggled to preserve it against state attempts attempts to enforce uniformity over two millennia. The Jews were the original victims of European monoculturalism and intolerance. When England and Spain expelled them it was not because they were confirming too much to the mainstream. The Spanish Inquisition was not part of the Woke Blob.
This is such a glaringly obvious point I’m stunned I have to explain it to you.
But of course. It made sense for Jewish people to seek and encourage multicultural societies, over history, as they have tended to be more tolerant of minorities - and, as you say, monocultures are not going to be like this
But the history of postwar Europe has showed that this is no longer true, and hasn't been true for a long time. And people have been warning about this for decades. We have imported new forms of anti-Semitism utterly inimical to Jews
Look at that scary march for Palestine in Whitehall, see who was on that march. It wasn't gammon-faced colonels from Tunbridge Wells with an old streak of Arabianism. It wasn't white skinheads from Deptford. These people don't exist any more. The new anti-Semites are new and largely imported
White skinheads from Deptford do exist for many Corbynite-adjacents, in some sort of parallel universe that doesn't rely on objective reality.
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
I really think you need to let this one go. Genuinely. Go to bed.
Since some of you have been discussing crime, I will share this recent Megan McArdle column on US crime with you: "Fortunately, we already know a simple, effective way to reduce crime: Put more cops on the street. As economist Alex Tabarrok has been pointing out for years, America has long been over-prisoned and under-policed, and reversing this could go a long way toward both deterring crime and reducing the prison population. “Defund the police” had it exactly backward: Cities need more cops, better trained and better paid.
Speculation: One of the things many American cities and states are doing wrong is allowing delays in trials. Many, probably most, American criminals have short time horizons. But the time they are actually tried for a crime, they may no long connect any sentence to what they did, years ago.
(For the record: I'm still thinking about her overall argument, but am inclined to agree with her.)
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Look if the last 75 years proves anything, rolling a huge unexploded bomb into the property next to you, battering it with a sledgehammer every so often, allowing the casing to corrode, letting the explosive become unstable and the fuse degrade has no downsides whatsoever.
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Meanwhile, a new generation of radicalised young people is created, the next generation of prospective martyrs and the cycle of violence begins anew.
I'm sure Israel is well aware of this - how could it not be? Yet the atrocity is so heinous some form of punishment or response has to be meted out otherwise it shows weakness and would invite an internal upheaval leading to an even harsher response.
This is Jewish history. Century after century.
It’s always the fault of the Jews, when bad things happen to them.
Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine
This is the worst take of all the utterly shit takes you’ve put forward on here over the years. And that’s saying something.
Jewish culture is distinct and they have struggled to preserve it against state attempts attempts to enforce uniformity over two millennia. The Jews were the original victims of European monoculturalism and intolerance. When England and Spain expelled them it was not because they were confirming too much to the mainstream. The Spanish Inquisition was not part of the Woke Blob.
This is such a glaringly obvious point I’m stunned I have to explain it to you.
But of course. It made sense for Jewish people to seek and encourage multicultural societies, over history, as they have tended to be more tolerant of minorities - and, as you say, monocultures are not going to be like this
But the history of postwar Europe has showed that this is no longer true, and hasn't been true for a long time. And people have been warning about this for decades. We have imported new forms of anti-Semitism utterly inimical to Jews
Look at that scary march for Palestine in Whitehall, see who was on that march. It wasn't gammon-faced colonels from Tunbridge Wells with an old streak of Arabianism. It wasn't white skinheads from Deptford. These people don't exist any more. The new anti-Semites are new and largely imported
Anti-Semitism re-emerges and can do so quite suddenly. Until 1932 if you were going to peg the most antisemitic country in Europe your money would probably be on Post-Dreyfus Affair France - Berlin opened a Jewish cultural museum the week Hitler was appointed chancellor. England has had waves of anti-semitism. History has shown the Jews that no country, especially no European country, has a monopoly on it - hence Israel.
But by the 1980s, at the latest, it was pretty clear that mass migration from Muslim societies would - in the long run - be really bad for Jews living happily and safely in western European countries, once the virus of native European anti-Semitism had been extinguished after the Holocaust
Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ · 3h One of the more amusing aspects of last night's debate w @DAaronovitch & @arusbridger is they all went for dinner afterwards and didn't even bother to invite me, despite me giving up my time for free to help make Prospect Magazine money! Classic New Elite @prospect_uk
"The UK is starting to accept that prison doesn’t work As the Justice Secretary has recognised, short sentences are not effective in reducing reoffending. By David Gauke"
Look at Bukele's popularity rating in El Salavador... Two inconvenient truths: being tough on crime both reduces crime, and makes you very very popular...
The US - sadly - is a bit of a counter-example. There's no evidence of any correlation between harshness of sentences and crime rates. (Indeed, the - admittedly weak - correlation is actually the other way around.)
The trick to stopping offending is not principally the harshness of the sentences for those convicted. It is about catching and convicting the right people. A twenty year sentence for shoplifting is not a deterrent if you don't think it'll ever get to court.
A fair point. We have more or less reached the point round my way where you cannot buy either a steak or a large jar of instant coffee off the shelf, along with several other goods in the £5 to 10 range. You have to go up to the checkout and ask for it over the counter.
If small acts of crime like this continue to be unpunished, I really think we're heading to a much darker, dystopian place. You can imagine having to swipe your bloody "membership card" to get through the door at Tesco (I refuse to have one of the data capturing things). And anybody who doesn't carry one is excluded from the shop. And woe betide you if you have a face that looks like someone who's been caught shoplifting, because facial camera recognition software will have you excluded from ever buying anything again. That's the dystopia we're heading towards.
I know it's just broken window theory, but I think we're at an inflection point in society now, where if we don't take action to deter the little things, society heads to a much darker place, be that omniprescent and oppressive corporate security, or lawless streets (muggings seem to be picking up again too, judging from the number of people I know who've had phones nicked in recent weeks).
Yes, that is exactly where we are going. Plus this…
When the police started publishing the locations of crimes, some areas stood out. Next to nothing there. Reported that is.
