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Polling on yesterday’s man and his next career move – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,163
edited November 2023 in General
Polling on yesterday’s man and his next career move – politicalbetting.com

Boris Johnson is becoming a TV presenter and commentator on GB News. Do you think this is appropriate or inappropriate?All BritonsAppropriate: 25%Inappropriate: 51%Con votersAppropriate: 42%Inappropriate: 32%https://t.co/L2LmBlU0fs pic.twitter.com/S1D0HZwM60

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Comments

  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,635
    edited November 2023
    I can be very bitchy at times, no?
  • You are the very pink of civilised restraint.

    The Inquiry is ensuring that what was previously known by most people is now known by everyone.
  • I think Johnson and GB News are a great fit.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,526

    I am no fan of Boris, but he isn't an MP anymore so what's it to us, the public, what jobs he gets? I don't watch GB News, but nobody is forcing anybody to watch it or pay for it via a telly tax.

    True. And I wonder if the assumption that he's totally written off isn't premature. We'll see what his evidence says, but more importantly, he's keeping in the news, which automatically makes him still relevant - and perhaps with a post-election future.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,995
    edited November 2023
    FPT:

    148grss said:
    "An interesting article that also articulates some of my views over the past month that others here have been less than keen on:

    https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/no-human-being-can-exist/

    SAREE MAKDISI: No Human Being Can Exist

    RECENTLY, AN AUSTRALIAN-PALESTINIAN friend of mine was invited to appear on Australia’s national television network to discuss the situation in and around Gaza. His white interviewers posed all the usual questions: Can you defend what we’ve seen from Hamas militants? How has the Palestinian cause been helped by this violence? How can anyone defend the slaughter of young music lovers at a music festival? Do you defend Hamas? They probably expected a defensive reaction from him, but calmly, in his smooth Australian-accented English, my friend had already turned the interview on its head. “I want to know why I’m here today, and why I haven’t been here for the past year,” he said gently.

    Apologies if it has already been shared - I've had a busy few days at work so far this week, and so have been more absent then straight after October 7th"


    Palestine gets orders of magnitude more political attention and news coverage than most other long term conflicts around the world. I can understand why the interviewee may consider that's still not enough, because they have suffered for decades at the hands both of Israel and their Arab neighbours, but under the surface of this article are some assumptions about race and Israel which could be lifted straight from Baddiel's Jews don't count book.

    "His white interviewers" tees up the narrative early on. Then in multiple places in the article the complaint is that the Australian media care more about Jewish lives than Palestinian ones. And finally, there comes a list of historical events where oppressed groups attacked white colonisers.

    The premise of the article is that Jews are "white", that they are therefore just another form of European imperialist, their own history of oppression and genocide is therefore irrelevant, and the violent opposition to the very existence of Israel since its inception is just another example of anti-imperialism.

    This goes to the nub of some far left arguments about Palestine. It's different from right wing anti-semitism because it's grounded in the idea that Jews don't count. They are "culturally white". Alien implants in the Middle East. They don't belong there. etc.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,073
    edited November 2023

    I can be very bitchy at times, no?

    Shouldn't " his career in politics will not reach his previous political apotheoses." be either "post politics", or "in journalism" ?
  • FPT Kindertransport memorial just outside Liverpool Street station:

    image
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,995
    He's much more suited to this new role than to being PM of the UK. I'm sure he'll do a decent job in it. Good luck to him.
  • FPT Kindertransport memorial just outside Liverpool Street station:

    image

    Just like all of those Hamas terrorists screaming for the extermination of Israel who Jeremy Corbyn shared platforms with, I am sure that this statue is just coincidental to the choice of station...
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,995

    I am no fan of Boris, but he isn't an MP anymore so what's it to us, the public, what jobs he gets? I don't watch GB News, but nobody is forcing anybody to watch it or pay for it via a telly tax.

    True. And I wonder if the assumption that he's totally written off isn't premature. We'll see what his evidence says, but more importantly, he's keeping in the news, which automatically makes him still relevant - and perhaps with a post-election future.
    I think he remains a fairly influential onlooker in the same mould as Blair, Farage, Heseltine, Corbyn, Heath etc.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,073
    This blameless piece of equipment has been dragged through the mud at the Covid inquiry. How dare anyone compare it to our former prime minister?
    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/nov/01/dominic-cummings-has-every-right-to-badmouth-boris-johnson-but-please-stop-picking-on-shopping-trolleys
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,073
    TimS said:

    I am no fan of Boris, but he isn't an MP anymore so what's it to us, the public, what jobs he gets? I don't watch GB News, but nobody is forcing anybody to watch it or pay for it via a telly tax.

    True. And I wonder if the assumption that he's totally written off isn't premature. We'll see what his evidence says, but more importantly, he's keeping in the news, which automatically makes him still relevant - and perhaps with a post-election future.
    I think he remains a fairly influential onlooker in the same mould as Blair, Farage, Heseltine, Corbyn, Heath etc.
    I'm not sure Ted remains an influential onlooker ?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,406

    I am no fan of Boris, but he isn't an MP anymore so what's it to us, the public, what jobs he gets? I don't watch GB News, but nobody is forcing anybody to watch it or pay for it via a telly tax.

    True. And I wonder if the assumption that he's totally written off isn't premature. We'll see what his evidence says, but more importantly, he's keeping in the news, which automatically makes him still relevant - and perhaps with a post-election future.
    He won't fight the next election.
    Presumably, we'll be looking at a 5 year Labour government, then.
    By which time he'll be 65 years old.
    I can't see any way back for him, as he won't fancy LOTO as it's too much hard work. And even the route to that role looks hugely convoluted.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,995
    edited November 2023
    Nigelb said:

    TimS said:

    I am no fan of Boris, but he isn't an MP anymore so what's it to us, the public, what jobs he gets? I don't watch GB News, but nobody is forcing anybody to watch it or pay for it via a telly tax.

    True. And I wonder if the assumption that he's totally written off isn't premature. We'll see what his evidence says, but more importantly, he's keeping in the news, which automatically makes him still relevant - and perhaps with a post-election future.
    I think he remains a fairly influential onlooker in the same mould as Blair, Farage, Heseltine, Corbyn, Heath etc.
    I'm not sure Ted remains an influential onlooker ?
    Not now for obvious reasons but he did throughout Thatcher's tenure.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,270
    Nigelb said:

    This blameless piece of equipment has been dragged through the mud at the Covid inquiry. How dare anyone compare it to our former prime minister?
    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/nov/01/dominic-cummings-has-every-right-to-badmouth-boris-johnson-but-please-stop-picking-on-shopping-trolleys

    Shopping Trolleys are all Fascist Racist Colonialist Oppressors manufactured by Giant Western Capitalist Corporations.

    One Shopping Trolley, One Bullet.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155
    TimS said:

    FPT:

    148grss said:
    "An interesting article that also articulates some of my views over the past month that others here have been less than keen on:

    https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/no-human-being-can-exist/

    SAREE MAKDISI: No Human Being Can Exist

    RECENTLY, AN AUSTRALIAN-PALESTINIAN friend of mine was invited to appear on Australia’s national television network to discuss the situation in and around Gaza. His white interviewers posed all the usual questions: Can you defend what we’ve seen from Hamas militants? How has the Palestinian cause been helped by this violence? How can anyone defend the slaughter of young music lovers at a music festival? Do you defend Hamas? They probably expected a defensive reaction from him, but calmly, in his smooth Australian-accented English, my friend had already turned the interview on its head. “I want to know why I’m here today, and why I haven’t been here for the past year,” he said gently.

    Apologies if it has already been shared - I've had a busy few days at work so far this week, and so have been more absent then straight after October 7th"


    Palestine gets orders of magnitude more political attention and news coverage than most other long term conflicts around the world. I can understand why the interviewee may consider that's still not enough, because they have suffered for decades at the hands both of Israel and their Arab neighbours, but under the surface of this article are some assumptions about race and Israel which could be lifted straight from Baddiel's Jews don't count book.

    "His white interviewers" tees up the narrative early on. Then in multiple places in the article the complaint is that the Australian media care more about Jewish lives than Palestinian ones. And finally, there comes a list of historical events where oppressed groups attacked white colonisers.

    The premise of the article is that Jews are "white", that they are therefore just another form of European imperialist, their own history of oppression and genocide is therefore irrelevant, and the violent opposition to the very existence of Israel since its inception is just another example of anti-imperialism.

    This goes to the nub of some far left arguments about Palestine. It's different from right wing anti-semitism because it's grounded in the idea that Jews don't count. They are "culturally white". Alien implants in the Middle East. They don't belong there. etc.

    Also FPT:

    The premise of the article is not that Jews are white, it is that Israel is a settler colonialist project, and the Palestinians are oppressed by the state of Israel under that framework.

    If you watched the interview discussed, it is very clear why he is making the argument that Israeli lives are given more value than Palestinian lives; because in that interview his friend remarks how he is never asked to appear to discuss Palestinian deaths, or to condemn the IDF for them, but is asked to discuss Israeli deaths and condemn Hamas. Just like the interview on ITV where a man talked about his family being killed by Israeli bombs and the interviewer "clarifying" that Israel has assured people it is only targeting Hamas and the interviewee having to clarify that of the 21 members of his family killed, over half were children, and they were not members of Hamas.

    Edit: Here is his further clarification that he didn't "lose" 21 members of his family

    https://twitter.com/alnaouqa/status/1719637340056858921
  • dixiedean said:

    I am no fan of Boris, but he isn't an MP anymore so what's it to us, the public, what jobs he gets? I don't watch GB News, but nobody is forcing anybody to watch it or pay for it via a telly tax.

    True. And I wonder if the assumption that he's totally written off isn't premature. We'll see what his evidence says, but more importantly, he's keeping in the news, which automatically makes him still relevant - and perhaps with a post-election future.
    He won't fight the next election.
    Presumably, we'll be looking at a 5 year Labour government, then.
    By which time he'll be 65 years old.
    I can't see any way back for him, as he won't fancy LOTO as it's too much hard work. And even the route to that role looks hugely convoluted.
    Also he is making loads of money and i presume getting lots of ego stroking, without having to a) work really hard and b) get daily criticism about every utterance / people digging into your every move.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,995

    Nigelb said:

    This blameless piece of equipment has been dragged through the mud at the Covid inquiry. How dare anyone compare it to our former prime minister?
    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/nov/01/dominic-cummings-has-every-right-to-badmouth-boris-johnson-but-please-stop-picking-on-shopping-trolleys

    Shopping Trolleys are all Fascist Racist Colonialist Oppressors manufactured by Giant Western Capitalist Corporations.

    One Shopping Trolley, One Bullet.
    I quite enjoyed the article. Interesting little potted history of one of those underappreciated inventions.

    The one recent innovation he neglected to mention is the mini trolley-basket, vertical and of plastic build as commonly seen in placed like Lidl. Nicely bridges the gap between overladen basket and unwieldy trolley in this day and age of auto checkouts. I would say the dawn of the self-checkout is the biggest engineering challenge to the shopping trolley in decades.

    Could also have mentioned other popular innovations:

    - The key operated chain lock to stop trolley theft and dumping
    - The small shallower trolley
    - the little loop at the back that you can hang your reusable shopping bags from
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,270
    TimS said:

    Nigelb said:

    TimS said:

    I am no fan of Boris, but he isn't an MP anymore so what's it to us, the public, what jobs he gets? I don't watch GB News, but nobody is forcing anybody to watch it or pay for it via a telly tax.

    True. And I wonder if the assumption that he's totally written off isn't premature. We'll see what his evidence says, but more importantly, he's keeping in the news, which automatically makes him still relevant - and perhaps with a post-election future.
    I think he remains a fairly influential onlooker in the same mould as Blair, Farage, Heseltine, Corbyn, Heath etc.
    I'm not sure Ted remains an influential onlooker ?
    Not now for obvious reasons but he did throughout Thatcher's tenure.
    Heath certainly tried to stay in political relevance - his hatred of Thatcher slowly mutated into a hatred of the voters who refused to acknowledge that he (Ted Heath) was right. By the 90s he was openly praising the Chinese government - chiefly for not listening to The People on Important Decisions.

