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The king over the water for the Tories? – politicalbetting.com

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  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    DougSeal said:

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    Yes. You have to be careful of the company you keep. I, for one, would hesitate to knowingly write for a magazine that engaged a "soi-disant anti-semite"* Golden Dawn** supporter to pen a column, yet I understand some people do so. Amazing.



    *to give him the benefit of the doubt, although the literal translation is "self-described" it can also mean "supposedly", but given he lives in Switzerland and invites people to sympathise with the WW2 Wehrmacht, I think the nod and wink was obvious.

    ** founder has a swastika tattooed on his left arm and quoted The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in a 2012 speech to parliament
    I hope you’ve never read the Guardian, because that newspaper has actually published articles by terrorists and traitors, indeed it has employed known traitors as editors

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Gott
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    What IS Starmer going to do about immigration and asylum?

    My sense is that he hasn’t got a clue. Nothing. He doesn’t even have a Rwanda style policy (however dramatic or unworkable, it is at least a concrete proposal)

    I reckon Starmer will do virtually nothing and thus the problem will get worse, and worse. And it could destroy his government in one term

    He'll probably do the same as the Tories have done in the past four years, absolutely nothing.

    But since its not a major problem. that will be enough.
    If it’s not a major problem why are Denmark, Austria and now Germany all considering a version of the “racist, insane” UK Rwanda plan?

    They're not. Processing of asylum applications overseas is not the same as automatically denying all asylum applications and sending claimants overseas.

    Which is why I said “versions of” not “exactly copying”

    This is the German proposal

    “He proposed approaching countries in north Africa which are situated along migration routes to build asylum processing centres there. Refugees entering the EU could then be taken to them to have their claims checked.”

    So the Germans will take asylum seekers from Germany or elsewhere in the EU to countries like Morocco or chad and they will have their asylum claims processed in Africa

    The intent is clearly the same as the uk Rwanda plan. To introduce an element of deterrent. If your asylum claim fails then you could end up stuck in chad or Libya or wherever

    Do you approve of this German variant of the uk plan?
    It isn't the same thing at all. The only similarity is that asylum seekers get put on a plane.

    UK: A plane to Rwanda where their claim for Asylum *in Rwanda* is processed. No asylum seeker is returned to the UK ever
    DE: A plane to Morocco where their claim for asylum in *Germany* is processed. Successful applicants then get on a plane to return to Germany.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    What IS Starmer going to do about immigration and asylum?

    My sense is that he hasn’t got a clue. Nothing. He doesn’t even have a Rwanda style policy (however dramatic or unworkable, it is at least a concrete proposal)

    I reckon Starmer will do virtually nothing and thus the problem will get worse, and worse. And it could destroy his government in one term

    He'll probably do the same as the Tories have done in the past four years, absolutely nothing.

    But since its not a major problem. that will be enough.
    If it’s not a major problem why are Denmark, Austria and now Germany all considering a version of the “racist, insane” UK Rwanda plan?

    They're not. Processing of asylum applications overseas is not the same as automatically denying all asylum applications and sending claimants overseas.

    Which is why I said “versions of” not “exactly copying”

    This is the German proposal

    “He proposed approaching countries in north Africa which are situated along migration routes to build asylum processing centres there. Refugees entering the EU could then be taken to them to have their claims checked.”

    So the Germans will take asylum seekers from Germany or elsewhere in the EU to countries like Morocco or chad and they will have their asylum claims processed in Africa

    The intent is clearly the same as the uk Rwanda plan. To introduce an element of deterrent. If your asylum claim fails then you could end up stuck in chad or Libya or wherever

    Do you approve of this German variant of the uk plan?

    I don't have a huge problem with it. If the capacity to process here does not exist, then I don't see a major issue in processing elsewhere.
    So. Let me get this right. You’re ok with sending people already in Britain - or crossing to Britain - off to Africa to have their claims processed?

    Because that is the German proposal
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,404

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    What IS Starmer going to do about immigration and asylum?

    My sense is that he hasn’t got a clue. Nothing. He doesn’t even have a Rwanda style policy (however dramatic or unworkable, it is at least a concrete proposal)

    I reckon Starmer will do virtually nothing and thus the problem will get worse, and worse. And it could destroy his government in one term

    He'll probably do the same as the Tories have done in the past four years, absolutely nothing.

    But since its not a major problem. that will be enough.
    If it’s not a major problem why are Denmark, Austria and now Germany all considering a version of the “racist, insane” UK Rwanda plan?

    They're not. Processing of asylum applications overseas is not the same as automatically denying all asylum applications and sending claimants overseas.

    Which is why I said “versions of” not “exactly copying”

    This is the German proposal

    “He proposed approaching countries in north Africa which are situated along migration routes to build asylum processing centres there. Refugees entering the EU could then be taken to them to have their claims checked.”

    So the Germans will take asylum seekers from Germany or elsewhere in the EU to countries like Morocco or chad and they will have their asylum claims processed in Africa

    The intent is clearly the same as the uk Rwanda plan. To introduce an element of deterrent. If your asylum claim fails then you could end up stuck in chad or Libya or wherever

    Do you approve of this German variant of the uk plan?
    It isn't the same thing at all. The only similarity is that asylum seekers get put on a plane.

    UK: A plane to Rwanda where their claim for Asylum *in Rwanda* is processed. No asylum seeker is returned to the UK ever
    DE: A plane to Morocco where their claim for asylum in *Germany* is processed. Successful applicants then get on a plane to return to Germany.

    Italy is sending its migrants to Albania

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67339596
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    What IS Starmer going to do about immigration and asylum?

    My sense is that he hasn’t got a clue. Nothing. He doesn’t even have a Rwanda style policy (however dramatic or unworkable, it is at least a concrete proposal)

    I reckon Starmer will do virtually nothing and thus the problem will get worse, and worse. And it could destroy his government in one term

    He'll probably do the same as the Tories have done in the past four years, absolutely nothing.

    But since its not a major problem. that will be enough.
    If it’s not a major problem why are Denmark, Austria and now Germany all considering a version of the “racist, insane” UK Rwanda plan?

    They're not. Processing of asylum applications overseas is not the same as automatically denying all asylum applications and sending claimants overseas.

    Which is why I said “versions of” not “exactly copying”

    This is the German proposal

    “He proposed approaching countries in north Africa which are situated along migration routes to build asylum processing centres there. Refugees entering the EU could then be taken to them to have their claims checked.”

    So the Germans will take asylum seekers from Germany or elsewhere in the EU to countries like Morocco or chad and they will have their asylum claims processed in Africa

    The intent is clearly the same as the uk Rwanda plan. To introduce an element of deterrent. If your asylum claim fails then you could end up stuck in chad or Libya or wherever

    Do you approve of this German variant of the uk plan?
    It isn't the same thing at all. The only similarity is that asylum seekers get put on a plane.

    UK: A plane to Rwanda where their claim for Asylum *in Rwanda* is processed. No asylum seeker is returned to the UK ever
    DE: A plane to Morocco where their claim for asylum in *Germany* is processed. Successful applicants then get on a plane to return to Germany.
    But you’re ok with sending asylum seekers to Africa?
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    There could be an SWP march in Pontypridd protesting the introduction by the local factory owners of an automated packaging machine which puts thimbles into packs of six and which threatens to put 12 people out of work and there would be palestinian flags flown on the march.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    I’m glad we have established that the pb left is ok with taking asylum seekers arriving in the UK - and putting them straight on a plane to Africa

    Unexpected, but welcome news
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,249

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    What IS Starmer going to do about immigration and asylum?

    My sense is that he hasn’t got a clue. Nothing. He doesn’t even have a Rwanda style policy (however dramatic or unworkable, it is at least a concrete proposal)

    I reckon Starmer will do virtually nothing and thus the problem will get worse, and worse. And it could destroy his government in one term

    He'll probably do the same as the Tories have done in the past four years, absolutely nothing.

    But since its not a major problem. that will be enough.
    If it’s not a major problem why are Denmark, Austria and now Germany all considering a version of the “racist, insane” UK Rwanda plan?

    They're not. Processing of asylum applications overseas is not the same as automatically denying all asylum applications and sending claimants overseas.

    Which is why I said “versions of” not “exactly copying”

    This is the German proposal

    “He proposed approaching countries in north Africa which are situated along migration routes to build asylum processing centres there. Refugees entering the EU could then be taken to them to have their claims checked.”

    So the Germans will take asylum seekers from Germany or elsewhere in the EU to countries like Morocco or chad and they will have their asylum claims processed in Africa

    The intent is clearly the same as the uk Rwanda plan. To introduce an element of deterrent. If your asylum claim fails then you could end up stuck in chad or Libya or wherever

    Do you approve of this German variant of the uk plan?

    I don't have a huge problem with it. If the capacity to process here does not exist, then I don't see a major issue in processing elsewhere.
    So. Let me get this right. You’re ok with sending people already in Britain - or crossing to Britain - off to Africa to have their claims processed?

    Because that is the German proposal

    If it quickens the process for them and so reduces their uncertainty, then why not? I am assuming they would be properly looked after.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    Leon said:

    What IS Starmer going to do about immigration and asylum?

    My sense is that he hasn’t got a clue. Nothing. He doesn’t even have a Rwanda style policy (however dramatic or unworkable, it is at least a concrete proposal)

    I reckon Starmer will do virtually nothing and thus the problem will get worse, and worse. And it could destroy his government in one term

    It could be that when a pro Brexit govt is in power, being an EU member is popular, and vice versa - the grass is always greener. A large part of why we left
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,748
    So Sunak's underlings have made it known that he has "full confidence" in Braverman.

    And meanwhile:
    Neil Basu, the former head of the UK's counter-terrorism police, said Mrs Braverman's comments were "tantamount to effectively trying to direct the police".
    Speaking on the BBC's Today Podcast, Mr Basu said the UK was "in danger of turning the police into an arm of the state directed by politicians".
    He said he would describe what is happening "as potentially the end of operational independence of policing unless people start to speak out".

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67376996

    Interesting times.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    Murray has gone a bit off the deep end in his recent media interviews. Normally he "wins" arguments by remaining calm, albeit can be very smug, condescending etc. The Ben Shapiro approach.

    However, he has definitely overstepped the mark, repeatedly saying if the UK government doesn't kick out a number of Iranian and Hamas leaders who live in the UK, he will a) give out their addresses and b) will take personal legal action...the issue being of course they have British citizenship and guessing have been very careful about not breaking the law.

    Giving out addresses to all and sundry of such individuals I imagine would get yourself in legal trouble. And of course we don't actually know why a former Iranian leader is here, it could be that the British system has let somebody who really should be undesirable live here, or is there some sort of intelligence quid pro quo going on....same as Sailisbury Novachok target.
    I've long had him down as a racist tbh - a smooth one who can deceive with his civilized manner and turn of a sentence. Sounds like the 'underlying' has bubbled through on this occasion.
  • Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    If you go on one of those marches you are, at best, a useful idiot for Hamas. You have also chosen to ignore Jewish people who say that they are profoundly upset and scared by them. You should be prepared to be judged on that basis.

    I have no intention of going but I'd note that many of the people saying the march should be banned in case it upsets someone are the same people decrying cancel culture and defending free speech on the basis that there is no right not to be upset by someone else's opinion.