Tend to be ethnically homogenous areas. Either the shops are not being robbed. Or….
I don't see why swiping a card at the door is a particular problem.
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
Remind, me @Leon, which religion fought to ensure separate schools in the UK, and that they wouldn't be forced to take people who didn't belong to it...
Quite right too, religious schools get above average exam results overall
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
I really think you need to let this one go. Genuinely. Go to bed.
I am stone cold sober and also absolutely correct, you just don't like hearing it
I am also only repeating, in a different way, what that great Jew Henry Kissinger said the other day. Turns out postwar migration patterns into Europe have been bad for Jews
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
Congress locked because of the childish and cultish games of Trump supporting GOP.
Meanwhile this could be 1914 and the world on the bloody brink.
Difficult to believe that indie voters in America will not look at Biden trying to do something on the international stage while GOP prat around with each other and block functioning government and conclude that four years of Trump would be a disaster.
But I have little faith left.
Assuming Trump isn't convicted of his criminal charges and in jail by next November
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
I doubt it. If she ever thought 'oops' she might have reflected on her role in appointing paedophiles to run children's homes rather than trying to cover it up.
"The UK is starting to accept that prison doesn’t work As the Justice Secretary has recognised, short sentences are not effective in reducing reoffending. By David Gauke"
Look at Bukele's popularity rating in El Salavador... Two inconvenient truths: being tough on crime both reduces crime, and makes you very very popular...
The US - sadly - is a bit of a counter-example. There's no evidence of any correlation between harshness of sentences and crime rates. (Indeed, the - admittedly weak - correlation is actually the other way around.)
The trick to stopping offending is not principally the harshness of the sentences for those convicted. It is about catching and convicting the right people. A twenty year sentence for shoplifting is not a deterrent if you don't think it'll ever get to court.
A fair point. We have more or less reached the point round my way where you cannot buy either a steak or a large jar of instant coffee off the shelf, along with several other goods in the £5 to 10 range. You have to go up to the checkout and ask for it over the counter.
If small acts of crime like this continue to be unpunished, I really think we're heading to a much darker, dystopian place. You can imagine having to swipe your bloody "membership card" to get through the door at Tesco (I refuse to have one of the data capturing things). And anybody who doesn't carry one is excluded from the shop. And woe betide you if you have a face that looks like someone who's been caught shoplifting, because facial camera recognition software will have you excluded from ever buying anything again. That's the dystopia we're heading towards.
I know it's just broken window theory, but I think we're at an inflection point in society now, where if we don't take action to deter the little things, society heads to a much darker place, be that omniprescent and oppressive corporate security, or lawless streets (muggings seem to be picking up again too, judging from the number of people I know who've had phones nicked in recent weeks).
Yes, that is exactly where we are going. Plus this…
When the police started publishing the locations of crimes, some areas stood out. Next to nothing there. Reported that is.
Tend to be ethnically homogenous areas. Either the shops are not being robbed. Or….
I don't see why swiping a card at the door is a particular problem.
Is that not how eg CostCo operate?
So if you look enough like a shop lifter, no shopping for you.
If you don't have a credit card to swipe, to take a precautionary charge for the shop, no shopping for you...
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
I really think you need to let this one go. Genuinely. Go to bed.
I am stone cold sober and also absolutely correct, you just don't like hearing it
I am also only repeating, in a different way, what that great Jew Henry Kissinger said the other day. Turns out postwar migration patterns into Europe have been bad for Jews
Whether they have or haven't you have just thrilled our Hamas sympathisers on here by telling us that actually it's the Jews' own fault.
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Meanwhile, a new generation of radicalised young people is created, the next generation of prospective martyrs and the cycle of violence begins anew.
I'm sure Israel is well aware of this - how could it not be? Yet the atrocity is so heinous some form of punishment or response has to be meted out otherwise it shows weakness and would invite an internal upheaval leading to an even harsher response.
This is Jewish history. Century after century.
It’s always the fault of the Jews, when bad things happen to them.
Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine
This is the worst take of all the utterly shit takes you’ve put forward on here over the years. And that’s saying something.
Jewish culture is distinct and they have struggled to preserve it against state attempts attempts to enforce uniformity over two millennia. The Jews were the original victims of European monoculturalism and intolerance. When England and Spain expelled them it was not because they were confirming too much to the mainstream. The Spanish Inquisition was not part of the Woke Blob.
This is such a glaringly obvious point I’m stunned I have to explain it to you.
But of course. It made sense for Jewish people to seek and encourage multicultural societies, over history, as they have tended to be more tolerant of minorities - and, as you say, monocultures are not going to be like this
But the history of postwar Europe has showed that this is no longer true, and hasn't been true for a long time. And people have been warning about this for decades. We have imported new forms of anti-Semitism utterly inimical to Jews
Look at that scary march for Palestine in Whitehall, see who was on that march. It wasn't gammon-faced colonels from Tunbridge Wells with an old streak of Arabianism. It wasn't white skinheads from Deptford. These people don't exist any more. The new anti-Semites are new and largely imported
...and the Conservatives are currently importing between 500k - 1000k net migrants per year. Do you think that will make things i) better or ii) worse?
Remind, me @Leon, which religion fought to ensure separate schools in the UK, and that they wouldn't be forced to take people who didn't belong to it...
Quite right too, religious schools get above average exam results overall
Most religious schools, though, will take kids in who aren't from their religion.
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Meanwhile, a new generation of radicalised young people is created, the next generation of prospective martyrs and the cycle of violence begins anew.
I'm sure Israel is well aware of this - how could it not be? Yet the atrocity is so heinous some form of punishment or response has to be meted out otherwise it shows weakness and would invite an internal upheaval leading to an even harsher response.
This is Jewish history. Century after century.
It’s always the fault of the Jews, when bad things happen to them.
Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine
This is the worst take of all the utterly shit takes you’ve put forward on here over the years. And that’s saying something.
