This ring was discovered on a woman buried around 1,200 years ago in Birka, an ancient Viking city located 30 km (19 miles) west of contemporary Stockholm, Sweden. What sets this ring apart is the inscription "for Allah" in Kufic Arabic, commonly used between the 8th and 10th centuries. It provides evidence of direct contact between Vikings and the Abbasid Caliphate, the third caliphate succeeding the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Delving into the topic, I explored various Arab travelers and their extensive premodern explorations. The most prolific pre-modern explorer was Ibn Battuta, a Muslim Moroccan who is believed to have traversed 117,000 km (72,000 miles)... https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1724917855127216634
The Ibn Battuta mentioned, though separated by culture, religion, and a millennium of history, is notably Leon adjacent. .."I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveler in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor caravan whose part I might join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries. So I braced my resolution to quit my dear ones, female and male, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests...
Wikipedia is yet more uncanny.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta ...Ibn Battuta's claim that a Maghrebian called "Abu'l Barakat the Berber" converted the Maldives to Islam is contradicted by an entirely different story which says that the Maldives were converted to Islam after miracles were performed by a Tabrizi named Maulana Shaikh Yusuf Shams-ud-din according to the Tarikh, the official history of the Maldives.
Some scholars have also questioned whether he really visited China...
...Concubines were used by Ibn Battuta such as in Delhi. He wedded several women, divorced at least some of them, and in Damascus, Malabar, Delhi, Bukhara, and the Maldives had children by them or by concubines.[172] Ibn Battuta insulted Greeks as "enemies of Allah", drunkards and "swine eaters", while at the same time in Ephesus he purchased and used a Greek girl who was one of his many slave girls in his "harem" through Byzantium, Khorasan, Africa, and Palestine.[173] It was two decades before he again returned to find out what happened to one of his wives and child in Damascus...
There's the bones of an article, maybe even a book in this for our resident knapper ?
I can remember Michael Wood’s programme about Eric Bloodaxe, which went into the links between vikings, and the various Islamic States at the time. The vikings sold them slaves on a massive scale, and got tons of silver in return.
As Dominic Sandbrook says, it’s striking how popular vikings are, when they were murderers, rapists, and slavers on a huge scale (there’s even a slave trading game you can play, at a Danish museum on Vikings.)
There are tales of Celtic girls being taken as slaves to Iceland in Norse mythology. One or two of them, or their children, rose to quite high rank. Wasn’t there a big Viking slave market in Dublin?
Studies of male and female line DNA bear that out. Dublin was a huge slave market in the 10th century.
Yes. I think genetically Icelandics are a pure 50/50 hybrid of Celtic/Nordic genes
So we also need to discuss Rishi Sunak recently met up with a far right extremist.
This is what @elonmusk says he endorses That Jewish communities push hatred against white people. (This is a foundation of the Great Replacement Theory/"Jews will not replace us" extreme right).
Lots of far right wingers (e.g Marine le Pen, or Victor Orban) fall into this category, though - truly vile antisemitism that really is in line with Protocols or, indeed, Nazism - but because they support Israel they don't get the same level of scrutiny on it (and, indeed, will have people like Netanyahu as allies). This goes to another issue with the state of Israel as it is constructed; to those kinds of politicians its utility is not as a safe haven for the Jewish diaspora, a "homeland" in that sense, but an example (and justification) for their desire for their own ethnostates, a different "homeland" if you will. Their logic is, if the Jewish people can have one, why not us?
I have said here multiple times how the Post-Modern Neo-Marxist nonsense of the Jordan Peterson's of the world is just Nazi Judeo Bolshevism repackaged - and that is what Musk is essentially endorsing. The idea that ((someone)) must be behind the bad things happening in the West and the "fall of white people" and that ((someone)) are The Jews.
I doubt Musk will get the same scrutiny as the average random pro-Palestinian protester who calls for a ceasefire or an end to apartheid (and have very little power), despite the fact he is literally the richest man on the planet and meets with heads of states.
youre all over the place now.
The correct call is to demand
Hamas release all hostages Hamas lay down their arms Hamas surrender
Then all Gazans can have a safer life and the Israelis can have security
I mean, this was only related to the Israel Palestine conflict in the sense that the comments on X were a reaction to someone asking about anti-Semites to just be truthful in their anti-Semitism.
I think it is quite easy, and quite noncontradictory, to be against anti-Semitism and be against the actions of the Israeli government in relation to the Palestinian people. I think it is quite easy to say that Protocol level conspiracism is bad and, at the same time, accept that maybe Hamas exists not out of some pure anti-Semitic rational, but out of a mixture of political grievance, a sense of futility and some anti-Semitic feelings. I think it is not hard to look at the actions of the Israeli state and army and suggest that their indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians is bad, and should stop, and that the Hamas attack on October 7th was also abhorrent.
We have reports of Hamas trying to negotiate the release of hostages - they want to negotiate a cease to the bombing before releasing hostages in part to make sure the hostages can get out alive. This, I do not doubt, is not even motivated by altruism - more likely it is motivated by a general desire for the bombing to stop as well as a desire to look like they can be trusted political actors so that other negotiations can happen. Israel seems to be the state party refusing to negotiate and not prioritising the hostages.
This ring was discovered on a woman buried around 1,200 years ago in Birka, an ancient Viking city located 30 km (19 miles) west of contemporary Stockholm, Sweden. What sets this ring apart is the inscription "for Allah" in Kufic Arabic, commonly used between the 8th and 10th centuries. It provides evidence of direct contact between Vikings and the Abbasid Caliphate, the third caliphate succeeding the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Delving into the topic, I explored various Arab travelers and their extensive premodern explorations. The most prolific pre-modern explorer was Ibn Battuta, a Muslim Moroccan who is believed to have traversed 117,000 km (72,000 miles)... https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1724917855127216634
The Ibn Battuta mentioned, though separated by culture, religion, and a millennium of history, is notably Leon adjacent. .."I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveler in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor caravan whose part I might join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries. So I braced my resolution to quit my dear ones, female and male, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests...
Wikipedia is yet more uncanny.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta ...Ibn Battuta's claim that a Maghrebian called "Abu'l Barakat the Berber" converted the Maldives to Islam is contradicted by an entirely different story which says that the Maldives were converted to Islam after miracles were performed by a Tabrizi named Maulana Shaikh Yusuf Shams-ud-din according to the Tarikh, the official history of the Maldives.
Some scholars have also questioned whether he really visited China...
...Concubines were used by Ibn Battuta such as in Delhi. He wedded several women, divorced at least some of them, and in Damascus, Malabar, Delhi, Bukhara, and the Maldives had children by them or by concubines.[172] Ibn Battuta insulted Greeks as "enemies of Allah", drunkards and "swine eaters", while at the same time in Ephesus he purchased and used a Greek girl who was one of his many slave girls in his "harem" through Byzantium, Khorasan, Africa, and Palestine.[173] It was two decades before he again returned to find out what happened to one of his wives and child in Damascus...
There's the bones of an article, maybe even a book in this for our resident knapper ?
I can remember Michael Wood’s programme about Eric Bloodaxe, which went into the links between vikings, and the various Islamic States at the time. The vikings sold them slaves on a massive scale, and got tons of silver in return.
As Dominic Sandbrook says, it’s striking how popular vikings are, when they were murderers, rapists, and slavers on a huge scale (there’s even a slave trading game you can play, at a Danish museum on Vikings.)
There are tales of Celtic girls being taken as slaves to Iceland in Norse mythology. One or two of them, or their children, rose to quite high rank. Wasn’t there a big Viking slave market in Dublin?
Studies of male and female line DNA bear that out. Dublin was a huge slave market in the 10th century.
Norway will be apologising to Eire any time now ;-)
So we also need to discuss Rishi Sunak recently met up with a far right extremist.
This is what @elonmusk says he endorses That Jewish communities push hatred against white people. (This is a foundation of the Great Replacement Theory/"Jews will not replace us" extreme right).
Lots of far right wingers (e.g Marine le Pen, or Victor Orban) fall into this category, though - truly vile antisemitism that really is in line with Protocols or, indeed, Nazism - but because they support Israel they don't get the same level of scrutiny on it (and, indeed, will have people like Netanyahu as allies). This goes to another issue with the state of Israel as it is constructed; to those kinds of politicians its utility is not as a safe haven for the Jewish diaspora, a "homeland" in that sense, but an example (and justification) for their desire for their own ethnostates, a different "homeland" if you will. Their logic is, if the Jewish people can have one, why not us?