    I am totally opposed to banning the marches. I am fully on board for holding those who go on them accountable for their decision. That's democracy.

  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    Chris said:

    So Sunak's underlings have made it known that he has "full confidence" in Braverman.

    And meanwhile:
    Neil Basu, the former head of the UK's counter-terrorism police, said Mrs Braverman's comments were "tantamount to effectively trying to direct the police".
    Speaking on the BBC's Today Podcast, Mr Basu said the UK was "in danger of turning the police into an arm of the state directed by politicians".
    He said he would describe what is happening "as potentially the end of operational independence of policing unless people start to speak out".

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67376996

    Interesting times.

    Do you have your flag all ready to go for tomorrow. Big day. Good luck.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,748
    TOPPING said:

    Chris said:

    So Sunak's underlings have made it known that he has "full confidence" in Braverman.

    And meanwhile:
    Neil Basu, the former head of the UK's counter-terrorism police, said Mrs Braverman's comments were "tantamount to effectively trying to direct the police".
    Speaking on the BBC's Today Podcast, Mr Basu said the UK was "in danger of turning the police into an arm of the state directed by politicians".
    He said he would describe what is happening "as potentially the end of operational independence of policing unless people start to speak out".

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67376996

    Interesting times.

    Do you have your flag all ready to go for tomorrow. Big day. Good luck.
    Maybe you should think about marching yourself, if you give a toss about "traditional British values"?
  • Leon said:

    DougSeal said:

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    Yes. You have to be careful of the company you keep. I, for one, would hesitate to knowingly write for a magazine that engaged a "soi-disant anti-semite"* Golden Dawn** supporter to pen a column, yet I understand some people do so. Amazing.



    *to give him the benefit of the doubt, although the literal translation is "self-described" it can also mean "supposedly", but given he lives in Switzerland and invites people to sympathise with the WW2 Wehrmacht, I think the nod and wink was obvious.

    ** founder has a swastika tattooed on his left arm and quoted The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in a 2012 speech to parliament
    I hope you’ve never read the Guardian, because that newspaper has actually published articles by terrorists and traitors, indeed it has employed known traitors as editors

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Gott
    Didn't Gott just wrangle a few free lunches?
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,073
    Andy_JS said:

    Jonathan Sumption's latest piece in UnHerd.

    "Free speech is still worth fighting for
    No one is entitled to intellectual safety"

    https://unherd.com/2023/11/free-speech-is-still-worth-fighting-for/

    Given that PB has spent the past month or so discussing which of several sides/individuals should have their "speech" (defined as their words, texts, tweets, imagery, flags or participation in or support of marches) suppressed or circumscribed, I would say it's quite comprehensively f****d :(
  • Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    We have the odd clue.
    https://time.com/6047155/final-account-holocaust-documentary/

    Have you read this book ?
    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Solution-ebook/dp/B01G1F0F84

    We saw the Hamas people reacting as they committed their butchery. We just don't have that for the Nazis.
  • Chris said:

    So Sunak's underlings have made it known that he has "full confidence" in Braverman.

    And meanwhile:
    Neil Basu, the former head of the UK's counter-terrorism police, said Mrs Braverman's comments were "tantamount to effectively trying to direct the police".
    Speaking on the BBC's Today Podcast, Mr Basu said the UK was "in danger of turning the police into an arm of the state directed by politicians".
    He said he would describe what is happening "as potentially the end of operational independence of policing unless people start to speak out".

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67376996

    Interesting times.

    Frit, as The Lady said.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    Chris said:

    TOPPING said:

    Chris said:

    So Sunak's underlings have made it known that he has "full confidence" in Braverman.

    And meanwhile:
    Neil Basu, the former head of the UK's counter-terrorism police, said Mrs Braverman's comments were "tantamount to effectively trying to direct the police".
    Speaking on the BBC's Today Podcast, Mr Basu said the UK was "in danger of turning the police into an arm of the state directed by politicians".
    He said he would describe what is happening "as potentially the end of operational independence of policing unless people start to speak out".

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67376996

    Interesting times.

    Do you have your flag all ready to go for tomorrow. Big day. Good luck.
    Maybe you should think about marching yourself, if you give a toss about "traditional British values"?
    If you could let me know what traditional British values are I will be able to work out whether I should give a toss about them.

    Meanwhile, is it going to be flag or placard or just you in your kagoule upholding traditional British values?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony, officers complaints, the survivors who saw it

    The Nazis went to great lengths to make the killings as impersonal as possible so as to limit the psychological damage to regular soldiers. This is one explicit reason they went for the whole gas chamber thing - which actually weren’t any more efficient than killing huge numbers of people with firing squads

    Eg Auschwitz at its peak killed 14,000 daily. One firing squad Aktion - like that at Kamanets Podolskiy - killed 20.000 in a day, I believe

    But the gas chambers depersonalised everything and made it an industrial process. Removing the soldiers from the hideous mess

    Nonetheless there were outright lunatic sadists in the Nazi ranks who clearly enjoyed the horror and slaughter. But they are remembered BECAUSE they were fairly unusual
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,955
    edited November 2023

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    If you go on one of those marches you are, at best, a useful idiot for Hamas. You have also chosen to ignore Jewish people who say that they are profoundly upset and scared by them. You should be prepared to be judged on that basis.

    I have no intention of going but I'd note that many of the people saying the march should be banned in case it upsets someone are the same people decrying cancel culture and defending free speech on the basis that there is no right not to be upset by someone else's opinion.

    I am totally opposed to banning the marches. I am fully on board for holding those who go on them accountable for their decision. That's democracy.

    Holding those who go on them to account sounds a bit sinister. How do you see that playing out?
  • TOPPING said:

    Chris said:

    So Sunak's underlings have made it known that he has "full confidence" in Braverman.

    And meanwhile:
    Neil Basu, the former head of the UK's counter-terrorism police, said Mrs Braverman's comments were "tantamount to effectively trying to direct the police".
    Speaking on the BBC's Today Podcast, Mr Basu said the UK was "in danger of turning the police into an arm of the state directed by politicians".
    He said he would describe what is happening "as potentially the end of operational independence of policing unless people start to speak out".

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67376996

    Interesting times.

    Do you have your flag all ready to go for tomorrow. Big day. Good luck.
    Tube services look a bit dodgy!

    And it's a little on the cold side!
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,424

    Leon said:

    DougSeal said:

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    Yes. You have to be careful of the company you keep. I, for one, would hesitate to knowingly write for a magazine that engaged a "soi-disant anti-semite"* Golden Dawn** supporter to pen a column, yet I understand some people do so. Amazing.



    *to give him the benefit of the doubt, although the literal translation is "self-described" it can also mean "supposedly", but given he lives in Switzerland and invites people to sympathise with the WW2 Wehrmacht, I think the nod and wink was obvious.

    ** founder has a swastika tattooed on his left arm and quoted The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in a 2012 speech to parliament
    I hope you’ve never read the Guardian, because that newspaper has actually published articles by terrorists and traitors, indeed it has employed known traitors as editors

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Gott
    Didn't Gott just wrangle a few free lunches?
    Very liberal paper, the Guardian.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,249
    edited November 2023
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony, officers complaints, the survivors who saw it

    The Nazis went to great lengths to make the killings as impersonal as possible so as to limit the psychological damage to regular soldiers. This is one explicit reason they went for the whole gas chamber thing - which actually weren’t any more efficient than killing huge numbers of people with firing squads

    Eg Auschwitz at its peak killed 14,000 daily. One firing squad Aktion - like that at Kamanets Podolskiy - killed 20.000 in a day, I believe

    But the gas chambers depersonalised everything and made it an industrial process. Removing the soldiers from the hideous mess

    Nonetheless there were outright lunatic sadists in the Nazi ranks who clearly enjoyed the horror and slaughter. But they are remembered BECAUSE they were fairly unusual
    The Nazis actually prosecuted one commandant of Auschwitz for sadism and theft IIRC.

    The millions of murders were fine…
  • MJWMJW Posts: 1,728
    One problem for Farage - beyond the obvious such as timing - would be getting on the ballot to members, where he might stand a chance. Most of the MPs likely to be Farage-curious - i.e. the 2019 red wallers with less loyalty to the Tory Party as an institution - are those most likely to lose their seats in what can be assumed the most likely result - a significant loss, but not quite a catastrophic wipeout.

    You'd have to assume Tory MPs who did think that way would also rather elect one of their own who apes Farage rather than the man himself. One way it could happen though is in the case of a catastrophic loss. You'd only need a small number of MPs to get into the final two, and there'd be a not unreasonable argument that the only path back from oblivion was to rebrand as an almost entirely new party of the populist right that scorned those it blamed for its demise.
  • Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    That is a pretty stupid rule. Standard SWP procedure is to print a load of placards and leave them by the side of the road for marchers to pick up. Carrying one does not mean you even know what SWP stands for. It certainly does not mean there are hundreds of SWP marchers for any cause.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    isam said:

    Leon said:

    What IS Starmer going to do about immigration and asylum?

    My sense is that he hasn’t got a clue. Nothing. He doesn’t even have a Rwanda style policy (however dramatic or unworkable, it is at least a concrete proposal)

    I reckon Starmer will do virtually nothing and thus the problem will get worse, and worse. And it could destroy his government in one term

    It could be that when a pro Brexit govt is in power, being an EU member is popular, and vice versa - the grass is always greener. A large part of why we left
    Which of course means that you can eliminate "being an EU member" from the whole process.
  • Chris said:

    So Sunak's underlings have made it known that he has "full confidence" in Braverman.

    And meanwhile:
    Neil Basu, the former head of the UK's counter-terrorism police, said Mrs Braverman's comments were "tantamount to effectively trying to direct the police".
    Speaking on the BBC's Today Podcast, Mr Basu said the UK was "in danger of turning the police into an arm of the state directed by politicians".
    He said he would describe what is happening "as potentially the end of operational independence of policing unless people start to speak out".

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67376996

    Interesting times.

    Basu is right. But my fear is that that bridge was burned long ago.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    That is a pretty stupid rule. Standard SWP procedure is to print a load of placards and leave them by the side of the road for marchers to pick up. Carrying one does not mean you even know what SWP stands for. It certainly does not mean there are hundreds of SWP marchers for any cause.
    You are saying that SWP marchers are like Elaine Cottam. Sounds about right.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,051
    Looking at the Hackney mayoral by-election, the results were as I predicted: easy Labour win, but second placed Green candidate over 20%. 8.4% Lab -> Green swing. Labour vote below 50% for first time since 2006. But that's still a 25.3% majority.

    This was the first election under FPTP not SV. Absolutely no indication that the switch had any impact on voting behaviour.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    What IS Starmer going to do about immigration and asylum?

    My sense is that he hasn’t got a clue. Nothing. He doesn’t even have a Rwanda style policy (however dramatic or unworkable, it is at least a concrete proposal)

    I reckon Starmer will do virtually nothing and thus the problem will get worse, and worse. And it could destroy his government in one term

    He'll probably do the same as the Tories have done in the past four years, absolutely nothing.

    But since its not a major problem. that will be enough.
    If it’s not a major problem why are Denmark, Austria and now Germany all considering a version of the “racist, insane” UK Rwanda plan?