Jewish culture is distinct and they have struggled to preserve it against state attempts attempts to enforce uniformity over two millennia. The Jews were the original victims of European monoculturalism and intolerance. When England and Spain expelled them it was not because they were confirming too much to the mainstream. The Spanish Inquisition was not part of the Woke Blob.
This is such a glaringly obvious point I’m stunned I have to explain it to you.
But of course. It made sense for Jewish people to seek and encourage multicultural societies, over history, as they have tended to be more tolerant of minorities - and, as you say, monocultures are not going to be like this
But the history of postwar Europe has showed that this is no longer true, and hasn't been true for a long time. And people have been warning about this for decades. We have imported new forms of anti-Semitism utterly inimical to Jews
Look at that scary march for Palestine in Whitehall, see who was on that march. It wasn't gammon-faced colonels from Tunbridge Wells with an old streak of Arabianism. It wasn't white skinheads from Deptford. These people don't exist any more. The new anti-Semites are new and largely imported
Anti-Semitism re-emerges and can do so quite suddenly. Until 1932 if you were going to peg the most antisemitic country in Europe your money would probably be on Post-Dreyfus Affair France - Berlin opened a Jewish cultural museum the week Hitler was appointed chancellor. England has had waves of anti-semitism. History has shown the Jews that no country, especially no European country, has a monopoly on it - hence Israel.
But by the 1980s, at the latest, it was pretty clear that mass migration from Muslim societies would - in the long run - be really bad for Jews living happily and safely in western European countries, once the virus of native European anti-Semitism had been extinguished after the Holocaust
People said as much, quite clearly
This isn’t an argument against multiculturalism, from which the Jewish culture benefits, it’s an argument, specifically, against Muslim immigration. Unless you are saying that Jewish culture has assimilated and no longer needs multiculturalism? Quite a claim.
And don’t get me started on the equally contemptible and complacent bullshit of “the virus of native (sic) European anti-Semitism” being “extinguished”.
Mary Butler TD and David Cullinane TD both have constituency offices in Dungarvan but, according to Barty, the TDs of Waterford ignore Dungarvan. Matt Shanahan TD too.
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
I really think you need to let this one go. Genuinely. Go to bed.
I am stone cold sober and also absolutely correct, you just don't like hearing it
I am also only repeating, in a different way, what that great Jew Henry Kissinger said the other day. Turns out postwar migration patterns into Europe have been bad for Jews
Whether they have or haven't you have just thrilled our Hamas sympathisers on here by telling us that actually it's the Jews' own fault.
No I didn't. Go back and read
I said leftwing Jewish intellectuals who favoured mass immigration and multikulti - and they are not hard to find, are they? - are partly responsible for this present unpleasant pickle, along with all the other idiot Gentile lefties who thought it would all go fantastically well, look at Sweden it's great etc etc etc
That's a subset, and the culpability is highly partial. Much greater blame attaches to others
The Premier League will increase the number of live televised fixtures in the UK from 200 to around 270 in its next rights cycle. The Saturday afternoon 3pm blackout will remain in place but every 2pm Sunday kick-off will be televised.
They really might as well go the NFL model and flog game pass to show every game.
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
I really think you need to let this one go. Genuinely. Go to bed.
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
I really think you need to let this one go. Genuinely. Go to bed.
I am stone cold sober and also absolutely correct, you just don't like hearing it
I am also only repeating, in a different way, what that great Jew Henry Kissinger said the other day. Turns out postwar migration patterns into Europe have been bad for Jews
Whether they have or haven't you have just thrilled our Hamas sympathisers on here by telling us that actually it's the Jews' own fault.
No I didn't. Go back and read
I said leftwing Jewish intellectuals who favoured mass immigration and multikulti - and they are not hard to find, are they? - are partly responsible for this present unpleasant pickle, along with all the other idiot Gentile lefties who thought it would all go fantastically well, look at Sweden it's great etc etc etc
That's a subset, and the culpability is highly partial. Much greater blame attaches to others
Labour lead down to 12 points with More in Common . Fieldwork 14 to 16 October
Lab 42 Con 30 Lib Dem 12 Reform 7 Green 6 SNP 3
I think events in the Middle East are helping the Cons with attention away from domestic issues .
The combined Con and Reform at 37 would seriously worry Labour . I think a few weeks back I’d have backed Labour for both by-elections . Now I think they’re more likely to take Tamworth than Mid-Beds . The split votes there and drop in national lead might be too much of a climb . In Tamworth the Tory candidate might have harmed his hopes with Fxckgate.
This is a swing of 12% since the general election, and Labour need a 10% swing to win a majority with the old boundaries. I think we're heading for a Lab/LD coalition, (which would hopefully introduce proportional representation).
Such a coalition might want to introduce PR, but they'd probably have to have a referendum on it, and I'm not sure the public would back it, whatever the opinion polls say, since it would mean that Labour and Conservative supporters (usually around 70-75% of the electorate) would have to kiss goodbye to ever having majority governments run by their Party again. Also there's the well known tendency to default to the status quo in anoraky questions as we just saw in the Aussie referendum.
(But of course I've been wrong often before - I didn't think we'd vote to leave the EU until a day or two before the vote).
There wouldn't need to be a referendum if PR were in the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos. It is in the LibDem one. The challenge is getting it into the Labour manifesto - even if it is in very small print on page 46.
What always makes me laugh about those who want to change the constitution, is they think that people will vote exactly the same way if it was changed.
I know lots of people who have voted LD; only a few of them are actual supporters of the party. It is currently a catchall vote for both anti Tory and anti Labour depending upon constituency.
UKIP/REF, meanwhile, would do much better under PR, I suspect....
Yes - UKIP/REF and also the Greens would do much better under PR - and so they should.
I'm not in favour of a list system (too much power to the Parties and no choice for the voter and no local accountability.
I'm in favour of a Single Transferable Vote in constituencies of 4 or 5 members where there is competition between members of the same party and also local accountability.
I'm not in favour of it for party advantage. I'm in favour of it because it would be fairer and more democratic and lead to better government. It would also as a bonus avoid all the tactical voting shenanigans.
I agree that it may change which party people vote for, perhaps dramatically. But's that OK. That's good. It would be a more honest vote.