I have said here multiple times how the Post-Modern Neo-Marxist nonsense of the Jordan Peterson's of the world is just Nazi Judeo Bolshevism repackaged - and that is what Musk is essentially endorsing. The idea that ((someone)) must be behind the bad things happening in the West and the "fall of white people" and that ((someone)) are The Jews.
I doubt Musk will get the same scrutiny as the average random pro-Palestinian protester who calls for a ceasefire or an end to apartheid (and have very little power), despite the fact he is literally the richest man on the planet and meets with heads of states.
No you haven't explicitly said it here multiple times, although many of your statements are compatible with it (and are now illuminated by this underlying thesis). I keep saying this to people (Cicero, MoonRabbit, Stodge? etc), write this up into an article and send it in. Just laying down allusions in the comments is not as useful as it could be.
Agreed - but it's quite useful to refine ideas by floating them first in the comments, though.
FPT - the Tories have had 14 years to sort out the £100k tax trap, and have done precisely nothing about, instead preferring to tinker around with corporation tax and the headline top rate. In fact, in some respects they made it worse by creating a new £50k tax trap.
It's no wonder their base has haemorrhaged.
That's not accurate because they created it in the first place. It was a central plank of Osborne's "broadest shoulders" approach to filling the chasm created by the collapse of financial services money.
To me, and I have suffered under it for many years, it is no more appalling than the abatements and tapering that those with in work benefits suffer under somewhat further down the salary scale. Whenever you have a change in the marginal rate it is inevitably going to be higher than the rates on either side of it. The only alternative to a taper is a cliff edge. Not sure that is better.
I thought it was originally the work of Brown? Or have I been hoodwinked by Tory propaganda?
To be honest £100,000 was a lot of money in 2010 - it's the equivalent of £180,000 now...
At the time only the top 1% of income tax payers were caught now it seems to be 3-4%...
Fiscal drag on tax bands is a key driver in why our taxes are so high. Well, your taxes. I take only a small salary these days
One response to the UK tax system is to avoid/limit 'employment' because it is so heavily penalised due to the inequalities of National Insurance and lower taxes associated with wealth.
I see that the number of failing Maternity units is now 2/3, significantly up over the year. Something that I have regularly pointed out on here over the years.
My Trust is now one of these rated inadequate on safety, mostly due to inadequate staffing by midwives and doctors.
Not that I have much faith in the CQC, but this is a scandal that is systemic, and the numbers of lives lost makes the Post Office look like amateurs.
I am willing to bet serious money that many of the same failings appear in both scandals: arrogance, refusal to learn, attacking anyone raising concerns, callousness to those affected, shiny slogans and mission statements unaccompanied by action, second-rate staff, refusal to look at evidence, failure to implement recommendations, misallocation of resources/money and so on and on and on and on.
So we also need to discuss Rishi Sunak recently met up with a far right extremist.
This is what @elonmusk says he endorses That Jewish communities push hatred against white people. (This is a foundation of the Great Replacement Theory/"Jews will not replace us" extreme right).
Lots of far right wingers (e.g Marine le Pen, or Victor Orban) fall into this category, though - truly vile antisemitism that really is in line with Protocols or, indeed, Nazism - but because they support Israel they don't get the same level of scrutiny on it (and, indeed, will have people like Netanyahu as allies). This goes to another issue with the state of Israel as it is constructed; to those kinds of politicians its utility is not as a safe haven for the Jewish diaspora, a "homeland" in that sense, but an example (and justification) for their desire for their own ethnostates, a different "homeland" if you will. Their logic is, if the Jewish people can have one, why not us?
I have said here multiple times how the Post-Modern Neo-Marxist nonsense of the Jordan Peterson's of the world is just Nazi Judeo Bolshevism repackaged - and that is what Musk is essentially endorsing. The idea that ((someone)) must be behind the bad things happening in the West and the "fall of white people" and that ((someone)) are The Jews.
I doubt Musk will get the same scrutiny as the average random pro-Palestinian protester who calls for a ceasefire or an end to apartheid (and have very little power), despite the fact he is literally the richest man on the planet and meets with heads of states.
No you haven't explicitly said it here multiple times, although many of your statements are compatible with it (and are now illuminated by this underlying thesis). I keep saying this to people (Cicero, MoonRabbit, Stodge? etc), write this up into an article and send it in. Just laying down allusions in the comments is not as useful as it could be.
I am afraid taht whilst I agree with 148grss on some things, they do have a tendancy to drift into some rather wild and wooly conspiracy theories which don't hold up to much scrutiny.
The discussion was prompted by a wild and woolly - and deeply malign - theory being adopted by Musk. It's hardly engaging in wild flights of fancy to note that.
So we also need to discuss Rishi Sunak recently met up with a far right extremist.
This is what @elonmusk says he endorses That Jewish communities push hatred against white people. (This is a foundation of the Great Replacement Theory/"Jews will not replace us" extreme right).
Lots of far right wingers (e.g Marine le Pen, or Victor Orban) fall into this category, though - truly vile antisemitism that really is in line with Protocols or, indeed, Nazism - but because they support Israel they don't get the same level of scrutiny on it (and, indeed, will have people like Netanyahu as allies). This goes to another issue with the state of Israel as it is constructed; to those kinds of politicians its utility is not as a safe haven for the Jewish diaspora, a "homeland" in that sense, but an example (and justification) for their desire for their own ethnostates, a different "homeland" if you will. Their logic is, if the Jewish people can have one, why not us?
I have said here multiple times how the Post-Modern Neo-Marxist nonsense of the Jordan Peterson's of the world is just Nazi Judeo Bolshevism repackaged - and that is what Musk is essentially endorsing. The idea that ((someone)) must be behind the bad things happening in the West and the "fall of white people" and that ((someone)) are The Jews.
I doubt Musk will get the same scrutiny as the average random pro-Palestinian protester who calls for a ceasefire or an end to apartheid (and have very little power), despite the fact he is literally the richest man on the planet and meets with heads of states.
No you haven't explicitly said it here multiple times, although many of your statements are compatible with it (and are now illuminated by this underlying thesis). I keep saying this to people (Cicero, MoonRabbit, Stodge? etc), write this up into an article and send it in. Just laying down allusions in the comments is not as useful as it could be.
I am afraid taht whilst I agree with 148grss on some things, they do have a tendancy to drift into some rather wild and wooly conspiracy theories which don't hold up to much scrutiny.
What's conspiratorial here? We know that far right wingers look at Israel as something they want to emulate - it is part of their talking points! Those who are in power / vying for power don't say it out loud, (again, the Le Pens and Orbans), but the entire fascist milieu is filled with it.
I have talked about JP and his obsession with post modern neo marxist stuff before - just prior to the beginning of this conflict (and prior to when most people noticed me as a regular poster here).
I'd be more than happy to write a longer article about it (with citations) but I don't know what the threshold is for being considered someone who can post an article / who to ask.
If the UK puts an Act of Parliament through which contradicts its international obligations in terms of rights then its likely to end up back at the SC .
The SC can’t interfere with that Act , but could issue a “ declaration of incompatibility “ .
I have my doubts that the HOL will block legislation even though it can constitutionally as the Rwanda policy was not a manifesto commitment .
Anything the government tries to rush through now is going to end up back at the SC. There is no chance of them having a settled and legally unambiguous policy this side of the GE (and to be honest with you even if by some miracle they won that GE, if they are pursuing policy in the same manner as now I suspect they won’t have a settled and legally unambiguous policy by the time of the 2029 GE either!)
This is all performative. It’s mood music for the GE. The honest position is there is no easy fix on migration because it’s an international and complex issue, and gone are the days when the British government can wave a magic wand and will things were different.
A robust, well funded justice and border system will help process claims quickly and stop the more egregious flouting of the rules. Targeted statutory change to clarify certain rules may assist. Beyond that agreement is needed on a pan-European level as to what to do with this issue. It does not suit the government to say this, because firstly it’s too much hard work and exposes their chronic underfunding of the system and secondly their big Brexit messaging doesn’t allow them (they think) to be seen to be working with others to put in place a new international accord.