    They're not. Processing of asylum applications overseas is not the same as automatically denying all asylum applications and sending claimants overseas.

    Which is why I said “versions of” not “exactly copying”

    This is the German proposal

    “He proposed approaching countries in north Africa which are situated along migration routes to build asylum processing centres there. Refugees entering the EU could then be taken to them to have their claims checked.”

    So the Germans will take asylum seekers from Germany or elsewhere in the EU to countries like Morocco or chad and they will have their asylum claims processed in Africa

    The intent is clearly the same as the uk Rwanda plan. To introduce an element of deterrent. If your asylum claim fails then you could end up stuck in chad or Libya or wherever

    Do you approve of this German variant of the uk plan?
    It isn't the same thing at all. The only similarity is that asylum seekers get put on a plane.

    UK: A plane to Rwanda where their claim for Asylum *in Rwanda* is processed. No asylum seeker is returned to the UK ever
    DE: A plane to Morocco where their claim for asylum in *Germany* is processed. Successful applicants then get on a plane to return to Germany.
    But you’re ok with sending asylum seekers to Africa?
    To process their claims for asylum *in the UK* - sure. Offshore processing of asylum claims makes sense - best to do so remotely if possible. We could have worked with the French on processing claims of people still in France.

    Sending people somewhere else isn't the issue. Not letting them come back is the issue. We have tried to explain this to you repeatedly but you refuse to listen.
  • Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    If you go on one of those marches you are, at best, a useful idiot for Hamas. You have also chosen to ignore Jewish people who say that they are profoundly upset and scared by them. You should be prepared to be judged on that basis.

    I have no intention of going but I'd note that many of the people saying the march should be banned in case it upsets someone are the same people decrying cancel culture and defending free speech on the basis that there is no right not to be upset by someone else's opinion.

    I am totally opposed to banning the marches. I am fully on board for holding those who go on them accountable for their decision. That's democracy.

    Holding those who go on them to account sounds a bit sinister. How do you see that playing out?

    Yep, it does sound a bit sinister, maybe different wording necessary.

    If you go on the march having heard the cries of Jihad, From the River to the Sea etc etc, and having heard the deep concerns and upset expressed by so many Jewish people, then be prepared to have your motives and morality questioned.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,748
    TOPPING said:

    Chris said:

    TOPPING said:

    Chris said:

    So Sunak's underlings have made it known that he has "full confidence" in Braverman.

    And meanwhile:
    Neil Basu, the former head of the UK's counter-terrorism police, said Mrs Braverman's comments were "tantamount to effectively trying to direct the police".
    Speaking on the BBC's Today Podcast, Mr Basu said the UK was "in danger of turning the police into an arm of the state directed by politicians".
    He said he would describe what is happening "as potentially the end of operational independence of policing unless people start to speak out".

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67376996

    Interesting times.

    Do you have your flag all ready to go for tomorrow. Big day. Good luck.
    Maybe you should think about marching yourself, if you give a toss about "traditional British values"?
    If you could let me know what traditional British values are I will be able to work out whether I should give a toss about them.
    Sad.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    edited November 2023
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    Murray has gone a bit off the deep end in his recent media interviews. Normally he "wins" arguments by remaining calm, albeit can be very smug, condescending etc. The Ben Shapiro approach.

    However, he has definitely overstepped the mark, repeatedly saying if the UK government doesn't kick out a number of Iranian and Hamas leaders who live in the UK, he will a) give out their addresses and b) will take personal legal action...the issue being of course they have British citizenship and guessing have been very careful about not breaking the law.

    Giving out addresses to all and sundry of such individuals I imagine would get yourself in legal trouble. And of course we don't actually know why a former Iranian leader is here, it could be that the British system has let somebody who really should be undesirable live here, or is there some sort of intelligence quid pro quo going on....same as Sailisbury Novachok target.
    I've long had him down as a racist tbh - a smooth one who can deceive with his civilized manner and turn of a sentence. Sounds like the 'underlying' has bubbled through on this occasion.
    You think everyone is a racist waiting to be uncovered. You sniff them out. You’re the Witchfinder General of racism, and you just need to throw everyone in Hampstead ponds to see if they if they float in the waters of your sanctimonious self regard, and you know your suspicions will be vindicated

    You would absolutely have worked for the Nazis if they’d ever invaded Britain. You’d have done it in a cool punctilious accountant’s manner as you typed
    the names of the passengers on the next sleeper train to Eastern Europe
  • Leon said:

    DougSeal said:

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    Yes. You have to be careful of the company you keep. I, for one, would hesitate to knowingly write for a magazine that engaged a "soi-disant anti-semite"* Golden Dawn** supporter to pen a column, yet I understand some people do so. Amazing.



    *to give him the benefit of the doubt, although the literal translation is "self-described" it can also mean "supposedly", but given he lives in Switzerland and invites people to sympathise with the WW2 Wehrmacht, I think the nod and wink was obvious.

    ** founder has a swastika tattooed on his left arm and quoted The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in a 2012 speech to parliament
    I hope you’ve never read the Guardian, because that newspaper has actually published articles by terrorists and traitors, indeed it has employed known traitors as editors

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Gott
    Didn't Gott just wrangle a few free lunches?
    Less likely to get a (free) lunch these days at the Guardian...aren't the natives revolting because they are running the canteen at much reduced hours because so many employees are still WFH and they can't get them back in the office.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony,
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    Murray has gone a bit off the deep end in his recent media interviews. Normally he "wins" arguments by remaining calm, albeit can be very smug, condescending etc. The Ben Shapiro approach.

    However, he has definitely overstepped the mark, repeatedly saying if the UK government doesn't kick out a number of Iranian and Hamas leaders who live in the UK, he will a) give out their addresses and b) will take personal legal action...the issue being of course they have British citizenship and guessing have been very careful about not breaking the law.

    Giving out addresses to all and sundry of such individuals I imagine would get yourself in legal trouble. And of course we don't actually know why a former Iranian leader is here, it could be that the British system has let somebody who really should be undesirable live here, or is there some sort of intelligence quid pro quo going on....same as Sailisbury Novachok target.
    I've long had him down as a racist tbh - a smooth one who can deceive with his civilized manner and turn of a sentence. Sounds like the 'underlying' has bubbled through on this occasion.
    You think everyone is a racist waiting to be uncovered. You sniff them out. You’re the Witchfinder General of racism, and you just need to throw everyone in Hampstead ponds to see if they if they float in the waters of your sanctimonious self regard, and you know your suspicions will be vindicated

    You would absolutely have worked for the Nazis if they’d ever invaded Britain. You’d have done it in a cool punctilious accountant’s manner as you typed
    the names of the passengers on the next sleeper train to Eastern Europe
    Is this the same leon as the one randomly casting absurd aspersions around race this morning?
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,073
    viewcode said:

    Friday afternoon. Leave work at 7pm. Emails have to be out by 5pm. Stress, stress, stress. Only Pertwee, UNIT and a bureaucratic Man from the Ministry can save me now. Two hours. That's four episodes. Hello, "Claws of Axos".

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00v5cvh/doctor-who-19631996-season-8-the-claws-of-axos-episode-1

    Man from Ministry is being a bureaucratic twit. Underestimated Science Guy is helping Pertwee. Pertwee is being his patronising best. Jo is wonderful. Strike Command is being called in (it has a functioning RAF, so it's science fiction). Master is trying to double-cross the aliens. The special effects are... of the time. They've just described a cyclotron. Music is proper plinky-plinky. Happy time has arrived.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,419

    Farage can fuck right off.

    Given your last leadership recommendation, people will know where to file your remarks.
  • On the whole Braverman row, the line that seems to be taken by Neil Basu - and seemingly backed by many of his former colleagues - is that politicians have no right to criticise or questions the actions taken by the Police. In his world, he seems to believe the Police have full independence, including to ignore those who have been democratically elected.

    Seems to me that is a far greater danger and threat to this country than what Braverman says.
  • Looking at the Hackney mayoral by-election, the results were as I predicted: easy Labour win, but second placed Green candidate over 20%. 8.4% Lab -> Green swing. Labour vote below 50% for first time since 2006. But that's still a 25.3% majority.

    This was the first election under FPTP not SV. Absolutely no indication that the switch had any impact on voting behaviour.

    Labour could well lose votes to the Greens in places where it doesn't matter. I doubt we'll see much of it where it may make a difference.

  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    edited November 2023
    TOPPING said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    What IS Starmer going to do about immigration and asylum?

    My sense is that he hasn’t got a clue. Nothing. He doesn’t even have a Rwanda style policy (however dramatic or unworkable, it is at least a concrete proposal)

    I reckon Starmer will do virtually nothing and thus the problem will get worse, and worse. And it could destroy his government in one term

    It could be that when a pro Brexit govt is in power, being an EU member is popular, and vice versa - the grass is always greener. A large part of why we left
    Which of course means that you can eliminate "being an EU member" from the whole process.
    I don’t think many people ever cared that much about being in the EU really, it’s just that FOM with countries no one wanted to work in pissed off a lot of those on low wages. The referendum should have been on that issue, in 2004
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    Chris said:

    TOPPING said:

    Chris said:

    TOPPING said:

    Chris said:

    So Sunak's underlings have made it known that he has "full confidence" in Braverman.

    And meanwhile:
    Neil Basu, the former head of the UK's counter-terrorism police, said Mrs Braverman's comments were "tantamount to effectively trying to direct the police".
    Speaking on the BBC's Today Podcast, Mr Basu said the UK was "in danger of turning the police into an arm of the state directed by politicians".
    He said he would describe what is happening "as potentially the end of operational independence of policing unless people start to speak out".

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67376996

    Interesting times.

    Do you have your flag all ready to go for tomorrow. Big day. Good luck.
    Maybe you should think about marching yourself, if you give a toss about "traditional British values"?
    If you could let me know what traditional British values are I will be able to work out whether I should give a toss about them.
    Sad.
    So give me a couple of traditional British values so I can begin to form a view on them.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony,

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    What IS Starmer going to do about immigration and asylum?

    My sense is that he hasn’t got a clue. Nothing. He doesn’t even have a Rwanda style policy (however dramatic or unworkable, it is at least a concrete proposal)

    I reckon Starmer will do virtually nothing and thus the problem will get worse, and worse. And it could destroy his government in one term

    He'll probably do the same as the Tories have done in the past four years, absolutely nothing.

    But since its not a major problem. that will be enough.
    If it’s not a major problem why are Denmark, Austria and now Germany all considering a version of the “racist, insane” UK Rwanda plan?

    They're not. Processing of asylum applications overseas is not the same as automatically denying all asylum applications and sending claimants overseas.

    Which is why I said “versions of” not “exactly copying”

    This is the German proposal

    “He proposed approaching countries in north Africa which are situated along migration routes to build asylum processing centres there. Refugees entering the EU could then be taken to them to have their claims checked.”

    So the Germans will take asylum seekers from Germany or elsewhere in the EU to countries like Morocco or chad and they will have their asylum claims processed in Africa

    The intent is clearly the same as the uk Rwanda plan. To introduce an element of deterrent. If your asylum claim fails then you could end up stuck in chad or Libya or wherever

    Do you approve of this German variant of the uk plan?
    It isn't the same thing at all. The only similarity is that asylum seekers get put on a plane.

