I think we need a new thread on what amazing/revolutionary things a Starmer government might do if he gets 100+ seat majority and almost guaranteed two terms
Coz it is looking quite possible
Given the fiscal restraints surely the big things are
1 real reform of the NHS 2 making the welfare state contributory 3 ID cards? 4 turn the House of Lords into a federal senate
What else?
You’re demonstrating your inability to think outside the box there, rather embarrassingly.
There is no need to for Starmer to be especially fiscally constrained. He could raise plenty more by: - extending NI to all earnings (or replacing NI with ICT) - increasing taxes on the highest earners - introducing a land value tax and/or wealth tax
Whether Starmer is any better at thinking outside the box than you remains to be seen.
From memory a wealth tax has been ruled out - which is a pity because it would allow council tax to be replaced or at leat replaced by something that reflected current prices.
Yeah, I’m hoping Starmer takes one look at the books and says ‘Awful finances, rich are going to have to pay, I’m afraid that promise I made about wealth taxes will have to wait a bit’ or similar.
If he wants to lose Kensington and Chelsea and Surrey, Brentwood and Sevenoaks and ensure a near wipe out
How many Labour MPs would you expect ‘ Kensington and Chelsea and Fulham, Surrey, Beaconsfield, Brentwood and Sevenoaks’ to return if Starmer doesn’t introduce a wealth tax?
They could go LD, they could even go RefUK given Tice's low tax agenda.
The first 2 are also Labour targets
They won't go ReFUK. Rich people know they can't vote for crypto-fascists. But people in hartlepools etc? They will. Which is why Labour will sweep the red wall.
There is a vast turquoise Refuk office in Hartlepool that's opposite an undertaker for the convenience of the Refuk voting demographic. It's like a Mogamma for dim-witted, reactionary shits.
There may be a lesson for Britain in this Catherine Rampell column, titled: "Cities try every tool to fix the housing crisis except what works":
She has two examples: "New York City is on track to complete only 11,300 new residential units this year, according to a report released Wednesday by the New York Building Congress, a trade group. That’s roughly half the number completed last year, which were already too few. In a city of 8.3 million, where rents are stratospheric, it’s positively pitiful. . . . . But the proof is in the pudding. In reality, the city [San Francisco] has approved just 188 new housing units so far this year, according to data available through August. That’s fewer than one new unit per day, and far slower than the pace needed to meet the goal." source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/20/housing-shortage-cities-build-more/
You don't have to know much about American politics to know that neither city is controlled by conservatives. Nor are New York state and California.
(Now Rampell should find some cities in the US that are doing better at providing affordable housing. (I'll report to you, if she does.)
An imaginary RWC based on March rankings for seedings, but with still the same 12 automatic qualifiers, as those would have had to be decided earlier.
Pool A retains France, Italy, Uruguay and Namibia, but has Australia as the second rank team in place of NZ as top rank. Bad as Aus are, they prevail over Italy and get a QF.
Pool B swaps in third rank Wales for top rank SA. The resulting Ireland. Scotland, Wales, Tonga, Romania group is a Celtic carve up and people wonder if there should be geographical exclusions in the draw. I'm not going to settle who prevails between Scots and Welsh for second spot.
Pool C puts in SA and England over Fiji, Georgia and Portugal. England have some of the fun Aus had, but edge it as the England Fiji match happens here.
Pool D plonks NZ in place of England, with Japan, Argentina, Samoa and Chile still present. No reason to think places 2-5 turn out any different.
QFs: SA v Argentina Ireland v Australia
NZ v England France v Wales/Scotland
QFs could be one sided there, but, as supposed the epics come in the SFs in different combination:
I think we need a new thread on what amazing/revolutionary things a Starmer government might do if he gets 100+ seat majority and almost guaranteed two terms
Coz it is looking quite possible
Given the fiscal restraints surely the big things are
1 real reform of the NHS 2 making the welfare state contributory 3 ID cards? 4 turn the House of Lords into a federal senate
What else?
You’re demonstrating your inability to think outside the box there, rather embarrassingly.
There is no need to for Starmer to be especially fiscally constrained. He could raise plenty more by: - extending NI to all earnings (or replacing NI with ICT) - increasing taxes on the highest earners - introducing a land value tax and/or wealth tax
Whether Starmer is any better at thinking outside the box than you remains to be seen.
From memory a wealth tax has been ruled out - which is a pity because it would allow council tax to be replaced or at leat replaced by something that reflected current prices.
Yeah, I’m hoping Starmer takes one look at the books and says ‘Awful finances, rich are going to have to pay, I’m afraid that promise I made about wealth taxes will have to wait a bit’ or similar.
If he wants to lose Kensington and Chelsea and Surrey, Brentwood and Sevenoaks and ensure a near wipe out
How many Labour MPs would you expect ‘ Kensington and Chelsea and Fulham, Surrey, Beaconsfield, Brentwood and Sevenoaks’ to return if Starmer doesn’t introduce a wealth tax?
They could go LD, they could even go RefUK given Tice's low tax agenda.
The first 2 are also Labour targets
They won't go ReFUK. Rich people know they can't vote for crypto-fascists. But people in hartlepools etc? They will. Which is why Labour will sweep the red wall.
Tice isn't a crypto-fascist, he is a public school educated millionaire businesman.
He is also low tax as much as low immigration which UKIP wasn't as much, the likes of Sevenoaks and Beaconsfield could vote for him if the Tories and Labour imposed a wealth tax
Ken Thomas @KThomasDC · 8h Planning is underway for a Dean Phillips presidential launch in Concord, N.H., on Friday Oct. 27, per people familiar with the plans. Phillips has not yet made a final decision to challenge Biden in the Democratic primaries, I'm told.
It’s pointless. If the Democrats want to challenge Biden they need someone who has name recognition and who looks like they could beat Trump . Biden is behaving selfishly and could go down in history as the man who enabled Trumps return to the WH .
Ken Thomas @KThomasDC · 8h Planning is underway for a Dean Phillips presidential launch in Concord, N.H., on Friday Oct. 27, per people familiar with the plans. Phillips has not yet made a final decision to challenge Biden in the Democratic primaries, I'm told.
It’s pointless. If the Democrats want to challenge Biden they need someone who has name recognition and who looks like they could beat Trump . Biden is behaving selfishly and could go down in history as the man who enabled Trumps return to the WH .
It is thanks to Biden Trump left the White House in the first place and the Democrats won back the rustbelt swing states Hillary lost.
Trump's court case outcomes and whether he avoids jail or not is likely to be more significant than finding an alternative Democrat to Biden
There may be a lesson for Britain in this Catherine Rampell column, titled: "Cities try every tool to fix the housing crisis except what works":
She has two examples: "New York City is on track to complete only 11,300 new residential units this year, according to a report released Wednesday by the New York Building Congress, a trade group. That’s roughly half the number completed last year, which were already too few. In a city of 8.3 million, where rents are stratospheric, it’s positively pitiful. . . . . But the proof is in the pudding. In reality, the city [San Francisco] has approved just 188 new housing units so far this year, according to data available through August. That’s fewer than one new unit per day, and far slower than the pace needed to meet the goal." source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/20/housing-shortage-cities-build-more/
You don't have to know much about American politics to know that neither city is controlled by conservatives. Nor are New York state and California.
(Now Rampell should find some cities in the US that are doing better at providing affordable housing. (I'll report to you, if she does.)
There are hundreds of new residential units under construction near me in LA, so it's clearly not an insurmountable problem.
Part of the issue, though, is surely that there's very little space in these cities for new homes, unless something else is demolished first. And that suddenly gets very expensive indeed.
Voters in seven swing states are feeling the pain of rising prices for household essentials, according to a Bloomberg News and Morning Consult poll that points to trouble for President Joe Biden’s effort to make the economy a centerpiece of his bid for a second term.
Three in four swing-state respondents said that prices have increased in the past month, in line with consumer price data showing that inflation rose 0.4% in September from the previous month. Prices are up 3.7% over the past year, though that’s less than half the pace of the pandemic-era highs.
I think we need a new thread on what amazing/revolutionary things a Starmer government might do if he gets 100+ seat majority and almost guaranteed two terms
Coz it is looking quite possible
Given the fiscal restraints surely the big things are
1 real reform of the NHS 2 making the welfare state contributory 3 ID cards? 4 turn the House of Lords into a federal senate
What else?
You’re demonstrating your inability to think outside the box there, rather embarrassingly.
There is no need to for Starmer to be especially fiscally constrained. He could raise plenty more by: - extending NI to all earnings (or replacing NI with ICT) - increasing taxes on the highest earners - introducing a land value tax and/or wealth tax
Whether Starmer is any better at thinking outside the box than you remains to be seen.
From memory a wealth tax has been ruled out - which is a pity because it would allow council tax to be replaced or at leat replaced by something that reflected current prices.
Yeah, I’m hoping Starmer takes one look at the books and says ‘Awful finances, rich are going to have to pay, I’m afraid that promise I made about wealth taxes will have to wait a bit’ or similar.