    Boris dropped straight back into journalism - with rather a low political content. He certainly isn't trying to challenge the leadership of the Conservative Party in any meaningful way.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,091
    The collected Dr Who serials 1963-1996 is now on iPlayer. Hasn't got everything ("Thirty Years in the Tardis" is missing) but you can't have everything.

    Today's background music-while-I-work is "The Masque of Mandragora": not one of the famous ones but Baker and Sladen are on top form and it's only four episodes.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,969
    So a plurality of Conservative voters think it is appropriate for Boris to be a commentator on GB news
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,558
    edited November 2023
    viewcode said:

    The collected Dr Who serials 1963-1996 is now on iPlayer. Hasn't got everything ("Thirty Years in the Tardis" is missing) but you can't have everything.

    Today's background music-while-I-work is "The Masque of Mandragora": not one of the famous ones but Baker and Sladen are on top form and it's only four episodes.

    The BBC putting so many shows on iPlayer is slightly annoying for anyone who's spent a lot of money on DVD collections.
  • MSNBC - Ethics panel peels back the curtain on George Santos probe

    The House Ethics Committee generally says very little about its pending investigations. On George Santos, there's a reason the panel made an exception.

    It’s been nearly a week since a group of House Republicans from New York launched a new effort to expel one of their home-state colleagues: Rep. George Santos. For the GOP members behind the effort, the indicted congressman can no longer remain a member in good standing — his not guilty plea notwithstanding — so they’ve introduced a privileged resolution to force his ouster.

    As the chamber prepares to deal with that measure, the House Ethics Committee peeled back the curtain a bit on its scrutiny of the scandal-plagued lawmaker. The Hill reported:

    "The Ethics Committee on Tuesday said it will “announce its next course of action” in its investigation into Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) on or before Nov. 17. ... The announcement from the Ethics Committee, which has been investigating Santos for months, may influence how some lawmakers vote on the effort to expel Santos, which could hit the floor as soon as Wednesday."

    In case this isn’t obvious, statements like these aren’t common. Ordinarily, the Ethics panel tells the public when an investigation begins and when it ends. In between those points, the committee generally maintains a tight lid on disclosures.

    But in this instance, members of the Ethics Committee — which began its probe in the spring, and then expanded it after Santos’ criminal charges — decided to give their colleagues an update on their progress. They didn’t offer much in the way of details. . . .

    For those hoping to expel Santos, this wasn’t exactly helpful. Members who remain on the fence about whether to kick the New York Republican out of Congress suddenly have an excuse: They can say they want to wait to learn more from the Ethics panel about the “next course of action” it has in mind.

    They’ll have to decide relatively quickly: The House vote on the expulsion resolution could come as early as Wednesday (as in, today).

    A Washington Post report added, if the resolution were to pass, Santos would be the first House member to be ousted “without having been convicted of a crime. Establishing such a precedent has prompted members of both parties to seriously weigh the consequences of expelling Santos, who has pleaded not guilty to 23 federal counts in New York that include fraud, money laundering, falsifying records and aggravated identity theft.”

    As we’ve discussed, expelling sitting members of Congress isn’t easy — it requires a two-thirds majority of those in the chamber — and it’s only happened twice since the Civil War. In 1980, Democratic Rep. Michael Myers of Pennsylvania was expelled over his involvement with the Abscam scandal, and in 2002, Democratic Rep. Jim Traficant of Ohio was expelled after he was convicted on multiple corruption charges. . . .
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,969
    dixiedean said:

    I am no fan of Boris, but he isn't an MP anymore so what's it to us, the public, what jobs he gets? I don't watch GB News, but nobody is forcing anybody to watch it or pay for it via a telly tax.

    True. And I wonder if the assumption that he's totally written off isn't premature. We'll see what his evidence says, but more importantly, he's keeping in the news, which automatically makes him still relevant - and perhaps with a post-election future.
    He won't fight the next election.
    Presumably, we'll be looking at a 5 year Labour government, then.
    By which time he'll be 65 years old.
    I can't see any way back for him, as he won't fancy LOTO as it's too much hard work. And even the route to that role looks hugely convoluted.
    LOTO isn't that much work, you can certainly put less work into it than being PM or a Cabinet Minister or even a Select Cttee chair
  • FossFoss Posts: 1,019
    viewcode said:

    The collected Dr Who serials 1963-1996 is now on iPlayer. Hasn't got everything ("Thirty Years in the Tardis" is missing) but you can't have everything.

    Today's background music-while-I-work is "The Masque of Mandragora": not one of the famous ones but Baker and Sladen are on top form and it's only four episodes.

    Alas, it's missing 'An Unearthly Child' as, apparently, the son of the writer is a loon.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840

    Nigelb said:

    This blameless piece of equipment has been dragged through the mud at the Covid inquiry. How dare anyone compare it to our former prime minister?
    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/nov/01/dominic-cummings-has-every-right-to-badmouth-boris-johnson-but-please-stop-picking-on-shopping-trolleys

    Shopping Trolleys are all Fascist Racist Colonialist Oppressors manufactured by Giant Western Capitalist Corporations.

    One Shopping Trolley, One Bullet.
    I think you misunderstand the reasons why so many suffer the fate of Edward Colston's effigy.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    148grss said:

    TimS said:

    FPT:

    148grss said:
    "An interesting article that also articulates some of my views over the past month that others here have been less than keen on:

    https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/no-human-being-can-exist/

    SAREE MAKDISI: No Human Being Can Exist

    RECENTLY, AN AUSTRALIAN-PALESTINIAN friend of mine was invited to appear on Australia’s national television network to discuss the situation in and around Gaza. His white interviewers posed all the usual questions: Can you defend what we’ve seen from Hamas militants? How has the Palestinian cause been helped by this violence? How can anyone defend the slaughter of young music lovers at a music festival? Do you defend Hamas? They probably expected a defensive reaction from him, but calmly, in his smooth Australian-accented English, my friend had already turned the interview on its head. “I want to know why I’m here today, and why I haven’t been here for the past year,” he said gently.

    Apologies if it has already been shared - I've had a busy few days at work so far this week, and so have been more absent then straight after October 7th"


    Palestine gets orders of magnitude more political attention and news coverage than most other long term conflicts around the world. I can understand why the interviewee may consider that's still not enough, because they have suffered for decades at the hands both of Israel and their Arab neighbours, but under the surface of this article are some assumptions about race and Israel which could be lifted straight from Baddiel's Jews don't count book.

    "His white interviewers" tees up the narrative early on. Then in multiple places in the article the complaint is that the Australian media care more about Jewish lives than Palestinian ones. And finally, there comes a list of historical events where oppressed groups attacked white colonisers.

    The premise of the article is that Jews are "white", that they are therefore just another form of European imperialist, their own history of oppression and genocide is therefore irrelevant, and the violent opposition to the very existence of Israel since its inception is just another example of anti-imperialism.

    This goes to the nub of some far left arguments about Palestine. It's different from right wing anti-semitism because it's grounded in the idea that Jews don't count. They are "culturally white". Alien implants in the Middle East. They don't belong there. etc.

    Also FPT:

    The premise of the article is not that Jews are white, it is that Israel is a settler colonialist project, and the Palestinians are oppressed by the state of Israel under that framework.

    If you watched the interview discussed, it is very clear why he is making the argument that Israeli lives are given more value than Palestinian lives; because in that interview his friend remarks how he is never asked to appear to discuss Palestinian deaths, or to condemn the IDF for them, but is asked to discuss Israeli deaths and condemn Hamas. Just like the interview on ITV where a man talked about his family being killed by Israeli bombs and the interviewer "clarifying" that Israel has assured people it is only targeting Hamas and the interviewee having to clarify that of the 21 members of his family killed, over half were children, and they were not members of Hamas.

    Edit: Here is his further clarification that he didn't "lose" 21 members of his family

    https://twitter.com/alnaouqa/status/1719637340056858921
    You not so long ago "praised" my view as being ingenuous albeit you didn't agree with it you could argue with it.

    Likewise by framing the debate in those terms you are saying that Israel shouldn't exist.

    I can work with that. You presumably think that like for all would be good with the local Jews living under a benign Arab rule as second class but protected citizens?
  • Those Britain Trump comparisons weren't far off in hindsight.

    Just when you thought you'd heard it all....

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if you could kill Covid by blowing hairdryer up nose

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if people could kill Covid by blowing a hairdryer up their nose after he watched a YouTube video suggesting this.

    The then-PM shared the clip on a WhatsApp group including Government health experts and senior No10 officials. In a written statement to the Covid Inquiry, Dominic Cummings accused Mr Johnson of spreading misinformation during the pandemic.


    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-asked-scientists-you-31334180
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,995
    edited November 2023
    148grss said:

    TimS said:

    FPT:

    148grss said:
    "An interesting article that also articulates some of my views over the past month that others here have been less than keen on:

    https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/no-human-being-can-exist/

    SAREE MAKDISI: No Human Being Can Exist

    RECENTLY, AN AUSTRALIAN-PALESTINIAN friend of mine was invited to appear on Australia’s national television network to discuss the situation in and around Gaza. His white interviewers posed all the usual questions: Can you defend what we’ve seen from Hamas militants? How has the Palestinian cause been helped by this violence? How can anyone defend the slaughter of young music lovers at a music festival? Do you defend Hamas? They probably expected a defensive reaction from him, but calmly, in his smooth Australian-accented English, my friend had already turned the interview on its head. “I want to know why I’m here today, and why I haven’t been here for the past year,” he said gently.

    Apologies if it has already been shared - I've had a busy few days at work so far this week, and so have been more absent then straight after October 7th"


    Palestine gets orders of magnitude more political attention and news coverage than most other long term conflicts around the world. I can understand why the interviewee may consider that's still not enough, because they have suffered for decades at the hands both of Israel and their Arab neighbours, but under the surface of this article are some assumptions about race and Israel which could be lifted straight from Baddiel's Jews don't count book.

    "His white interviewers" tees up the narrative early on. Then in multiple places in the article the complaint is that the Australian media care more about Jewish lives than Palestinian ones. And finally, there comes a list of historical events where oppressed groups attacked white colonisers.

    The premise of the article is that Jews are "white", that they are therefore just another form of European imperialist, their own history of oppression and genocide is therefore irrelevant, and the violent opposition to the very existence of Israel since its inception is just another example of anti-imperialism.

    This goes to the nub of some far left arguments about Palestine. It's different from right wing anti-semitism because it's grounded in the idea that Jews don't count. They are "culturally white". Alien implants in the Middle East. They don't belong there. etc.

    Also FPT:

    The premise of the article is not that Jews are white, it is that Israel is a settler colonialist project, and the Palestinians are oppressed by the state of Israel under that framework.

    If you watched the interview discussed, it is very clear why he is making the argument that Israeli lives are given more value than Palestinian lives; because in that interview his friend remarks how he is never asked to appear to discuss Palestinian deaths, or to condemn the IDF for them, but is asked to discuss Israeli deaths and condemn Hamas. Just like the interview on ITV where a man talked about his family being killed by Israeli bombs and the interviewer "clarifying" that Israel has assured people it is only targeting Hamas and the interviewee having to clarify that of the 21 members of his family killed, over half were children, and they were not members of Hamas.

    Edit: Here is his further clarification that he didn't "lose" 21 members of his family

    https://twitter.com/alnaouqa/status/1719637340056858921
    I would argue that describing the state of Israel as a settler colonialist project only makes sense if one sees Jews as white and therefore a cultural implant not belonging in the Middle East.
  • dr_spyndr_spyn Posts: 11,300
    edited November 2023
    Nigelb said:

    This blameless piece of equipment has been dragged through the mud at the Covid inquiry. How dare anyone compare it to our former prime minister?
    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/nov/01/dominic-cummings-has-every-right-to-badmouth-boris-johnson-but-please-stop-picking-on-shopping-trolleys

    At least the shopping trolley has a mind of its own.