    UK: A plane to Rwanda where their claim for Asylum *in Rwanda* is processed. No asylum seeker is returned to the UK ever
    DE: A plane to Morocco where their claim for asylum in *Germany* is processed. Successful applicants then get on a plane to return to Germany.
    But you’re ok with sending asylum seekers to Africa?
    To process their claims for asylum *in the UK* - sure. Offshore processing of asylum claims makes sense - best to do so remotely if possible. We could have worked with the French on processing claims of people still in France.

    Sending people somewhere else isn't the issue. Not letting them come back is the issue. We have tried to explain this to you repeatedly but you refuse to listen.
    No I totally get the difference

    The dimness if yours. The obvious underlying intent in the German proposal is to introduce an element of deterrence. Ie if you apply for asylum in Germany you will be sent to chad, Egypt Tunisia, libya, Mauritania etc

    You won’t get to stay in Germany, not from day one and maybe not ever. And if your claim fails you will be stuck in a god forsaken part of Africa

    They are trying to deter people from even trying because of this implicit threat - you get stuck in Africa

    In that respect it is identical to the UK’s Rwanda plan and they are all based in turn on the successful Australia policy. Introduce a geographical deterrent, do not allow asylum seekers to stay in the country they reach, at least not at first

  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,561

    Chris said:

    So Sunak's underlings have made it known that he has "full confidence" in Braverman.

    And meanwhile:
    Neil Basu, the former head of the UK's counter-terrorism police, said Mrs Braverman's comments were "tantamount to effectively trying to direct the police".
    Speaking on the BBC's Today Podcast, Mr Basu said the UK was "in danger of turning the police into an arm of the state directed by politicians".
    He said he would describe what is happening "as potentially the end of operational independence of policing unless people start to speak out".

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67376996

    Interesting times.

    Basu is right. But my fear is that that bridge was burned long ago.
    Under Blair.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    isam said:

    TOPPING said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    What IS Starmer going to do about immigration and asylum?

    My sense is that he hasn’t got a clue. Nothing. He doesn’t even have a Rwanda style policy (however dramatic or unworkable, it is at least a concrete proposal)

    I reckon Starmer will do virtually nothing and thus the problem will get worse, and worse. And it could destroy his government in one term

    It could be that when a pro Brexit govt is in power, being an EU member is popular, and vice versa - the grass is always greener. A large part of why we left
    Which of course means that you can eliminate "being an EU member" from the whole process.
    I don’t think many people ever cared that much about being in the EU really, it’s just that FOM with countries no one wanted to work in pissed off a lot of those on low wages. The referendum should have been on that issue, in 2004
    I don't disagree. Or perhaps someone should have explained that the country will always need a quite high level of immigration. Which as we are seeing, it does.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony, officers complaints, the survivors who saw it

    The Nazis went to great lengths to make the killings as impersonal as possible so as to limit the psychological damage to regular soldiers. This is one explicit reason they went for the whole gas chamber thing - which actually weren’t any more efficient than killing huge numbers of people with firing squads

    Eg Auschwitz at its peak killed 14,000 daily. One firing squad Aktion - like that at Kamanets Podolskiy - killed 20.000 in a day, I believe

    But the gas chambers depersonalised everything and made it an industrial process. Removing the soldiers from the hideous mess

    Nonetheless there were outright lunatic sadists in the Nazi ranks who clearly enjoyed the horror and slaughter. But they are remembered BECAUSE they were fairly unusual

    The massacres were not just confined to the concentration camps. There was clearly a great deal of pleasure taken with the one that occurred in that French village that marks the start of the World at War documentary series. As the narration to that makes it clear, it was just one of tens of thousands.

  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,348
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony, officers complaints, the survivors who saw it

    The Nazis went to great lengths to make the killings as impersonal as possible so as to limit the psychological damage to regular soldiers. This is one explicit reason they went for the whole gas chamber thing - which actually weren’t any more efficient than killing huge numbers of people with firing squads

    Eg Auschwitz at its peak killed 14,000 daily. One firing squad Aktion - like that at Kamanets Podolskiy - killed 20.000 in a day, I believe

    But the gas chambers depersonalised everything and made it an industrial process. Removing the soldiers from the hideous mess

    Nonetheless there were outright lunatic sadists in the Nazi ranks who clearly enjoyed the horror and slaughter. But they are remembered BECAUSE they were fairly unusual
    Local militias, like Ustase, or RONA, generally carried out the killings with relish, often adding torture and rape to the process. Ditto SS Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, which was mainly comprised of the scum of Germany's prison population, together with the some of the scum of Ukraine and the Baltic States.

    OTOH, it's clear that many of the Einsatzgruppen, and Reserve Police Battalions, principally German soldiers and civilians on secondment, became alcoholic wrecks, once they started massacring women and children, and German Jews, deported to the East. Almost no one objected to killing adult male Eastern Jews, but they could see the women and children, and German Jews, as human beings like themselves.

    Throughout WW2, there were people serving the Nazis who were actually, much worse than they were.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,552
    South Africa need 36 from 6 overs with 5 wickets remaining vs Afghanistan.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/cricket/66859257
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    If you go on one of those marches you are, at best, a useful idiot for Hamas. You have also chosen to ignore Jewish people who say that they are profoundly upset and scared by them. You should be prepared to be judged on that basis.

    I have no intention of going but I'd note that many of the people saying the march should be banned in case it upsets someone are the same people decrying cancel culture and defending free speech on the basis that there is no right not to be upset by someone else's opinion.

    I am totally opposed to banning the marches. I am fully on board for holding those who go on them accountable for their decision. That's democracy.
    I'm not seeing the big deal about all this. We have our laws in place about what speech is prohibited and which demos can be banned - since we don't have absolute freedom of expression and nor should we - and this Palestine march is subject to those laws like any other. It's not being banned because there aren't the grounds to do so, but if any of the people on it (or on a counter demo) commit a prosecutable public order hate speech offence they'll likely get their collar felt.
  • On the whole Braverman row, the line that seems to be taken by Neil Basu - and seemingly backed by many of his former colleagues - is that politicians have no right to criticise or questions the actions taken by the Police. In his world, he seems to believe the Police have full independence, including to ignore those who have been democratically elected.

    Seems to me that is a far greater danger and threat to this country than what Braverman says.

    Braverman has explicitly stated that the police should prevent this march because the marchers aren't right wing enough. She wants to use the police to stamp out the Tories' foes.
  • isamisam Posts: 41,118
    edited November 2023
    TOPPING said:

    isam said:

    TOPPING said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    What IS Starmer going to do about immigration and asylum?

    My sense is that he hasn’t got a clue. Nothing. He doesn’t even have a Rwanda style policy (however dramatic or unworkable, it is at least a concrete proposal)

    I reckon Starmer will do virtually nothing and thus the problem will get worse, and worse. And it could destroy his government in one term

    It could be that when a pro Brexit govt is in power, being an EU member is popular, and vice versa - the grass is always greener. A large part of why we left
    Which of course means that you can eliminate "being an EU member" from the whole process.
    I don’t think many people ever cared that much about being in the EU really, it’s just that FOM with countries no one wanted to work in pissed off a lot of those on low wages. The referendum should have been on that issue, in 2004
    I don't disagree. Or perhaps someone should have explained that the country will always need a quite high level of immigration. Which as we are seeing, it does.
    Instead they said “only 13,000 will turn up, you’ll barely notice”

    “ The need for caution and gradualism in immigration policy
    Before the A8 countries joined the EU, there was a high degree of uncertainty on the future level of immigration from these countries after accession. The major econometric analysis commissioned by the UK government suggested that flows were going to be much smaller than in reality, in the order of 5,000 to 13,000 net-immigrants per year and that even in the worst case scenario, migration to the UK as a result of the enlargement was not likely to be significant.”


    https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/2011/seven-years-after-the-eastern-european-enlargement/
  • Farage would be a Poundland Boris.

    He can't even deliver himself a seat in Westminster. He wouldn't have delivered Brexit. He needed Boris to be the front man for that to happen.

    The odious twat can carry on being snug in Trump's lower intestine.

    Thankfully it will never come to pass. He won't even get himself elected to a seat in Parliament at the 8th attempt. He is a spent force and can be safely ignored.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,424

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony, officers complaints, the survivors who saw it

    The Nazis went to great lengths to make the killings as impersonal as possible so as to limit the psychological damage to regular soldiers. This is one explicit reason they went for the whole gas chamber thing - which actually weren’t any more efficient than killing huge numbers of people with firing squads

    Eg Auschwitz at its peak killed 14,000 daily. One firing squad Aktion - like that at Kamanets Podolskiy - killed 20.000 in a day, I believe

    But the gas chambers depersonalised everything and made it an industrial process. Removing the soldiers from the hideous mess

    Nonetheless there were outright lunatic sadists in the Nazi ranks who clearly enjoyed the horror and slaughter. But they are remembered BECAUSE they were fairly unusual

    The massacres were not just confined to the concentration camps. There was clearly a great deal of pleasure taken with the one that occurred in that French village that marks the start of the World at War documentary series. As the narration to that makes it clear, it was just one of tens of thousands.

    Wasn’t that carried out by conscripts from Alsace, recently “taken back” by Germany.?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,561

    TOPPING said:

    Chris said:

    So Sunak's underlings have made it known that he has "full confidence" in Braverman.

    And meanwhile:
    Neil Basu, the former head of the UK's counter-terrorism police, said Mrs Braverman's comments were "tantamount to effectively trying to direct the police".
    Speaking on the BBC's Today Podcast, Mr Basu said the UK was "in danger of turning the police into an arm of the state directed by politicians".
    He said he would describe what is happening "as potentially the end of operational independence of policing unless people start to speak out".

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67376996

    Interesting times.

    Do you have your flag all ready to go for tomorrow. Big day. Good luck.
    Tube services look a bit dodgy!
    Well, the Gaza Metro has some operational issues at the moment....
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony, officers complaints, the survivors who saw it

    The Nazis went to great lengths to make the killings as impersonal as possible so as to limit the psychological damage to regular soldiers. This is one explicit reason they went for the whole gas chamber thing - which actually weren’t any more efficient than killing huge numbers of people with firing squads

    Eg Auschwitz at its peak killed 14,000 daily. One firing squad Aktion - like that at Kamanets Podolskiy - killed 20.000 in a day, I believe

    But the gas chambers depersonalised everything and made it an industrial process. Removing the soldiers from the hideous mess

    Nonetheless there were outright lunatic sadists in the Nazi ranks who clearly enjoyed the horror and slaughter. But they are remembered BECAUSE they were fairly unusual
    Local militias, like Ustase, or RONA, generally carried out the killings with relish, often adding torture and rape to the process. Ditto SS Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, which was mainly comprised of the scum of Germany's prison population, together with the some of the scum of Ukraine and the Baltic States.

    OTOH, it's clear that many of the Einsatzgruppen, and Reserve Police Battalions, principally German soldiers and civilians on secondment, became alcoholic wrecks, once they started massacring women and children, and German Jews, deported to the East. Almost no one objected to killing adult male Eastern Jews, but they could see the women and children, and German Jews, as human beings like themselves.