If he wants to lose Kensington and Chelsea and Surrey, Brentwood and Sevenoaks and ensure a near wipe out
How many Labour MPs would you expect ‘ Kensington and Chelsea and Fulham, Surrey, Beaconsfield, Brentwood and Sevenoaks’ to return if Starmer doesn’t introduce a wealth tax?
They could go LD, they could even go RefUK given Tice's low tax agenda.
The first 2 are also Labour targets
They won't go ReFUK. Rich people know they can't vote for crypto-fascists. But people in hartlepools etc? They will. Which is why Labour will sweep the red wall.
Tice isn't a crypto-fascist, he is a public school educated millionaire businesman.
He is also low tax as much as low immigration which UKIP wasn't as much, the likes of Sevenoaks and Beaconsfield could vote for him if the Tories and Labour imposed a wealth tax
So if Labour introduces a wealth tax, Tice will remain around to really screw up the Tory party chances in 2028/9.
Sound like a wealth tax is a great idea for Labour to implement,..
I think we need a new thread on what amazing/revolutionary things a Starmer government might do if he gets 100+ seat majority and almost guaranteed two terms
Coz it is looking quite possible
Given the fiscal restraints surely the big things are
1 real reform of the NHS 2 making the welfare state contributory 3 ID cards? 4 turn the House of Lords into a federal senate
What else?
You’re demonstrating your inability to think outside the box there, rather embarrassingly.
There is no need to for Starmer to be especially fiscally constrained. He could raise plenty more by: - extending NI to all earnings (or replacing NI with ICT) - increasing taxes on the highest earners - introducing a land value tax and/or wealth tax
Whether Starmer is any better at thinking outside the box than you remains to be seen.
From memory a wealth tax has been ruled out - which is a pity because it would allow council tax to be replaced or at leat replaced by something that reflected current prices.
Yeah, I’m hoping Starmer takes one look at the books and says ‘Awful finances, rich are going to have to pay, I’m afraid that promise I made about wealth taxes will have to wait a bit’ or similar.
If he wants to lose Kensington and Chelsea and Surrey, Brentwood and Sevenoaks and ensure a near wipe out
How many Labour MPs would you expect ‘ Kensington and Chelsea and Fulham, Surrey, Beaconsfield, Brentwood and Sevenoaks’ to return if Starmer doesn’t introduce a wealth tax?
They could go LD, they could even go RefUK given Tice's low tax agenda.
The first 2 are also Labour targets
They won't go ReFUK. Rich people know they can't vote for crypto-fascists. But people in hartlepools etc? They will. Which is why Labour will sweep the red wall.
Tice isn't a crypto-fascist, he is a public school educated millionaire businesman.
He is also low tax as much as low immigration which UKIP wasn't as much, the likes of Sevenoaks and Beaconsfield could vote for him if the Tories and Labour imposed a wealth tax
So if Labour introduces a wealth tax, Tice will remain around to really screw up the Tory party chances in 2028/9.
Sound like a wealth tax is a great idea for Labour to implement,..
No, not as long as the Tories also oppose that hypothetical wealth tax
Ken Thomas @KThomasDC · 8h Planning is underway for a Dean Phillips presidential launch in Concord, N.H., on Friday Oct. 27, per people familiar with the plans. Phillips has not yet made a final decision to challenge Biden in the Democratic primaries, I'm told.
Ken Thomas @KThomasDC · 8h Planning is underway for a Dean Phillips presidential launch in Concord, N.H., on Friday Oct. 27, per people familiar with the plans. Phillips has not yet made a final decision to challenge Biden in the Democratic primaries, I'm told.
It’s pointless. If the Democrats want to challenge Biden they need someone who has name recognition and who looks like they could beat Trump . Biden is behaving selfishly and could go down in history as the man who enabled Trumps return to the WH .
It is thanks to Biden Trump left the White House in the first place and the Democrats won back the rustbelt swing states Hillary lost.
Trump's court case outcomes and whether he avoids jail or not is likely to be more significant than finding an alternative Democrat to Biden
Edward Luce @EdwardGLuce · 4h Donald Trump is going to jail. Possibly for a long time.
Ken Thomas @KThomasDC · 8h Planning is underway for a Dean Phillips presidential launch in Concord, N.H., on Friday Oct. 27, per people familiar with the plans. Phillips has not yet made a final decision to challenge Biden in the Democratic primaries, I'm told.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I think we need a new thread on what amazing/revolutionary things a Starmer government might do if he gets 100+ seat majority and almost guaranteed two terms
Coz it is looking quite possible
Given the fiscal restraints surely the big things are
1 real reform of the NHS 2 making the welfare state contributory 3 ID cards? 4 turn the House of Lords into a federal senate
What else?
You’re demonstrating your inability to think outside the box there, rather embarrassingly.
There is no need to for Starmer to be especially fiscally constrained. He could raise plenty more by: - extending NI to all earnings (or replacing NI with ICT) - increasing taxes on the highest earners - introducing a land value tax and/or wealth tax
Whether Starmer is any better at thinking outside the box than you remains to be seen.
From memory a wealth tax has been ruled out - which is a pity because it would allow council tax to be replaced or at leat replaced by something that reflected current prices.
Yeah, I’m hoping Starmer takes one look at the books and says ‘Awful finances, rich are going to have to pay, I’m afraid that promise I made about wealth taxes will have to wait a bit’ or similar.
If he wants to lose Kensington and Chelsea and Surrey, Brentwood and Sevenoaks and ensure a near wipe out
How many Labour MPs would you expect ‘ Kensington and Chelsea and Fulham, Surrey, Beaconsfield, Brentwood and Sevenoaks’ to return if Starmer doesn’t introduce a wealth tax?
They could go LD, they could even go RefUK given Tice's low tax agenda.
The first 2 are also Labour targets
They won't go ReFUK. Rich people know they can't vote for crypto-fascists. But people in hartlepools etc? They will. Which is why Labour will sweep the red wall.
Tice isn't a crypto-fascist, he is a public school educated millionaire businesman.
He is also low tax as much as low immigration which UKIP wasn't as much, the likes of Sevenoaks and Beaconsfield could vote for him if the Tories and Labour imposed a wealth tax
So if Labour introduces a wealth tax, Tice will remain around to really screw up the Tory party chances in 2028/9.
Sound like a wealth tax is a great idea for Labour to implement,..
No, not as long as the Tories also oppose that hypothetical wealth tax
The problem with that argument is that proposals on wealth taxes have generally been popular.
eg. Back in 2013, more Tories supported Labour's proposal for a mansion tax than opposed it. Effectively it would have been a wealth tax on properties over £2m (at 2013 prices, obviously the equivalent threshold would be higher now). "Recent YouGov research shows that two thirds (65%) of British adults support the mansion tax, while just 22% oppose the policy and 17% don’t know. Conservative voters are the only group to have less than a majority in support of the tax, though supporters still outnumber detractors 49%-41%." https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/6545-wide-support-mansion-tax
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
Since we've been discussing Tice, it's worth noticing that the Telegraph is giving a big billing to a comment piece of his today
[HEADLINE] "Reform UK will stand in every seat – and make sure the Tories lose" It goes on: ".... And we are delighted to have made the difference by stopping the Tories from winning not one but both by-elections in their “safe” seats this week. This is just the beginning. Britain cannot reward 13 years of failure with more incumbency. There must be consequences to letting everyone down so badly; the Tories must be fired for poor performance. This is a seismic moment. Reform UK will stand in every seat in England, Scotland and Wales, and help ensure that the Conservatives are dismissed from office."
One of the reasons that the Tories suffered exceptional vote share losses in Thursday's by-elections is that they were held by incumbent Conservative MPs in 2019. In such seats the Brexit Party (now Reform) decided to give the Conservatives a free ride to deliver Brexit. No way is that going to happen with Reform in 2024. It means that even if Reform get only 5% in such seats, it will still amount to a 5% increase in their 2019 vote share, almost all of which will have come from the Conservatives.
That matters in terms of helping deliver a Labour majority. The "Red Wall" seats won by the Conservatives for the first time in 2019 are looking pretty low hanging fruit for Labour right now, but to secure a majority Labour needs to go well beyond them and gain a lot of seats defended by Conservative incumbents in 2019. Those seats will normally have larger Conservative majorities and would so be harder nuts for Labour (or in a few cases the LDs) to crack. But the fact of a Reform candidate standing in 2024 but not 2019 in all those seats will grease the swingometer and help it move a bit further away from the Conservative incumbent. It might bring what would otherwise be some very long shots back into more manageable range.
Trump has now been fined $5k by the Judge for not removing the abusive message about the Court Clerk from his website for two and a half weeks, when he had been ordered by the Court to do so.
He removed it from Truth.Social but not from his personal website - donaldtrump.com I think. A media network found it and published an article.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
The Tories according to the DT hope to get an election boost by giving higher earners a tax cut . Apparently polls show its popular with Tory voters whilst everyone else effectively is told to go and fxck themselves !
Rev HY suggested the same earlier. Apparently Tory voters do not send their kids to school, use the NHS, get their bins collected etc etc so do not worry that everything is broken.
Well, apart from Tory voters in these seats they keep losing.
Some do but their kids go to private school not the local comp and they have private health insurance and rarely use the NHS
No wonder they keep voting for people who seem on a mission to destroy public services.