    However, it would be surprising if the Civil Service haven't gamed what to do if a PM is incapacitated through illness, given Boris Johnson's hospitalisation in April 2020.

    As for a Boris Johnson political comeback, it is less likely as Jadon Sancho rejoining Manchester United's first team squad.

  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,822
    edited November 2023

    I am no fan of Boris, but he isn't an MP anymore so what's it to us, the public, what jobs he gets? I don't watch GB News, but nobody is forcing anybody to watch it or pay for it via a telly tax.

    Indeed. I doubt anything Boris ever does is going to be "appropriate", as inappropriate is key to the whole schtick, but its not something that should be illegal or even worthy of condemnation.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,840
    edited November 2023
    HYUFD said:

    So a plurality of Conservative voters think it is appropriate for Boris to be a commentator on GB news

    All depends on how you define it.

    A plurality and a majority of 58% don't agree that it is appropriate for "Boris" to be a commentator on GB news.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,969
    edited November 2023

    TimS said:

    Nigelb said:

    TimS said:

    I am no fan of Boris, but he isn't an MP anymore so what's it to us, the public, what jobs he gets? I don't watch GB News, but nobody is forcing anybody to watch it or pay for it via a telly tax.

    True. And I wonder if the assumption that he's totally written off isn't premature. We'll see what his evidence says, but more importantly, he's keeping in the news, which automatically makes him still relevant - and perhaps with a post-election future.
    I think he remains a fairly influential onlooker in the same mould as Blair, Farage, Heseltine, Corbyn, Heath etc.
    I'm not sure Ted remains an influential onlooker ?
    Not now for obvious reasons but he did throughout Thatcher's tenure.
    Heath certainly tried to stay in political relevance - his hatred of Thatcher slowly mutated into a hatred of the voters who refused to acknowledge that he (Ted Heath) was right. By the 90s he was openly praising the Chinese government - chiefly for not listening to The People on Important Decisions.

    Boris dropped straight back into journalism - with rather a low political content. He certainly isn't trying to challenge the leadership of the Conservative Party in any meaningful way.
    As the most charismatic and biggest Conservative general election majority winner since Thatcher however Boris can still have influence on the party even if he is no longer an MP via the media etc.

    Remember after Thatcher was toppled in 1990 she ensured her chosen candidate won every Tory leadership election until 2005 (when she was neutral as she was in 1995 when Redwood challenged Major), backing Major over Heseltine in 1990, Hague over Clarke in 1997 and IDS over Clarke in 2001.

    Johnson similarly can ensure his preferred candidate wins the membership vote if the Tories lose the next election for some time to come, given he remains popular amongst party members
  • Those Britain Trump comparisons weren't far off in hindsight.

    Just when you thought you'd heard it all....

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if you could kill Covid by blowing hairdryer up nose

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if people could kill Covid by blowing a hairdryer up their nose after he watched a YouTube video suggesting this.

    The then-PM shared the clip on a WhatsApp group including Government health experts and senior No10 officials. In a written statement to the Covid Inquiry, Dominic Cummings accused Mr Johnson of spreading misinformation during the pandemic.


    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-asked-scientists-you-31334180

    I mean, if I had access to important and knowledgeable scientists and there was a new disease going around, I bet I would ask some pretty dumb questions about it.

    Trump started musing out loud in a public press conference, which was the problem. I’m prepared to cut Boris some slack on this, which I am not often accustomed to do.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,020
    edited November 2023
    Foss said:
    Lovely...and they are the first to scream blue murder if anybody says anything insensitive or could be considered racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. Just not when it comes to the Jews or Israel.
  • HYUFD said:

    TimS said:

    Nigelb said:

    TimS said:

    I am no fan of Boris, but he isn't an MP anymore so what's it to us, the public, what jobs he gets? I don't watch GB News, but nobody is forcing anybody to watch it or pay for it via a telly tax.

    True. And I wonder if the assumption that he's totally written off isn't premature. We'll see what his evidence says, but more importantly, he's keeping in the news, which automatically makes him still relevant - and perhaps with a post-election future.
    I think he remains a fairly influential onlooker in the same mould as Blair, Farage, Heseltine, Corbyn, Heath etc.
    I'm not sure Ted remains an influential onlooker ?
    Not now for obvious reasons but he did throughout Thatcher's tenure.
    Heath certainly tried to stay in political relevance - his hatred of Thatcher slowly mutated into a hatred of the voters who refused to acknowledge that he (Ted Heath) was right. By the 90s he was openly praising the Chinese government - chiefly for not listening to The People on Important Decisions.

    Boris dropped straight back into journalism - with rather a low political content. He certainly isn't trying to challenge the leadership of the Conservative Party in any meaningful way.
    As the most charismatic and biggest Conservative general election majority winner since Thatcher however Boris can still have influence on the party even if he is no longer an MP via the media etc.

    Remember after Thatcher was toppled in 1990 she ensured her chosen candidate won every Tory leadership election until 2005 (when she was neutral as she was in 1995 when Redwood challenged Major), backing Major over Heseltine in 1990, Hague over Clarke in 1997 and IDS over Clarke in 2001.

    Johnson similarly can ensure his preferred candidate wins the membership vote if the Tories lose the next election for some time to come, given he remains popular amongst party members
    I wonder if Boris's reputation among the older Conservative voters has been damaged.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,995
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    So a plurality of Conservative voters think it is appropriate for Boris to be a commentator on GB news

    All depends on how you define it.

    A plurality and a majority of 58% don't agree that it is appropriate for "Boris" to be a commentator on GB news.
    I really don't see what the problem is. He's not an elected politician anymore.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497
    That most Leave voters (and most Tories) either don't know, don't care or think Boris on GBN is not appropriate suggests that both Brexit and Boris are running out of political salience.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,091
    Andy_JS said:

    viewcode said:

    The collected Dr Who serials 1963-1996 is now on iPlayer. Hasn't got everything ("Thirty Years in the Tardis" is missing) but you can't have everything.

    Today's background music-while-I-work is "The Masque of Mandragora": not one of the famous ones but Baker and Sladen are on top form and it's only four episodes.

    The BBC putting so many shows on iPlayer is slightly annoying for anyone who's spent a lot of money on DVD collections.
    Pull them down while you can. You'll never know when they'll disappear.
  • FossFoss Posts: 1,019
    viewcode said:

    Andy_JS said:

    viewcode said:

    The collected Dr Who serials 1963-1996 is now on iPlayer. Hasn't got everything ("Thirty Years in the Tardis" is missing) but you can't have everything.

    Today's background music-while-I-work is "The Masque of Mandragora": not one of the famous ones but Baker and Sladen are on top form and it's only four episodes.

    The BBC putting so many shows on iPlayer is slightly annoying for anyone who's spent a lot of money on DVD collections.
    Pull them down while you can. You'll never know when they'll disappear.
    ***Cough*** get_iplayer ***Cough***
  • dr_spyndr_spyn Posts: 11,300
    https://twitter.com/ChrisMusson/status/1719727130467062138

    It appears that Kate Forbes has kept messages unlike the former First Minister.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,173
    Good afternoon everyone.

    Interesting on the attempts by the Founder of Extinction Rebellion to avoid responsibility for the criminal damage she caused:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67288289

    "During her police interview, she said she was trying to stop crimes against humanity and "had permission from nature" to break the window."
    ...
    "During the preparations for Gail Bradbrook's trial in July this year, the former scientist, who did not have a lawyer, said she intended to tell jurors that she could not be found guilty because of her right to freedom of expression and that she was also trying to preventing a greater crime of climate destruction."


    "My right to Freedom of Expression Trumps any attempt to hold me accountable for my criminal behaviour" is the justification / excuse used by guess who?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,558
    edited November 2023
    "Boris was right – older people should have been given a choice over lockdown
    It horrified me that my grandchildren might be disadvantaged into the indefinite future in order (possibly) to protect me from – what?
    Janet Daley"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/01/boris-was-right-older-people-covid-lockdown/
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,091
    Foss said:

    viewcode said:

    The collected Dr Who serials 1963-1996 is now on iPlayer. Hasn't got everything ("Thirty Years in the Tardis" is missing) but you can't have everything.

    Today's background music-while-I-work is "The Masque of Mandragora": not one of the famous ones but Baker and Sladen are on top form and it's only four episodes.

    Alas, it's missing 'An Unearthly Child' as, apparently, the son of the writer is a loon.
    Well, yes
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585
    As in the early stages of this conflict, once again the best commentary to watch is from a comedian.

    Here’s US comic Andrew Schulz and (a very diverse group of) friends breaking down the conflict, in a way that only comedians can. (With some adult language)

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=QQQpSHQ6R70
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,329

    Those Britain Trump comparisons weren't far off in hindsight.

    Just when you thought you'd heard it all....

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if you could kill Covid by blowing hairdryer up nose

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if people could kill Covid by blowing a hairdryer up their nose after he watched a YouTube video suggesting this.

    The then-PM shared the clip on a WhatsApp group including Government health experts and senior No10 officials. In a written statement to the Covid Inquiry, Dominic Cummings accused Mr Johnson of spreading misinformation during the pandemic.


    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-asked-scientists-you-31334180

    I mean, if I had access to important and knowledgeable scientists and there was a new disease going around, I bet I would ask some pretty dumb questions about it.

    Trump started musing out loud in a public press conference, which was the problem. I’m prepared to cut Boris some slack on this, which I am not often accustomed to do.
    Not even a cretin would begin to imagine blowing a hairdryer up your nose would do anything good.
  • TimS said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    So a plurality of Conservative voters think it is appropriate for Boris to be a commentator on GB news

    All depends on how you define it.

    A plurality and a majority of 58% don't agree that it is appropriate for "Boris" to be a commentator on GB news.
    I really don't see what the problem is. He's not an elected politician anymore.
    The idea is that Boris's ghost will haunt to the Tory Party for years, maybe decades, to come. Who knows how the future will transpire, but for the Tories whatever they say, think or do, a Boris-shaped shadow will loom large.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,558
    edited November 2023
    viewcode said:

    Andy_JS said:

    viewcode said:

    The collected Dr Who serials 1963-1996 is now on iPlayer. Hasn't got everything ("Thirty Years in the Tardis" is missing) but you can't have everything.

    Today's background music-while-I-work is "The Masque of Mandragora": not one of the famous ones but Baker and Sladen are on top form and it's only four episodes.

    The BBC putting so many shows on iPlayer is slightly annoying for anyone who's spent a lot of money on DVD collections.
    Pull them down while you can. You'll never know when they'll disappear.
    Good point. Also you have the unedited versions.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,091
    viewcode said:

    The collected Dr Who serials 1963-1996 is now on iPlayer. Hasn't got everything ("Thirty Years in the Tardis" is missing) but you can't have everything.

    Today's background music-while-I-work is "The Masque of Mandragora": not one of the famous ones but Baker and Sladen are on top form and it's only four episodes.

    (adopt Baker voice)
    Oh Sarah-Jane, I have missed you...
    (end Baker voice)

    There are points in this where her yelps are operatic: I swear to god she's covering octaves. They are both very good. The bits on film are great, the bits on video are sufficiently in shadow to cover up the rubbish. The hero is a science guy, referencing Galileo. The baddy is the court astrologer, who does "MWAH-HAH-HAH" in the best theatrical manner. Even the CSO/chromakey isn't bad. This is surprisingly good.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,090
    TimS said:

    148grss said:

    TimS said:

    FPT:

    148grss said:
    "An interesting article that also articulates some of my views over the past month that others here have been less than keen on:

    https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/no-human-being-can-exist/

    SAREE MAKDISI: No Human Being Can Exist

    RECENTLY, AN AUSTRALIAN-PALESTINIAN friend of mine was invited to appear on Australia’s national television network to discuss the situation in and around Gaza. His white interviewers posed all the usual questions: Can you defend what we’ve seen from Hamas militants? How has the Palestinian cause been helped by this violence? How can anyone defend the slaughter of young music lovers at a music festival? Do you defend Hamas? They probably expected a defensive reaction from him, but calmly, in his smooth Australian-accented English, my friend had already turned the interview on its head. “I want to know why I’m here today, and why I haven’t been here for the past year,” he said gently.