    Throughout WW2, there were people serving the Nazis who were actually, much worse than they were.
    Yes that’s fair

    I do think the outright psycho sadists were outliers - eg Dirlewanger

    Same with the Khmer Rouge

    Probably same everywhere

    The most unsettling are the calmly psychotic bureaucrats. Like Comrade Duch who ran the Khmer Rouge torture garden. In another life he’d have been an anonymous accountant
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,375
    edited November 2023

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    I don't agree with you on this. In my political life over the last 50 years, SWP outriders have tried (unsuccessfully) to appropriate/hijack every march/protest I've ever been involved with. That includes anti-apartheid, poll tax demos, Anti-Nazi league and so on. Most demonstrators just ignore, or laugh at, the SWP. It's not as if it's helped the SWP cause much.

    And the same applies to the pro-Palestinian marches. Most of the people on them have no time for the SWP, nor for the minority who indulge in anti-semitic rhetoric. But I know for most on here that's an inconvenient fact to propose, and so I expect to be lambasted as anti-semitic myself. Whatever.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony, officers complaints, the survivors who saw it

    The Nazis went to great lengths to make the killings as impersonal as possible so as to limit the psychological damage to regular soldiers. This is one explicit reason they went for the whole gas chamber thing - which actually weren’t any more efficient than killing huge numbers of people with firing squads

    Eg Auschwitz at its peak killed 14,000 daily. One firing squad Aktion - like that at Kamanets Podolskiy - killed 20.000 in a day, I believe

    But the gas chambers depersonalised everything and made it an industrial process. Removing the soldiers from the hideous mess

    Nonetheless there were outright lunatic sadists in the Nazi ranks who clearly enjoyed the horror and slaughter. But they are remembered BECAUSE they were fairly unusual
    The Nazis actually prosecuted one commandant of Auschwitz for sadism and theft IIRC.

    The millions of murders were fine…
    Oskar Schindler: "War brings out the worst in people."
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,727
    edited November 2023
    Update: my wife has emerged victorious in the Great Battle with Royal Mail. Letter and refund cheque to arrive within 14 days, apparently (fingers crossed RM don't lose it!). Given the time involved in pursuing the £2.50 charge, it's either a great moral victory or a great Pyrrhic victory, I can't decide which. Maybe it's both.

    ETA: Fortunately we have banking apps, so don't need to spend £5 on fuel and parking to nip into town to cash it in, when the cheque arrives.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony, officers complaints, the survivors who saw it

    The Nazis went to great lengths to make the killings as impersonal as possible so as to limit the psychological damage to regular soldiers. This is one explicit reason they went for the whole gas chamber thing - which actually weren’t any more efficient than killing huge numbers of people with firing squads

    Eg Auschwitz at its peak killed 14,000 daily. One firing squad Aktion - like that at Kamanets Podolskiy - killed 20.000 in a day, I believe

    But the gas chambers depersonalised everything and made it an industrial process. Removing the soldiers from the hideous mess

    Nonetheless there were outright lunatic sadists in the Nazi ranks who clearly enjoyed the horror and slaughter. But they are remembered BECAUSE they were fairly unusual

    The massacres were not just confined to the concentration camps. There was clearly a great deal of pleasure taken with the one that occurred in that French village that marks the start of the World at War documentary series. As the narration to that makes it clear, it was just one of tens of thousands.

    Wasn’t that carried out by conscripts from Alsace, recently “taken back” by Germany.?
    No. It was carried out by the Das Reich SS Panzer Division which had spent much of the war on the Eastern Front. There were afew conscripts from the Alsace amongst them but the officers planning and directing the massacres both at Oradour sur Glane and Thulle were German. Indeed it was one of the Alsace SS members who hid a couple of kids and who later testified about he massacre.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,561

    Farage would be a Poundland Boris.

    He can't even deliver himself a seat in Westminster. He wouldn't have delivered Brexit. He needed Boris to be the front man for that to happen.

    The odious twat can carry on being snug in Trump's lower intestine.

    Thankfully it will never come to pass. He won't even get himself elected to a seat in Parliament at the 8th attempt. He is a spent force and can be safely ignored.
    Yep. I can't see any seat in the country where Farage could defeat the tactical voting against him.

    Farage being the official Conservative Party candidate is about the only situation where I could ever consider voting LibDem. He's THAT toxic.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    I don't agree with you on this. In my political life over the last 50 years, SWP outriders have tried (unsuccessfully) to appropriate/hijack every march/protest I've ever been involved with. That includes anti-apartheid, poll tax demos, Anti-Nazi league and so on. Most demonstrators just ignore, or laugh at, the SWP. It's not as if it's helped the SWP cause much.

    And the same applies to the pro-Palestinian marches. Most of the people on them have no time for the SWP, nor for the minority who indulge in anti-semitic rhetoric. But I know for most on here that's an inconvenient fact to propose, and so I expect to be lambasted as anti-semitic myself. Whatever.
    If you go on a march organised by….

    “the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And where you know, beforehand, that it will be “officially addressed by Jeremy Corbyn”…

    Then yes I fear you will have to suffer legitimate suspicions of anti-Semitism
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,051

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony,
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    Murray has gone a bit off the deep end in his recent media interviews. Normally he "wins" arguments by remaining calm, albeit can be very smug, condescending etc. The Ben Shapiro approach.

    However, he has definitely overstepped the mark, repeatedly saying if the UK government doesn't kick out a number of Iranian and Hamas leaders who live in the UK, he will a) give out their addresses and b) will take personal legal action...the issue being of course they have British citizenship and guessing have been very careful about not breaking the law.

    Giving out addresses to all and sundry of such individuals I imagine would get yourself in legal trouble. And of course we don't actually know why a former Iranian leader is here, it could be that the British system has let somebody who really should be undesirable live here, or is there some sort of intelligence quid pro quo going on....same as Sailisbury Novachok target.
    I've long had him down as a racist tbh - a smooth one who can deceive with his civilized manner and turn of a sentence. Sounds like the 'underlying' has bubbled through on this occasion.
    You think everyone is a racist waiting to be uncovered. You sniff them out. You’re the Witchfinder General of racism, and you just need to throw everyone in Hampstead ponds to see if they if they float in the waters of your sanctimonious self regard, and you know your suspicions will be vindicated

    You would absolutely have worked for the Nazis if they’d ever invaded Britain. You’d have done it in a cool punctilious accountant’s manner as you typed
    the names of the passengers on the next sleeper train to Eastern Europe
    Is this the same leon as the one randomly casting absurd aspersions around race this morning?
    Oh God, what was he saying this morning?

    It is the same Leon who was moaning that you can't say "coloured people" any more the other day, and who repeatedly insists there are significant genetic differences between different "races".
  • Chris said:

    So Sunak's underlings have made it known that he has "full confidence" in Braverman.

    And meanwhile:
    Neil Basu, the former head of the UK's counter-terrorism police, said Mrs Braverman's comments were "tantamount to effectively trying to direct the police".
    Speaking on the BBC's Today Podcast, Mr Basu said the UK was "in danger of turning the police into an arm of the state directed by politicians".
    He said he would describe what is happening "as potentially the end of operational independence of policing unless people start to speak out".

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67376996

    Interesting times.

    Basu is right. But my fear is that that bridge was burned long ago.
    Under Blair.
    Sadly yes. Though one might also look at the Miners Strike to see political direction of the police coming to the fore.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,375
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    I don't agree with you on this. In my political life over the last 50 years, SWP outriders have tried (unsuccessfully) to appropriate/hijack every march/protest I've ever been involved with. That includes anti-apartheid, poll tax demos, Anti-Nazi league and so on. Most demonstrators just ignore, or laugh at, the SWP. It's not as if it's helped the SWP cause much.

    And the same applies to the pro-Palestinian marches. Most of the people on them have no time for the SWP, nor for the minority who indulge in anti-semitic rhetoric. But I know for most on here that's an inconvenient fact to propose, and so I expect to be lambasted as anti-semitic myself. Whatever.
    If you go on a march organised by….

    “the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And where you know, beforehand, that it will be “officially addressed by Jeremy Corbyn”…

    Then yes I fear you will have to suffer legitimate suspicions of anti-Semitism
    Thanks: as I predicted.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134

    On the whole Braverman row, the line that seems to be taken by Neil Basu - and seemingly backed by many of his former colleagues - is that politicians have no right to criticise or questions the actions taken by the Police. In his world, he seems to believe the Police have full independence, including to ignore those who have been democratically elected.

    Seems to me that is a far greater danger and threat to this country than what Braverman says.

    Politicians pass the laws that the police police. Otherwise the police are meant to operate free of political interference. But here you have the Home Secretary interfering. She's trying to bully them into locking up people she disagrees with. Well she isn't, she's just gallery playing for her leadership campaign, but you know what I mean.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,348
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony, officers complaints, the survivors who saw it

    The Nazis went to great lengths to make the killings as impersonal as possible so as to limit the psychological damage to regular soldiers. This is one explicit reason they went for the whole gas chamber thing - which actually weren’t any more efficient than killing huge numbers of people with firing squads

    Eg Auschwitz at its peak killed 14,000 daily. One firing squad Aktion - like that at Kamanets Podolskiy - killed 20.000 in a day, I believe

    But the gas chambers depersonalised everything and made it an industrial process. Removing the soldiers from the hideous mess

    Nonetheless there were outright lunatic sadists in the Nazi ranks who clearly enjoyed the horror and slaughter. But they are remembered BECAUSE they were fairly unusual
    Local militias, like Ustase, or RONA, generally carried out the killings with relish, often adding torture and rape to the process. Ditto SS Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, which was mainly comprised of the scum of Germany's prison population, together with the some of the s
    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony, officers complaints, the survivors who saw it

    The Nazis went to great lengths to make the killings as impersonal as possible so as to limit the psychological damage to regular soldiers. This is one explicit reason they went for the whole gas chamber thing - which actually weren’t any more efficient than killing huge numbers of people with firing squads

    Eg Auschwitz at its peak killed 14,000 daily. One firing squad Aktion - like that at Kamanets Podolskiy - killed 20.000 in a day, I believe

    But the gas chambers depersonalised everything and made it an industrial process. Removing the soldiers from the hideous mess

    Nonetheless there were outright lunatic sadists in the Nazi ranks who clearly enjoyed the horror and slaughter. But they are remembered BECAUSE they were fairly unusual
    Local militias, like Ustase, or RONA, generally carried out the killings with relish, often adding torture and rape to the process. Ditto SS Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, which was mainly comprised of the scum of Germany's prison population, together with the some of the scum of Ukraine and the Baltic States.

    OTOH, it's clear that many of the Einsatzgruppen, and Reserve Police Battalions, principally German soldiers and civilians on secondment, became alcoholic wrecks, once they started massacring women and children, and German Jews, deported to the East. Almost no one objected to killing adult male Eastern Jews, but they could see the women and children, and German Jews, as human beings like themselves.