I would prefer constituencies kept the same size and just the single MP but chosen by AV.
Option 1 Increase the number of MPs to 900 (average 75,000, can still get them in Westminster Hall)
Option 2 Increase the number of MPs to 2,267. Rationale is as follows
1851
UK popn in 1851 = 27368800
Halve that because only men had the vote
UK Potential voter popn in 1851 = 13,684,400
UK number of MPs in 1852 = 654 seats
Voter/seat ratio = 20,924. Call it 30,000
2023
UK popn in 2023 = 68million (probably)
Ideal number of seats = 68million/30,000 = 2,267.
So we should have 2,267 MPs, each holding an average of 30,000 people.
Representation goes up, party loyalty goes down, MP workload goes down
Though you've failed to handle productivity growth since 1851. Since 1851 there have been wonders in things like telecommunications, the phone, the internet, email, as well as transport, cars, mass transit and much, much more.
If in 1852 the typical MP could represent 21k electors, shouldn't the typical MP now be able to comparatively represent an order of magnitude more due to productivity growth?
Maximum number of hours a MP can work in a day in 1851 = 24 Maximum number of hours a MP can work in a day in 2023 = 24
😀
(A more serious answer is that communications advances don't increase productivity: better contact does not increase throughput and may in fact reduce it)
Why is this debate assuming that we want MPs to do MORE ?
In this country we arguably have so many politicians that the collective noun should be Plague.
There's not much to learn from the tonka-tanker driving shoot-everybody-dead cowboys of Texas, but one thing is that their legislature only meets for 140 days every second year.
The Texas Legislature meets in regular session on the second Tuesday in January of each odd-numbered year.[2] The Texas Constitution limits the regular session to 140 calendar days. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Legislature
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
I really think you need to let this one go. Genuinely. Go to bed.
Mary Butler TD and David Cullinane TD both have constituency offices in Dungarvan but, according to Barty, the TDs of Waterford ignore Dungarvan. Matt Shanahan TD too.
And the fourth TD for the constituency was previously a county councillor for Tramore! Lol.
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Meanwhile, a new generation of radicalised young people is created, the next generation of prospective martyrs and the cycle of violence begins anew.
I'm sure Israel is well aware of this - how could it not be? Yet the atrocity is so heinous some form of punishment or response has to be meted out otherwise it shows weakness and would invite an internal upheaval leading to an even harsher response.
This is Jewish history. Century after century.
It’s always the fault of the Jews, when bad things happen to them.
Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine
This is the worst take of all the utterly shit takes you’ve put forward on here over the years. And that’s saying something.
Jewish culture is distinct and they have struggled to preserve it against state attempts attempts to enforce uniformity over two millennia. The Jews were the original victims of European monoculturalism and intolerance. When England and Spain expelled them it was not because they were confirming too much to the mainstream. The Spanish Inquisition was not part of the Woke Blob.
This is such a glaringly obvious point I’m stunned I have to explain it to you.
But of course. It made sense for Jewish people to seek and encourage multicultural societies, over history, as they have tended to be more tolerant of minorities - and, as you say, monocultures are not going to be like this
But the history of postwar Europe has showed that this is no longer true, and hasn't been true for a long time. And people have been warning about this for decades. We have imported new forms of anti-Semitism utterly inimical to Jews
Look at that scary march for Palestine in Whitehall, see who was on that march. It wasn't gammon-faced colonels from Tunbridge Wells with an old streak of Arabianism. It wasn't white skinheads from Deptford. These people don't exist any more. The new anti-Semites are new and largely imported
I am a white skinhead from Deptford, or thereabouts. I exist!
Remind, me @Leon, which religion fought to ensure separate schools in the UK, and that they wouldn't be forced to take people who didn't belong to it...
Quite right too, religious schools get above average exam results overall
Most religious schools, though, will take kids in who aren't from their religion.
The Premier League will increase the number of live televised fixtures in the UK from 200 to around 270 in its next rights cycle. The Saturday afternoon 3pm blackout will remain in place but every 2pm Sunday kick-off will be televised.
They really might as well go the NFL model and flog game pass to show every game.
Every game absolutely should be televised, its insane that they are around the globe but not here.
Customers in the UK spend hundreds on Sport packages, and thousand or tens of thousands on commercial ones, but many fixtures can only be broadcast via illegal streams. Its madness.
Mary Butler TD and David Cullinane TD both have constituency offices in Dungarvan but, according to Barty, the TDs of Waterford ignore Dungarvan. Matt Shanahan TD too.
And the fourth TD for the constituency was previously a county councillor for Tramore! Lol.
OK, I take it back, it was not the best argument I've ever made. 🙈
Remind, me @Leon, which religion fought to ensure separate schools in the UK, and that they wouldn't be forced to take people who didn't belong to it...
Quite right too, religious schools get above average exam results overall
Most religious schools, though, will take kids in who aren't from their religion.
And select them ...
Normally by church attendance rate (or mosque or synagogue or temple attendance rate)
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
I really think you need to let this one go. Genuinely. Go to bed.
I am stone cold sober and also absolutely correct, you just don't like hearing it
I am also only repeating, in a different way, what that great Jew Henry Kissinger said the other day. Turns out postwar migration patterns into Europe have been bad for Jews
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
I really think you need to let this one go. Genuinely. Go to bed.
I am stone cold sober and also absolutely correct, you just don't like hearing it
I am also only repeating, in a different way, what that great Jew Henry Kissinger said the other day. Turns out postwar migration patterns into Europe have been bad for Jews
Whether they have or haven't you have just thrilled our Hamas sympathisers on here by telling us that actually it's the Jews' own fault.
No I didn't. Go back and read
I said leftwing Jewish intellectuals who favoured mass immigration and multikulti - and they are not hard to find, are they? - are partly responsible for this present unpleasant pickle, along with all the other idiot Gentile lefties who thought it would all go fantastically well, look at Sweden it's great etc etc etc
That's a subset, and the culpability is highly partial. Much greater blame attaches to others
You are just restating the point that it's the fault, amongst others, of the Jews. You liderally just said it.