    Apologies if it has already been shared - I've had a busy few days at work so far this week, and so have been more absent then straight after October 7th"


    Palestine gets orders of magnitude more political attention and news coverage than most other long term conflicts around the world. I can understand why the interviewee may consider that's still not enough, because they have suffered for decades at the hands both of Israel and their Arab neighbours, but under the surface of this article are some assumptions about race and Israel which could be lifted straight from Baddiel's Jews don't count book.

    "His white interviewers" tees up the narrative early on. Then in multiple places in the article the complaint is that the Australian media care more about Jewish lives than Palestinian ones. And finally, there comes a list of historical events where oppressed groups attacked white colonisers.

    The premise of the article is that Jews are "white", that they are therefore just another form of European imperialist, their own history of oppression and genocide is therefore irrelevant, and the violent opposition to the very existence of Israel since its inception is just another example of anti-imperialism.

    This goes to the nub of some far left arguments about Palestine. It's different from right wing anti-semitism because it's grounded in the idea that Jews don't count. They are "culturally white". Alien implants in the Middle East. They don't belong there. etc.

    Also FPT:

    The premise of the article is not that Jews are white, it is that Israel is a settler colonialist project, and the Palestinians are oppressed by the state of Israel under that framework.

    If you watched the interview discussed, it is very clear why he is making the argument that Israeli lives are given more value than Palestinian lives; because in that interview his friend remarks how he is never asked to appear to discuss Palestinian deaths, or to condemn the IDF for them, but is asked to discuss Israeli deaths and condemn Hamas. Just like the interview on ITV where a man talked about his family being killed by Israeli bombs and the interviewer "clarifying" that Israel has assured people it is only targeting Hamas and the interviewee having to clarify that of the 21 members of his family killed, over half were children, and they were not members of Hamas.

    Edit: Here is his further clarification that he didn't "lose" 21 members of his family

    https://twitter.com/alnaouqa/status/1719637340056858921
    I would argue that describing the state of Israel as a settler colonialist project only makes sense if one sees Jews as white and therefore a cultural implant not belonging in the Middle East.
    Most of the Jewish population of the nascent Israel were immigrants to the area from Europe. They used colonial language in describing their endeavour. I think it simplistic myself to describe Israel as a “settler colonialist project”, but I understand the reasoning behind that. Doing so does not require one to “see” Jews as white. Doing so does not mean that you see all Jews as being alien to the Middle East, but it is drawing attention to the Zionist immigrants being immigrants, people whose distant ancestors had come from the Middle East but who were not themselves from the area.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497
    dr_spyn said:

    https://twitter.com/ChrisMusson/status/1719727130467062138

    It appears that Kate Forbes has kept messages unlike the former First Minister.

    This is just a guess, but is it possible that Kate Forbes knows the rule about never ever putting into writing/digital form/recording anything at all you don't want your mother/the Daily Mail/the police/a public enquiry to see.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,091
    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    The collected Dr Who serials 1963-1996 is now on iPlayer. Hasn't got everything ("Thirty Years in the Tardis" is missing) but you can't have everything.

    Today's background music-while-I-work is "The Masque of Mandragora": not one of the famous ones but Baker and Sladen are on top form and it's only four episodes.

    (adopt Baker voice)
    Oh Sarah-Jane, I have missed you...
    (end Baker voice)

    There are points in this where her yelps are operatic: I swear to god she's covering octaves. They are both very good. The bits on film are great, the bits on video are sufficiently in shadow to cover up the rubbish. The hero is a science guy, referencing Galileo. The baddy is the court astrologer, who does "MWAH-HAH-HAH" in the best theatrical manner. Even the CSO/chromakey isn't bad. This is surprisingly good.
    Sarah-Jane: What was going on back there in the temple, Doctor?
    Baker: Subthermal recombination of ionised plasma.
    Sarah-Jane: Oh simple. I should have thought of that

    (squeeness intensifies)
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497
    TimS said:

    148grss said:

    TimS said:

    FPT:

    148grss said:
    "An interesting article that also articulates some of my views over the past month that others here have been less than keen on:

    https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/no-human-being-can-exist/

    SAREE MAKDISI: No Human Being Can Exist

    RECENTLY, AN AUSTRALIAN-PALESTINIAN friend of mine was invited to appear on Australia’s national television network to discuss the situation in and around Gaza. His white interviewers posed all the usual questions: Can you defend what we’ve seen from Hamas militants? How has the Palestinian cause been helped by this violence? How can anyone defend the slaughter of young music lovers at a music festival? Do you defend Hamas? They probably expected a defensive reaction from him, but calmly, in his smooth Australian-accented English, my friend had already turned the interview on its head. “I want to know why I’m here today, and why I haven’t been here for the past year,” he said gently.

    Apologies if it has already been shared - I've had a busy few days at work so far this week, and so have been more absent then straight after October 7th"


    Palestine gets orders of magnitude more political attention and news coverage than most other long term conflicts around the world. I can understand why the interviewee may consider that's still not enough, because they have suffered for decades at the hands both of Israel and their Arab neighbours, but under the surface of this article are some assumptions about race and Israel which could be lifted straight from Baddiel's Jews don't count book.

    "His white interviewers" tees up the narrative early on. Then in multiple places in the article the complaint is that the Australian media care more about Jewish lives than Palestinian ones. And finally, there comes a list of historical events where oppressed groups attacked white colonisers.

    The premise of the article is that Jews are "white", that they are therefore just another form of European imperialist, their own history of oppression and genocide is therefore irrelevant, and the violent opposition to the very existence of Israel since its inception is just another example of anti-imperialism.

    This goes to the nub of some far left arguments about Palestine. It's different from right wing anti-semitism because it's grounded in the idea that Jews don't count. They are "culturally white". Alien implants in the Middle East. They don't belong there. etc.

    Also FPT:

    The premise of the article is not that Jews are white, it is that Israel is a settler colonialist project, and the Palestinians are oppressed by the state of Israel under that framework.

    If you watched the interview discussed, it is very clear why he is making the argument that Israeli lives are given more value than Palestinian lives; because in that interview his friend remarks how he is never asked to appear to discuss Palestinian deaths, or to condemn the IDF for them, but is asked to discuss Israeli deaths and condemn Hamas. Just like the interview on ITV where a man talked about his family being killed by Israeli bombs and the interviewer "clarifying" that Israel has assured people it is only targeting Hamas and the interviewee having to clarify that of the 21 members of his family killed, over half were children, and they were not members of Hamas.

    Edit: Here is his further clarification that he didn't "lose" 21 members of his family

    https://twitter.com/alnaouqa/status/1719637340056858921
    I would argue that describing the state of Israel as a settler colonialist project only makes sense if one sees Jews as white and therefore a cultural implant not belonging in the Middle East.
    The world as a whole is a settler colonialist project. Example abound and are very diverse. The Islamic conquest of Jerusalem is a nice example. England too (the clue is in the name). So is New Zealand, very recent of course. Israel more recent still.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,789

    Those Britain Trump comparisons weren't far off in hindsight.

    Just when you thought you'd heard it all....

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if you could kill Covid by blowing hairdryer up nose

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if people could kill Covid by blowing a hairdryer up their nose after he watched a YouTube video suggesting this.

    The then-PM shared the clip on a WhatsApp group including Government health experts and senior No10 officials. In a written statement to the Covid Inquiry, Dominic Cummings accused Mr Johnson of spreading misinformation during the pandemic.


    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-asked-scientists-you-31334180

    I mean, if I had access to important and knowledgeable scientists and there was a new disease going around, I bet I would ask some pretty dumb questions about it.

    Trump started musing out loud in a public press conference, which was the problem. I’m prepared to cut Boris some slack on this, which I am not often accustomed to do.
    I agree I would ask some dumb questions as well, but not that dumb. I mean on asking the question did he expect them all to go 'Now why didn't we think of that? World pandemic solved. Cancel the vaccines. All these people died needlessly.'

    PS Why isn't it appropriate for him to go on GB News? I'm struggling to think of any objections. Seems a good place for him. Out of harms way.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,090

    They used colonial language in describing their endeavour.

    Consider this paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2201473X.2019.1646849

    ABSTRACT This article examines how settler colonial narratives, structures and relations constitute development. The article offers a new concept, settler development, to show how development, as a colonial template of liberal rule and economic improvement, and settler colonialism, augment and imprint each other. To understand how settler development works, I present a case study that analyzes settler texts that circulate between Zionists in the United States and in Palestine before 1948. In particular, David Ben-Gurion, leader of Jewish settlement in Palestine, and writers in the Jewish American magazine, Jewish Frontier, sought to justify settlement based on economic productivity to appeal to the British to hand over the Mandate to settlers, not indigenous Palestinians. These circulating discourses valorized the ‘pioneer’ as the quintessential subject of settler development who is assumed to have a right over indigenous land through their ability to improve economic productivity. The article combines settler colonial and critical development studies to suggest creative analyses of the way that development is epistemologically linked to the networks of settler colonialism.
  • On topic, it isn't inappropriate for a rent-a-gob commentator who has been sacked for dishonesty on several occasions to be given a job at GB News. They are a private company and that's basically their recruitment strategy.

    What was inappropriate was the same bloke being given a job as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. But that's not GB News' fault - it's on the Conservative Party and the voting public.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175

    FPT Kindertransport memorial just outside Liverpool Street station:

    image

    Just like all of those Hamas terrorists screaming for the extermination of Israel who Jeremy Corbyn shared platforms with, I am sure that this statue is just coincidental to the choice of station...
    Actually, on this occasion, I reckon it probably was coincidence. My guess is Liverpool Street was convenient for most of the people there.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275
    edited November 2023
    Andy_JS said:

    "Boris was right – older people should have been given a choice over lockdown
    It horrified me that my grandchildren might be disadvantaged into the indefinite future in order (possibly) to protect me from – what?
    Janet Daley"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/01/boris-was-right-older-people-covid-lockdown/

    Janet Daley , another Bozo cult member that can’t accept that he couldn’t care less how many older people might die . The point isn’t the choice but his couldn’t care less attitude .
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    Andy_JS said:

    viewcode said:

    The collected Dr Who serials 1963-1996 is now on iPlayer. Hasn't got everything ("Thirty Years in the Tardis" is missing) but you can't have everything.

    Today's background music-while-I-work is "The Masque of Mandragora": not one of the famous ones but Baker and Sladen are on top form and it's only four episodes.

    The BBC putting so many shows on iPlayer is slightly annoying for anyone who's spent a lot of money on DVD collections.
    Or indeed someone who pays for Amazon Prime to watch them via Britbox...
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497
    kjh said:

    Those Britain Trump comparisons weren't far off in hindsight.

    Just when you thought you'd heard it all....

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if you could kill Covid by blowing hairdryer up nose

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if people could kill Covid by blowing a hairdryer up their nose after he watched a YouTube video suggesting this.

    The then-PM shared the clip on a WhatsApp group including Government health experts and senior No10 officials. In a written statement to the Covid Inquiry, Dominic Cummings accused Mr Johnson of spreading misinformation during the pandemic.


    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-asked-scientists-you-31334180

    I mean, if I had access to important and knowledgeable scientists and there was a new disease going around, I bet I would ask some pretty dumb questions about it.

    Trump started musing out loud in a public press conference, which was the problem. I’m prepared to cut Boris some slack on this, which I am not often accustomed to do.
    I agree I would ask some dumb questions as well, but not that dumb. I mean on asking the question did he expect them all to go 'Now why didn't we think of that? World pandemic solved. Cancel the vaccines. All these people died needlessly.'