This ring was discovered on a woman buried around 1,200 years ago in Birka, an ancient Viking city located 30 km (19 miles) west of contemporary Stockholm, Sweden. What sets this ring apart is the inscription "for Allah" in Kufic Arabic, commonly used between the 8th and 10th centuries. It provides evidence of direct contact between Vikings and the Abbasid Caliphate, the third caliphate succeeding the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Delving into the topic, I explored various Arab travelers and their extensive premodern explorations. The most prolific pre-modern explorer was Ibn Battuta, a Muslim Moroccan who is believed to have traversed 117,000 km (72,000 miles)... https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1724917855127216634
It wasn't just the Arabs who travelled extensively - the Vikings ended up a long way south, using the river system of Eastern Europe. I would strongly recommend Cat Jarman's River Kings for an excellent picture of their activity. https://www.waterstones.com/book/river-kings/cat-jarman/9780008353117
I was more struck by the individual obsessive traveller - a sort of proto-Leon - in this case.
Cleverley on R4 Today felt like old times, and a version of grown up politics. Well spoken bloke in friendly banterish waspish dialogue with sharp interviewer (Rajan); both know that the HS is defending the indefensible and believes not a single word of what he is saying. Both know the tactics of how to bat till close of play is rubbish, but they still need to bat till close of play.
It conveyed a strong sense that they could continue the conversation off air over coffee in which all this could be said in the open, while mutually amazed at the stupidity of the government, Tory members and many MPs.
So we also need to discuss Rishi Sunak recently met up with a far right extremist.
This is what @elonmusk says he endorses That Jewish communities push hatred against white people. (This is a foundation of the Great Replacement Theory/"Jews will not replace us" extreme right).
I wonder how significant last night’s rebellion by Jess Phillips, et cetera against Sir Keir Starmer‘s instructions was. If he’s got any sense, he’ll give it a day or so, Theon pquietly reappoint the rebels to their original positions. I really don’t see Sir Keir as a charismatic leader!
Neither do I. There are two images I've got of the Gaza crisis that I can't get out of my mind. The first is of an old farmer in the West Bank being shot by a young settler. It wasn't heavily featured just part of a news montage. The other was of a Gazan girl holding back tears as she told the interviewer that their family had just eaten their donkey.
It's always the small picture that tells the story and those two images alone make me livid with Starmer whether his refusal to call for ceasefire would make a difference or not.
I see that the number of failing Maternity units is now 2/3, significantly up over the year. Something that I have regularly pointed out on here over the years.
My Trust is now one of these rated inadequate on safety, mostly due to inadequate staffing by midwives and doctors.
Not that I have much faith in the CQC, but this is a scandal that is systemic, and the numbers of lives lost makes the Post Office look like amateurs.
I am willing to bet serious money that many of the same failings appear in both scandals: arrogance, refusal to learn, attacking anyone raising concerns, callousness to those affected, shiny slogans and mission statements unaccompanied by action, second-rate staff, refusal to look at evidence, failure to implement recommendations, misallocation of resources/money and so on and on and on and on.
Note the last line. Since then there has been the scandal in Nottingham's maternity care - 1200 people affected I understand.
The phrase "lessons learned" now makes me want to vomit.
Those things wouldn't surprise me at all, but fails to explain specifically why maternity as opposed to other departments. This is despite, or perhaps because of, liability insurance exceeding salary costs to maternity units.
I need to be off shortly but there are reasons why maternity in particular fails in the UK.
I'd be interested in your thoughts on that, when you have time.
Regarding recent polling, although I will vote Labour next time the prospect of a whacking huge majority does fill me with minor dread, because I worry it will be seen as an endorsement for all sorts of things that I will disagree with. But maybe it gives Starmer some wriggle room to actually push through some much needed reform, we shall see if it comes to that.
But honestly, my slight trepidation about Labour, would probably be outweighed by the joy of seeing this government and the Tory Party getting such a well deserved kicking.
Cleverley on R4 Today felt like old times, and a version of grown up politics. Well spoken bloke in friendly banterish waspish dialogue with sharp interviewer (Rajan); both know that the HS is defending the indefensible and believes not a single word of what he is saying. Both know the tactics of how to bat till close of play is rubbish, but they still need to bat till close of play.
It conveyed a strong sense that they could continue the conversation off air over coffee in which all this could be said in the open, while mutually amazed at the stupidity of the government, Tory members and many MPs.
Asked if he described the Govt’s current Rwanda policy as "batshit", @JamesCleverly does not deny the claim. Instead he tells @amolrajan "I don't remember a conversation like that."
This ring was discovered on a woman buried around 1,200 years ago in Birka, an ancient Viking city located 30 km (19 miles) west of contemporary Stockholm, Sweden. What sets this ring apart is the inscription "for Allah" in Kufic Arabic, commonly used between the 8th and 10th centuries. It provides evidence of direct contact between Vikings and the Abbasid Caliphate, the third caliphate succeeding the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Delving into the topic, I explored various Arab travelers and their extensive premodern explorations. The most prolific pre-modern explorer was Ibn Battuta, a Muslim Moroccan who is believed to have traversed 117,000 km (72,000 miles)... https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1724917855127216634
The Ibn Battuta mentioned, though separated by culture, religion, and a millennium of history, is notably Leon adjacent. .."I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveler in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor caravan whose part I might join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries. So I braced my resolution to quit my dear ones, female and male, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests...
Wikipedia is yet more uncanny.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta ...Ibn Battuta's claim that a Maghrebian called "Abu'l Barakat the Berber" converted the Maldives to Islam is contradicted by an entirely different story which says that the Maldives were converted to Islam after miracles were performed by a Tabrizi named Maulana Shaikh Yusuf Shams-ud-din according to the Tarikh, the official history of the Maldives.
Some scholars have also questioned whether he really visited China...
...Concubines were used by Ibn Battuta such as in Delhi. He wedded several women, divorced at least some of them, and in Damascus, Malabar, Delhi, Bukhara, and the Maldives had children by them or by concubines.[172] Ibn Battuta insulted Greeks as "enemies of Allah", drunkards and "swine eaters", while at the same time in Ephesus he purchased and used a Greek girl who was one of his many slave girls in his "harem" through Byzantium, Khorasan, Africa, and Palestine.[173] It was two decades before he again returned to find out what happened to one of his wives and child in Damascus...
There's the bones of an article, maybe even a book in this for our resident knapper ?
I can remember Michael Wood’s programme about Eric Bloodaxe, which went into the links between vikings, and the various Islamic States at the time. The vikings sold them slaves on a massive scale, and got tons of silver in return.
As Dominic Sandbrook says, it’s striking how popular vikings are, when they were murderers, rapists, and slavers on a huge scale (there’s even a slave trading game you can play, at a Danish museum on Vikings.)
There are tales of Celtic girls being taken as slaves to Iceland in Norse mythology. One or two of them, or their children, rose to quite high rank. Wasn’t there a big Viking slave market in Dublin?
Studies of male and female line DNA bear that out. Dublin was a huge slave market in the 10th century.
Norway will be apologising to Eire any time now ;-)
So we also need to discuss Rishi Sunak recently met up with a far right extremist.
This is what @elonmusk says he endorses That Jewish communities push hatred against white people. (This is a foundation of the Great Replacement Theory/"Jews will not replace us" extreme right).
The GRT has become a mainstream view among large sections of the right on both sides of the Atlantic. I've seen it getting airtime here, even. Fash is back in fashion.
It’s not a theory. Jewish thinkers have long been some of the most ardent proponents of multiculturalism - for the very sensible reason (in their eyes) that they are unlikely to be persecuted as a minority when there many minorities. And maybe no overwhelming majority. It makes sense if you are an oft-oppressed community
Now they are seeing that multiculturalism has its downsides - big time
This isn’t really disputed
It only edges into GRT and fash when you go several steps further and claim this is all some mad plan by a secret cabal to “replace white people”
Many Jewish theorists and individuals are still very happy to defend multiculturalism - it is only those who view criticism of the state of Israel and Zionism as inherently anti-Semitic, and right wingers who want to use that as a wedge to divide people, who disagree.
But ideas of multiculturalism are not inherently Jewish, and the people who suggest they are argue that it is specifically a plot to weaken "the West / white race". Multiculturalism is just how societies function - some people migrate, some of those people will keep the traditions from where they have come from, some will adopt the traditions of where they have gone to, and both will evolve to accommodate aspects of both traditions and form something new.