    Throughout WW2, there were people serving the Nazis who were actually, much worse than they were.
    Yes that’s fair

    I do think the outright psycho sadists were outliers - eg Dirlewanger

    Same with the Khmer Rouge

    Probably same everywhere

    The most unsettling are the calmly psychotic bureaucrats. Like Comrade Duch who ran the Khmer Rouge torture garden. In another life he’d have been an anonymous accountant
    Or like Himmler, who fainted, the only time that he witnessed Jewish prisoners being machine-gunned. During one of the Posen speeches, he addressed the issue, saying that ordering the killing of women and children was the "most difficult decision of my life." He also considered that the SS remained "decent fellows", as proved by the distress they suffered over mass murder.

    Beria, OTOH, absolutely revelled in rape and torture.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony, officers complaints, the survivors who saw it

    The Nazis went to great lengths to make the killings as impersonal as possible so as to limit the psychological damage to regular soldiers. This is one explicit reason they went for the whole gas chamber thing - which actually weren’t any more efficient than killing huge numbers of people with firing squads

    Eg Auschwitz at its peak killed 14,000 daily. One firing squad Aktion - like that at Kamanets Podolskiy - killed 20.000 in a day, I believe

    But the gas chambers depersonalised everything and made it an industrial process. Removing the soldiers from the hideous mess

    Nonetheless there were outright lunatic sadists in the Nazi ranks who clearly enjoyed the horror and slaughter. But they are remembered BECAUSE they were fairly unusual

    The massacres were not just confined to the concentration camps. There was clearly a great deal of pleasure taken with the one that occurred in that French village that marks the start of the World at War documentary series. As the narration to that makes it clear, it was just one of tens of thousands.

    Wasn’t that carried out by conscripts from Alsace, recently “taken back” by Germany.?
    Not all of them. Of 21 who faced trial in 1953, 7 were German and 14 were "Alsatian". The latter were released soon after due to an amnesty for French citizens.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    I don't agree with you on this. In my political life over the last 50 years, SWP outriders have tried (unsuccessfully) to appropriate/hijack every march/protest I've ever been involved with. That includes anti-apartheid, poll tax demos, Anti-Nazi league and so on. Most demonstrators just ignore, or laugh at, the SWP. It's not as if it's helped the SWP cause much.

    And the same applies to the pro-Palestinian marches. Most of the people on them have no time for the SWP, nor for the minority who indulge in anti-semitic rhetoric. But I know for most on here that's an inconvenient fact to propose, and so I expect to be lambasted as anti-semitic myself. Whatever.
    If you go on a march organised by….

    “the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And where you know, beforehand, that it will be “officially addressed by Jeremy Corbyn”…

    Then yes I fear you will have to suffer legitimate suspicions of anti-Semitism
    Thanks: as I predicted.
    In all seriousness, what do you expect? Doesn’t the list of organisers and speakers give you any pause at all?
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,051

    Farage would be a Poundland Boris.

    He can't even deliver himself a seat in Westminster. He wouldn't have delivered Brexit. He needed Boris to be the front man for that to happen.

    The odious twat can carry on being snug in Trump's lower intestine.

    Thankfully it will never come to pass. He won't even get himself elected to a seat in Parliament at the 8th attempt. He is a spent force and can be safely ignored.
    Farage was never elected because he was standing for UKIP/Brexit Party. If Farage (re)joined the Conservatives and was selected as a candidate, then he could win a seat.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,991
    edited November 2023
    Whatever happened to the law that the Guardian's of this world were claiming if passed supposedly gave the power to the plod to shut down any protests that were a bit loud and shouty?
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,375
    edited November 2023
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    I don't agree with you on this. In my political life over the last 50 years, SWP outriders have tried (unsuccessfully) to appropriate/hijack every march/protest I've ever been involved with. That includes anti-apartheid, poll tax demos, Anti-Nazi league and so on. Most demonstrators just ignore, or laugh at, the SWP. It's not as if it's helped the SWP cause much.

    And the same applies to the pro-Palestinian marches. Most of the people on them have no time for the SWP, nor for the minority who indulge in anti-semitic rhetoric. But I know for most on here that's an inconvenient fact to propose, and so I expect to be lambasted as anti-semitic myself. Whatever.
    If you go on a march organised by….

    “the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And where you know, beforehand, that it will be “officially addressed by Jeremy Corbyn”…

    Then yes I fear you will have to suffer legitimate suspicions of anti-Semitism
    Thanks: as I predicted.
    In all seriousness, what do you expect? Doesn’t the list of organisers and speakers give you any pause at all?
    No.
    In all seriousness, does your frequent anti-Islamic bile give you any pause at all?
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,748

    On the whole Braverman row, the line that seems to be taken by Neil Basu - and seemingly backed by many of his former colleagues - is that politicians have no right to criticise or questions the actions taken by the Police. In his world, he seems to believe the Police have full independence, including to ignore those who have been democratically elected.

    Seems to me that is a far greater danger and threat to this country than what Braverman says.

    Silly of him to use a word with five syllables in it.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    I don't agree with you on this. In my political life over the last 50 years, SWP outriders have tried (unsuccessfully) to appropriate/hijack every march/protest I've ever been involved with. That includes anti-apartheid, poll tax demos, Anti-Nazi league and so on. Most demonstrators just ignore, or laugh at, the SWP. It's not as if it's helped the SWP cause much.

    And the same applies to the pro-Palestinian marches. Most of the people on them have no time for the SWP, nor for the minority who indulge in anti-semitic rhetoric. But I know for most on here that's an inconvenient fact to propose, and so I expect to be lambasted as anti-semitic myself. Whatever.
    If you go on a march organised by….

    “the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And where you know, beforehand, that it will be “officially addressed by Jeremy Corbyn”…

    Then yes I fear you will have to suffer legitimate suspicions of anti-Semitism
    Thanks: as I predicted.
    In all seriousness, what do you respect
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony, officers complaints, the survivors who saw it

    The Nazis went to great lengths to make the killings as impersonal as possible so as to limit the psychological damage to regular soldiers. This is one explicit reason they went for the whole gas chamber thing - which actually weren’t any more efficient than killing huge numbers of people with firing squads

    Eg Auschwitz at its peak killed 14,000 daily. One firing squad Aktion - like that at Kamanets Podolskiy - killed 20.000 in a day, I believe

    But the gas chambers depersonalised everything and made it an industrial process. Removing the soldiers from the hideous mess

    Nonetheless there were outright lunatic sadists in the Nazi ranks who clearly enjoyed the horror and slaughter. But they are remembered BECAUSE they were fairly unusual
    Local militias, like Ustase, or RONA, generally carried out the killings with relish, often adding torture and rape to the process. Ditto SS Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, which was mainly comprised of the scum of Germany's prison population, together with the some of the s
    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony, officers complaints, the survivors who saw it

    The Nazis went to great lengths to make the killings as impersonal as possible so as to limit the psychological damage to regular soldiers. This is one explicit reason they went for the whole gas chamber thing - which actually weren’t any more efficient than killing huge numbers of people with firing squads

    Eg Auschwitz at its peak killed 14,000 daily. One firing squad Aktion - like that at Kamanets Podolskiy - killed 20.000 in a day, I believe

    But the gas chambers depersonalised everything and made it an industrial process. Removing the soldiers from the hideous mess

    Nonetheless there were outright lunatic sadists in the Nazi ranks who clearly enjoyed the horror and slaughter. But they are remembered BECAUSE they were fairly unusual
    Local militias, like Ustase, or RONA, generally carried out the killings with relish, often adding torture and rape to the process. Ditto SS Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, which was mainly comprised of the scum of Germany's prison population, together with the some of the scum of Ukraine and the Baltic States.

    OTOH, it's clear that many of the Einsatzgruppen, and Reserve Police Battalions, principally German soldiers and civilians on secondment, became alcoholic wrecks, once they started massacring women and children, and German Jews, deported to the East. Almost no one objected to killing adult male Eastern Jews, but they could see the women and children, and German Jews, as human beings like themselves.

    Throughout WW2, there were people serving the Nazis who were actually, much worse than they were.
    Yes that’s fair

    I do think the outright psycho sadists were outliers - eg Dirlewanger

    Same with the Khmer Rouge

    Probably same everywhere

    The most unsettling are the calmly psychotic bureaucrats. Like Comrade Duch who ran the Khmer Rouge torture garden. In another life he’d have been an anonymous accountant
    Or like Himmler, who fainted, the only time that he witnessed Jewish prisoners being machine-gunned. During one of the Posen speeches, he addressed the issue, saying that ordering the killing of women and children was the "most difficult decision of my life." He also considered that the SS remained "decent fellows", as proved by the distress they suffered over mass murder.

    Beria, OTOH, absolutely revelled in rape and torture.
    Beria actually did some of the torture himself, and indeed the raping

    There is a grim, bleak satisfaction in knowing he was himself a squalid victim of the Terror, in the end
  • Polling average time.



    Small shifts this week. Will the Conservatives go below 25% next week for the first time?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Vanilla PURGE
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,986
    The most depressing answer in that list of questions is 7c.

    Lots of lock-em-up and throw away the key type action in there too.

    Overall the poll as usual reveals the authoritarian instincts of most of the population, when given the chance. Because they always assume it'll never happen to them.
  • Comment late for the previous thread.

    Nick Wallis is back on BBC Radio 4 at 1.45 M-F next week commenting on the Post Office Inquiry.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001sd4l
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    I don't agree with you on this. In my political life over the last 50 years, SWP outriders have tried (unsuccessfully) to appropriate/hijack every march/protest I've ever been involved with. That includes anti-apartheid, poll tax demos, Anti-Nazi league and so on. Most demonstrators just ignore, or laugh at, the SWP. It's not as if it's helped the SWP cause much.

    And the same applies to the pro-Palestinian marches. Most of the people on them have no time for the SWP, nor for the minority who indulge in anti-semitic rhetoric. But I know for most on here that's an inconvenient fact to propose, and so I expect to be lambasted as anti-semitic myself. Whatever.
    If you go on a march organised by….

    “the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And where you know, beforehand, that it will be “officially addressed by Jeremy Corbyn”…

    Then yes I fear you will have to suffer legitimate suspicions of anti-Semitism
    Thanks: as I predicted.
    In all seriousness, what do you expect? Doesn’t the list of organisers and speakers give you any pause at all?
    No.
    In all seriousness, does your frequent anti-Islamic bile give you any pause at all?
    A march officially organised by anti Semites and officially addressed by anti Semites and you don’t even hesitate to join it for a second. You don’t have a scintilla of doubt

    That’s not great
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,986

    Polling average time.



    Small shifts this week. Will the Conservatives go below 25% next week for the first time?

    RefUK rising. Guess what Tories, increasing the salience of identity issues sends more people to the party most associated with them.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony,
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    Murray has gone a bit off the deep end in his recent media interviews. Normally he "wins" arguments by remaining calm, albeit can be very smug, condescending etc. The Ben Shapiro approach.

    However, he has definitely overstepped the mark, repeatedly saying if the UK government doesn't kick out a number of Iranian and Hamas leaders who live in the UK, he will a) give out their addresses and b) will take personal legal action...the issue being of course they have British citizenship and guessing have been very careful about not breaking the law.