Yes, God forbid hard-working and enterprising people should be able to keep more of their own money. Must be insane.
Sure fire election winner.
Edit: I then clicked on the actual link and see it’s not the 45p rate for “top income earners”, it’s raising the higher rate threshold which will benefit middle income earners. That’s actually pretty sensible if he can afford it.
REFuk will struggle replicate that sort of effect beyond a handful of seats...its a shadow of former UKIP self and I suspect a deal of some sort will be made similar to GE 2019 with the Tory right...of which we have still not really learned about
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
Edit - incidentally, what is your view on Chris Williamson’s call for a genocide against the Israelis? I seem to remember you quite liked him at one time.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
Luke Akehurst has weighed in with his customary tact: "Good riddance to these 6 ineffective Momentum hacks. They were never Labour, always Momentum."
I imagine BJO will be able to provide balance to that view.
Luke Akehurst is a pro Israel lobbyist who has never been a Democratic Socialist but no picks all future Red Tory GE Candidates and gets to expel Socialists on trumped up factional grounds. Especially good at expelling Jews on grounds of antisemitism btw he is not Jewish he is Danish sorry I mean gammon
Luke Akehurst has weighed in with his customary tact: "Good riddance to these 6 ineffective Momentum hacks. They were never Labour, always Momentum."
I imagine BJO will be able to provide balance to that view.
Luke Akehurst is a pro Israel lobbyist who has never been a Democratic Socialist but no picks all future Red Tory GE Candidates and gets to expel Socialists on trumped up factional grounds. Especially good at expelling Jews on grounds of antisemitism btw he is not Jewish he is Danish sorry I mean gammon
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
Edit - incidentally, what is your view on Chris Williamson’s call for a genocide against the Israelis? I seem to remember you quite liked him at one time.
If he used that term he is an idiot.
What's your view on Israels siege and hospital bombing? I seem to remember you were quite keen to condemn Russia for attacking Ukranian infrastructure
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
Luke Akehurst has weighed in with his customary tact: "Good riddance to these 6 ineffective Momentum hacks. They were never Labour, always Momentum."
I imagine BJO will be able to provide balance to that view.
Luke Akehurst is a pro Israel lobbyist who has never been a Democratic Socialist but no picks all future Red Tory GE Candidates and gets to expel Socialists on trumped up factional grounds. Especially good at expelling Jews on grounds of antisemitism btw he is not Jewish he is Danish sorry I mean gammon
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
The whataboutery is strong this morning
JJ and Y have yet to answer I await their response
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
I have expressed concern for Palestinian lives on here many times. I have also criticised Netanyahu and the expansion of settlements (which is a significant blocker to any peace deal, and a self-inflicted harm by the Israelis).
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
Edit - incidentally, what is your view on Chris Williamson’s call for a genocide against the Israelis? I seem to remember you quite liked him at one time.
If he used that term he is an idiot.
What's your view on Israels siege and hospital bombing? I seem to remember you were quite keen to condemn Russia for attacking Ukranian infrastructure
My view is that the Israelis are fools to have kept Gaza under siege for all these years and that they could hardly be more blatant in their attempts to ethnically cleanse it.
We do not - as yet - know if they have bombed this hospital. Such actual evidence as we have suggests it wasn’t them.
Chris Williamson’s exact words were ‘Israel has forfeited any right to exist.’ If you think that isn’t a call for a genocide then you really do need help.
Odd that you accept uncritically the unsupported words of Hamas supporters but not your fellow posters on PB.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
Even on the most lunatic figures being bruited about the casualties are not running at fifty to one. Two to one, possibly. Even that is probably a significant overestimate.
You may care equally about all lives but you are certainly not showing it through a rigorous commitment to factual accuracy. Either deliberately or otherwise you are clearly swallowing and repeating a number of far right tropes, as your good friend Corbyn himself does.
Corbyn’s excuse is that he’s very stupid. What’s yours?
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
The Channel 4 report can be seen here, if people want to decide for themselves. The evidence presented comes from three different organisations, not just Forensic Architecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeP9vFrTEzI&t=275s
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
The Channel 4 report can be seen here, if people want to decide for themselves. The evidence presented comes from three different organisations, not just Forensic Architecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeP9vFrTEzI&t=275s
It’s also available on Channel 4’s website, which is where I saw it. And the evidence was from FA transmitted through and partly modified/amplified by the other two as well although that isn’t made clear in the report.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
I have expressed concern for Palestinian lives on here many times. I have also criticised Netanyahu and the expansion of settlements (which is a significant blocker to any peace deal, and a self-inflicted harm by the Israelis).
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
Re your first point the two are the same one is current
Re your last point he didn't.
What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?
Re the death toll its on wiki the red bar chart blue bar chart thing
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
I have expressed concern for Palestinian lives on here many times. I have also criticised Netanyahu and the expansion of settlements (which is a significant blocker to any peace deal, and a self-inflicted harm by the Israelis).
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
Re your first point the two are the same one is current
Re your last point he didn't.
What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?
Re the death toll its on wiki the red bar chart blue bar chart thing
Do you think Hamas, an organisation whose founding charter commits it to the destruction of Israel and all Jews, would accept a two state solution?
One of the reasons Netanyahu has been cynically propping them up for years is because he knows full well that as long as Hamas is the main player in Gaza he can say to Israelis that there’s no chance of a two state solution so they can press on with annexing the West Bank.
Incidentally two hostages have been released this morning without, apparently, any strings attached following negotiations led by Qatar.
Perhaps that’s a good sign. If Hamas is nervous enough to release even some hostages it might release the rest to de-escalate the situation. At that point Israel would have no real reason for a ground invasion of Gaza and might back down.
You’re still left with several thousand dead and Gaza even more of a shambles than it was before, but it would be preferable to a Middle-East wide conflagration that might leave millions dead.
And for a bonus Netanyahu and his mates would presumably finally be locked up.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
Even on the most lunatic figures being bruited about the casualties are not running at fifty to one. Two to one, possibly. Even that is probably a significant overestimate.
You may care equally about all lives but you are certainly not showing it through a rigorous commitment to factual accuracy. Either deliberately or otherwise you are clearly swallowing and repeating a number of far right tropes, as your good friend Corbyn himself does.
Corbyn’s excuse is that he’s very stupid. What’s yours?
The chart I have posted is close to 50 to 1 Some years a bit less some years over 109 to 1 certainly not 2 to 1 in any year.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
I have expressed concern for Palestinian lives on here many times. I have also criticised Netanyahu and the expansion of settlements (which is a significant blocker to any peace deal, and a self-inflicted harm by the Israelis).
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
Re your first point the two are the same one is current
Re your last point he didn't.
What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?
Re the death toll its on wiki the red bar chart blue bar chart thing
Do you think Hamas, an organisation whose founding charter commits it to the destruction of Israel and all Jews, would accept a two state solution?
One of the reasons Netanyahu has been cynically propping them up for years is because he knows full well that as long as Hamas is the main player in Gaza he can say to Israelis that there’s no chance of a two state solution so they can press on with annexing the West Bank.
Palestine is not Hamas.Israel is not Bibi
Did you think the IRA/Unionists would sign the GFA
Without negotiations there is only more killings and bloodshed on both sides with negotiations who knows what is possible
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
The Channel 4 report can be seen here, if people want to decide for themselves. The evidence presented comes from three different organisations, not just Forensic Architecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeP9vFrTEzI&t=275s
It’s also available on Channel 4’s website, which is where I saw it. And the evidence was from FA transmitted through and partly modified/amplified by the other two as well although that isn’t made clear in the report.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
Even on the most lunatic figures being bruited about the casualties are not running at fifty to one. Two to one, possibly. Even that is probably a significant overestimate.
You may care equally about all lives but you are certainly not showing it through a rigorous commitment to factual accuracy. Either deliberately or otherwise you are clearly swallowing and repeating a number of far right tropes, as your good friend Corbyn himself does.
Corbyn’s excuse is that he’s very stupid. What’s yours?
The chart I have posted is close to 50 to 1 Some years a bit less some years over 109 to 1 certainly not 2 to 1 in any year.
What's your excuse for not knowing this?
Even if your chart were accurate, which is extremely unlikely given its source, we were talking about the current conflict.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
The whataboutery is strong this morning
JJ and Y have yet to answer I await their response
Actually, I think you’ll find I had already answered. Your subsequent replies have just got madder and madder and less and less relevant.
I think JJ was a bit late in advising you not to follow Corbyn down his antisemitic rabbit hole. Your posts on this subject are starting to resemble Rod Crosby’s and not in a good way.
Incidentally two hostages have been released this morning without, apparently, any strings attached following negotiations led by Qatar.
Perhaps that’s a good sign. If Hamas is nervous enough to release even some hostages it might release the rest to de-escalate the situation. At that point Israel would have no real reason for a ground invasion of Gaza and might back down.
You’re still left with several thousand dead and Gaza even more of a shambles than it was before, but it would be preferable to a Middle-East wide conflagration that might leave millions dead.
And for a bonus Netanyahu and his mates would presumably finally be locked up.