This ring was discovered on a woman buried around 1,200 years ago in Birka, an ancient Viking city located 30 km (19 miles) west of contemporary Stockholm, Sweden. What sets this ring apart is the inscription "for Allah" in Kufic Arabic, commonly used between the 8th and 10th centuries. It provides evidence of direct contact between Vikings and the Abbasid Caliphate, the third caliphate succeeding the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Delving into the topic, I explored various Arab travelers and their extensive premodern explorations. The most prolific pre-modern explorer was Ibn Battuta, a Muslim Moroccan who is believed to have traversed 117,000 km (72,000 miles)... https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1724917855127216634
The Ibn Battuta mentioned, though separated by culture, religion, and a millennium of history, is notably Leon adjacent. .."I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveler in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor caravan whose part I might join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries. So I braced my resolution to quit my dear ones, female and male, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests...
Wikipedia is yet more uncanny.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta ...Ibn Battuta's claim that a Maghrebian called "Abu'l Barakat the Berber" converted the Maldives to Islam is contradicted by an entirely different story which says that the Maldives were converted to Islam after miracles were performed by a Tabrizi named Maulana Shaikh Yusuf Shams-ud-din according to the Tarikh, the official history of the Maldives.
Some scholars have also questioned whether he really visited China...
...Concubines were used by Ibn Battuta such as in Delhi. He wedded several women, divorced at least some of them, and in Damascus, Malabar, Delhi, Bukhara, and the Maldives had children by them or by concubines.[172] Ibn Battuta insulted Greeks as "enemies of Allah", drunkards and "swine eaters", while at the same time in Ephesus he purchased and used a Greek girl who was one of his many slave girls in his "harem" through Byzantium, Khorasan, Africa, and Palestine.[173] It was two decades before he again returned to find out what happened to one of his wives and child in Damascus...
There's the bones of an article, maybe even a book in this for our resident knapper ?
I can remember Michael Wood’s programme about Eric Bloodaxe, which went into the links between vikings, and the various Islamic States at the time. The vikings sold them slaves on a massive scale, and got tons of silver in return.
As Dominic Sandbrook says, it’s striking how popular vikings are, when they were murderers, rapists, and slavers on a huge scale (there’s even a slave trading game you can play, at a Danish museum on Vikings.)
There are tales of Celtic girls being taken as slaves to Iceland in Norse mythology. One or two of them, or their children, rose to quite high rank. Wasn’t there a big Viking slave market in Dublin?
Studies of male and female line DNA bear that out. Dublin was a huge slave market in the 10th century.
Yes. I think genetically Icelandics are a pure 50/50 hybrid of Celtic/Nordic genes
Also very beautiful
Changing the topic, what was the 'huge news' item you mentioned back in the summer that you couldn't share with us at the time but was going to blow our minds? Did it prove false, pass by unnoticed, or are we still waiting?
This ring was discovered on a woman buried around 1,200 years ago in Birka, an ancient Viking city located 30 km (19 miles) west of contemporary Stockholm, Sweden. What sets this ring apart is the inscription "for Allah" in Kufic Arabic, commonly used between the 8th and 10th centuries. It provides evidence of direct contact between Vikings and the Abbasid Caliphate, the third caliphate succeeding the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Delving into the topic, I explored various Arab travelers and their extensive premodern explorations. The most prolific pre-modern explorer was Ibn Battuta, a Muslim Moroccan who is believed to have traversed 117,000 km (72,000 miles)... https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1724917855127216634
The Ibn Battuta mentioned, though separated by culture, religion, and a millennium of history, is notably Leon adjacent. .."I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveler in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor caravan whose part I might join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries. So I braced my resolution to quit my dear ones, female and male, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests...
Wikipedia is yet more uncanny.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta ...Ibn Battuta's claim that a Maghrebian called "Abu'l Barakat the Berber" converted the Maldives to Islam is contradicted by an entirely different story which says that the Maldives were converted to Islam after miracles were performed by a Tabrizi named Maulana Shaikh Yusuf Shams-ud-din according to the Tarikh, the official history of the Maldives.
Some scholars have also questioned whether he really visited China...
...Concubines were used by Ibn Battuta such as in Delhi. He wedded several women, divorced at least some of them, and in Damascus, Malabar, Delhi, Bukhara, and the Maldives had children by them or by concubines.[172] Ibn Battuta insulted Greeks as "enemies of Allah", drunkards and "swine eaters", while at the same time in Ephesus he purchased and used a Greek girl who was one of his many slave girls in his "harem" through Byzantium, Khorasan, Africa, and Palestine.[173] It was two decades before he again returned to find out what happened to one of his wives and child in Damascus...
There's the bones of an article, maybe even a book in this for our resident knapper ?
I can remember Michael Wood’s programme about Eric Bloodaxe, which went into the links between vikings, and the various Islamic States at the time. The vikings sold them slaves on a massive scale, and got tons of silver in return.
As Dominic Sandbrook says, it’s striking how popular vikings are, when they were murderers, rapists, and slavers on a huge scale (there’s even a slave trading game you can play, at a Danish museum on Vikings.)
There are tales of Celtic girls being taken as slaves to Iceland in Norse mythology. One or two of them, or their children, rose to quite high rank. Wasn’t there a big Viking slave market in Dublin?
Studies of male and female line DNA bear that out. Dublin was a huge slave market in the 10th century.
Norway will be apologising to Eire any time now ;-)
Reparations will be demanded by the free state.
Well, Norway could afford it.
Norther Ireland will be digging up the streets looking for evidence of the Belfat slave market.
Would it have made sense for Labour to have tabled an amendment calling for a sequenced ceasefire immediately to follow the release of the all hostages, with all hostages to be released within 24 hours?
This would have made it clear that Labour had a genuinely balanced position.
South Africa, 2-1 in the second over one of the main!
Now 8-2. Really good start by Australia.
Off 7 overs too. Not only early wickets but a non existent scoring rate.
Wicket maiden followed by a maiden over.
Do they think this is a Test match, and they have two days to get runs?
They might pick up the pace later, but they'd give their right arm to put 250 up now I think - which probably isn't where you want to be anyway defending.
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
Cleverley on R4 Today felt like old times, and a version of grown up politics. Well spoken bloke in friendly banterish waspish dialogue with sharp interviewer (Rajan); both know that the HS is defending the indefensible and believes not a single word of what he is saying. Both know the tactics of how to bat till close of play is rubbish, but they still need to bat till close of play.
It conveyed a strong sense that they could continue the conversation off air over coffee in which all this could be said in the open, while mutually amazed at the stupidity of the government, Tory members and many MPs.
Asked if he described the Govt’s current Rwanda policy as "batshit", @JamesCleverly does not deny the claim. Instead he tells @amolrajan "I don't remember a conversation like that."
Why Sunak isn’t very good reason #5648:
When a government has a setback of this nature, the sensible response is “we need time to consider the impact of this judgment and what this means for our policy. We will review the position with lawyers and assess the way forward. We are committed to [policy aim] but respect the court’s decision and will need to look at how we can achieve that, but that will take time.”
He then takes the whole issue off the table until the GE. There is no victory Sunak can score on this issue between now and the GE. Nothing, zilch, nip, nada. Anything he brings forward will be rushed and performative and tied up in Parliament / the courts. He cannot get any kind of resolution to this in the next 10 months. So he needs to forget it, and move on.
But Sunak is overpromoted and is working with a lot of other third rate, overpromoted chancers who don’t understand this. I think Cleverly, to his credit, does, but has little wriggle-room as the only adult in the room here.
Cleverley on R4 Today felt like old times, and a version of grown up politics. Well spoken bloke in friendly banterish waspish dialogue with sharp interviewer (Rajan); both know that the HS is defending the indefensible and believes not a single word of what he is saying. Both know the tactics of how to bat till close of play is rubbish, but they still need to bat till close of play.
It conveyed a strong sense that they could continue the conversation off air over coffee in which all this could be said in the open, while mutually amazed at the stupidity of the government, Tory members and many MPs.
He'd be a good choice for the Tories after the election but if the members get a vote, he's got no chance. Still if the Tories are reduce to 40 MPs they might manage a stitch-up - 1922 Committee declare 20 MPs required to get on the ballot.
(1922 Committee would probably have to be renamed the 19 Committee.)
Sounds like govt has a fight on its hands in Lords over new Rwanda treaty
Lord Sumption, former Supreme Court justice, accuses it of using Parliament to 'change the facts'
'For Parliament simply to say facts are different would be constitutionally really quite extraordinary'
He does make a good point but Tory MPs will pass the legislation and then the HOL will eventually cave in . No 10 and the right wing press will inflame the situation and I don’t see the HOL holding out .
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
People seem not to be positively voting for Labour as much as voting Labour against the Tories.
I have seem some gnarly map projections based on these polls - one showing only 6 Tory seats (all in Scotland) and the LDs as the Official Opposition.