You are singling out the Jews for blame in the same sentence that you celebrate the end of post-war European anti-Semitism.
I don't think you have an anti-semitic bone in your body and I say this just to show how easy it is for the narrative to head that way. Imagine how such a narrative could be employed by someone less anti-anti-semitic.
Remind, me @Leon, which religion fought to ensure separate schools in the UK, and that they wouldn't be forced to take people who didn't belong to it...
Quite right too, religious schools get above average exam results overall
Most religious schools, though, will take kids in who aren't from their religion.
And select them ...
Normally by church attendance rate (or mosque or synagogue or temple attendance rate)
We were talking abiout children who weren't already indoctrinated.
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
I really think you need to let this one go. Genuinely. Go to bed.
I am stone cold sober and also absolutely correct, you just don't like hearing it
I am also only repeating, in a different way, what that great Jew Henry Kissinger said the other day. Turns out postwar migration patterns into Europe have been bad for Jews
Do fuck off. The day I lose an argument to you is the day Satan wakes up, gazes out of the window, and wonders if he’s got any de-icer in the garage.
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Meanwhile, a new generation of radicalised young people is created, the next generation of prospective martyrs and the cycle of violence begins anew.
I'm sure Israel is well aware of this - how could it not be? Yet the atrocity is so heinous some form of punishment or response has to be meted out otherwise it shows weakness and would invite an internal upheaval leading to an even harsher response.
This is Jewish history. Century after century.
It’s always the fault of the Jews, when bad things happen to them.
Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine
This is the worst take of all the utterly shit takes you’ve put forward on here over the years. And that’s saying something.
Jewish culture is distinct and they have struggled to preserve it against state attempts attempts to enforce uniformity over two millennia. The Jews were the original victims of European monoculturalism and intolerance. When England and Spain expelled them it was not because they were confirming too much to the mainstream. The Spanish Inquisition was not part of the Woke Blob.
This is such a glaringly obvious point I’m stunned I have to explain it to you.
But of course. It made sense for Jewish people to seek and encourage multicultural societies, over history, as they have tended to be more tolerant of minorities - and, as you say, monocultures are not going to be like this
But the history of postwar Europe has showed that this is no longer true, and hasn't been true for a long time. And people have been warning about this for decades. We have imported new forms of anti-Semitism utterly inimical to Jews
Look at that scary march for Palestine in Whitehall, see who was on that march. It wasn't gammon-faced colonels from Tunbridge Wells with an old streak of Arabianism. It wasn't white skinheads from Deptford. These people don't exist any more. The new anti-Semites are new and largely imported
Anti-Semitism re-emerges and can do so quite suddenly. Until 1932 if you were going to peg the most antisemitic country in Europe your money would probably be on Post-Dreyfus Affair France - Berlin opened a Jewish cultural museum the week Hitler was appointed chancellor. England has had waves of anti-semitism. History has shown the Jews that no country, especially no European country, has a monopoly on it - hence Israel.
But by the 1980s, at the latest, it was pretty clear that mass migration from Muslim societies would - in the long run - be really bad for Jews living happily and safely in western European countries, once the virus of native European anti-Semitism had been extinguished after the Holocaust
People said as much, quite clearly
This isn’t an argument against multiculturalism, from which the Jewish culture benefits, it’s an argument, specifically, against Muslim immigration. Unless you are saying that Jewish culture has assimilated and no longer needs multiculturalism? Quite a claim.
And don’t get me started on the equally contemptible and complacent bullshit of “the virus of native (sic) European anti-Semitism” being “extinguished”.
If multiculturalism and mass immigration increases the threat from the far right, isn’t that a good reason to oppose it on pragmatic grounds?
"The UK is starting to accept that prison doesn’t work As the Justice Secretary has recognised, short sentences are not effective in reducing reoffending. By David Gauke"
Look at Bukele's popularity rating in El Salavador... Two inconvenient truths: being tough on crime both reduces crime, and makes you very very popular...
The US - sadly - is a bit of a counter-example. There's no evidence of any correlation between harshness of sentences and crime rates. (Indeed, the - admittedly weak - correlation is actually the other way around.)
The trick to stopping offending is not principally the harshness of the sentences for those convicted. It is about catching and convicting the right people. A twenty year sentence for shoplifting is not a deterrent if you don't think it'll ever get to court.
A fair point. We have more or less reached the point round my way where you cannot buy either a steak or a large jar of instant coffee off the shelf, along with several other goods in the £5 to 10 range. You have to go up to the checkout and ask for it over the counter.
If small acts of crime like this continue to be unpunished, I really think we're heading to a much darker, dystopian place. You can imagine having to swipe your bloody "membership card" to get through the door at Tesco (I refuse to have one of the data capturing things). And anybody who doesn't carry one is excluded from the shop. And woe betide you if you have a face that looks like someone who's been caught shoplifting, because facial camera recognition software will have you excluded from ever buying anything again. That's the dystopia we're heading towards.
I know it's just broken window theory, but I think we're at an inflection point in society now, where if we don't take action to deter the little things, society heads to a much darker place, be that omniprescent and oppressive corporate security, or lawless streets (muggings seem to be picking up again too, judging from the number of people I know who've had phones nicked in recent weeks).
Yes, that is exactly where we are going. Plus this…
When the police started publishing the locations of crimes, some areas stood out. Next to nothing there. Reported that is.
Tend to be ethnically homogenous areas. Either the shops are not being robbed. Or….
I don't see why swiping a card at the door is a particular problem.
Is that not how eg CostCo operate?
So if you look enough like a shop lifter, no shopping for you.
If you don't have a credit card to swipe, to take a precatiouantry
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
I really think you need to let this one go. Genuinely. Go to bed.
I am stone cold sober and also absolutely correct, you just don't like hearing it
I am also only repeating, in a different way, what that great Jew Henry Kissinger said the other day. Turns out postwar migration patterns into Europe have been bad for Jews
Whether they have or haven't you have just thrilled our Hamas sympathisers on here by telling us that actually it's the Jews' own fault.