It’s an olive branch to Biden, who Hamas probably calculate is the only person who could actually stop Netanyahu going Full Putin.
P.S. for all the moron out there, “Netanyahu is a lying, theiving, racist knut” is not racist. It’s not hard, is it?
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
Even on the most lunatic figures being bruited about the casualties are not running at fifty to one. Two to one, possibly. Even that is probably a significant overestimate.
You may care equally about all lives but you are certainly not showing it through a rigorous commitment to factual accuracy. Either deliberately or otherwise you are clearly swallowing and repeating a number of far right tropes, as your good friend Corbyn himself does.
Corbyn’s excuse is that he’s very stupid. What’s yours?
The chart I have posted is close to 50 to 1 Some years a bit less some years over 109 to 1 certainly not 2 to 1 in any year.
What's your excuse for not knowing this?
Even if your chart were accurate, which is extremely unlikely given its source, we were talking about the current conflict.
I wasn't I was putting the current conflict into context.
That's your problem you see you think this all started a fortnight ago when it clearly didn't.
I am off now but suggest by the time I return you do a bit more work on your arithmetic
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
The Channel 4 report can be seen here, if people want to decide for themselves. The evidence presented comes from three different organisations, not just Forensic Architecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeP9vFrTEzI&t=275s
It’s also available on Channel 4’s website, which is where I saw it. And the evidence was from FA transmitted through and partly modified/amplified by the other two as well although that isn’t made clear in the report.
So -to clarify what they somewhat downplay - the footage was provided by Al-Haq, the model by FA, and it was then used by Earshot for the sound analysis.
You can think that collaboration if you like - it is a form of it - but ultimately it rests on the assumptions of FA. Which are, to be clear, assumptions.
To their credit, they note that, and point out they would need access to the actual bomb site to do any confirming or refuting. But to say such a model casts ‘significant doubt’ is nonsensical.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
I have expressed concern for Palestinian lives on here many times. I have also criticised Netanyahu and the expansion of settlements (which is a significant blocker to any peace deal, and a self-inflicted harm by the Israelis).
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
Re your first point the two are the same one is current
Re your last point he didn't.
What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?
Re the death toll its on wiki the red bar chart blue bar chart thing
Do you think Hamas, an organisation whose founding charter commits it to the destruction of Israel and all Jews, would accept a two state solution?
One of the reasons Netanyahu has been cynically propping them up for years is because he knows full well that as long as Hamas is the main player in Gaza he can say to Israelis that there’s no chance of a two state solution so they can press on with annexing the West Bank.
Palestine is not Hamas.Israel is not Bibi
Did you think the IRA/Unionists would sign the GFA
Without negotiations there is only more killings and bloodshed on both sides with negotiations who knows what is possible
Luke Akehurst has weighed in with his customary tact: "Good riddance to these 6 ineffective Momentum hacks. They were never Labour, always Momentum."
I imagine BJO will be able to provide balance to that view.
Luke Akehurst is a pro Israel lobbyist who has never been a Democratic Socialist but no picks all future Red Tory GE Candidates and gets to expel Socialists on trumped up factional grounds. Especially good at expelling Jews on grounds of antisemitism btw he is not Jewish he is Danish sorry I mean gammon
You never disappoint
On this @bigjohnowls is absolutely right. Akehurst is a malign influence in the labour movmement.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
Even on the most lunatic figures being bruited about the casualties are not running at fifty to one. Two to one, possibly. Even that is probably a significant overestimate.
You may care equally about all lives but you are certainly not showing it through a rigorous commitment to factual accuracy. Either deliberately or otherwise you are clearly swallowing and repeating a number of far right tropes, as your good friend Corbyn himself does.
Corbyn’s excuse is that he’s very stupid. What’s yours?
The chart I have posted is close to 50 to 1 Some years a bit less some years over 109 to 1 certainly not 2 to 1 in any year.
What's your excuse for not knowing this?
Even if your chart were accurate, which is extremely unlikely given its source, we were talking about the current conflict.
I wasn't I was putting the current conflict into context.
That's your problem you see you think this all started a fortnight ago when it clearly didn't.
I am off now but suggest by the time I return you do a bit more work on your arithmetic
Gracias
Find a reliable source and I’ll engage with it.
Post the lies of your fellow racists and try to hide the source and I’ll call you out for it.
And I note you still say nothing about Williamson and are lying about Corbyn’s own behaviour.
Incidentally two hostages have been released this morning without, apparently, any strings attached following negotiations led by Qatar.
Perhaps that’s a good sign. If Hamas is nervous enough to release even some hostages it might release the rest to de-escalate the situation. At that point Israel would have no real reason for a ground invasion of Gaza and might back down.
You’re still left with several thousand dead and Gaza even more of a shambles than it was before, but it would be preferable to a Middle-East wide conflagration that might leave millions dead.
And for a bonus Netanyahu and his mates would presumably finally be locked up.
It’s an olive branch to Biden, who Hamas probably calculate is the only person who could actually stop Netanyahu going Full Putin.
P.S. for all the moron out there, “Netanyahu is a lying, theiving, racist knut” is not racist. It’s not hard, is it?
Yep, the settlers are a bunch of ****s IMO; and ones aided and abetted by the current Israeli government. A path to peace would be so much easier without their actions, which are indefensible.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
Even on the most lunatic figures being bruited about the casualties are not running at fifty to one. Two to one, possibly. Even that is probably a significant overestimate.
You may care equally about all lives but you are certainly not showing it through a rigorous commitment to factual accuracy. Either deliberately or otherwise you are clearly swallowing and repeating a number of far right tropes, as your good friend Corbyn himself does.
Corbyn’s excuse is that he’s very stupid. What’s yours?
The chart I have posted is close to 50 to 1 Some years a bit less some years over 109 to 1 certainly not 2 to 1 in any year.
What's your excuse for not knowing this?
Even if your chart were accurate, which is extremely unlikely given its source, we were talking about the current conflict.
I wasn't I was putting the current conflict into context.
That's your problem you see you think this all started a fortnight ago when it clearly didn't.
I am off now but suggest by the time I return you do a bit more work on your arithmetic
Gracias
Find a reliable source and I’ll engage with it.
Post the lies of your fellow racists and try to hide the source and I’ll call you out for it.
And I note you still say nothing about Williamson and are lying about Corbyn’s own behaviour.
The source is the United Nations you moron. Look on their site figures are exactly the same.
And you can go fuck yourself if you think I am a racist
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
I have expressed concern for Palestinian lives on here many times. I have also criticised Netanyahu and the expansion of settlements (which is a significant blocker to any peace deal, and a self-inflicted harm by the Israelis).
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
Re your first point the two are the same one is current
Re your last point he didn't.
What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?
Re the death toll its on wiki the red bar chart blue bar chart thing
"Re your first point the two are the same one is current"
Again, I'd expect you to have been so utterly angry about Russian actions as you are against Israeli. Sadly, I cannot remember you being quite so vocal.
"Re your last point he didn't." (Corbyn falling into the trap of being an anti-Semite)
Well, we'll have to differ. But I fear Corbyn can do no wrong in your eyes; and such devotion may lead you into some dark places.
"What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?"
How can they do a 2-state deal with Hamas, whose avowed aim is to destroy the state of Israel? Worse than that, they want to kill all Jews. From Hamas's original 1988 charter:
'The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and
kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the
rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
The Channel 4 report can be seen here, if people want to decide for themselves. The evidence presented comes from three different organisations, not just Forensic Architecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeP9vFrTEzI&t=275s
It’s also available on Channel 4’s website, which is where I saw it. And the evidence was from FA transmitted through and partly modified/amplified by the other two as well although that isn’t made clear in the report.
So -to clarify what they somewhat downplay - the footage was provided by Al-Haq, the model by FA, and it was then used by Earshot for the sound analysis.
You can think that collaboration if you like - it is a form of it - but ultimately it rests on the assumptions of FA. Which are, to be clear, assumptions.
To their credit, they note that, and point out they would need access to the actual bomb site to do any confirming or refuting. But to say such a model casts ‘significant doubt’ is nonsensical.
Forensic Architecture states clearly in that Twitter thread that Earshot's analysis was independent. Nor is there anything about the evidence used by Al-Haq having come from Forensic Architecture. This is silly stuff.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
The Channel 4 report can be seen here, if people want to decide for themselves. The evidence presented comes from three different organisations, not just Forensic Architecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeP9vFrTEzI&t=275s
It’s also available on Channel 4’s website, which is where I saw it. And the evidence was from FA transmitted through and partly modified/amplified by the other two as well although that isn’t made clear in the report.
So -to clarify what they somewhat downplay - the footage was provided by Al-Haq, the model by FA, and it was then used by Earshot for the sound analysis.
You can think that collaboration if you like - it is a form of it - but ultimately it rests on the assumptions of FA. Which are, to be clear, assumptions.
To their credit, they note that, and point out they would need access to the actual bomb site to do any confirming or refuting. But to say such a model casts ‘significant doubt’ is nonsensical.
There is also the fundamental contradiction between the audio and photographic evidence given next day by the IDF. The audio says the missile was launched from the cemetery next to the hospital, the photographic evidence gives a launch site several kilometers away. Both cannot be true.