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
People seem not to be positively voting for Labour as much as voting Labour against the Tories.
I have seem some gnarly map projections based on these polls - one showing only 6 Tory seats (all in Scotland) and the LDs as the Official Opposition.
I still think, and my Devon tory member friend agrees, that negative voting is a more powerful motivator than positive voting. In other words voting against the Conservatives is going to attract more sentiment and voting momentum than choosing to vote for anyone else.
There has been so much over the past 4 years (and more) to motivate people to kick the tories, and hard.
All Labour have to do is to be centrist, look moderately competent and, in some ways, to keep their heads down.
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
People seem not to be positively voting for Labour as much as voting Labour against the Tories.
I have seem some gnarly map projections based on these polls - one showing only 6 Tory seats (all in Scotland) and the LDs as the Official Opposition.
Voting Labour just as a reason to get the Tories might be enough though.
The issue is that the level of despair and anger at the current government and Tory Party is running so high that people will just vote for the main alternative to be rid of them.
That is where the “no enthusiasm for Starmer” principle breaks down, because there might be no enthusiasm for him but does it matter when the primary goal of voters is just to get the government out?
There were reasons why one would want to back Major over Blair in 1997. Major was running a dysfunctional government at that point, but several orders of magnitude more competent and stable than what the Tories find themselves running now.
I am struggling to see why one would want to vote for the Tories right now. I genuinely am.
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
A few more of these and the Tories will be averaging 20%. Remember when PB Tories were worried they might slip below 30%?
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
People seem not to be positively voting for Labour as much as voting Labour against the Tories.
I have seem some gnarly map projections based on these polls - one showing only 6 Tory seats (all in Scotland) and the LDs as the Official Opposition.
They'll be celebrating in the streets of North Aberdeen come election night.
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
People seem not to be positively voting for Labour as much as voting Labour against the Tories.
I have seem some gnarly map projections based on these polls - one showing only 6 Tory seats (all in Scotland) and the LDs as the Official Opposition.
I still think, and my Devon tory member friend agrees, that negative voting is a more powerful motivator than positive voting. In other words voting against the Conservatives is going to attract more sentiment and voting momentum than choosing to vote for anyone else.
There has been so much over the past 4 years (more) to motivate people to kick the tories, and hard.
All Labour have to do is to be centrist, look moderately competent and, in some ways, keep their heads down.
(This is polemic and may not be correct.)
I think that makes sense. My theory was that, post Cameron and pre Truss, the Tories had managed to keep a level of managerial middle class support that was mostly linked to low interest rates and therefore stable (if still high) mortgages. I think a lot of those voters may have sat more naturally with LDs or centrist Lab, but Corbyn was considered a threat to their economic reliability, and therefore negative pressure led them to vote Con. Of course the working class eurosceptic vote seems to have mattered with Johnson, but he did also seem to keep most of that cohort in house. Truss blew that up, and so more and more have drained away. The working class eurosceptic vote is either back to Labour now Brexit is "done", or RefUK, and many "natural" Tories are saying they're going to stay home or vote RefUK - in part, I think, out of fears that in response to Truss' economic blunder that the government are going to raid their pensions.
FPT - the Tories have had 14 years to sort out the £100k tax trap, and have done precisely nothing about, instead preferring to tinker around with corporation tax and the headline top rate. In fact, in some respects they made it worse by creating a new £50k tax trap.
It's no wonder their base has haemorrhaged.
That's not accurate because they created it in the first place. It was a central plank of Osborne's "broadest shoulders" approach to filling the chasm created by the collapse of financial services money.
To me, and I have suffered under it for many years, it is no more appalling than the abatements and tapering that those with in work benefits suffer under somewhat further down the salary scale. Whenever you have a change in the marginal rate it is inevitably going to be higher than the rates on either side of it. The only alternative to a taper is a cliff edge. Not sure that is better.
I thought it was originally the work of Brown? Or have I been hoodwinked by Tory propaganda?
Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me but I don't remember losing my personal allowances under Brown, I think it was under Osborne. I certainly lost my CB under Osborne.
It was announced right at the end of the Labour government. So it was introduced under Labour.
Indeed it was, and it was a mistake. If only the Tories had been in power since 2009 so that they could have fixed it, eh?
For what it's worth, I think any income or benefit rules that have high marginal rates should be addressed. See also the 55% effective rate for low paid earners on UC, for whom the effect is much more painful than the £100k tax cliff ever was for me when I was impacted through the 2010s
The problem is you can’t fix that UC issue without vastly increasing the number of people who would qualify for a tiny bit of UC.
An equally interesting one is the VAT registration point which is so high that you can make a decent living while keeping below the limit so an awful lot of people do so. Yes it avoids some paperwork but it’s another insane barrier where the chart just screams problem
@Savanta_UK 🚨NEW Westminster Voting Intention among UK Muslims
📈45pt Labour lead
🌹Lab 64 🌳Con 19 🔶LD 9 🌍Green 5 ⬜️Other 3 (=)
1,032 UK Muslims, 27 Oct - 3 Nov
Electorally, people concerned about Gaza have two choices. Vote to keep a Tory government wedded to Israel, or vote for a Labour Party wedded to Israel.
I think we could see some switching to other parties, but it won't make a difference. Even the LibDem position is in line with the other two, so no 2005 protest vote sweep up.
Tory MPs voting to say Rwanda is safe doesn't *checks notes* actually make Rwanda safe...
The main opposition leader in Rwanda told @ShelaghFogarty that Rwanda wasn't safe for refugees and that the #RwandaPlan was a money making scheme
#BBCBreakfast #Rwanda
So now we are saying that passing laws creating a legal fiction doesn't actually change facts.
Goodness me.
** checks notes and reminds herself of the Gender Recognition Act and the recent Scottish judgment saying that a piece of paper could change sex **
** then reminds herself that those only affected women and so were not important whereas grown up things like asserting the safety of a faraway country of which we know little are **
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
People seem not to be positively voting for Labour as much as voting Labour against the Tories.
I have seem some gnarly map projections based on these polls - one showing only 6 Tory seats (all in Scotland) and the LDs as the Official Opposition.
I still think, and my Devon tory member friend agrees, that negative voting is a more powerful motivator than positive voting. In other words voting against the Conservatives is going to attract more sentiment and voting momentum than choosing to vote for anyone else.
There has been so much over the past 4 years (and more) to motivate people to kick the tories, and hard.
All Labour have to do is to be centrist, look moderately competent and, in some ways, to keep their heads down.
(This is polemic and may not be correct.)
In a binary contest that's well known which means there's even less reason for Starmer's pathetic attempt to show he's the strong man.
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
A few more of these and the Tories will be averaging 20%. Remember when PB Tories were worried they might slip below 30%?
@Savanta_UK 🚨NEW Westminster Voting Intention among UK Muslims
📈45pt Labour lead
🌹Lab 64 🌳Con 19 🔶LD 9 🌍Green 5 ⬜️Other 3 (=)
1,032 UK Muslims, 27 Oct - 3 Nov
Electorally, people concerned about Gaza have two choices. Vote to keep a Tory government wedded to Israel, or vote for a Labour Party wedded to Israel.
I think we could see some switching to other parties, but it won't make a difference. Even the LibDem position is in line with the other two, so no 2005 protest vote sweep up.
Lots of LDs voted for the ceasefire amendment, though - and the Greens are clearly in favour of peace.
But, yes, the British political consensus will be "say whatever the US wants us to say". (It is weird to me that this is kind of expressed openly and no major questioning of this is happening in the news - why should our foreign policy decisions be mostly dictated by another state (in this case the US))
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
People seem not to be positively voting for Labour as much as voting Labour against the Tories.
I have seem some gnarly map projections based on these polls - one showing only 6 Tory seats (all in Scotland) and the LDs as the Official Opposition.
They'll be celebrating in the streets of North Aberdeen come election night.
Lets hope for some LibDem gains north of Aberdeen...
South Africa’s decision to bat first under leaden skies and a swinging ball is looking disastrous. All based on the fact that they’ve had a notorious record of run chases.
Oh dear. Another game in this men's world cup that isn’t going to be close, barring an amazing turnaround.
@Savanta_UK 🚨NEW Westminster Voting Intention among UK Muslims
📈45pt Labour lead
🌹Lab 64 🌳Con 19 🔶LD 9 🌍Green 5 ⬜️Other 3 (=)
1,032 UK Muslims, 27 Oct - 3 Nov
That's a surprisingly high Conservative number. Only 10% below the figure Savanta give for overall Conservative support.