    Giving out addresses to all and sundry of such individuals I imagine would get yourself in legal trouble. And of course we don't actually know why a former Iranian leader is here, it could be that the British system has let somebody who really should be undesirable live here, or is there some sort of intelligence quid pro quo going on....same as Sailisbury Novachok target.
    I've long had him down as a racist tbh - a smooth one who can deceive with his civilized manner and turn of a sentence. Sounds like the 'underlying' has bubbled through on this occasion.
    You think everyone is a racist waiting to be uncovered. You sniff them out. You’re the Witchfinder General of racism, and you just need to throw everyone in Hampstead ponds to see if they if they float in the waters of your sanctimonious self regard, and you know your suspicions will be vindicated

    You would absolutely have worked for the Nazis if they’d ever invaded Britain. You’d have done it in a cool punctilious accountant’s manner as you typed
    the names of the passengers on the next sleeper train to Eastern Europe
    Is this the same leon as the one randomly casting absurd aspersions around race this morning?
    Oh God, what was he saying this morning?

    It is the same Leon who was moaning that you can't say "coloured people" any more the other day, and who repeatedly insists there are significant genetic differences between different "races".
    Mmm ... this group are particularly clever, that group are prone to violence, these people originated from that place, those people from that other place, here’s a table of IQs by ethnic group, ‘lol’ at woke scientists desperately pretending that this ancient white hunter-gatherer tribe he's been reading about weren’t the bees knees compared to the African ones. Etc etc etc.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,424

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony, officers complaints, the survivors who saw it

    The Nazis went to great lengths to make the killings as impersonal as possible so as to limit the psychological damage to regular soldiers. This is one explicit reason they went for the whole gas chamber thing - which actually weren’t any more efficient than killing huge numbers of people with firing squads

    Eg Auschwitz at its peak killed 14,000 daily. One firing squad Aktion - like that at Kamanets Podolskiy - killed 20.000 in a day, I believe

    But the gas chambers depersonalised everything and made it an industrial process. Removing the soldiers from the hideous mess

    Nonetheless there were outright lunatic sadists in the Nazi ranks who clearly enjoyed the horror and slaughter. But they are remembered BECAUSE they were fairly unusual

    The massacres were not just confined to the concentration camps. There was clearly a great deal of pleasure taken with the one that occurred in that French village that marks the start of the World at War documentary series. As the narration to that makes it clear, it was just one of tens of thousands.

    Wasn’t that carried out by conscripts from Alsace, recently “taken back” by Germany.?
    No. It was carried out by the Das Reich SS Panzer Division which had spent much of the war on the Eastern Front. There were afew conscripts from the Alsace amongst them but the officers planning and directing the massacres both at Oradour sur Glane and Thulle were German. Indeed it was one of the Alsace SS members who hid a couple of kids and who later testified about he massacre.
    Thanks. Also to Sunil. I knew someone here would be well-informed.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    We don't know what the contemporary reaction of Nazis was to the massacres of men, women and children they undertook daily - not only in concentration camps, but everywhere they had control - over a number of years, because they weren't recorded on smartphones. We do know that they kept on happening on an industrial scale and we do have survivors' testimony of the relish with which the barbarity was often inflicted.

    Indeed - at the point of actual murder, there was a great deal of evident sadism.

    At a higher level, the Nazis tried to coverup what they were doing.
    Actually there’s plenty of evidence of personal Nazi reactions to the final solution. Witness testimony,
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    We’ve now moved from the ‘as bad as Nazis’ to the ‘worse than Nazis’ stage.


    I’ll guess that everyone calling Douglas Murray a racist, hasn’t actually listened to his full interview with Dave Rubin.
    Also, on the narrow point, Murray is right

    Very few Nazis exulted in their brutal murder of Jews. For many it was an appalling task (hence the gas chambers run by Ukrainian guards, so the Nazis could avoid the worst personal experiences). For others it was a dull, messy necessity. Like running a slaughterhouse

    There were nonetheless some psychos who loved it but they were rare

    On the contrary most of the Hamas militants DO seem to have exulted in their appalling crimes

    If Murray has, however, come right out and said October 7 was “worse than the Holocaust” then that is foolish hyperbole

    Murray has gone a bit off the deep end in his recent media interviews. Normally he "wins" arguments by remaining calm, albeit can be very smug, condescending etc. The Ben Shapiro approach.

    However, he has definitely overstepped the mark, repeatedly saying if the UK government doesn't kick out a number of Iranian and Hamas leaders who live in the UK, he will a) give out their addresses and b) will take personal legal action...the issue being of course they have British citizenship and guessing have been very careful about not breaking the law.

    Giving out addresses to all and sundry of such individuals I imagine would get yourself in legal trouble. And of course we don't actually know why a former Iranian leader is here, it could be that the British system has let somebody who really should be undesirable live here, or is there some sort of intelligence quid pro quo going on....same as Sailisbury Novachok target.
    I've long had him down as a racist tbh - a smooth one who can deceive with his civilized manner and turn of a sentence. Sounds like the 'underlying' has bubbled through on this occasion.
    You think everyone is a racist waiting to be uncovered. You sniff them out. You’re the Witchfinder General of racism, and you just need to throw everyone in Hampstead ponds to see if they if they float in the waters of your sanctimonious self regard, and you know your suspicions will be vindicated

    You would absolutely have worked for the Nazis if they’d ever invaded Britain. You’d have done it in a cool punctilious accountant’s manner as you typed
    the names of the passengers on the next sleeper train to Eastern Europe
    Is this the same leon as the one randomly casting absurd aspersions around race this morning?
    Oh God, what was he saying this morning?

    It is the same Leon who was moaning that you can't say "coloured people" any more the other day, and who repeatedly insists there are significant genetic differences between different "races".
    Mmm ... this group are particularly clever, that group are prone to violence, these people originated from that place, those people from that other place, here’s a table of IQs by ethnic group, ‘lol’ at woke scientists desperately pretending that this ancient white hunter-gatherer tribe he's been reading about weren’t the bees knees compared to the African ones. Etc etc etc.
    I did all that this morning? Gosh, I was busy
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,552
    "Sri Lanka suspended by International Cricket Council over government interference
    24 minutes ago"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/67384199
  • Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    I don't agree with you on this. In my political life over the last 50 years, SWP outriders have tried (unsuccessfully) to appropriate/hijack every march/protest I've ever been involved with. That includes anti-apartheid, poll tax demos, Anti-Nazi league and so on. Most demonstrators just ignore, or laugh at, the SWP. It's not as if it's helped the SWP cause much.

    And the same applies to the pro-Palestinian marches. Most of the people on them have no time for the SWP, nor for the minority who indulge in anti-semitic rhetoric. But I know for most on here that's an inconvenient fact to propose, and so I expect to be lambasted as anti-semitic myself. Whatever.

    I would be surprised if most people going along were anti-Semitic, but they are prepared to march in the company of people who are and who have called for the destruction of Israel and the killing of all Jews.
  • kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    If you go on one of those marches you are, at best, a useful idiot for Hamas. You have also chosen to ignore Jewish people who say that they are profoundly upset and scared by them. You should be prepared to be judged on that basis.

    I have no intention of going but I'd note that many of the people saying the march should be banned in case it upsets someone are the same people decrying cancel culture and defending free speech on the basis that there is no right not to be upset by someone else's opinion.

    I am totally opposed to banning the marches. I am fully on board for holding those who go on them accountable for their decision. That's democracy.
    I'm not seeing the big deal about all this. We have our laws in place about what speech is prohibited and which demos can be banned - since we don't have absolute freedom of expression and nor should we - and this Palestine march is subject to those laws like any other. It's not being banned because there aren't the grounds to do so, but if any of the people on it (or on a counter demo) commit a prosecutable public order hate speech offence they'll likely get their collar felt.
    Thats the logical side and how the police should deal with it. The big deal is fairly obvious though, the clash with remembrance day and the ongoing war, makes it more about emotion than logic.

    The pro Palestinian marches are missing a big open goal here, if they voluntarily agreed to postpone their march for a week it would gain them more goodwill and support than ten well attended marches possibly could. But they should be allowed to march within the terms set by law just like anyone else, whether its a good idea or not.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    edited November 2023

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    I don't agree with you on this. In my political life over the last 50 years, SWP outriders have tried (unsuccessfully) to appropriate/hijack every march/protest I've ever been involved with. That includes anti-apartheid, poll tax demos, Anti-Nazi league and so on. Most demonstrators just ignore, or laugh at, the SWP. It's not as if it's helped the SWP cause much.

    And the same applies to the pro-Palestinian marches. Most of the people on them have no time for the SWP, nor for the minority who indulge in anti-semitic rhetoric. But I know for most on here that's an inconvenient fact to propose, and so I expect to be lambasted as anti-semitic myself. Whatever.
    Then go on another march. You are swelling the numbers of those anti-semites, anti-westerners so if one of them has a banner saying kill the Jews you are in effect giving credentials, by your presence and those around you, to that view. You are helping to say this is not a minority what me guv view, this is a view, because we are marching shoulder to shoulder, that we all agree on.

    I have zero doubt that you are not an anti-semite but I really do wonder why such avowed non-anti-semites feel it necessary on a point of principle to march side by side with outright anti-semites.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,375
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    I don't agree with you on this. In my political life over the last 50 years, SWP outriders have tried (unsuccessfully) to appropriate/hijack every march/protest I've ever been involved with. That includes anti-apartheid, poll tax demos, Anti-Nazi league and so on. Most demonstrators just ignore, or laugh at, the SWP. It's not as if it's helped the SWP cause much.

    And the same applies to the pro-Palestinian marches. Most of the people on them have no time for the SWP, nor for the minority who indulge in anti-semitic rhetoric. But I know for most on here that's an inconvenient fact to propose, and so I expect to be lambasted as anti-semitic myself. Whatever.
    If you go on a march organised by….

    “the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And where you know, beforehand, that it will be “officially addressed by Jeremy Corbyn”…

    Then yes I fear you will have to suffer legitimate suspicions of anti-Semitism
    Thanks: as I predicted.
    In all seriousness, what do you expect? Doesn’t the list of organisers and speakers give you any pause at all?
    No.
    In all seriousness, does your frequent anti-Islamic bile give you any pause at all?
    A march officially organised by anti Semites and officially addressed by anti Semites and you don’t even hesitate to join it for a second. You don’t have a scintilla of doubt

    That’s not great
    Well actually no, my marching days are over, so I'm not going. But I know quite a few people who are.
    Guess what they have in common?

    They despair of the horrendous violence perpetrated by Hamas.
    They despair of the horrendous scale of the retaliation by the Israeli state.
    They want peace - an end to violence on all sides.
    They take the view that long-term peace must include a free Israel and a free Palestine.

    Of course there will be a minority who wish the end of Israel. But they're not typical. They don't include Jeremy Corbyn, even.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,355

    Whatever happened to the law that the Guardian's of this world were claiming if passed supposedly gave the power to the plod to shut down any protests that were a bit loud and shouty?

    I think that law doesn't apply in advance. It allows police to ban a protest and order a crowd to disperse, if they think it's too loud/disruptive/annoying. But not to ban it in advance, I think.

    One thing I didn't realise is that there are now heavy fines available for anyone on a protest who deviates from the agreed route.
  • Andy_JS said:

    "Sri Lanka suspended by International Cricket Council over government interference
    24 minutes ago"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/67384199

    Given the way we have batted one wonders if perhaps we were playing under instructions from Suella as well?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,991
    edited November 2023

    Whatever happened to the law that the Guardian's of this world were claiming if passed supposedly gave the power to the plod to shut down any protests that were a bit loud and shouty?