Except that, behind the headline, the story is actually about raising the 40% income tax threshold, which was frozen in money terms last year, and resulted in hundreds of thousands getting caught by fiscal drag at a time of high inflation. So it’s actually the reversal of a tax rise on the middle class, rather than a tax cut for the wealthy.
On the Israeli side, there are two significant barriers to peace: Netanyahu and the settlers. To his credit, Netanyahu has been trying to make peace deals with other regional states; but that is about the only thing to his credit. Israelis have the ability to democratically remove Netanyahu and to stop settlements (and preferably reverse the most egregious ones).
On the Palestinian (actually, mostly Gaza) side, the biggest barrier is Hamas. To be clear, Hamas do not want peace; at least, peace that includes the existence of an Israeli state. Palestinians do not have the ability to democratically remove Hamas. I doubt Israel can militarily destroy Hamas, especially when their leaders live it large in rich gulf states.
More widely, many states in the region and the wider world have been using this conflict as part of their various power plays. This is not helpful.
Is the two-state solution dead? With Hamas and Netanyahu in play, then yes. And the alternative is a 'win' for either Hamas or Israel that will be a tragedy not just for civilians on their opposing side, but also their own civilians.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
The Channel 4 report can be seen here, if people want to decide for themselves. The evidence presented comes from three different organisations, not just Forensic Architecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeP9vFrTEzI&t=275s
It’s also available on Channel 4’s website, which is where I saw it. And the evidence was from FA transmitted through and partly modified/amplified by the other two as well although that isn’t made clear in the report.
So -to clarify what they somewhat downplay - the footage was provided by Al-Haq, the model by FA, and it was then used by Earshot for the sound analysis.
You can think that collaboration if you like - it is a form of it - but ultimately it rests on the assumptions of FA. Which are, to be clear, assumptions.
To their credit, they note that, and point out they would need access to the actual bomb site to do any confirming or refuting. But to say such a model casts ‘significant doubt’ is nonsensical.
Forensic Architecture states clearly in that Twitter thread that Earshot's analysis was independent. Nor is there anything about the evidence used by Al-Haq having come from Forensic Architecture. This is silly stuff.
That's not what they say at all. However, as I recall you cite the Daily Telegraph as a reliable source so whatever floats your boat.
Look, there is one question that to my mind is significant. Initially, I thought it probably was Israel, if only because they didn't immediately deny it. It didn't aid their credibility that they'd hit nearby the day before and warned people to leave the building. And it's still possible. I'm reminded of the time fifteen years ago that Hamas put a strong point on a nursery, and Israel blew both up anyway. It's what they do, because they're not bothered about Palestinian casualties, any more than Hamas, Iran and Islamic Jihad are.
But at this moment, it's not supported by the evidence we have (admittedly, Israeli evidence). So, we need more evidence. That's 'evidence,' not the witterings of a bunch of people using dubious methods to support predetermined conclusions.*
Have Hamas sealed the site and allowed independent investigators to examine it? Have they provided evidence (other than claims) that it was an Israeli bomb? As far as I know they haven't even tried to, and you would have thought providing fragments of one of the very many bombs the Israelis have dropped and saying 'this was what caused it' would have been so easy even Corbyn might have managed it. Heck, even Cummings might have thought of it.
That suggests to me that Hamas at least don't think it was Israel. But they don't want to admit it in case it undercuts their position in Gaza.
*It's actually quite good at this. One success they had was proving using their picture technique that a live round fired in the West Bank couldn't have been fired in the air. But we knew that already, because it had killed somebody. So in confirming what was known it was helpful but hardly vital.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
I have expressed concern for Palestinian lives on here many times. I have also criticised Netanyahu and the expansion of settlements (which is a significant blocker to any peace deal, and a self-inflicted harm by the Israelis).
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
Re your first point the two are the same one is current
Re your last point he didn't.
What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?
Re the death toll its on wiki the red bar chart blue bar chart thing
Do you think Hamas, an organisation whose founding charter commits it to the destruction of Israel and all Jews, would accept a two state solution?
One of the reasons Netanyahu has been cynically propping them up for years is because he knows full well that as long as Hamas is the main player in Gaza he can say to Israelis that there’s no chance of a two state solution so they can press on with annexing the West Bank.
Palestine is not Hamas.Israel is not Bibi
Did you think the IRA/Unionists would sign the GFA
Without negotiations there is only more killings and bloodshed on both sides with negotiations who knows what is possible
The IRA didn’t sign it.
However their political wing did. Same with the Protestant side.
Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were heavily involved. One looks like a deputy headmaster and the other a clown without makeup.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
I have expressed concern for Palestinian lives on here many times. I have also criticised Netanyahu and the expansion of settlements (which is a significant blocker to any peace deal, and a self-inflicted harm by the Israelis).
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
Re your first point the two are the same one is current
Re your last point he didn't.
What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?
Re the death toll its on wiki the red bar chart blue bar chart thing
Do you think Hamas, an organisation whose founding charter commits it to the destruction of Israel and all Jews, would accept a two state solution?
One of the reasons Netanyahu has been cynically propping them up for years is because he knows full well that as long as Hamas is the main player in Gaza he can say to Israelis that there’s no chance of a two state solution so they can press on with annexing the West Bank.
Palestine is not Hamas.Israel is not Bibi
Did you think the IRA/Unionists would sign the GFA
Without negotiations there is only more killings and bloodshed on both sides with negotiations who knows what is possible
The IRA didn’t sign it.
And the Unionists did. A large chunk of them, that is.
Incidentally two hostages have been released this morning without, apparently, any strings attached following negotiations led by Qatar.
Perhaps that’s a good sign. If Hamas is nervous enough to release even some hostages it might release the rest to de-escalate the situation. At that point Israel would have no real reason for a ground invasion of Gaza and might back down.
You’re still left with several thousand dead and Gaza even more of a shambles than it was before, but it would be preferable to a Middle-East wide conflagration that might leave millions dead.
And for a bonus Netanyahu and his mates would presumably finally be locked up.
Qatar has very recent experience of what diplomatic isolation looks like, and the Americans have a lot of leverage in the region to make it happen again if the Qataris stop being co-operative.
I expect Western national hostages to be released, under severe diplomatic pressure on Qatar to otherwise hand over the Hamas leaders sheltering there.
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs not independent enough for you? Y I am not missing anymore valuable holiday time on a poster too blinded to see the bloody obvious Who then throws about "racist " rather than going away and doing basic research
Except that, behind the headline, the story is actually about raising the 40% income tax threshold, which was frozen in money terms last year, and resulted in hundreds of thousands getting caught by fiscal drag at a time of high inflation. So it’s actually the reversal of a tax rise on the middle class, rather than a tax cut for the wealthy.
Which would be a reversal of Sunak's own tax rises.
Sunak was wrong to implement fiscal drag, it is a pernicious tax rise, ending fiscal drag is an entirely reasonable thing to do, but of course if he does it then it should be all thresholds rising not just the 40% threshold.
To keep the 20% and other thresholds frozen while lifting just the 40% one would be weird and not be appropriate.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
Even on the most lunatic figures being bruited about the casualties are not running at fifty to one. Two to one, possibly. Even that is probably a significant overestimate.
You may care equally about all lives but you are certainly not showing it through a rigorous commitment to factual accuracy. Either deliberately or otherwise you are clearly swallowing and repeating a number of far right tropes, as your good friend Corbyn himself does.
Corbyn’s excuse is that he’s very stupid. What’s yours?
The chart I have posted is close to 50 to 1 Some years a bit less some years over 109 to 1 certainly not 2 to 1 in any year.
What's your excuse for not knowing this?
Even if your chart were accurate, which is extremely unlikely given its source, we were talking about the current conflict.
I wasn't I was putting the current conflict into context.
That's your problem you see you think this all started a fortnight ago when it clearly didn't.
I am off now but suggest by the time I return you do a bit more work on your arithmetic
Gracias
Find a reliable source and I’ll engage with it.
Post the lies of your fellow racists and try to hide the source and I’ll call you out for it.
And I note you still say nothing about Williamson and are lying about Corbyn’s own behaviour.
The source is the United Nations you moron. Look on their site figures are exactly the same.
And you can go fuck yourself if you think I am a racist
David Irving and Chris Williamson don't think they are either.
Except that, behind the headline, the story is actually about raising the 40% income tax threshold, which was frozen in money terms last year, and resulted in hundreds of thousands getting caught by fiscal drag at a time of high inflation. So it’s actually the reversal of a tax rise on the middle class, rather than a tax cut for the wealthy.
Increasing the personal allowance should be a priority as it would provide the greatest relief on those on low incomes. I suggest that it be increased from £12,570 to £15,000pa.
Incidentally two hostages have been released this morning without, apparently, any strings attached following negotiations led by Qatar.
Perhaps that’s a good sign. If Hamas is nervous enough to release even some hostages it might release the rest to de-escalate the situation. At that point Israel would have no real reason for a ground invasion of Gaza and might back down.
You’re still left with several thousand dead and Gaza even more of a shambles than it was before, but it would be preferable to a Middle-East wide conflagration that might leave millions dead.
And for a bonus Netanyahu and his mates would presumably finally be locked up.