Muslims looking pretty similar to the rest of the country shocker. Apart from not supporting whatever the UKIP bloc is called these days, not far off the overall VI.
@Savanta_UK 🚨NEW Westminster Voting Intention among UK Muslims
📈45pt Labour lead
🌹Lab 64 🌳Con 19 🔶LD 9 🌍Green 5 ⬜️Other 3 (=)
1,032 UK Muslims, 27 Oct - 3 Nov
Electorally, people concerned about Gaza have two choices. Vote to keep a Tory government wedded to Israel, or vote for a Labour Party wedded to Israel.
I think we could see some switching to other parties, but it won't make a difference. Even the LibDem position is in line with the other two, so no 2005 protest vote sweep up.
If Starmer could get his head further up Sunak's backside he's be in a circus
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
A few more of these and the Tories will be averaging 20%. Remember when PB Tories were worried they might slip below 30%?
Are they still looking for that swingback too?
HY will be on soon to explain that once you add Reform and the DKs to the Tory score they are on course for 51% and a historic landslide.
@Savanta_UK 🚨NEW Westminster Voting Intention among UK Muslims
📈45pt Labour lead
🌹Lab 64 🌳Con 19 🔶LD 9 🌍Green 5 ⬜️Other 3 (=)
1,032 UK Muslims, 27 Oct - 3 Nov
Electorally, people concerned about Gaza have two choices. Vote to keep a Tory government wedded to Israel, or vote for a Labour Party wedded to Israel.
I think we could see some switching to other parties, but it won't make a difference. Even the LibDem position is in line with the other two, so no 2005 protest vote sweep up.
If Starmer could get his head further up Sunak's backside he's be in a circus
Tory MPs voting to say Rwanda is safe doesn't *checks notes* actually make Rwanda safe...
The main opposition leader in Rwanda told @ShelaghFogarty that Rwanda wasn't safe for refugees and that the #RwandaPlan was a money making scheme
#BBCBreakfast #Rwanda
So now we are saying that passing laws creating a legal fiction doesn't actually change facts.
Goodness me.
** checks notes and reminds herself of the Gender Recognition Act and the recent Scottish judgment saying that a piece of paper could change sex **
** then reminds herself that those only affected women and so were not important whereas grown up things like asserting the safety of a faraway country of which we know little are **
The facts thingy is tricky, and the only disciplines that deal in it are common sense (!) and philosophy. There are facts about things (chairs and tables can be distinguished) and facts about words (parliament can pass an act deeming certain men to be women, or deeming guide dogs to be cats in places where dogs are not permitted).
Lots of facts are acts of deeming. Like today being Thursday. It could be Zursday, or we might not name days at all.
Parliament could deem North Korea to be a safe country to return people to. Our courts are full of people, like senior judges, who can distinguish between 'de re' and 'de dicto' truths without much trouble and should be able to deal with it.
This ring was discovered on a woman buried around 1,200 years ago in Birka, an ancient Viking city located 30 km (19 miles) west of contemporary Stockholm, Sweden. What sets this ring apart is the inscription "for Allah" in Kufic Arabic, commonly used between the 8th and 10th centuries. It provides evidence of direct contact between Vikings and the Abbasid Caliphate, the third caliphate succeeding the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Delving into the topic, I explored various Arab travelers and their extensive premodern explorations. The most prolific pre-modern explorer was Ibn Battuta, a Muslim Moroccan who is believed to have traversed 117,000 km (72,000 miles)... https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1724917855127216634
The Ibn Battuta mentioned, though separated by culture, religion, and a millennium of history, is notably Leon adjacent. .."I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveler in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor caravan whose part I might join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries. So I braced my resolution to quit my dear ones, female and male, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests...
Wikipedia is yet more uncanny.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta ...Ibn Battuta's claim that a Maghrebian called "Abu'l Barakat the Berber" converted the Maldives to Islam is contradicted by an entirely different story which says that the Maldives were converted to Islam after miracles were performed by a Tabrizi named Maulana Shaikh Yusuf Shams-ud-din according to the Tarikh, the official history of the Maldives.
Some scholars have also questioned whether he really visited China...
...Concubines were used by Ibn Battuta such as in Delhi. He wedded several women, divorced at least some of them, and in Damascus, Malabar, Delhi, Bukhara, and the Maldives had children by them or by concubines.[172] Ibn Battuta insulted Greeks as "enemies of Allah", drunkards and "swine eaters", while at the same time in Ephesus he purchased and used a Greek girl who was one of his many slave girls in his "harem" through Byzantium, Khorasan, Africa, and Palestine.[173] It was two decades before he again returned to find out what happened to one of his wives and child in Damascus...
There's the bones of an article, maybe even a book in this for our resident knapper ?
I can remember Michael Wood’s programme about Eric Bloodaxe, which went into the links between vikings, and the various Islamic States at the time. The vikings sold them slaves on a massive scale, and got tons of silver in return.
As Dominic Sandbrook says, it’s striking how popular vikings are, when they were murderers, rapists, and slavers on a huge scale (there’s even a slave trading game you can play, at a Danish museum on Vikings.)
There are tales of Celtic girls being taken as slaves to Iceland in Norse mythology. One or two of them, or their children, rose to quite high rank. Wasn’t there a big Viking slave market in Dublin?
Studies of male and female line DNA bear that out. Dublin was a huge slave market in the 10th century.
Yes. I think genetically Icelandics are a pure 50/50 hybrid of Celtic/Nordic genes
Also very beautiful
Changing the topic, what was the 'huge news' item you mentioned back in the summer that you couldn't share with us at the time but was going to blow our minds? Did it prove false, pass by unnoticed, or are we still waiting?
(Not trying to have a dig - genuinely curious.)
It is very much ongoing. Developments this week. I wish I could tell you but I can’t - sworn to secrecy for various reasons
If anything eventuates - and we just don’t know - expect revelations in the coming year
I know that’s not satisfactory but you asked and that’s the best I can do
Even if nothing eventuates it is an extraordinary story in itself
Casgevy: UK approves gene-editing drug for sickle cell ... The treatment for sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia is the first to be licensed using the gene-editing tool known as Crispr, for which its discoverers were awarded the Nobel prize in 2020. ... In trials, 28 out of 29 sickle cell patients were free of severe pain and 39 of 42 beta thalassemia patients no longer needed blood transfusions for at least a year. It's hoped it could be a permanent fix.
Trials are continuing in the UK, US, France, Germany and Italy.
Around 15,000 people in the UK have sickle cell disease, most with an African or Caribbean family background. Almost 300 babies are born in the UK with sickle cell disease each year. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-67435266
Welcome news. Following yesterday's thread, we should perhaps note this is an American drug based on American academic research.
The Supreme Court didn't actually say that migrants couldn't be processed abroad just that safeguards were needed to ensure they weren't deported to the country they fled from. Hence Sunak is trying to change the law and get a new Treaty to ensure that, clearly most 2019 voters on that Yougov poll want the policy amended not scrapped.
As for sacking Braverman being popular, it has seen the Tory voteshare fall to just 19% and 21% in the last 3 polls. Even the 28% of voters who want to withdraw from the ECHR is almost 10% higher than that.
Ben Warner spotted exactly what a number of us on PB said at the time, that graph projecting COVID #2 wave was BS because we already have some of those numbers they are "projecting" as fact and they are very wide of the mark (let alone again the number were so high it was just impossible).
He claims he reported it to the powers that be and yet it was still used in the press conference.
And of course we saw this same nonsensical predictions deployed a number of times.
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
People seem not to be positively voting for Labour as much as voting Labour against the Tories.
I have seem some gnarly map projections based on these polls - one showing only 6 Tory seats (all in Scotland) and the LDs as the Official Opposition.
They'll be celebrating in the streets of North Aberdeen come election night.
Lets hope for some LibDem gains north of Aberdeen...
I'm sure it must have been discussed here in the past, in which case I have missed it, but please can someone explain the consistently high ReFUK figures in recent polls? They've got no press coverage, no campaigning that I have seen - are those numbers genuine? Or are the pollsters sampling only from retired men of a certain age who sit around all day watching GB News?