    I think that law doesn't apply in advance. It allows police to ban a protest and order a crowd to disperse, if they think it's too loud/disruptive/annoying. But not to ban it in advance, I think.

    One thing I didn't realise is that there are now heavy fines available for anyone on a protest who deviates from the agreed route.
    And yet they couldn't apply it to the bloke shouting for Jihad down a microphone....
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    edited November 2023

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    I don't agree with you on this. In my political life over the last 50 years, SWP outriders have tried (unsuccessfully) to appropriate/hijack every march/protest I've ever been involved with. That includes anti-apartheid, poll tax demos, Anti-Nazi league and so on. Most demonstrators just ignore, or laugh at, the SWP. It's not as if it's helped the SWP cause much.

    And the same applies to the pro-Palestinian marches. Most of the people on them have no time for the SWP, nor for the minority who indulge in anti-semitic rhetoric. But I know for most on here that's an inconvenient fact to propose, and so I expect to be lambasted as anti-semitic myself. Whatever.
    If you go on a march organised by….

    “the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And where you know, beforehand, that it will be “officially addressed by Jeremy Corbyn”…

    Then yes I fear you will have to suffer legitimate suspicions of anti-Semitism
    Thanks: as I predicted.
    In all seriousness, what do you expect? Doesn’t the list of organisers and speakers give you any pause at all?
    No.
    In all seriousness, does your frequent anti-Islamic bile give you any pause at all?
    A march officially organised by anti Semites and officially addressed by anti Semites and you don’t even hesitate to join it for a second. You don’t have a scintilla of doubt

    That’s not great
    Well actually no, my marching days are over, so I'm not going. But I know quite a few people who are.
    Guess what they have in common?

    They despair of the horrendous violence perpetrated by Hamas.
    They despair of the horrendous scale of the retaliation by the Israeli state.
    They want peace - an end to violence on all sides.
    They take the view that long-term peace must include a free Israel and a free Palestine.

    Of course there will be a minority who wish the end of Israel. But they're not typical. They don't include Jeremy Corbyn, even.
    The point is that if a hundred thousand people go on a march and 200 of them are carrying Death to the Jews banners and your 99,800 salt of the earth we despair of violence hug a hoodie mates are marching shoulder to shoulder with them then that propagates the message of those 200.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829
    edited November 2023
    Selebian said:

    Update: my wife has emerged victorious in the Great Battle with Royal Mail. Letter and refund cheque to arrive within 14 days, apparently (fingers crossed RM don't lose it!). Given the time involved in pursuing the £2.50 charge, it's either a great moral victory or a great Pyrrhic victory, I can't decide which. Maybe it's both.

    ETA: Fortunately we have banking apps, so don't need to spend £5 on fuel and parking to nip into town to cash it in, when the cheque arrives.

    Good for you and Mrs S. Though I have a horrible feeling things will get much worse - I hadn't realised till one of us pointed it out that [edit] even for UK post only, the recipient actuialy becomes liable for £2.50 if the wrong stamps are put on the enveloipe - wrong as in "being the right sum of money but we don't like them cos no stripes". Whereas if the sum of money is wrong, you get charged only £1.50.

    As for the cheque, I have a Nationwide postal (!) account to deal with that sort of small cheques - postage free.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    I don't agree with you on this. In my political life over the last 50 years, SWP outriders have tried (unsuccessfully) to appropriate/hijack every march/protest I've ever been involved with. That includes anti-apartheid, poll tax demos, Anti-Nazi league and so on. Most demonstrators just ignore, or laugh at, the SWP. It's not as if it's helped the SWP cause much.

    And the same applies to the pro-Palestinian marches. Most of the people on them have no time for the SWP, nor for the minority who indulge in anti-semitic rhetoric. But I know for most on here that's an inconvenient fact to propose, and so I expect to be lambasted as anti-semitic myself. Whatever.
    If you go on a march organised by….

    “the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And where you know, beforehand, that it will be “officially addressed by Jeremy Corbyn”…

    Then yes I fear you will have to suffer legitimate suspicions of anti-Semitism
    Thanks: as I predicted.
    In all seriousness, what do you expect? Doesn’t the list of organisers and speakers give you any pause at all?
    No.
    In all seriousness, does your frequent anti-Islamic bile give you any pause at all?
    A march officially organised by anti Semites and officially addressed by anti Semites and you don’t even hesitate to join it for a second. You don’t have a scintilla of doubt

    That’s not great
    Well actually no, my marching days are over, so I'm not going. But I know quite a few people who are.
    Guess what they have in common?

    They despair of the horrendous violence perpetrated by Hamas.
    They despair of the horrendous scale of the retaliation by the Israeli state.
    They want peace - an end to violence on all sides.
    They take the view that long-term peace must include a free Israel and a free Palestine.

    Of course there will be a minority who wish the end of Israel. But they're not typical. They don't include Jeremy Corbyn, even.
    Ironically, I will be on the march (but not chanting or shouting). As a journo for the knappers gazette I want to see it for myself. Get the feeling of the marchers and see who they are

    I went on one of the big BLM marches and it was absolutely revelatory. It made me realise how much the media tells outright lies (on all sides)
  • Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    I don't agree with you on this. In my political life over the last 50 years, SWP outriders have tried (unsuccessfully) to appropriate/hijack every march/protest I've ever been involved with. That includes anti-apartheid, poll tax demos, Anti-Nazi league and so on. Most demonstrators just ignore, or laugh at, the SWP. It's not as if it's helped the SWP cause much.

    And the same applies to the pro-Palestinian marches. Most of the people on them have no time for the SWP, nor for the minority who indulge in anti-semitic rhetoric. But I know for most on here that's an inconvenient fact to propose, and so I expect to be lambasted as anti-semitic myself. Whatever.

    I would be surprised if most people going along were anti-Semitic, but they are prepared to march in the company of people who are and who have called for the destruction of Israel and the killing of all Jews.
    Wait till you hear who was willing to serve in a shadow cabinet for several years with an *alleged* antisemite, and star speaker at the march of the guilty by association.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,375
    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    I don't agree with you on this. In my political life over the last 50 years, SWP outriders have tried (unsuccessfully) to appropriate/hijack every march/protest I've ever been involved with. That includes anti-apartheid, poll tax demos, Anti-Nazi league and so on. Most demonstrators just ignore, or laugh at, the SWP. It's not as if it's helped the SWP cause much.

    And the same applies to the pro-Palestinian marches. Most of the people on them have no time for the SWP, nor for the minority who indulge in anti-semitic rhetoric. But I know for most on here that's an inconvenient fact to propose, and so I expect to be lambasted as anti-semitic myself. Whatever.
    Then go on another march. You are swelling the numbers of those anti-semites, anti-westerners so if one of them has a banner saying kill the Jews you are in effect giving credentials, by your presence and those around you, to that view. You are helping to say this is not a minority what me guv view, this is a view, because we are marching shoulder to shoulder, that we all agree on.

    I have zero doubt that you are not an anti-semite but I really do wonder why such avowed non-anti-semites feel it necessary on a point of principle to march side by side with outright anti-semites.
    Hyperbole. Anybody who has a banner saying Kill the Jews should be arrested forthwith. Obviously.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,249
    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The Gaza march on Saturday is expecting “hundreds of thousands”. It is organised by

    “The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And it will be addressed by - amongst others - Jeremy Corbyn

    So if you go on that march you are knowingly attending a march organised by anti-Semites and quasi-Islamists, which will be addressed by a man so anti-Semitic he was expelled from the Labour Party

    That really is quite something

    One good point I have heard Douglas Murray make is if you go on a march and you witness people shouting River to the Sea constantly, calling for Jihad or interfada, signs with keep the streets clean of Jews....once you can say well there are some dodgy people on this march, by week 4, you know the sort of people who are organising this, who will be attending, you can't claim ignorance.

    It is why the big ecofascists marches have died off, people realised that they might well agree with general premise that we should do more about combatting climate change, but actually XR etc are Marxists who want to overthrow the state, not put up a few more windmills.

    Also the student fees ones, soon as there was violence that was it, people went I don't want to be associated with coked up privileged wankers swinging on the Cenotaph and smashing up the wrong building that they thought was Tory HQ.

    A general rule of thumb is that any march where you see prominent displays of SWP banners and placards is a march you should not be on.

    I don't agree with you on this. In my political life over the last 50 years, SWP outriders have tried (unsuccessfully) to appropriate/hijack every march/protest I've ever been involved with. That includes anti-apartheid, poll tax demos, Anti-Nazi league and so on. Most demonstrators just ignore, or laugh at, the SWP. It's not as if it's helped the SWP cause much.

    And the same applies to the pro-Palestinian marches. Most of the people on them have no time for the SWP, nor for the minority who indulge in anti-semitic rhetoric. But I know for most on here that's an inconvenient fact to propose, and so I expect to be lambasted as anti-semitic myself. Whatever.
    If you go on a march organised by….

    “the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Muslim Association of Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Stop the War and CND.”

    And where you know, beforehand, that it will be “officially addressed by Jeremy Corbyn”…

    Then yes I fear you will have to suffer legitimate suspicions of anti-Semitism
    Thanks: as I predicted.
    In all seriousness, what do you expect? Doesn’t the list of organisers and speakers give you any pause at all?
    No.
    In all seriousness, does your frequent anti-Islamic bile give you any pause at all?
    A march officially organised by anti Semites and officially addressed by anti Semites and you don’t even hesitate to join it for a second. You don’t have a scintilla of doubt

    That’s not great
    Well actually no, my marching days are over, so I'm not going. But I know quite a few people who are.
    Guess what they have in common?

    They despair of the horrendous violence perpetrated by Hamas.
    They despair of the horrendous scale of the retaliation by the Israeli state.
    They want peace - an end to violence on all sides.
    They take the view that long-term peace must include a free Israel and a free Palestine.

    Of course there will be a minority who wish the end of Israel. But they're not typical. They don't include Jeremy Corbyn, even.
    The point is that if a hundred thousand people go on a march and 200 of them are carrying Death to the Jews banners and your 99,800 salt of the earth we despair of violence hug a hoodie mates are marching shoulder to shoulder with them then that propagates the message of those 200.
    Which is why decent people, when organising their marches, exclude the scumbags. Rather carefully. See the Stop The War marches, for example.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,355

    Whatever happened to the law that the Guardian's of this world were claiming if passed supposedly gave the power to the plod to shut down any protests that were a bit loud and shouty?

    I think that law doesn't apply in advance. It allows police to ban a protest and order a crowd to disperse, if they think it's too loud/disruptive/annoying. But not to ban it in advance, I think.

    One thing I didn't realise is that there are now heavy fines available for anyone on a protest who deviates from the agreed route.
    And yet they couldn't apply it to the bloke shouting for Jihad down a microphone....
    I don't think that's right. I think they chose not to apply it.

    Also worth remembering the Colston statue protest in Bristol. Often the police choose not to intervene at the time of a protest, but gather evidence and arrest people at 5am over the days following. It's a much lower risk strategy for them than wading in and trying to arrest people in the middle of a large crowd.
This discussion has been closed.