No I didn't. Go back and read
I said leftwing Jewish intellectuals who favoured mass immigration and multikulti - and they are not hard to find, are they? - are partly responsible for this present unpleasant pickle, along with all the other idiot Gentile lefties who thought it would all go fantastically well, look at Sweden it's great etc etc etc
That's a subset, and the culpability is highly partial. Much greater blame attaches to others
You are just restating the point that it's the fault, amongst others, of the Jews. You liderally just said it.
You are singling out the Jews for blame in the same sentence that you celebrate the end of post-war European anti-Semitism.
I don't think you have an anti-semitic bone in your body and I say this just to show how easy it is for the narrative to head that way. Imagine how such a narrative could be employed by someone less anti-anti-semitic.
Well at least we can all agree that multiculturalism has been a disaster for Jews. amiright?
Is Roger right that Channel 4 claim the rocket almost certainly came from Israel? That's going against pretty much everything I've seen people saying online. What's the evidence?
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Meanwhile, a new generation of radicalised young people is created, the next generation of prospective martyrs and the cycle of violence begins anew.
I'm sure Israel is well aware of this - how could it not be? Yet the atrocity is so heinous some form of punishment or response has to be meted out otherwise it shows weakness and would invite an internal upheaval leading to an even harsher response.
This is Jewish history. Century after century.
It’s always the fault of the Jews, when bad things happen to them.
Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine
This is the worst take of all the utterly shit takes you’ve put forward on here over the years. And that’s saying something.
Jewish culture is distinct and they have struggled to preserve it against state attempts attempts to enforce uniformity over two millennia. The Jews were the original victims of European monoculturalism and intolerance. When England and Spain expelled them it was not because they were confirming too much to the mainstream. The Spanish Inquisition was not part of the Woke Blob.
This is such a glaringly obvious point I’m stunned I have to explain it to you.
But of course. It made sense for Jewish people to seek and encourage multicultural societies, over history, as they have tended to be more tolerant of minorities - and, as you say, monocultures are not going to be like this
But the history of postwar Europe has showed that this is no longer true, and hasn't been true for a long time. And people have been warning about this for decades. We have imported new forms of anti-Semitism utterly inimical to Jews
Look at that scary march for Palestine in Whitehall, see who was on that march. It wasn't gammon-faced colonels from Tunbridge Wells with an old streak of Arabianism. It wasn't white skinheads from Deptford. These people don't exist any more. The new anti-Semites are new and largely imported
Anti-Semitism re-emerges and can do so quite suddenly. Until 1932 if you were going to peg the most antisemitic country in Europe your money would probably be on Post-Dreyfus Affair France - Berlin opened a Jewish cultural museum the week Hitler was appointed chancellor. England has had waves of anti-semitism. History has shown the Jews that no country, especially no European country, has a monopoly on it - hence Israel.
But by the 1980s, at the latest, it was pretty clear that mass migration from Muslim societies would - in the long run - be really bad for Jews living happily and safely in western European countries, once the virus of native European anti-Semitism had been extinguished after the Holocaust
People said as much, quite clearly
This isn’t an argument against multiculturalism, from which the Jewish culture benefits, it’s an argument, specifically, against Muslim immigration. Unless you are saying that Jewish culture has assimilated and no longer needs multiculturalism? Quite a claim.
And don’t get me started on the equally contemptible and complacent bullshit of “the virus of native (sic) European anti-Semitism” being “extinguished”.
If multiculturalism and mass immigration increases the threat from the far right, isn’t that a good reason to oppose it on pragmatic grounds?
So, it’s multiculturalism AND mass immigration now? Pretty sure Leon only picked one of the two
An example. Tony Blair's government vowed to open the borders and encourage mass immigration so as to "rub the noses of the Right in diversity"
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
I really think you need to let this one go. Genuinely. Go to bed.
I am stone cold sober and also absolutely correct, you just don't like hearing it
I am also only repeating, in a different way, what that great Jew Henry Kissinger said the other day. Turns out postwar migration patterns into Europe have been bad for Jews
Whether they have or haven't you have just thrilled our Hamas sympathisers on here by telling us that actually it's the Jews' own fault.
No I didn't. Go back and read
I said leftwing Jewish intellectuals who favoured mass immigration and multikulti - and they are not hard to find, are they? - are partly responsible for this present unpleasant pickle, along with all the other idiot Gentile lefties who thought it would all go fantastically well, look at Sweden it's great etc etc etc
That's a subset, and the culpability is highly partial. Much greater blame attaches to others
The Turner Diaries has entered the building.
You mean we are going to suffer a more turgid, illiterate piece of writing than that one by the street artist complaining about his struggle to get a bigger living room?
Is Roger right that Channel 4 claim the rocket almost certainly came from Israel? That's going against pretty much everything I've seen people saying online. What's the evidence?
There is now some conflicting evidence. It's a mess
"The Israeli War Cabinet reportedly told U.S. President Biden today during a Meeting that they have now completed their preparations for an Invasion of the Gaza Strip and that a Ground Operation is now “Imminent.”"
Bogged down in months of house to house slaughter.
Having ground out a "win" they get to rule Northern Gaza.
And then what?
It is a trap.
Meanwhile, a new generation of radicalised young people is created, the next generation of prospective martyrs and the cycle of violence begins anew.
I'm sure Israel is well aware of this - how could it not be? Yet the atrocity is so heinous some form of punishment or response has to be meted out otherwise it shows weakness and would invite an internal upheaval leading to an even harsher response.
This is Jewish history. Century after century.
It’s always the fault of the Jews, when bad things happen to them.
Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine
This is the worst take of all the utterly shit takes you’ve put forward on here over the years. And that’s saying something.
Jewish culture is distinct and they have struggled to preserve it against state attempts attempts to enforce uniformity over two millennia. The Jews were the original victims of European monoculturalism and intolerance. When England and Spain expelled them it was not because they were confirming too much to the mainstream. The Spanish Inquisition was not part of the Woke Blob.