    PS Why isn't it appropriate for him to go on GB News? I'm struggling to think of any objections. Seems a good place for him. Out of harms way.
    Scientific method is what it is. It discovers extraordinary things, and lots of links are not obvious. Who would think that there is a tendency for Parkinson's disease sufferers as a group to be less religious than average? Or that time doesn't pass when going at the speed of light? Or that the sun doesn't go round the earth?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,270

    On topic, it isn't inappropriate for a rent-a-gob commentator who has been sacked for dishonesty on several occasions to be given a job at GB News. They are a private company and that's basically their recruitment strategy.

    What was inappropriate was the same bloke being given a job as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. But that's not GB News' fault - it's on the Conservative Party and the voting public.

    +1

    To mix two topics, what about the former U.K. prime minister who is supposed to be a full time peace envoy in the Middle East, who has not been getting poorer for his efforts? And took the job after re-arranging the Middle East in a somewhat exciting fashion…
  • viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    viewcode said:

    The collected Dr Who serials 1963-1996 is now on iPlayer. Hasn't got everything ("Thirty Years in the Tardis" is missing) but you can't have everything.

    Today's background music-while-I-work is "The Masque of Mandragora": not one of the famous ones but Baker and Sladen are on top form and it's only four episodes.

    (adopt Baker voice)
    Oh Sarah-Jane, I have missed you...
    (end Baker voice)

    There are points in this where her yelps are operatic: I swear to god she's covering octaves. They are both very good. The bits on film are great, the bits on video are sufficiently in shadow to cover up the rubbish. The hero is a science guy, referencing Galileo. The baddy is the court astrologer, who does "MWAH-HAH-HAH" in the best theatrical manner. Even the CSO/chromakey isn't bad. This is surprisingly good.
    Sarah-Jane: What was going on back there in the temple, Doctor?
    Baker: Subthermal recombination of ionised plasma.
    Sarah-Jane: Oh simple. I should have thought of that

    (squeeness intensifies)
    Bit of a tautology there. A plasma is by definition ionised to some degree.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,526
    edited November 2023
    Scottish Election Study poll for Westminster (reported in the Guardian blog):
    Lab 38, SNP 32
    A fifth of SNP and Tory voters have switched to Labour, as have 38% of LibDems. The poll was taken after the SNP conference and the announcement of a council tax freeze.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,558
    edited November 2023
    South Africa and India look like the best two teams at the cricket world cup. Not sure who'll take the other two semi-final places.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/cricket/66858822
  • This is all getting a bit bizarre (and close to home) now:

    McDonald's condemns Birmingham restaurant mice protests

    "McDonald's has condemned what it called disinformation over the Israel-Gaza war after boxes of live mice were released in three of its restaurants in apparent protests.

    A video on social media showed customers at Birmingham's Star City restaurant jumping in shock as mice dyed in the colours of the Palestinian flag scurried near their feet on Monday."
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155
    edited November 2023
    A streamer, political activist and video essayist I enjoy has rephrased a Marxist quote to describe what she sees as the problem of modern political discourse: "They do not know it, but they do it" to "They know that it is nothing, but they are doing it". (Sie wissen es nicht, aber sie tun es to Sie wissen, dass es nichts ist, aber sie tun es)

    This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.

    Total agency is given to the state of Israel. The stated intent of "minimising civilian lives" is taken at face value. The actions of mass killing, child murder and displacement of Palestinians is waved away because of the need to prevent the mass killing, child murder and displacement of Israelis at the hand of Hamas is somehow logical, not paradoxical. The understanding that what made Hamas' attack so abhorrent was their targeting of civilians occurs at the same time as a defence of the indiscriminate bombing of North Gaza, of hospitals and refugee camps.

    It reaches heights of absurdity with people here suggesting that Israel is making a tactical mistake in the eyes of the international community, instead of using the impunity that the international community has given it to do an ethnic cleansing, when it does these things. That "Israel has the right to defend itself" when attacked, but that Gaza, under blockade from land air and sea from Israel since 2005, has no reason to produce such hatred that could explain the violence of Hamas.

    I can denounce Hamas and Israel, I can point to the causal acts and the historical parallels, the UN accounts over decades, that end up with this point we are in now. I can suggest what I think is the only political solution, one where Palestinian Arabs and Israeli citizens live in one state after truth and reconciliation happens. And the response boils down to "Palestinian Arabs / all Arabs are so inherently anti-Semitic that that is impossible", as if European anti-Semitism wasn't historically worse. I can argue against the genocide and ethnic cleansing happening now to the Palestinian people, and people here will defend it by pointing to the horrific genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jewish people in Europe and the Middle East that partially led to the creation of the state of Israel, as if that somehow makes sense.

    You cannot sincerely care about the value of life, of dead babies, of dying civilians, you cannot sincerely decry genocide, you cannot sincerely claim that the right to national self defence is sacrosanct and at the same time defend the acts of the state of Israel - what it has done to the Palestinians in the past, what it is doing now, and what it is proposing to do in the future.
  • Perhaps the way Johnson’s reputation has been shredded over the last two days explains why he decided to make his new home in that particular part of Oxfordshire 😀


  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,360

    Got a point though.

    "A man is quicker to forget the death of his father than the loss of his patrimony."
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,789
    algarkirk said:

    kjh said:

    Those Britain Trump comparisons weren't far off in hindsight.

    Just when you thought you'd heard it all....

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if you could kill Covid by blowing hairdryer up nose

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if people could kill Covid by blowing a hairdryer up their nose after he watched a YouTube video suggesting this.

    The then-PM shared the clip on a WhatsApp group including Government health experts and senior No10 officials. In a written statement to the Covid Inquiry, Dominic Cummings accused Mr Johnson of spreading misinformation during the pandemic.


    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-asked-scientists-you-31334180

    I mean, if I had access to important and knowledgeable scientists and there was a new disease going around, I bet I would ask some pretty dumb questions about it.

    Trump started musing out loud in a public press conference, which was the problem. I’m prepared to cut Boris some slack on this, which I am not often accustomed to do.
    I agree I would ask some dumb questions as well, but not that dumb. I mean on asking the question did he expect them all to go 'Now why didn't we think of that? World pandemic solved. Cancel the vaccines. All these people died needlessly.'

    PS Why isn't it appropriate for him to go on GB News? I'm struggling to think of any objections. Seems a good place for him. Out of harms way.
    Scientific method is what it is. It discovers extraordinary things, and lots of links are not obvious. Who would think that there is a tendency for Parkinson's disease sufferers as a group to be less religious than average? Or that time doesn't pass when going at the speed of light? Or that the sun doesn't go round the earth?
    OK so let's test this then. Given what we all knew at that time and if you had access to the top scientists at the time and if you had watched a youtube video suggesting blowing a hairdryer up your nose could cure Covid would you have asked the question and shared the clip with them? I mean really would you have (other than as a joke)?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,191
    Andy_JS said:

    South Africa and India look like the best two teams at the cricket world cup. Not sure who'll take the other two semi-final places.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/cricket/66858822

    Assuming SA win today the table/potential points are as follows:

    India 12
    SA 12
    NZ Curr 8 Max 12
    Aus Curr 8 Max 14
    Pak Curr 6 Max 10
    Afgh Curr 6 Max 12 (RR Can't conceivably catch India)
    SL Curr 4 Max 10
    NL Curr 4 Max 10
    Bangladesh Curr 2 Max 6
    England Curr 2 Max 8

    So South Africa and India are definitely through.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,360
    148grss said:

    A streamer, political activist and video essayist I enjoy has rephrased a Marxist quote to describe what she sees as the problem of modern political discourse: "They do not know it, but they do it" to "They know that it is nothing, but they are doing it". (Sie wissen es nicht, aber sie tun es to Sie wissen, dass es nichts ist, aber sie tun es)

    This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.

    Total agency is given to the state of Israel. The stated intent of "minimising civilian lives" is taken at face value. The actions of mass killing, child murder and displacement of Palestinians is waved away because of the need to prevent the mass killing, child murder and displacement of Israelis at the hand of Hamas is somehow logical, not paradoxical. The understanding that what made Hamas' attack so abhorrent was their targeting of civilians occurs at the same time as a defence of the indiscriminate bombing of North Gaza, of hospitals and refugee camps.

    It reaches heights of absurdity with people here suggesting that Israel is making a tactical mistake in the eyes of the international community, instead of using the impunity that the international community has given it to do an ethnic cleansing, when it does these things. That "Israel has the right to defend itself" when attacked, but that Gaza, under blockade from land air and sea from Israel since 2005, has no reason to produce such hatred that could explain the violence of Hamas.

    I can denounce Hamas and Israel, I can point to the causal acts and the historical parallels, the UN accounts over decades, that end up with this point we are in now. I can suggest what I think is the only political solution, one where Palestinian Arabs and Israeli citizens live in one state after truth and reconciliation happens. And the response boils down to "Palestinian Arabs / all Arabs are so inherently anti-Semitic that that is impossible", as if European anti-Semitism wasn't historically worse. I can argue against the genocide and ethnic cleansing happening now to the Palestinian people, and people here will defend it by pointing to the horrific genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jewish people in Europe and the Middle East that partially led to the creation of the state of Israel, as if that somehow makes sense.

    You cannot sincerely care about the value of life, of dead babies, of dying civilians, you cannot sincerely decry genocide, you cannot sincerely claim that the right to national self defence is sacrosanct and at the same time defend the acts of the state of Israel - what it has done to the Palestinians in the past, what it is doing now, and what it is proposing to do in the future.

    Virulent Arab anti-semitism *is* a reality , whatever you may claim.

    Even if one accepts the premise that original sin rests with the Jews, for migrating to the region, from the 1890's onwards, we are where we are.
  • Those Britain Trump comparisons weren't far off in hindsight.

    Just when you thought you'd heard it all....

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if you could kill Covid by blowing hairdryer up nose

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if people could kill Covid by blowing a hairdryer up their nose after he watched a YouTube video suggesting this.

    The then-PM shared the clip on a WhatsApp group including Government health experts and senior No10 officials. In a written statement to the Covid Inquiry, Dominic Cummings accused Mr Johnson of spreading misinformation during the pandemic.


    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-asked-scientists-you-31334180

    Well, the usual Remoaner naysayers are critical of Johnson over this idea.

    But imagine the commercial possibilities had he succeeded.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,437

    Those Britain Trump comparisons weren't far off in hindsight.

    Just when you thought you'd heard it all....

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if you could kill Covid by blowing hairdryer up nose

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if people could kill Covid by blowing a hairdryer up their nose after he watched a YouTube video suggesting this.

    The then-PM shared the clip on a WhatsApp group including Government health experts and senior No10 officials. In a written statement to the Covid Inquiry, Dominic Cummings accused Mr Johnson of spreading misinformation during the pandemic.


    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-asked-scientists-you-31334180

    I don't see that the question is at all unreasonable. One of the biggest breakthroughs in Covid treatment was an Israeli lady inventing a nasal spray that could kill the Covid virus whilst it incubated, which it does for (afaicr) 24 hours before symptoms manifest.
    https://www.timesofisrael.com/life-saving-nose-spray-that-kills-99-9-of-viruses-begins-production-in-israel/

    The hairdryer up the nose seems a rudimentary non-chemical form of the same principle, and who knows, perhaps depriving the virus of moisture during its incubation stage could have an effect. Personally I'm glad Boris wanted to find the answer, and wasn't afraid to look silly to find out. I hope he got more response than sneering, though it would appear not.

    It is a very clever piece of marketing by the pharmaceutical industry to persuade us all that unless a treatment has cost billions to create, and comes with an expensive proprietary price tag, it's not efficacious.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,592
    148grss said:

    A streamer, political activist and video essayist I enjoy has rephrased a Marxist quote to describe what she sees as the problem of modern political discourse: "They do not know it, but they do it" to "They know that it is nothing, but they are doing it". (Sie wissen es nicht, aber sie tun es to Sie wissen, dass es nichts ist, aber sie tun es)

    This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.