This ring was discovered on a woman buried around 1,200 years ago in Birka, an ancient Viking city located 30 km (19 miles) west of contemporary Stockholm, Sweden. What sets this ring apart is the inscription "for Allah" in Kufic Arabic, commonly used between the 8th and 10th centuries. It provides evidence of direct contact between Vikings and the Abbasid Caliphate, the third caliphate succeeding the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Delving into the topic, I explored various Arab travelers and their extensive premodern explorations. The most prolific pre-modern explorer was Ibn Battuta, a Muslim Moroccan who is believed to have traversed 117,000 km (72,000 miles)... https://twitter.com/historyinmemes/status/1724917855127216634
The Ibn Battuta mentioned, though separated by culture, religion, and a millennium of history, is notably Leon adjacent. .."I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveler in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor caravan whose part I might join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries. So I braced my resolution to quit my dear ones, female and male, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests...
Wikipedia is yet more uncanny.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta ...Ibn Battuta's claim that a Maghrebian called "Abu'l Barakat the Berber" converted the Maldives to Islam is contradicted by an entirely different story which says that the Maldives were converted to Islam after miracles were performed by a Tabrizi named Maulana Shaikh Yusuf Shams-ud-din according to the Tarikh, the official history of the Maldives.
Some scholars have also questioned whether he really visited China...
...Concubines were used by Ibn Battuta such as in Delhi. He wedded several women, divorced at least some of them, and in Damascus, Malabar, Delhi, Bukhara, and the Maldives had children by them or by concubines.[172] Ibn Battuta insulted Greeks as "enemies of Allah", drunkards and "swine eaters", while at the same time in Ephesus he purchased and used a Greek girl who was one of his many slave girls in his "harem" through Byzantium, Khorasan, Africa, and Palestine.[173] It was two decades before he again returned to find out what happened to one of his wives and child in Damascus...
There's the bones of an article, maybe even a book in this for our resident knapper ?
I can remember Michael Wood’s programme about Eric Bloodaxe, which went into the links between vikings, and the various Islamic States at the time. The vikings sold them slaves on a massive scale, and got tons of silver in return.
As Dominic Sandbrook says, it’s striking how popular vikings are, when they were murderers, rapists, and slavers on a huge scale (there’s even a slave trading game you can play, at a Danish museum on Vikings.)
There are tales of Celtic girls being taken as slaves to Iceland in Norse mythology. One or two of them, or their children, rose to quite high rank. Wasn’t there a big Viking slave market in Dublin?
Studies of male and female line DNA bear that out. Dublin was a huge slave market in the 10th century.
Yes. I think genetically Icelandics are a pure 50/50 hybrid of Celtic/Nordic genes
Also very beautiful
Changing the topic, what was the 'huge news' item you mentioned back in the summer that you couldn't share with us at the time but was going to blow our minds? Did it prove false, pass by unnoticed, or are we still waiting?
(Not trying to have a dig - genuinely curious.)
It is very much ongoing. Developments this week. I wish I could tell you but I can’t - sworn to secrecy for various reasons
If anything eventuates - and we just don’t know - expect revelations in the coming year
I know that’s not satisfactory but you asked and that’s the best I can do
Even if nothing eventuates it is an extraordinary story in itself
Another British firm sold but perhaps the interesting thing here, as the Chancellor is said to be looking at tweaking ISAs to increase investment in British companies, is that its share price doubled on that news. Efficient market, anyone?
Tory MPs voting to say Rwanda is safe doesn't *checks notes* actually make Rwanda safe...
The main opposition leader in Rwanda told @ShelaghFogarty that Rwanda wasn't safe for refugees and that the #RwandaPlan was a money making scheme
#BBCBreakfast #Rwanda
** checks notes and reminds herself of the Gender Recognition Act and the recent Scottish judgment saying that a piece of paper could change sex **
** then reminds herself that those only affected women and so were not important whereas grown up things like asserting the safety of a faraway country of which we know little are **
This is why I never read your threads, however much @Nigelb may wish.
Quite how you manage to shoehorn this largely irrelevant topic* into everything else beats me, but you are welcome to do so. Just as I’m as welcome to think you’re straining at gnats and swallowing camels and therefore choose to ignore what you write.
* I would debate with you properly why you’re wrong on this but this isn’t the place. There’s a time and a place for proper debate on the the topic and I have done so both in the national press and on television several times. But on a political forum where people are assured of anonymity it just encourages flaming from the Right of the kind that you are generally against.
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
A few more of these and the Tories will be averaging 20%. Remember when PB Tories were worried they might slip below 30%?
YouGov is typically 2% lower for the Conservatives than the average polling company. People Polling is about 5% lower and findoutnow is too new.
As always look at the movement on a polling company by polling company basis rather than the actuals. Conservatives down 2% on YouGov and PeoplePolling.
So we also need to discuss Rishi Sunak recently met up with a far right extremist.
This is what @elonmusk says he endorses That Jewish communities push hatred against white people. (This is a foundation of the Great Replacement Theory/"Jews will not replace us" extreme right).
Lots of far right wingers (e.g Marine le Pen, or Victor Orban) fall into this category, though - truly vile antisemitism that really is in line with Protocols or, indeed, Nazism - but because they support Israel they don't get the same level of scrutiny on it (and, indeed, will have people like Netanyahu as allies). This goes to another issue with the state of Israel as it is constructed; to those kinds of politicians its utility is not as a safe haven for the Jewish diaspora, a "homeland" in that sense, but an example (and justification) for their desire for their own ethnostates, a different "homeland" if you will. Their logic is, if the Jewish people can have one, why not us?
I have said here multiple times how the Post-Modern Neo-Marxist nonsense of the Jordan Peterson's of the world is just Nazi Judeo Bolshevism repackaged - and that is what Musk is essentially endorsing. The idea that ((someone)) must be behind the bad things happening in the West and the "fall of white people" and that ((someone)) are The Jews.
I doubt Musk will get the same scrutiny as the average random pro-Palestinian protester who calls for a ceasefire or an end to apartheid (and have very little power), despite the fact he is literally the richest man on the planet and meets with heads of states.
No you haven't explicitly said it here multiple times, although many of your statements are compatible with it (and are now illuminated by this underlying thesis). I keep saying this to people (Cicero, MoonRabbit, Stodge? etc), write this up into an article and send it in. Just laying down allusions in the comments is not as useful as it could be.
I am afraid taht whilst I agree with 148grss on some things, they do have a tendancy to drift into some rather wild and wooly conspiracy theories which don't hold up to much scrutiny.
What's conspiratorial here? We know that far right wingers look at Israel as something they want to emulate - it is part of their talking points! Those who are in power / vying for power don't say it out loud, (again, the Le Pens and Orbans), but the entire fascist milieu is filled with it.
I have talked about JP and his obsession with post modern neo marxist stuff before - just prior to the beginning of this conflict (and prior to when most people noticed me as a regular poster here).
I'd be more than happy to write a longer article about it (with citations) but I don't know what the threshold is for being considered someone who can post an article / who to ask.
The threshold for publishing an article is i) be alive and ii) slap the keyboard for a bit and iii) get @MikeSmithson or @rcs1000 or @TSE to accept it for publication. The third part is the difficult one.
The word limit used to be 800 words, but Cyclefree busted thru that and now it's around 1200-1300 max. To get an article published send it to one or more of the three by a PM or by email (ask them for their email as they are not likely to put it online). and then wait. There's no guarantee of publication - one of mine was spiked due to TrussPM/Queen death taking priority - but them's the breaks. Being a poor soul means I cannot offer bribery, although perhaps offers of extravagant footwear may assist. Good luck.
If what you want to say is too long then one technique may be to produce a shorter version, get that published, then discuss a longer version with interested people later on via a blog or backstage discussion.
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
People seem not to be positively voting for Labour as much as voting Labour against the Tories.
I have seem some gnarly map projections based on these polls - one showing only 6 Tory seats (all in Scotland) and the LDs as the Official Opposition.
They'll be celebrating in the streets of North Aberdeen come election night.
Lets hope for some LibDem gains north of Aberdeen...
I'm sure it must have been discussed here in the past, in which case I have missed it, but please can someone explain the consistently high ReFUK figures in recent polls? They've got no press coverage, no campaigning that I have seen - are those numbers genuine? Or are the pollsters sampling only from retired men of a certain age who sit around all day watching GB News?
Just been for a swim in a green jungle river as a mighty storm broiled overheard. In the fading twilight tropical kingfishers flashed above me, absurdly garish, like miniature flying Elton Johns from the mid 70s
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
People seem not to be positively voting for Labour as much as voting Labour against the Tories.
I have seem some gnarly map projections based on these polls - one showing only 6 Tory seats (all in Scotland) and the LDs as the Official Opposition.