It’s an olive branch to Biden, who Hamas probably calculate is the only person who could actually stop Netanyahu going Full Putin.
P.S. for all the moron out there, “Netanyahu is a lying, theiving, racist knut” is not racist. It’s not hard, is it?
Bit harsh though.
On lying thieving racists…
Come to think of it, when problematic leaders step down, they like to go abroad to do retirement. Legally easier.
Fujimori in Peru discovered he had a Japanese passport he’d never applied for. So he did the obvious thing - booked a one way, first class ticket to Japan.
If we take Bibi in, d’you think he would fit in at the DfE?
Except that, behind the headline, the story is actually about raising the 40% income tax threshold, which was frozen in money terms last year, and resulted in hundreds of thousands getting caught by fiscal drag at a time of high inflation. So it’s actually the reversal of a tax rise on the middle class, rather than a tax cut for the wealthy.
Increasing the personal allowance should be a priority as it would provide the greatest relief on those on low incomes. I suggest that it be increased from £12,570 to £15,000pa.
Personal allowance should IMHO be 35 hours at minimum wage, and increased with minimum wage increases.
Incidentally two hostages have been released this morning without, apparently, any strings attached following negotiations led by Qatar.
Perhaps that’s a good sign. If Hamas is nervous enough to release even some hostages it might release the rest to de-escalate the situation. At that point Israel would have no real reason for a ground invasion of Gaza and might back down.
You’re still left with several thousand dead and Gaza even more of a shambles than it was before, but it would be preferable to a Middle-East wide conflagration that might leave millions dead.
And for a bonus Netanyahu and his mates would presumably finally be locked up.
It’s an olive branch to Biden, who Hamas probably calculate is the only person who could actually stop Netanyahu going Full Putin.
P.S. for all the moron out there, “Netanyahu is a lying, theiving, racist knut” is not racist. It’s not hard, is it?
Bit harsh though.
On lying thieving racists…
Come to think of it, when problematic leaders step down, they like to go abroad to do retirement. Legally easier.
Fujimori in Peru discovered he had a Japanese passport he’d never applied for. So he did the obvious thing - booked a one way, first class ticket to Japan.
If we take Bibi in, d’you think he would fit in at the DfE?
Even I'm not going to compare the DfE to Netanyahu.
Except that, behind the headline, the story is actually about raising the 40% income tax threshold, which was frozen in money terms last year, and resulted in hundreds of thousands getting caught by fiscal drag at a time of high inflation. So it’s actually the reversal of a tax rise on the middle class, rather than a tax cut for the wealthy.
Which would be a reversal of Sunak's own tax rises.
Sunak was wrong to implement fiscal drag, it is a pernicious tax rise, ending fiscal drag is an entirely reasonable thing to do, but of course if he does it then it should be all thresholds rising not just the 40% threshold.
To keep the 20% and other thresholds frozen while lifting just the 40% one would be weird and not be appropriate.
Sunaks policy of fiscal drag was set for an era of 2% inflation rather than 11%. We have had 5 years of fiscal drag in one year.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
I have expressed concern for Palestinian lives on here many times. I have also criticised Netanyahu and the expansion of settlements (which is a significant blocker to any peace deal, and a self-inflicted harm by the Israelis).
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
Re your first point the two are the same one is current
Re your last point he didn't.
What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?
Re the death toll its on wiki the red bar chart blue bar chart thing
Do you think Hamas, an organisation whose founding charter commits it to the destruction of Israel and all Jews, would accept a two state solution?
One of the reasons Netanyahu has been cynically propping them up for years is because he knows full well that as long as Hamas is the main player in Gaza he can say to Israelis that there’s no chance of a two state solution so they can press on with annexing the West Bank.
What a reward for the Palestinian Authority for moving away from violence and having their land stolen by settlers.
I was staggered seeing a report from Times of Israel when it mentioned suitcases of cash from Qatar being allowed through to Gaza by Israel to prop them up.
The Quarter finals of the world cup produced some sensational rugby and some tense, tight games. It seems unlikely to me that either of the semis would. Last night wasn't close and I don't think today will be either.
Except that, behind the headline, the story is actually about raising the 40% income tax threshold, which was frozen in money terms last year, and resulted in hundreds of thousands getting caught by fiscal drag at a time of high inflation. So it’s actually the reversal of a tax rise on the middle class, rather than a tax cut for the wealthy.
It also speaks about a proposal to abolish IHT which is a tax cut on the wealthy.
Also nothing about the 20% rate w threshold which would help those who really need it as opposed to helping the better off.
Still, they are unlikely to win to put it into practise.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
I have expressed concern for Palestinian lives on here many times. I have also criticised Netanyahu and the expansion of settlements (which is a significant blocker to any peace deal, and a self-inflicted harm by the Israelis).
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
Re your first point the two are the same one is current
Re your last point he didn't.
What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?
Re the death toll its on wiki the red bar chart blue bar chart thing
Do you think Hamas, an organisation whose founding charter commits it to the destruction of Israel and all Jews, would accept a two state solution?
One of the reasons Netanyahu has been cynically propping them up for years is because he knows full well that as long as Hamas is the main player in Gaza he can say to Israelis that there’s no chance of a two state solution so they can press on with annexing the West Bank.
What a reward for the Palestinian Authority for moving away from violence and having their land stolen by settlers.
I was staggered seeing a report from Times of Israel when it mentioned suitcases of cash from Qatar being allowed through to Gaza by Israel to prop them up.
I hope there is a reckoning for Bibi.
It will have to be quick. Before he emasculates the entire judiciary.
Except that, behind the headline, the story is actually about raising the 40% income tax threshold, which was frozen in money terms last year, and resulted in hundreds of thousands getting caught by fiscal drag at a time of high inflation. So it’s actually the reversal of a tax rise on the middle class, rather than a tax cut for the wealthy.
Which would be a reversal of Sunak's own tax rises.
Sunak was wrong to implement fiscal drag, it is a pernicious tax rise, ending fiscal drag is an entirely reasonable thing to do, but of course if he does it then it should be all thresholds rising not just the 40% threshold.
To keep the 20% and other thresholds frozen while lifting just the 40% one would be weird and not be appropriate.
Sunaks policy of fiscal drag was set for an era of 2% inflation rather than 11%. We have had 5 years of fiscal drag in one year.
It should help inflation though. But I'd agree there'd be no quicker way to cement the losses of places like Dudley North and Bassetlaw than raising the 40% threshold whilst not upping 20%
The Reform vote in both by-elections interests me. Is this a cohort of voters than can be squeezed with the right policies back into the Tory column, or is it, and I fear this may be true, a cohort of voters who don't want to vote for a party led by an PM of Indian heritage. We would all rightly abhor the racism, but I don't think we can discount the possibility that some of the Reform vote isn't salvagable for Con for that reason.
I don't think those are the two alternatives. The most likely reason they won't be squeezed is they neither trust the Tories to do anything they say, nor believe they are in any way competant enough to do it even if they want to. It is a view shared by the majority of the country and the main defining characteristic of Reform voters as opposed to Labour or Lib Dems is they don't trust those parties either.
I think there are lots of things at work but there is something about Sunak that some right of centre voters took against immediately. If you look at the Wiki wiggly line there was an immediate 3pp rise in RefUK support at the very moment Sunak became PM. Not at the time of the Truss debacle, not at the time of Partygate, and not gradually over the course of Sunak's premiership. It's not a massive cohort of people, it's certainly not a majority of Tory-inclined voters by any means, but unfortunately I do think that an element of racism is probably at work and contributing to the Tories' current unpopularity (maybe they just object to his wealth? Possibly, I doubt it).
Aren't you reading the tealeaves wrong there? I'm one of those who did vote for Boris*, would have voted for Truss (she had the diagnosis right, and possibly the solutions, just made a hash of the presentation, and was particularly unlucky with the timing) and is very unlikely to vote for Rishi.
That's nothing to do with the colour of his skin, and everything to do with the fact that he's a high tax, high spend, big government, nanny state managerialist, and several successive generations of those in power have ruined the country. That was obvious from before he got the job, so I was "out" from the moment he became Prime Minister.
I'm not a huge fan of RefUK, but that's the clearest message I can send in the current circumstances. Starmer clearly is utterly unfit to be prime minister (Covid showed that - we had too much lockdown, he always wanted more), the public seem to think he's the only option, but he's not getting my vote.
*I'm not sure I would have voted for him again, it seems that once he got into bed with Carrie he suddenly went soft left on everything.
Also- Rishi is the sort of globetrotting big finance sort of guy who some see as the problem. A citizen of nowhere, so to speak.
Are there any tax cuts that wouldn't be nuts to you?
Given that right now,
1. I think we agree that not enough is being spent by the government on infrastructure,
2. The government is still borrowing far too much,
3. Nobody has a clue how to cut revenue spending any further (diversity officers and international aid aren't going to do anything meaningful)
Yes, talking of tax cuts right now is nuts.
Chancellors since at least Lawson have been playing pass the parcel with a time bomb. And it's finally gone off.