This is such a glaringly obvious point I’m stunned I have to explain it to you.
But of course. It made sense for Jewish people to seek and encourage multicultural societies, over history, as they have tended to be more tolerant of minorities - and, as you say, monocultures are not going to be like this
But the history of postwar Europe has showed that this is no longer true, and hasn't been true for a long time. And people have been warning about this for decades. We have imported new forms of anti-Semitism utterly inimical to Jews
Look at that scary march for Palestine in Whitehall, see who was on that march. It wasn't gammon-faced colonels from Tunbridge Wells with an old streak of Arabianism. It wasn't white skinheads from Deptford. These people don't exist any more. The new anti-Semites are new and largely imported
Anti-Semitism re-emerges and can do so quite suddenly. Until 1932 if you were going to peg the most antisemitic country in Europe your money would probably be on Post-Dreyfus Affair France - Berlin opened a Jewish cultural museum the week Hitler was appointed chancellor. England has had waves of anti-semitism. History has shown the Jews that no country, especially no European country, has a monopoly on it - hence Israel.
But by the 1980s, at the latest, it was pretty clear that mass migration from Muslim societies would - in the long run - be really bad for Jews living happily and safely in western European countries, once the virus of native European anti-Semitism had been extinguished after the Holocaust
People said as much, quite clearly
This isn’t an argument against multiculturalism, from which the Jewish culture benefits, it’s an argument, specifically, against Muslim immigration. Unless you are saying that Jewish culture has assimilated and no longer needs multiculturalism? Quite a claim.
And don’t get me started on the equally contemptible and complacent bullshit of “the virus of native (sic) European anti-Semitism” being “extinguished”.
If multiculturalism and mass immigration increases the threat from the far right, isn’t that a good reason to oppose it on pragmatic grounds?
So, it’s multiculturalism AND mass immigration now? Pretty sure Leon only picked one of the two
No, in my original comment, which kicked this off, I cited both
"Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine"
Labour lead down to 12 points with More in Common . Fieldwork 14 to 16 October
Lab 42 Con 30 Lib Dem 12 Reform 7 Green 6 SNP 3
I think events in the Middle East are helping the Cons with attention away from domestic issues .
The combined Con and Reform at 37 would seriously worry Labour . I think a few weeks back I’d have backed Labour for both by-elections . Now I think they’re more likely to take Tamworth than Mid-Beds . The split votes there and drop in national lead might be too much of a climb . In Tamworth the Tory candidate might have harmed his hopes with Fxckgate.
This is a swing of 12% since the general election, and Labour need a 10% swing to win a majority with the old boundaries. I think we're heading for a Lab/LD coalition, (which would hopefully introduce proportional representation).
Such a coalition might want to introduce PR, but they'd probably have to have a referendum on it, and I'm not sure the public would back it, whatever the opinion polls say, since it would mean that Labour and Conservative supporters (usually around 70-75% of the electorate) would have to kiss goodbye to ever having majority governments run by their Party again. Also there's the well known tendency to default to the status quo in anoraky questions as we just saw in the Aussie referendum.
(But of course I've been wrong often before - I didn't think we'd vote to leave the EU until a day or two before the vote).
There wouldn't need to be a referendum if PR were in the Labour and Lib Dem manifestos. It is in the LibDem one. The challenge is getting it into the Labour manifesto - even if it is in very small print on page 46.
What always makes me laugh about those who want to change the constitution, is they think that people will vote exactly the same way if it was changed.
I know lots of people who have voted LD; only a few of them are actual supporters of the party. It is currently a catchall vote for both anti Tory and anti Labour depending upon constituency.
UKIP/REF, meanwhile, would do much better under PR, I suspect....
Yes - UKIP/REF and also the Greens would do much better under PR - and so they should.
I'm not in favour of a list system (too much power to the Parties and no choice for the voter and no local accountability.
I'm in favour of a Single Transferable Vote in constituencies of 4 or 5 members where there is competition between members of the same party and also local accountability.
I'm not in favour of it for party advantage. I'm in favour of it because it would be fairer and more democratic and lead to better government. It would also as a bonus avoid all the tactical voting shenanigans.
I agree that it may change which party people vote for, perhaps dramatically. But's that OK. That's good. It would be a more honest vote.
I would prefer constituencies kept the same size and just the single MP but chosen by AV.
Option 1 Increase the number of MPs to 900 (average 75,000, can still get them in Westminster Hall)
Option 2 Increase the number of MPs to 2,267. Rationale is as follows
1851
UK popn in 1851 = 27368800
Halve that because only men had the vote
UK Potential voter popn in 1851 = 13,684,400
UK number of MPs in 1852 = 654 seats
Voter/seat ratio = 20,924. Call it 30,000
2023
UK popn in 2023 = 68million (probably)
Ideal number of seats = 68million/30,000 = 2,267.
So we should have 2,267 MPs, each holding an average of 30,000 people.
Representation goes up, party loyalty goes down, MP workload goes down
Though you've failed to handle productivity growth since 1851. Since 1851 there have been wonders in things like telecommunications, the phone, the internet, email, as well as transport, cars, mass transit and much, much more.
If in 1852 the typical MP could represent 21k electors, shouldn't the typical MP now be able to comparatively represent an order of magnitude more due to productivity growth?
Maximum number of hours a MP can work in a day in 1851 = 24 Maximum number of hours a MP can work in a day in 2023 = 24
😀
(A more serious answer is that communications advances don't increase productivity: better contact does not increase throughput and may in fact reduce it)
Why is this debate assuming that we want MPs to do MORE ?
In this country we arguably have so many politicians that the collective noun should be Plague.
There's not much to learn from the tonka-tanker driving shoot-everybody-dead cowboys of Texas, but one thing is that their legislature only meets for 140 days every second year.
The Texas Legislature meets in regular session on the second Tuesday in January of each odd-numbered year.[2] The Texas Constitution limits the regular session to 140 calendar days. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Legislature
You may have misunderstood me. My suggestion involved dramatically increasing the number of MPs. This would decrease their individual workload down to a level at which they could realistically do their jobs.