    Total agency is given to the state of Israel. The stated intent of "minimising civilian lives" is taken at face value. The actions of mass killing, child murder and displacement of Palestinians is waved away because of the need to prevent the mass killing, child murder and displacement of Israelis at the hand of Hamas is somehow logical, not paradoxical. The understanding that what made Hamas' attack so abhorrent was their targeting of civilians occurs at the same time as a defence of the indiscriminate bombing of North Gaza, of hospitals and refugee camps.

    It reaches heights of absurdity with people here suggesting that Israel is making a tactical mistake in the eyes of the international community, instead of using the impunity that the international community has given it to do an ethnic cleansing, when it does these things. That "Israel has the right to defend itself" when attacked, but that Gaza, under blockade from land air and sea from Israel since 2005, has no reason to produce such hatred that could explain the violence of Hamas.

    I can denounce Hamas and Israel, I can point to the causal acts and the historical parallels, the UN accounts over decades, that end up with this point we are in now. I can suggest what I think is the only political solution, one where Palestinian Arabs and Israeli citizens live in one state after truth and reconciliation happens. And the response boils down to "Palestinian Arabs / all Arabs are so inherently anti-Semitic that that is impossible", as if European anti-Semitism wasn't historically worse. I can argue against the genocide and ethnic cleansing happening now to the Palestinian people, and people here will defend it by pointing to the horrific genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jewish people in Europe and the Middle East that partially led to the creation of the state of Israel, as if that somehow makes sense.

    You cannot sincerely care about the value of life, of dead babies, of dying civilians, you cannot sincerely decry genocide, you cannot sincerely claim that the right to national self defence is sacrosanct and at the same time defend the acts of the state of Israel - what it has done to the Palestinians in the past, what it is doing now, and what it is proposing to do in the future.

    "...h are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians."

    No. It's perfectly possible to see that the attack had 'causes' (multiple); but also to say that that is essentially irrelevant. Hamas did what they did not because of the Palestinian 'cause'; but because they are anti-Semitic, homophobic and many other nasty things. Oh. and they also like power and money.

    That is what you are incapable of seeing. Hamas is not dong this for the Palestinians; or for some sort of historic revenge. They are doing it because they are religious zealots who are about as far from what a leftist should see as 'good' as it is possible to get. But common enemies makes odd friends.

    Your 'one state solution' is also one that will see genocide of the Jews in it; and you don't really address that. How can Jews live in a Hamas-led state? And if you don't think it'd be run by Hamas (or Iran, through proxies), how do you think you'll get them to give up power?

    You attack Israel for what it is 'proposing' to do. You ignore what Hamas, Iran and others want to do to Israel.

    And Jews.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,161
    Fishing said:

    Cicero said:

    moonshine said:

    Fishing said:

    HYUFD said:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/10/28/liz-truss-slowly-winning-argument/

    Liz Truss is slowly winning the argument - let's just rejoice at that news.

    Her problem was she slashed tax with Kwarteng without also deep cuts to spending, hence the markets crashed and inflation and interest rates and borrowing grew
    I don't think that was the main problem - France, Italy, Japan and the United States get away with much higher debt levels than we would have reached in the medium term with her 1.5% of GDP tax cuts. She signalled over the summer that she was going to cut taxes without cutting spending during the leadership campaign, and the markets shrugged, both at the time and when she was elected. I think the main reasons she got into trouble were fourfold.

    Firstly, she did everything at once, rather than be irresponsible slowly over decades, like those other countries. Secondly, she did so without publishing information. Markets hate uncertainty more than anything else, and for some reason they tend to assign a completely unrealistic and undeserved level of importance to government economic forecasts, which at the end of the day are no more than best guesses. Thirdly, her timing was extremely poor. She got into power just as the markets were less willing to fund endless government spending for free. Fourthly, Kwasi unwisely signalled that there was much more to come.

    Had she and Kwasi taken a more gradual approach, published credible forecasts, been elected a couple of years earlier and told the markets that the tax cuts were the last until we saw how they worked, the market reaction would have been very different I think.
    Just look at the deficits Biden is running and what he’s done to US bond yields. Truss was a moderate in comparison.
    This right wing revisionism on Truss, aside from being the equivalent of "its was not REAL Socialism", completely misses the point. The US holds a reserve currency, which Sterling is not, so this severely limits what polices Britain can offer versus the USA.

    The problem was not that the policy was ineptly presented, as some would have it. It was strategically simply unobtainable, and once the markets latched on to this, the UK Gilts market faced a limitless freefall. As a result, the UK pensions system went into cardiac arrest, and without the emergency action that was taken by the BoE, there would have been a major UK financial crisis on a par with the collapse of Creditanstalt in 1931.

    It was not poor presentation that killed Liz Truss´s premiership, it was the reckless incompetence of a government whose ideology was not rooted in economic or financial reality. It changed the idea that Britain would always be a responsible player- to the permanent weakening of our global reputation and credit rating. Truss may have had the shortest term as Prime Minister, but it was a total catastrophe while she was there, and it will take many years before the reputation of UK PLC in the global markets will fully recover, if it ever does.

    As for the Tory Party responsible for this fiasco? Hell mend them.
    Nonsense. The UK's reputation and credit rating has not been "permanently" damaged. Standard and Poor and Moody's restored the small cuts to our credit rating that they made in six months in S&P's case and one year in Moody's:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67175072

    UK 10 year gilts currently trade at 4.5%, compared with 4.9% with US 10 year Treasuries, despite higher inflation here:

    https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/bond/tmbmkgb-10y?countrycode=bx
    https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/bond/tmubmusd10y?countrycode=bx

    And our credit default swaps trade at lower levels than Canada's and the US's, much lower than Italy's though oddly slightly higher than France's:

    https://uk.investing.com/rates-bonds/world-cds

    It's absolutely right that Truss was no more irresponsible than Biden and Trump have been - her presentation and timing were disastrously bad.
    CDS swaps aren't just priced of likelihood of default, but also reflect underlying local interest rates and inflation. Hence why Japan, debt-to-GDP of 263% CDS's are priced at just 29.9bps, while Canada and the UK are priced much higher, despite much lower levels of debt.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155
    Sean_F said:

    148grss said:

    A streamer, political activist and video essayist I enjoy has rephrased a Marxist quote to describe what she sees as the problem of modern political discourse: "They do not know it, but they do it" to "They know that it is nothing, but they are doing it". (Sie wissen es nicht, aber sie tun es to Sie wissen, dass es nichts ist, aber sie tun es)

    This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.

    Total agency is given to the state of Israel. The stated intent of "minimising civilian lives" is taken at face value. The actions of mass killing, child murder and displacement of Palestinians is waved away because of the need to prevent the mass killing, child murder and displacement of Israelis at the hand of Hamas is somehow logical, not paradoxical. The understanding that what made Hamas' attack so abhorrent was their targeting of civilians occurs at the same time as a defence of the indiscriminate bombing of North Gaza, of hospitals and refugee camps.

    It reaches heights of absurdity with people here suggesting that Israel is making a tactical mistake in the eyes of the international community, instead of using the impunity that the international community has given it to do an ethnic cleansing, when it does these things. That "Israel has the right to defend itself" when attacked, but that Gaza, under blockade from land air and sea from Israel since 2005, has no reason to produce such hatred that could explain the violence of Hamas.

    I can denounce Hamas and Israel, I can point to the causal acts and the historical parallels, the UN accounts over decades, that end up with this point we are in now. I can suggest what I think is the only political solution, one where Palestinian Arabs and Israeli citizens live in one state after truth and reconciliation happens. And the response boils down to "Palestinian Arabs / all Arabs are so inherently anti-Semitic that that is impossible", as if European anti-Semitism wasn't historically worse. I can argue against the genocide and ethnic cleansing happening now to the Palestinian people, and people here will defend it by pointing to the horrific genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jewish people in Europe and the Middle East that partially led to the creation of the state of Israel, as if that somehow makes sense.

    You cannot sincerely care about the value of life, of dead babies, of dying civilians, you cannot sincerely decry genocide, you cannot sincerely claim that the right to national self defence is sacrosanct and at the same time defend the acts of the state of Israel - what it has done to the Palestinians in the past, what it is doing now, and what it is proposing to do in the future.

    Virulent Arab anti-semitism *is* a reality , whatever you may claim.

    Even if one accepts the premise that original sin rests with the Jews, for migrating to the region, from the 1890's onwards, we are where we are.
    European / Christian anti-Semitism is what, in part, led to the Holocaust - whilst it is still a problem I would argue we have managed to improve society somewhat. That you refuse to believe that Palestinians could do the same is, again, refusing to give them agency.

    And the original sin does not "rest with the Jews" because "Jews" is not the same as "the state of Israel" (because not all Jewish people are Israeli or represented by the state of Israel), nor is it the same as "Zionist" (because not all Zionists are Jewish people, nor are all Jewish people Zionists).
  • StarryStarry Posts: 111
    Sean_F said:

    148grss said:

    A streamer, political activist and video essayist I enjoy has rephrased a Marxist quote to describe what she sees as the problem of modern political discourse: "They do not know it, but they do it" to "They know that it is nothing, but they are doing it". (Sie wissen es nicht, aber sie tun es to Sie wissen, dass es nichts ist, aber sie tun es)

    This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.

    Total agency is given to the state of Israel. The stated intent of "minimising civilian lives" is taken at face value. The actions of mass killing, child murder and displacement of Palestinians is waved away because of the need to prevent the mass killing, child murder and displacement of Israelis at the hand of Hamas is somehow logical, not paradoxical. The understanding that what made Hamas' attack so abhorrent was their targeting of civilians occurs at the same time as a defence of the indiscriminate bombing of North Gaza, of hospitals and refugee camps.

    It reaches heights of absurdity with people here suggesting that Israel is making a tactical mistake in the eyes of the international community, instead of using the impunity that the international community has given it to do an ethnic cleansing, when it does these things. That "Israel has the right to defend itself" when attacked, but that Gaza, under blockade from land air and sea from Israel since 2005, has no reason to produce such hatred that could explain the violence of Hamas.

    I can denounce Hamas and Israel, I can point to the causal acts and the historical parallels, the UN accounts over decades, that end up with this point we are in now. I can suggest what I think is the only political solution, one where Palestinian Arabs and Israeli citizens live in one state after truth and reconciliation happens. And the response boils down to "Palestinian Arabs / all Arabs are so inherently anti-Semitic that that is impossible", as if European anti-Semitism wasn't historically worse. I can argue against the genocide and ethnic cleansing happening now to the Palestinian people, and people here will defend it by pointing to the horrific genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jewish people in Europe and the Middle East that partially led to the creation of the state of Israel, as if that somehow makes sense.

    You cannot sincerely care about the value of life, of dead babies, of dying civilians, you cannot sincerely decry genocide, you cannot sincerely claim that the right to national self defence is sacrosanct and at the same time defend the acts of the state of Israel - what it has done to the Palestinians in the past, what it is doing now, and what it is proposing to do in the future.

    Virulent Arab anti-semitism *is* a reality , whatever you may claimare.
    I thought this was a great point:
    "And the response boils down to "Palestinian Arabs / all Arabs are so inherently anti-Semitic that that is impossible", as if European anti-Semitism wasn't historically worse."
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,648
    148grss said:

    This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.

    If you were around in the 1930s you'd have been saying, "Look at what we've made the Germans do now!"
  • I wish the posters on both sides who are mind readers and can deduce that those with opposite views are in favour of genocide or don't care about the lives of Israelis/Palestinians/children or whoever/whatever would give it a rest.

    It does nothing to strengthen your arguments, merely weakens them. And this applies to both sides. I regularly read a post from someone that is passionate and well written, might even agree with 80-90% of it and then the inevitable childish, counter productive, insulting and frankly boring sign off.