The irony, of course, is that efforts were being made to punt that sufficiently far into the future for it to be the responsibility of the new government. As Keegan admitted over RAAC.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford @solidmeltsinto · 2h Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
Channel 4 tonight broadcast evidence that casts significant doubts on Israeli denial of responsibility for the hospital bombing.
The ‘evidence’ was from Forensic Architecture, an organisation whose motto is ‘there are no facts, only interpretations.’ Their modus operandi is to prompt eyewitnesses to ‘remember’ details by using reconstructions of what has happened.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
I fail to see your utter concern on here in the past for the hospitals Russia has bombed in Syria, Ukraine etc.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
When have you cared about Palestinian lives. You are the one who values them as less than Israeli ones.
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
I have expressed concern for Palestinian lives on here many times. I have also criticised Netanyahu and the expansion of settlements (which is a significant blocker to any peace deal, and a self-inflicted harm by the Israelis).
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
Re your first point the two are the same one is current
Re your last point he didn't.
What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?
Re the death toll its on wiki the red bar chart blue bar chart thing
Do you think Hamas, an organisation whose founding charter commits it to the destruction of Israel and all Jews, would accept a two state solution?
One of the reasons Netanyahu has been cynically propping them up for years is because he knows full well that as long as Hamas is the main player in Gaza he can say to Israelis that there’s no chance of a two state solution so they can press on with annexing the West Bank.
What a reward for the Palestinian Authority for moving away from violence and having their land stolen by settlers.
I was staggered seeing a report from Times of Israel when it mentioned suitcases of cash from Qatar being allowed through to Gaza by Israel to prop them up.
I hope there is a reckoning for Bibi.
The Palestinian Authority didn't move away from violence. That's why there's no Palestinian state, because Arafat had the opportunity to sign a peace agreement and chose to reject the Camp David accords and go with violence and an Intifada instead.
As for the settlements, there is nothing wrong with Israel allowing construction, the final borders are up for negotiations. The Palestinians have chosen to reject the existing borders to try and force a change, so why can't Israel do the same? Is it only Palestinians in your eyes who are allowed to put pressure on the other side? If the Palestinian Authority is going to send suicide bombers into Israel, it seems quite appropriate to me that Israel should put pressure by building settlements instead - maybe then Palestinians will accept peace of whatever land they can get rather than holding out for "from the river to the sea".
Its worth noting that Israel has a history of dismantling settlements on the wrong side of a border once a border is agreed and an agreement reached. They did that when they reached an agreement with Egypt for Sinai.
Comments
She has two examples: "New York City is on track to complete only 11,300 new residential units this year, according to a report released Wednesday by the New York Building Congress, a trade group. That’s roughly half the number completed last year, which were already too few. In a city of 8.3 million, where rents are stratospheric, it’s positively pitiful.
. . . .
But the proof is in the pudding. In reality, the city [San Francisco] has approved just 188 new housing units so far this year, according to data available through August. That’s fewer than one new unit per day, and far slower than the pace needed to meet the goal."
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/20/housing-shortage-cities-build-more/
You don't have to know much about American politics to know that neither city is controlled by conservatives. Nor are New York state and California.
(Now Rampell should find some cities in the US that are doing better at providing affordable housing. (I'll report to you, if she does.)
Pool A retains France, Italy, Uruguay and Namibia, but has Australia as the second rank team in place of NZ as top rank. Bad as Aus are, they prevail over Italy and get a QF.
Pool B swaps in third rank Wales for top rank SA. The resulting Ireland. Scotland, Wales, Tonga, Romania group is a Celtic carve up and people wonder if there should be geographical exclusions in the draw. I'm not going to settle who prevails between Scots and Welsh for second spot.
Pool C puts in SA and England over Fiji, Georgia and Portugal. England have some of the fun Aus had, but edge it as the England Fiji match happens here.
Pool D plonks NZ in place of England, with Japan, Argentina, Samoa and Chile still present. No reason to think places 2-5 turn out any different.
QFs:
SA v Argentina
Ireland v Australia
NZ v England
France v Wales/Scotland
QFs could be one sided there, but, as supposed the epics come in the SFs in different combination:
SA v Ireland
NZ v France......
Better?
He is also low tax as much as low immigration which UKIP wasn't as much, the likes of Sevenoaks and Beaconsfield could vote for him if the Tories and Labour imposed a wealth tax
Trump's court case outcomes and whether he avoids jail or not is likely to be more significant than finding an alternative Democrat to Biden
Part of the issue, though, is surely that there's very little space in these cities for new homes, unless something else is demolished first. And that suddenly gets very expensive indeed.
Sound like a wealth tax is a great idea for Labour to implement,..
https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Los-Angeles-County_CA/overview
(For comparison, you might want to look at, for example, San Antonio, Texas.)
Not for myself - daughter’s friends exceeded the speed of alcohol.
I’ve spent way too much time in hospitals. I packed the bag and was on the way in 60 seconds….
But in a Friday night…. Arrrrrrgh.
@EdwardGLuce
·
4h
Donald Trump is going to jail. Possibly for a long time.
So he’ll get the backing of Nancy Pelosi…
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air_Oxford
@solidmeltsinto
·
2h
Tonight I resigned my Labour Party membership, along with several other Cllrs. I cannot stand by and watch war crimes being committed without condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Nor should Labour. I will continue to serve Northfield Brook residents as an indie Cllr.
https://twitter.com/solidmeltsinto
===
I'm a bit lost. He's resigning because Hamas butchered civilians and took hostages and Labour didnt condemn it?
eg. Back in 2013, more Tories supported Labour's proposal for a mansion tax than opposed it. Effectively it would have been a wealth tax on properties over £2m (at 2013 prices, obviously the equivalent threshold would be higher now).
"Recent YouGov research shows that two thirds (65%) of British adults support the mansion tax, while just 22% oppose the policy and 17% don’t know. Conservative voters are the only group to have less than a majority in support of the tax, though supporters still outnumber detractors 49%-41%."
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/6545-wide-support-mansion-tax
The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
[HEADLINE] "Reform UK will stand in every seat – and make sure the Tories lose"
It goes on: ".... And we are delighted to have made the difference by stopping the Tories from winning not one but both by-elections in their “safe” seats this week. This is just the beginning. Britain cannot reward 13 years of failure with more incumbency. There must be consequences to letting everyone down so badly; the Tories must be fired for poor performance. This is a seismic moment. Reform UK will stand in every seat in England, Scotland and Wales, and help ensure that the Conservatives are dismissed from office."
Paywall, but here's the link anyway: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/20/by-election-results-conservatives-reform-richard-tice/
One of the reasons that the Tories suffered exceptional vote share losses in Thursday's by-elections is that they were held by incumbent Conservative MPs in 2019. In such seats the Brexit Party (now Reform) decided to give the Conservatives a free ride to deliver Brexit. No way is that going to happen with Reform in 2024. It means that even if Reform get only 5% in such seats, it will still amount to a 5% increase in their 2019 vote share, almost all of which will have come from the Conservatives.
That matters in terms of helping deliver a Labour majority. The "Red Wall" seats won by the Conservatives for the first time in 2019 are looking pretty low hanging fruit for Labour right now, but to secure a majority Labour needs to go well beyond them and gain a lot of seats defended by Conservative incumbents in 2019. Those seats will normally have larger Conservative majorities and would so be harder nuts for Labour (or in a few cases the LDs) to crack. But the fact of a Reform candidate standing in 2024 but not 2019 in all those seats will grease the swingometer and help it move a bit further away from the Conservative incumbent. It might bring what would otherwise be some very long shots back into more manageable range.
https://twitter.com/OxfordClarion/status/1715508921912152100
Luke Akehurst has weighed in with his customary tact: "Good riddance to these 6 ineffective Momentum hacks. They were never Labour, always Momentum."
He removed it from Truth.Social but not from his personal website - donaldtrump.com I think. A media network found it and published an article.
The Judge warned him about serious sanctions or possibly jail if he persists.
https://www.meidastouch.com/news/trump-fined-by-judge-after-meidastouch-catches-him-violating-gag-order
They really are nuts.
Edit: I then clicked on the actual link and see it’s not the 45p rate for “top income earners”, it’s raising the higher rate threshold which will benefit middle income earners. That’s actually pretty sensible if he can afford it.
Headline was obviously clickbait.
Which is not by any means to say it is impossible the IDF are lying, but that we would need actual evidence not the ranting of postmodernist pseudo scholars at Goldsmiths before we talk about ‘significant doubt.’
Edit - incidentally, what is your view on Chris Williamson’s call for a genocide against the Israelis? I seem to remember you quite liked him at one time.
Why are Palestinian lives worth so much more in your eyes that Syrian or Ukrainian ones? Or, for that matter, Israeli ones?
I oppose all war and killings should be of equal concern but you must have seen the chart mapping Palestinian vs Israeli deaths the former running at circa 50 to 1.
You never speak up unless it's someone on your side being killed afaics
What's your view on Israels siege and hospital bombing? I seem to remember you were quite keen to condemn Russia for attacking Ukranian infrastructure
But I wonder why, all of a sudden, hospital bombings are hideous (which they are), when you were silent about such Russian abuses? Why are you so angry about what is happening in Palestine, but not Ukraine?