Comments
But now please show me any evidence that Green is happy to argue for investment or other policies that would benefit Tramore over the rest of Waterford, which was the point.
Without Green Waterford voters, he would lose.
Currently we have an MP in Parliament who can argue for investment that is necessary for Newcastle, even if its unpopular in Stoke. Merge the constituencies together, have one MP representing the entire region for that party, and that's not possible anymore.
Purely selfishly, Jihadism is a bigger threat to my way of life than Zionism.
I think it would be a positive if it were similarly used in the rest of the UK, as one party states are very poor for council governance
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/18/ukraine-russia-war-dnipro-river-cross-advance-poima-kyiv/
Whatever the rights or wrongs, the chances of fundamental Jewish terrorism killing me or my family is close to zero.
Sounds like a plan to me!
And on that bombshell, I'm shutting up about the 2023 Israel-Hamas conflict for the rest of 2023. Any further posts will be to provide data and links, not opinion and conclusions. You will have to make your own mistakes from here on in. 😀
Not morally equivalent. Anyone who thinks they are is malevolent or stupid. No other choices.
Unfortunately, this mistake now looks hard to fix because our nation’s police departments are experiencing a staffing crisis — and like crime, the problem has been made worse by the events of 2020."
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/12/police-shortage-defund-respect-cities/
Tabarrok: This detail may surprise some of you: "lower crime has been one of the greatest benefits to African American men over the past 30 years." (There's much more in the post.)
source: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/06/underpoliced-and-overprisoned-revisited.html He's absolutely right on that.
Speculation: One of the things many American cities and states are doing wrong is allowing delays in trials. Many, probably most, American criminals have short time horizons. But the time they are actually tried for a crime, they may no long connect any sentence to what they did, years ago.
(For the record: I'm still thinking about her overall argument, but am inclined to agree with her.)
Jewish culture is distinct and they have struggled to preserve it against state attempts to enforce uniformity over two millennia. The Jews were the original victims of European monoculturalism and intolerance. When England and Spain expelled them it was not because they were confirming too much to the mainstream. The Spanish Inquisition was not part of the Woke Blob.
This is such a glaringly obvious point I’m stunned I have to explain it to you.
But the history of postwar Europe has showed that this is no longer true, and hasn't been true for a long time. And people have been warning about this for decades. We have imported new forms of anti-Semitism utterly inimical to Jews
Look at that scary march for Palestine in Whitehall, see who was on that march. It wasn't gammon-faced colonels from Tunbridge Wells with an old streak of Arabianism. It wasn't white skinheads from Deptford. These people don't exist any more. The new anti-Semites are new and largely imported
It also has a population of less than 10,000 so it would be entitled to a third of a TD in the Dail if they had the same number of TDs but representing single member plurality seats.
There is occasionally a bit of a fuss if all the TDs in a seat are thought to be representing only one area of the seat, and the TDs either respond to that or the voters vote for candidates who will.
For example, with the new boundaries there will be a new Wicklow/Wexford constituency with no sitting TDs resident in the constituency. If that bothers the voters, which my brief exposure to parochial Irish politics suggests it will, then either do some of the TDs will move, or they will be replaced by other candidates.
I'm sure that if you try you'd find a lot of stories in the local papers of the Waterford TDs trying to convince the voters of Dungarvan that they were doing right by them. Generally TDs try to claim credit for anything good that happens from every playground to every new job.
Well, who is having their "noses rubbed in diversity", right now? Who is truly suffering? I wonder if the Jewish members of that New Labour cabinet - like Margaret Hodge - occasionally think, "oops"
However, I think you need to read this really interesting article from the New Yorker, about a CIA agent who became a police officer: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/07/the-spy-who-came-home
The New Yorker is really, really good for actual real life, true story writing, isn't it?
People said as much, quite clearly
Even more are still outside
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1714728934493893024?t=vuUS2uEPRNfoRjTOTjAdhw&s=19
Is that not how eg CostCo operate?
She was certainly a minister, multiple times
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hodge
I am also only repeating, in a different way, what that great Jew Henry Kissinger said the other day. Turns out postwar migration patterns into Europe have been bad for Jews
You remind me of that absolute roaster Sean Thomas who wanted to deport every Muslim to Madagascar after the Glasgow bin lorry accident.
If you don't have a credit card to swipe, to take a precautionary charge for the shop, no shopping for you...
And don’t get me started on the equally contemptible and complacent bullshit of “the virus of native (sic) European anti-Semitism” being “extinguished”.
I said leftwing Jewish intellectuals who favoured mass immigration and multikulti - and they are not hard to find, are they? - are partly responsible for this present unpleasant pickle, along with all the other idiot Gentile lefties who thought it would all go fantastically well, look at Sweden it's great etc etc etc
That's a subset, and the culpability is highly partial. Much greater blame attaches to others
They really might as well go the NFL model and flog game pass to show every game.
Fucking hell.
It really is the apocalypse, fellers.
In this country we arguably have so many politicians that the collective noun should be Plague.
There's not much to learn from the tonka-tanker driving shoot-everybody-dead cowboys of Texas, but one thing is that their legislature only meets for 140 days every second year.
The Texas Legislature meets in regular session on the second Tuesday in January of each odd-numbered year.[2] The Texas Constitution limits the regular session to 140 calendar days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Legislature
Customers in the UK spend hundreds on Sport packages, and thousand or tens of thousands on commercial ones, but many fixtures can only be broadcast via illegal streams. Its madness.
You are singling out the Jews for blame in the same sentence that you celebrate the end of post-war European anti-Semitism.
I don't think you have an anti-semitic bone in your body and I say this just to show how easy it is for the narrative to head that way. Imagine how such a narrative could be employed by someone less anti-anti-semitic.
If you don't have a credit card to swipe, to take a precatiouantry Where's Jamiroquai?
"Every Jewish intellectual in the west who has loudly espoused mass immigration or multiculturalism is, yes, somewhat responsible for the place they now find themselves
Jews for Multiculturalism makes as much sense as Queers for Palestine"