    Please assume at least neutral intent from those you disagree with. The vast vast majority of the time on here it will be good intent. And this is definitely both sides doing the same thing. Continue passionately argue your cases but drop that last paragraph, please.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,360
    148grss said:

    Sean_F said:

    148grss said:

    A streamer, political activist and video essayist I enjoy has rephrased a Marxist quote to describe what she sees as the problem of modern political discourse: "They do not know it, but they do it" to "They know that it is nothing, but they are doing it". (Sie wissen es nicht, aber sie tun es to Sie wissen, dass es nichts ist, aber sie tun es)

    This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.

    Total agency is given to the state of Israel. The stated intent of "minimising civilian lives" is taken at face value. The actions of mass killing, child murder and displacement of Palestinians is waved away because of the need to prevent the mass killing, child murder and displacement of Israelis at the hand of Hamas is somehow logical, not paradoxical. The understanding that what made Hamas' attack so abhorrent was their targeting of civilians occurs at the same time as a defence of the indiscriminate bombing of North Gaza, of hospitals and refugee camps.

    It reaches heights of absurdity with people here suggesting that Israel is making a tactical mistake in the eyes of the international community, instead of using the impunity that the international community has given it to do an ethnic cleansing, when it does these things. That "Israel has the right to defend itself" when attacked, but that Gaza, under blockade from land air and sea from Israel since 2005, has no reason to produce such hatred that could explain the violence of Hamas.

    I can denounce Hamas and Israel, I can point to the causal acts and the historical parallels, the UN accounts over decades, that end up with this point we are in now. I can suggest what I think is the only political solution, one where Palestinian Arabs and Israeli citizens live in one state after truth and reconciliation happens. And the response boils down to "Palestinian Arabs / all Arabs are so inherently anti-Semitic that that is impossible", as if European anti-Semitism wasn't historically worse. I can argue against the genocide and ethnic cleansing happening now to the Palestinian people, and people here will defend it by pointing to the horrific genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jewish people in Europe and the Middle East that partially led to the creation of the state of Israel, as if that somehow makes sense.

    You cannot sincerely care about the value of life, of dead babies, of dying civilians, you cannot sincerely decry genocide, you cannot sincerely claim that the right to national self defence is sacrosanct and at the same time defend the acts of the state of Israel - what it has done to the Palestinians in the past, what it is doing now, and what it is proposing to do in the future.

    Virulent Arab anti-semitism *is* a reality , whatever you may claim.

    Even if one accepts the premise that original sin rests with the Jews, for migrating to the region, from the 1890's onwards, we are where we are.
    European / Christian anti-Semitism is what, in part, led to the Holocaust - whilst it is still a problem I would argue we have managed to improve society somewhat. That you refuse to believe that Palestinians could do the same is, again, refusing to give them agency.

    And the original sin does not "rest with the Jews" because "Jews" is not the same as "the state of Israel" (because not all Jewish people are Israeli or represented by the state of Israel), nor is it the same as "Zionist" (because not all Zionists are Jewish people, nor are all Jewish people Zionists).
    Perhaps in a hundred years' time, anti-semitism in the Middle East will be at current European levels. But, that's a long way off.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,437

    148grss said:

    This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.

    If you were around in the 1930s you'd have been saying, "Look at what we've made the Germans do now!"
    Which would at least in part have been true. The treatment of Germany at Versailles was a big part of the reason Hitler's actions were tolerated for so long.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155

    148grss said:

    A streamer, political activist and video essayist I enjoy has rephrased a Marxist quote to describe what she sees as the problem of modern political discourse: "They do not know it, but they do it" to "They know that it is nothing, but they are doing it". (Sie wissen es nicht, aber sie tun es to Sie wissen, dass es nichts ist, aber sie tun es)

    This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.

    Total agency is given to the state of Israel. The stated intent of "minimising civilian lives" is taken at face value. The actions of mass killing, child murder and displacement of Palestinians is waved away because of the need to prevent the mass killing, child murder and displacement of Israelis at the hand of Hamas is somehow logical, not paradoxical. The understanding that what made Hamas' attack so abhorrent was their targeting of civilians occurs at the same time as a defence of the indiscriminate bombing of North Gaza, of hospitals and refugee camps.

    It reaches heights of absurdity with people here suggesting that Israel is making a tactical mistake in the eyes of the international community, instead of using the impunity that the international community has given it to do an ethnic cleansing, when it does these things. That "Israel has the right to defend itself" when attacked, but that Gaza, under blockade from land air and sea from Israel since 2005, has no reason to produce such hatred that could explain the violence of Hamas.

    I can denounce Hamas and Israel, I can point to the causal acts and the historical parallels, the UN accounts over decades, that end up with this point we are in now. I can suggest what I think is the only political solution, one where Palestinian Arabs and Israeli citizens live in one state after truth and reconciliation happens. And the response boils down to "Palestinian Arabs / all Arabs are so inherently anti-Semitic that that is impossible", as if European anti-Semitism wasn't historically worse. I can argue against the genocide and ethnic cleansing happening now to the Palestinian people, and people here will defend it by pointing to the horrific genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jewish people in Europe and the Middle East that partially led to the creation of the state of Israel, as if that somehow makes sense.

    You cannot sincerely care about the value of life, of dead babies, of dying civilians, you cannot sincerely decry genocide, you cannot sincerely claim that the right to national self defence is sacrosanct and at the same time defend the acts of the state of Israel - what it has done to the Palestinians in the past, what it is doing now, and what it is proposing to do in the future.

    "...h are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians."

    No. It's perfectly possible to see that the attack had 'causes' (multiple); but also to say that that is essentially irrelevant. Hamas did what they did not because of the Palestinian 'cause'; but because they are anti-Semitic, homophobic and many other nasty things. Oh. and they also like power and money.

    That is what you are incapable of seeing. Hamas is not dong this for the Palestinians; or for some sort of historic revenge. They are doing it because they are religious zealots who are about as far from what a leftist should see as 'good' as it is possible to get. But common enemies makes odd friends.

    Your 'one state solution' is also one that will see genocide of the Jews in it; and you don't really address that. How can Jews live in a Hamas-led state? And if you don't think it'd be run by Hamas (or Iran, through proxies), how do you think you'll get them to give up power?

    You attack Israel for what it is 'proposing' to do. You ignore what Hamas, Iran and others want to do to Israel.

    And Jews.
    Sie wissen, dass es nichts ist, aber sie tun es

    I already address the issue of "a one state solution being a genocide of the Jews" by a) pointing out that European anti-Semitism has historically been much worse and we have manages to create a society that is much more tolerant of Jewish people, if still harbouring anti-Semites and b) that truth and reconciliation between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli citizens should occur. Do you think that statement somehow endorses the killing of all Jewish Israeli citizens? Or the creation of a Hamas-led state?

    I have already expressed why I dismiss the idea that Hamas is only motivated by anti-Semitism - both above and elsewhere - and until you can explain why that is their only motivation outside of "because they are evil", I am not going to treat it like a grown up argument, because it isn't.

    What single thing did I write here, or elsewhere, that suggests I believe Hamas is "good"? Explicable, given the context, yes. But good?

    I do, above, denounce what Israel is proposing to do. I will also denounce any future violence aimed at civilians that may come from any state or non state actor that is not Israel. I can do both. But you cannot do the first.

    And Israel is, categorically, not a proxy for all Jewish people.
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155
    Starry said:

    Sean_F said:

    148grss said:

    A streamer, political activist and video essayist I enjoy has rephrased a Marxist quote to describe what she sees as the problem of modern political discourse: "They do not know it, but they do it" to "They know that it is nothing, but they are doing it". (Sie wissen es nicht, aber sie tun es to Sie wissen, dass es nichts ist, aber sie tun es)

    This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.

    Total agency is given to the state of Israel. The stated intent of "minimising civilian lives" is taken at face value. The actions of mass killing, child murder and displacement of Palestinians is waved away because of the need to prevent the mass killing, child murder and displacement of Israelis at the hand of Hamas is somehow logical, not paradoxical. The understanding that what made Hamas' attack so abhorrent was their targeting of civilians occurs at the same time as a defence of the indiscriminate bombing of North Gaza, of hospitals and refugee camps.

    It reaches heights of absurdity with people here suggesting that Israel is making a tactical mistake in the eyes of the international community, instead of using the impunity that the international community has given it to do an ethnic cleansing, when it does these things. That "Israel has the right to defend itself" when attacked, but that Gaza, under blockade from land air and sea from Israel since 2005, has no reason to produce such hatred that could explain the violence of Hamas.

    I can denounce Hamas and Israel, I can point to the causal acts and the historical parallels, the UN accounts over decades, that end up with this point we are in now. I can suggest what I think is the only political solution, one where Palestinian Arabs and Israeli citizens live in one state after truth and reconciliation happens. And the response boils down to "Palestinian Arabs / all Arabs are so inherently anti-Semitic that that is impossible", as if European anti-Semitism wasn't historically worse. I can argue against the genocide and ethnic cleansing happening now to the Palestinian people, and people here will defend it by pointing to the horrific genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jewish people in Europe and the Middle East that partially led to the creation of the state of Israel, as if that somehow makes sense.

    You cannot sincerely care about the value of life, of dead babies, of dying civilians, you cannot sincerely decry genocide, you cannot sincerely claim that the right to national self defence is sacrosanct and at the same time defend the acts of the state of Israel - what it has done to the Palestinians in the past, what it is doing now, and what it is proposing to do in the future.

    Virulent Arab anti-semitism *is* a reality , whatever you may claimare.
    I thought this was a great point:
    "And the response boils down to "Palestinian Arabs / all Arabs are so inherently anti-Semitic that that is impossible", as if European anti-Semitism wasn't historically worse."
    I can't tell if you mean you think Sean_Fs response or my point was great, based on your phrasing.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,648
    148grss said:

    Sean_F said:

    148grss said:

    A streamer, political activist and video essayist I enjoy has rephrased a Marxist quote to describe what she sees as the problem of modern political discourse: "They do not know it, but they do it" to "They know that it is nothing, but they are doing it". (Sie wissen es nicht, aber sie tun es to Sie wissen, dass es nichts ist, aber sie tun es)

    This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.

    Total agency is given to the state of Israel. The stated intent of "minimising civilian lives" is taken at face value. The actions of mass killing, child murder and displacement of Palestinians is waved away because of the need to prevent the mass killing, child murder and displacement of Israelis at the hand of Hamas is somehow logical, not paradoxical. The understanding that what made Hamas' attack so abhorrent was their targeting of civilians occurs at the same time as a defence of the indiscriminate bombing of North Gaza, of hospitals and refugee camps.

    It reaches heights of absurdity with people here suggesting that Israel is making a tactical mistake in the eyes of the international community, instead of using the impunity that the international community has given it to do an ethnic cleansing, when it does these things. That "Israel has the right to defend itself" when attacked, but that Gaza, under blockade from land air and sea from Israel since 2005, has no reason to produce such hatred that could explain the violence of Hamas.

    I can denounce Hamas and Israel, I can point to the causal acts and the historical parallels, the UN accounts over decades, that end up with this point we are in now. I can suggest what I think is the only political solution, one where Palestinian Arabs and Israeli citizens live in one state after truth and reconciliation happens. And the response boils down to "Palestinian Arabs / all Arabs are so inherently anti-Semitic that that is impossible", as if European anti-Semitism wasn't historically worse. I can argue against the genocide and ethnic cleansing happening now to the Palestinian people, and people here will defend it by pointing to the horrific genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jewish people in Europe and the Middle East that partially led to the creation of the state of Israel, as if that somehow makes sense.

    You cannot sincerely care about the value of life, of dead babies, of dying civilians, you cannot sincerely decry genocide, you cannot sincerely claim that the right to national self defence is sacrosanct and at the same time defend the acts of the state of Israel - what it has done to the Palestinians in the past, what it is doing now, and what it is proposing to do in the future.

    Virulent Arab anti-semitism *is* a reality , whatever you may claim.