I'd also ask where you get your 50:1 figures from?
I'd also ask what you expect Israel to do after the attacks a fortnight ago?
You are a Corbynite. Don't fall into the trap of being an anti-Semite, as he did.
We do not - as yet - know if they have bombed this hospital. Such actual evidence as we have suggests it wasn’t them.
Chris Williamson’s exact words were ‘Israel has forfeited any right to exist.’ If you think that isn’t a call for a genocide then you really do need help.
Odd that you accept uncritically the unsupported words of Hamas supporters but not your fellow posters on PB.
You may care equally about all lives but you are certainly not showing it through a rigorous commitment to factual accuracy. Either deliberately or otherwise you are clearly swallowing and repeating a number of far right tropes, as your good friend Corbyn himself does.
Corbyn’s excuse is that he’s very stupid. What’s yours?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeP9vFrTEzI&t=275s
Re your last point he didn't.
What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?
Re the death toll its on wiki the red bar chart blue bar chart thing
https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/16516/israeli-palestinian-casualties-by-in-gaza-and-the-west-bank/
Looks like terrorism to me
One of the reasons Netanyahu has been cynically propping them up for years is because he knows full well that as long as Hamas is the main player in Gaza he can say to Israelis that there’s no chance of a two state solution so they can press on with annexing the West Bank.
Perhaps that’s a good sign. If Hamas is nervous enough to release even some hostages it might release the rest to de-escalate the situation. At that point Israel would have no real reason for a ground invasion of Gaza and might back down.
You’re still left with several thousand dead and Gaza even more of a shambles than it was before, but it would be preferable to a Middle-East wide conflagration that might leave millions dead.
And for a bonus Netanyahu and his mates would presumably finally be locked up.
What's your excuse for not knowing this?
Did you think the IRA/Unionists would sign the GFA
Without negotiations there is only more killings and bloodshed on both sides with negotiations who knows what is possible
I think JJ was a bit late in advising you not to follow Corbyn down his antisemitic rabbit hole. Your posts on this subject are starting to resemble Rod Crosby’s and not in a good way.
The disabled facilities here are amazing btw if anyone has anyone in a wheelchair. Booked through disabled holidays Spain
P.S. for all the moron out there, “Netanyahu is a lying, theiving, racist knut” is not racist. It’s not hard, is it?
That's your problem you see you think this all started a fortnight ago when it clearly didn't.
I am off now but suggest by the time I return you do a bit more work on your arithmetic
Gracias
https://twitter.com/ForensicArchi/status/1715422493274427414
So -to clarify what they somewhat downplay - the footage was provided by Al-Haq, the model by FA, and it was then used by Earshot for the sound analysis.
You can think that collaboration if you like - it is a form of it - but ultimately it rests on the assumptions of FA. Which are, to be clear, assumptions.
To their credit, they note that, and point out they would need access to the actual bomb site to do any confirming or refuting. But to say such a model casts ‘significant doubt’ is nonsensical.
Post the lies of your fellow racists and try to hide the source and I’ll call you out for it.
And I note you still say nothing about Williamson and are lying about Corbyn’s own behaviour.
On lying thieving racists…
And you can go fuck yourself if you think I am a racist
Russia is still bombing Ukrainian hospitals, schools and other infrastructure. I reckon they'd be doing more if they had enough long-range missiles. Here's a report from the Guardian into Russian tactics:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/20/revealed-how-russia-deliberately-targeted-kherson-hospitals
Or from the WHO:
https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/30-05-2023-who-records-1-000th-attack-on-health-care-in-ukraine-over-the-past-15-months-of-full-scale-war
Again, I'd expect you to have been so utterly angry about Russian actions as you are against Israeli. Sadly, I cannot remember you being quite so vocal.
"Re your last point he didn't." (Corbyn falling into the trap of being an anti-Semite)
Well, we'll have to differ. But I fear Corbyn can do no wrong in your eyes; and such devotion may lead you into some dark places.
"What should Israel do. Negotiate a 2 state settlement and a hostage/ prisoner exchange. Do you think the current response will make Israel safer?"
How can they do a 2-state deal with Hamas, whose avowed aim is to destroy the state of Israel? Worse than that, they want to kill all Jews. From Hamas's original 1988 charter:
'The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and
kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the
rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind
me, come and kill him.' (Article 7)
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/20/rishi-sunak-considers-tax-cut-for-top-earners-after-byelection-defeats
On the Israeli side, there are two significant barriers to peace: Netanyahu and the settlers. To his credit, Netanyahu has been trying to make peace deals with other regional states; but that is about the only thing to his credit. Israelis have the ability to democratically remove Netanyahu and to stop settlements (and preferably reverse the most egregious ones).
On the Palestinian (actually, mostly Gaza) side, the biggest barrier is Hamas. To be clear, Hamas do not want peace; at least, peace that includes the existence of an Israeli state. Palestinians do not have the ability to democratically remove Hamas. I doubt Israel can militarily destroy Hamas, especially when their leaders live it large in rich gulf states.
More widely, many states in the region and the wider world have been using this conflict as part of their various power plays. This is not helpful.
Is the two-state solution dead? With Hamas and Netanyahu in play, then yes. And the alternative is a 'win' for either Hamas or Israel that will be a tragedy not just for civilians on their opposing side, but also their own civilians.
Look, there is one question that to my mind is significant. Initially, I thought it probably was Israel, if only because they didn't immediately deny it. It didn't aid their credibility that they'd hit nearby the day before and warned people to leave the building. And it's still possible. I'm reminded of the time fifteen years ago that Hamas put a strong point on a nursery, and Israel blew both up anyway. It's what they do, because they're not bothered about Palestinian casualties, any more than Hamas, Iran and Islamic Jihad are.
But at this moment, it's not supported by the evidence we have (admittedly, Israeli evidence). So, we need more evidence. That's 'evidence,' not the witterings of a bunch of people using dubious methods to support predetermined conclusions.*
Have Hamas sealed the site and allowed independent investigators to examine it? Have they provided evidence (other than claims) that it was an Israeli bomb? As far as I know they haven't even tried to, and you would have thought providing fragments of one of the very many bombs the Israelis have dropped and saying 'this was what caused it' would have been so easy even Corbyn might have managed it. Heck, even Cummings might have thought of it.
That suggests to me that Hamas at least don't think it was Israel. But they don't want to admit it in case it undercuts their position in Gaza.
*It's actually quite good at this. One success they had was proving using their picture technique that a live round fired in the West Bank couldn't have been fired in the air. But we knew that already, because it had killed somebody. So in confirming what was known it was helpful but hardly vital.
Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were heavily involved. One looks like a deputy headmaster and the other a clown without makeup.
I expect Western national hostages to be released, under severe diplomatic pressure on Qatar to otherwise hand over the Hamas leaders sheltering there.
Y
I am not missing anymore valuable holiday time on a poster too blinded to see the bloody obvious Who then throws about "racist " rather than going away and doing basic research
Sunak was wrong to implement fiscal drag, it is a pernicious tax rise, ending fiscal drag is an entirely reasonable thing to do, but of course if he does it then it should be all thresholds rising not just the 40% threshold.
To keep the 20% and other thresholds frozen while lifting just the 40% one would be weird and not be appropriate.
I'm not sure their estimation is correct.
And I'm becoming rather less sure of yours too.
Fujimori in Peru discovered he had a Japanese passport he’d never applied for. So he did the obvious thing - booked a one way, first class ticket to Japan.
If we take Bibi in, d’you think he would fit in at the DfE?
I was staggered seeing a report from Times of Israel when it mentioned suitcases of cash from Qatar being allowed through to Gaza by Israel to prop them up.
I hope there is a reckoning for Bibi.
Also nothing about the 20% rate w threshold which would help those who really need it as opposed to helping the better off.
Still, they are unlikely to win to put it into practise.
1. I think we agree that not enough is being spent by the government on infrastructure,
2. The government is still borrowing far too much,
3. Nobody has a clue how to cut revenue spending any further (diversity officers and international aid aren't going to do anything meaningful)
Yes, talking of tax cuts right now is nuts.
Chancellors since at least Lawson have been playing pass the parcel with a time bomb. And it's finally gone off.
The Rafah crossing has opened, with live footage showing trucks entering the border crossing from Egypt into Gaza.
Hasn't quite worked...
As for the settlements, there is nothing wrong with Israel allowing construction, the final borders are up for negotiations. The Palestinians have chosen to reject the existing borders to try and force a change, so why can't Israel do the same? Is it only Palestinians in your eyes who are allowed to put pressure on the other side? If the Palestinian Authority is going to send suicide bombers into Israel, it seems quite appropriate to me that Israel should put pressure by building settlements instead - maybe then Palestinians will accept peace of whatever land they can get rather than holding out for "from the river to the sea".
Its worth noting that Israel has a history of dismantling settlements on the wrong side of a border once a border is agreed and an agreement reached. They did that when they reached an agreement with Egypt for Sinai.
🚨The HuffPost UK weekend political read on how Rishi Sunak's first year as PM has done nothing to improve the Tories' - or the country's - fortunes.
🔥 One Conservative insider says: "We would settle for competent - which he isn’t.”