    Even if one accepts the premise that original sin rests with the Jews, for migrating to the region, from the 1890's onwards, we are where we are.
    European / Christian anti-Semitism is what, in part, led to the Holocaust - whilst it is still a problem I would argue we have managed to improve society somewhat. That you refuse to believe that Palestinians could do the same is, again, refusing to give them agency.

    And the original sin does not "rest with the Jews" because "Jews" is not the same as "the state of Israel" (because not all Jewish people are Israeli or represented by the state of Israel), nor is it the same as "Zionist" (because not all Zionists are Jewish people, nor are all Jewish people Zionists).
    You seem to be misusing the word agency.

    You criticise others for assigning "total agency to the state of Israel" but that's exactly what you are doing by treating everything that happens as a function of the actions of the Israeli state.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497
    kjh said:

    algarkirk said:

    kjh said:

    Those Britain Trump comparisons weren't far off in hindsight.

    Just when you thought you'd heard it all....

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if you could kill Covid by blowing hairdryer up nose

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if people could kill Covid by blowing a hairdryer up their nose after he watched a YouTube video suggesting this.

    The then-PM shared the clip on a WhatsApp group including Government health experts and senior No10 officials. In a written statement to the Covid Inquiry, Dominic Cummings accused Mr Johnson of spreading misinformation during the pandemic.


    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-asked-scientists-you-31334180

    I mean, if I had access to important and knowledgeable scientists and there was a new disease going around, I bet I would ask some pretty dumb questions about it.

    Trump started musing out loud in a public press conference, which was the problem. I’m prepared to cut Boris some slack on this, which I am not often accustomed to do.
    I agree I would ask some dumb questions as well, but not that dumb. I mean on asking the question did he expect them all to go 'Now why didn't we think of that? World pandemic solved. Cancel the vaccines. All these people died needlessly.'

    PS Why isn't it appropriate for him to go on GB News? I'm struggling to think of any objections. Seems a good place for him. Out of harms way.
    Scientific method is what it is. It discovers extraordinary things, and lots of links are not obvious. Who would think that there is a tendency for Parkinson's disease sufferers as a group to be less religious than average? Or that time doesn't pass when going at the speed of light? Or that the sun doesn't go round the earth?
    OK so let's test this then. Given what we all knew at that time and if you had access to the top scientists at the time and if you had watched a youtube video suggesting blowing a hairdryer up your nose could cure Covid would you have asked the question and shared the clip with them? I mean really would you have (other than as a joke)?
    No. But Boris would. You can't beat empirical method. Maybe Sextus Empiricus was on the syllabus at Oxford.

  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,329
    algarkirk said:

    dr_spyn said:

    https://twitter.com/ChrisMusson/status/1719727130467062138

    It appears that Kate Forbes has kept messages unlike the former First Minister.

    This is just a guess, but is it possible that Kate Forbes knows the rule about never ever putting into writing/digital form/recording anything at all you don't want your mother/the Daily Mail/the police/a public enquiry to see.
    she was not in the clique so be few revelations in there
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,405

    148grss said:

    This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.

    If you were around in the 1930s you'd have been saying, "Look at what we've made the Germans do now!"
    Which would at least in part have been true. The treatment of Germany at Versailles was a big part of the reason Hitler's actions were tolerated for so long.
    J'Accuse.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,329

    This is all getting a bit bizarre (and close to home) now:

    McDonald's condemns Birmingham restaurant mice protests

    "McDonald's has condemned what it called disinformation over the Israel-Gaza war after boxes of live mice were released in three of its restaurants in apparent protests.

    A video on social media showed customers at Birmingham's Star City restaurant jumping in shock as mice dyed in the colours of the Palestinian flag scurried near their feet on Monday."

    Time to beat the crap out of these idiots.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,592
    148grss said:

    148grss said:

    A streamer, political activist and video essayist I enjoy has rephrased a Marxist quote to describe what she sees as the problem of modern political discourse: "They do not know it, but they do it" to "They know that it is nothing, but they are doing it". (Sie wissen es nicht, aber sie tun es to Sie wissen, dass es nichts ist, aber sie tun es)

    This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.

    Total agency is given to the state of Israel. The stated intent of "minimising civilian lives" is taken at face value. The actions of mass killing, child murder and displacement of Palestinians is waved away because of the need to prevent the mass killing, child murder and displacement of Israelis at the hand of Hamas is somehow logical, not paradoxical. The understanding that what made Hamas' attack so abhorrent was their targeting of civilians occurs at the same time as a defence of the indiscriminate bombing of North Gaza, of hospitals and refugee camps.

    It reaches heights of absurdity with people here suggesting that Israel is making a tactical mistake in the eyes of the international community, instead of using the impunity that the international community has given it to do an ethnic cleansing, when it does these things. That "Israel has the right to defend itself" when attacked, but that Gaza, under blockade from land air and sea from Israel since 2005, has no reason to produce such hatred that could explain the violence of Hamas.

    I can denounce Hamas and Israel, I can point to the causal acts and the historical parallels, the UN accounts over decades, that end up with this point we are in now. I can suggest what I think is the only political solution, one where Palestinian Arabs and Israeli citizens live in one state after truth and reconciliation happens. And the response boils down to "Palestinian Arabs / all Arabs are so inherently anti-Semitic that that is impossible", as if European anti-Semitism wasn't historically worse. I can argue against the genocide and ethnic cleansing happening now to the Palestinian people, and people here will defend it by pointing to the horrific genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jewish people in Europe and the Middle East that partially led to the creation of the state of Israel, as if that somehow makes sense.

    You cannot sincerely care about the value of life, of dead babies, of dying civilians, you cannot sincerely decry genocide, you cannot sincerely claim that the right to national self defence is sacrosanct and at the same time defend the acts of the state of Israel - what it has done to the Palestinians in the past, what it is doing now, and what it is proposing to do in the future.

    "...h are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians."

    No. It's perfectly possible to see that the attack had 'causes' (multiple); but also to say that that is essentially irrelevant. Hamas did what they did not because of the Palestinian 'cause'; but because they are anti-Semitic, homophobic and many other nasty things. Oh. and they also like power and money.

    That is what you are incapable of seeing. Hamas is not dong this for the Palestinians; or for some sort of historic revenge. They are doing it because they are religious zealots who are about as far from what a leftist should see as 'good' as it is possible to get. But common enemies makes odd friends.

    Your 'one state solution' is also one that will see genocide of the Jews in it; and you don't really address that. How can Jews live in a Hamas-led state? And if you don't think it'd be run by Hamas (or Iran, through proxies), how do you think you'll get them to give up power?

    You attack Israel for what it is 'proposing' to do. You ignore what Hamas, Iran and others want to do to Israel.

    And Jews.
    Sie wissen, dass es nichts ist, aber sie tun es

    I already address the issue of "a one state solution being a genocide of the Jews" by a) pointing out that European anti-Semitism has historically been much worse and we have manages to create a society that is much more tolerant of Jewish people, if still harbouring anti-Semites and b) that truth and reconciliation between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli citizens should occur. Do you think that statement somehow endorses the killing of all Jewish Israeli citizens? Or the creation of a Hamas-led state?

    I have already expressed why I dismiss the idea that Hamas is only motivated by anti-Semitism - both above and elsewhere - and until you can explain why that is their only motivation outside of "because they are evil", I am not going to treat it like a grown up argument, because it isn't.

    What single thing did I write here, or elsewhere, that suggests I believe Hamas is "good"? Explicable, given the context, yes. But good?

    I do, above, denounce what Israel is proposing to do. I will also denounce any future violence aimed at civilians that may come from any state or non state actor that is not Israel. I can do both. But you cannot do the first.

    And Israel is, categorically, not a proxy for all Jewish people.
    "I already address the issue of "a one state solution being a genocide of the Jews ..." "

    And your 'proposal' may happen; as it did in Europe. After the Jews have been nearly wiped out, or totally wiped out. For the Holocaust was the one big thing that made anti-Semitism in Europe unacceptable for most in Europe. Is that a risk you are really willing to take?

    I did not say Hamas are only motivated by racism. They are also motivated by power, religion, ideology, politics and money. It's a heady mix. But racism is in there.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,090
    It is tempting to see this polling as just being about favourability. Several people have said that a private company choosing to employ Johnson is a matter between him and the company, so it cannot be inappropriate.

    However, we do have rules about ex-ministers taking up jobs. These need to be vetted by ACOBA for up to 2 years after leaving. Has ACOBA vetted this job? Of course, Johnson took a job with Mail and just ignored their ruling.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,001
    viewcode said:

    The collected Dr Who serials 1963-1996 is now on iPlayer. Hasn't got everything ("Thirty Years in the Tardis" is missing) but you can't have everything.

    Today's background music-while-I-work is "The Masque of Mandragora": not one of the famous ones but Baker and Sladen are on top form and it's only four episodes.

    It's also missing An Unearthly Child (plus the other episodes in that serial). This is because the son of the late writer has some very strong views on the direction the BBC has taken the series ("progressive filth," etc).

    The chap in question has some rather colourful views (Doesn't seem to have run across a conspiracy he didn't like, basically. Very much of the WEF/WHO/NIH//Bill Gates has a "plandemic" to murder billions, etc, so I doubt we'll see him willingly licence it any time soon, unfortunately.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,727

    Those Britain Trump comparisons weren't far off in hindsight.

    Just when you thought you'd heard it all....

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if you could kill Covid by blowing hairdryer up nose

    Boris Johnson asked scientists if people could kill Covid by blowing a hairdryer up their nose after he watched a YouTube video suggesting this.

    The then-PM shared the clip on a WhatsApp group including Government health experts and senior No10 officials. In a written statement to the Covid Inquiry, Dominic Cummings accused Mr Johnson of spreading misinformation during the pandemic.


    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-asked-scientists-you-31334180

    Well, the usual Remoaner naysayers are critical of Johnson over this idea.

    But imagine the commercial possibilities had he succeeded.
    Sir Alex Ferguson going house to house curing the infected?
  • 148grss148grss Posts: 4,155

    148grss said:

    This, in part, explains why I have been so aggrieved around the discourse surrounding Israel / Palestine - because those who rightly decry the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas' attack on October 7th are incapable of seeing that that attack has a cause (as in "and effect"), and part of that cause is the brutality and inhumanity of how the state of Israel treats Palestinians.

    If you were around in the 1930s you'd have been saying, "Look at what we've made the Germans do now!"
    If you mean Versailles and Western Imperialism in general - somewhat - but that still wouldn't justify land invasion (although might have justified calls to end the occupation of the Rhineland, for example).

    If you mean the Nazism and the Holocaust, of course not. Jewish people were in no way the "cause (as in "and effect)" of any of the wrongs done to post WW1 Germany, nor were the other targets of Nazi violence. Jewish people are also in no way the "cause (as in "and effect") of the Israel / Palestine conflict - because Israel is not a proxy for Jewish people - as I will keep pointing out to everyone who uses it as such. As I have said before, it is just as anti-Semitic to claim Israel is somehow a proxy for all Jewish people, or somehow represents all Jewish people as it is to claim that all Jewish people have "dual loyalty"; because its root is the same trope.
  • It is tempting to see this polling as just being about favourability. Several people have said that a private company choosing to employ Johnson is a matter between him and the company, so it cannot be inappropriate.

    However, we do have rules about ex-ministers taking up jobs. These need to be vetted by ACOBA for up to 2 years after leaving. Has ACOBA vetted this job? Of course, Johnson took a job with Mail and just ignored their ruling.

    Yes, it has vetted this one (although you are correct he got a rap on the knuckles regarding the Daily Mail:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/johnson-boris-secretary-of-state-foreign-and-commonwealth-office-acoba/advice-letter-boris-johnson-presenter-and-contributor-gb-news

    Frankly, this one is pretty unlikely to raise concerns given it's not really about lobbying/influence. It's not Cameron/Greensill.
This discussion has been closed.