I still think, and my Devon tory member friend agrees, that negative voting is a more powerful motivator than positive voting. In other words voting against the Conservatives is going to attract more sentiment and voting momentum than choosing to vote for anyone else.
There has been so much over the past 4 years (and more) to motivate people to kick the tories, and hard.
All Labour have to do is to be centrist, look moderately competent and, in some ways, to keep their heads down.
(This is polemic and may not be correct.)
Yes. I think the only thing now, barring a flock of black swans, is Labour going under with in-fighting, leftism or, most of all, anti-semitism.
The most grown up task Labour has at the moment is to be the main political movement for decent Muslims and unequivocally (given recent history) pro-Jewish.
The recent abominable events may possibly even assist, melancholy though that thought it; as it is a bit clearer that support for the Jewish community in UK is not identical to support for everything the current Israeli government does, any more than support for moderate Muslims is that same as support for Isis.
Ben Warner spotted exactly what a number of us on PB said at the time, that graph projecting COVID #2 wave was BS because we already have some of those numbers they are "projecting" as fact and they are very wide of the mark (let alone again the number were so high it was just impossible).
He claims he reported it to the powers that be and yet it was still used in the press conference.
And of course we saw this same nonsensical predictions deployed a number of times.
Yes but sfaict the main complaint is the wrong graph was used at a press conference about the second lockdown, and not that the lockdown was based on that graph. (And the other complaint is the public inquiry is useless.)
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
People seem not to be positively voting for Labour as much as voting Labour against the Tories.
I have seem some gnarly map projections based on these polls - one showing only 6 Tory seats (all in Scotland) and the LDs as the Official Opposition.
They'll be celebrating in the streets of North Aberdeen come election night.
Lets hope for some LibDem gains north of Aberdeen...
I'm sure it must have been discussed here in the past, in which case I have missed it, but please can someone explain the consistently high ReFUK figures in recent polls? They've got no press coverage, no campaigning that I have seen - are those numbers genuine? Or are the pollsters sampling only from retired men of a certain age who sit around all day watching GB News?
Another British firm sold but perhaps the interesting thing here, as the Chancellor is said to be looking at tweaking ISAs to increase investment in British companies, is that its share price doubled on that news. Efficient market, anyone?
The underperformance of the FTSE and its various subsections is a significant problem for UK businesses since it makes them very cheap and vulnerable to take over. It also makes obtaining fresh investment via the market more expensive than it is elsewhere and discourages indigenous growth. We need policies that encourage investment in the UK markets by domestic savers but selling them in a time of austerity and poor government finances is going to be challenging.
Changing the topic, what was the 'huge news' item you mentioned back in the summer that you couldn't share with us at the time but was going to blow our minds? Did it prove false, pass by unnoticed, or are we still waiting?
(Not trying to have a dig - genuinely curious.)
It is very much ongoing. Developments this week. I wish I could tell you but I can’t - sworn to secrecy for various reasons
If anything eventuates - and we just don’t know - expect revelations in the coming year
I know that’s not satisfactory but you asked and that’s the best I can do
Even if nothing eventuates it is an extraordinary story in itself
Just been for a swim in a green jungle river as a mighty storm broiled overheard. In the fading twilight tropical kingfishers flashed above me, absurdly garish, like miniature flying Elton Johns from the mid 70s
Another British firm sold but perhaps the interesting thing here, as the Chancellor is said to be looking at tweaking ISAs to increase investment in British companies, is that its share price doubled on that news. Efficient market, anyone?
The underperformance of the FTSE and its various subsections is a significant problem for UK businesses since it makes them very cheap and vulnerable to take over. It also makes obtaining fresh investment via the market more expensive than it is elsewhere and discourages indigenous growth. We need policies that encourage investment in the UK markets by domestic savers but selling them in a time of austerity and poor government finances is going to be challenging.
It would require people to save more into their pensions - which given how many people struggle on a weekly/ monthly basis due to lack of money isn’t going to happen any time soon
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
People seem not to be positively voting for Labour as much as voting Labour against the Tories.
I have seem some gnarly map projections based on these polls - one showing only 6 Tory seats (all in Scotland) and the LDs as the Official Opposition.
They'll be celebrating in the streets of North Aberdeen come election night.
Lets hope for some LibDem gains north of Aberdeen...
I'm sure it must have been discussed here in the past, in which case I have missed it, but please can someone explain the consistently high ReFUK figures in recent polls? They've got no press coverage, no campaigning that I have seen - are those numbers genuine? Or are the pollsters sampling only from retired men of a certain age who sit around all day watching GB News?
Ben Warner spotted exactly what a number of us on PB said at the time, that graph projecting COVID #2 wave was BS because we already have some of those numbers they are "projecting" as fact and they are very wide of the mark (let alone again the number were so high it was just impossible).
He claims he reported it to the powers that be and yet it was still used in the press conference.
And of course we saw this same nonsensical predictions deployed a number of times.
Yes but sfaict the main complaint is the wrong graph was used at a press conference about the second lockdown, and not that the lockdown was based on that graph. (And the other complaint is the public inquiry is useless.)
It wasn't "the wrong graph", it was that it was flat out BS, and Ben Warner claims they knew it and still used it to scare the public that lockdown was necessary. This is incredibly important, much more than Big Dom has a potty mouth on WhatsApp. We are supposed to be able to trust both the politicians and the non-politician scientific experts.
This confirms what some of us on here said pointing out the graphs / models were pumping out predictions that were absolute horse shit, embarrassingly so, and yet they stood there and used them as if they were morons. Now Boris won't have understood the clear issues, but the eggheads sure of hell should have.
As for was the 2nd lockdown right. I would say yes. My position was pretty clear, until vaccines we were right to be strict. But after that we needed to move to living with the virus much sooner. And that all the tier stuff was nonsense, we needed a consistent set of non-emergency / non-lockdown rules which we followed over that period. Oh and no f##king foreign holidays in 2020, but literally this never gets raised by the inquiry, despite it being the key component of how we got COVID wave #2.
The fact that wave #2 was a significant danger doesn't excuse using dodgy data ala Bad Al.
So YouGov has the Cons on 21%. In the last three polls that’s 19%, 19%, 21%.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
People seem not to be positively voting for Labour as much as voting Labour against the Tories.
I have seem some gnarly map projections based on these polls - one showing only 6 Tory seats (all in Scotland) and the LDs as the Official Opposition.
They'll be celebrating in the streets of North Aberdeen come election night.
Lets hope for some LibDem gains north of Aberdeen...
I'm sure it must have been discussed here in the past, in which case I have missed it, but please can someone explain the consistently high ReFUK figures in recent polls? They've got no press coverage, no campaigning that I have seen - are those numbers genuine? Or are the pollsters sampling only from retired men of a certain age who sit around all day watching GB News?
Nigel Farage has been all over the news re IACGMOOH. (eta And there was some sort of march in London recently.) We know there are disaffected small-c conservative voters. Many DKs, some RefUKs. Come the election, RefUK probably won't stand in many seats and that alone will mean polls overstate their likely votes.
Comments
Also very beautiful
I think it is quite easy, and quite noncontradictory, to be against anti-Semitism and be against the actions of the Israeli government in relation to the Palestinian people. I think it is quite easy to say that Protocol level conspiracism is bad and, at the same time, accept that maybe Hamas exists not out of some pure anti-Semitic rational, but out of a mixture of political grievance, a sense of futility and some anti-Semitic feelings. I think it is not hard to look at the actions of the Israeli state and army and suggest that their indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians is bad, and should stop, and that the Hamas attack on October 7th was also abhorrent.
We have reports of Hamas trying to negotiate the release of hostages - they want to negotiate a cease to the bombing before releasing hostages in part to make sure the hostages can get out alive. This, I do not doubt, is not even motivated by altruism - more likely it is motivated by a general desire for the bombing to stop as well as a desire to look like they can be trusted political actors so that other negotiations can happen. Israel seems to be the state party refusing to negotiate and not prioritising the hostages.
It's hardly engaging in wild flights of fancy to note that.
I have talked about JP and his obsession with post modern neo marxist stuff before - just prior to the beginning of this conflict (and prior to when most people noticed me as a regular poster here).
I'd be more than happy to write a longer article about it (with citations) but I don't know what the threshold is for being considered someone who can post an article / who to ask.
This is all performative. It’s mood music for the GE. The honest position is there is no easy fix on migration because it’s an international and complex issue, and gone are the days when the British government can wave a magic wand and will things were different.
A robust, well funded justice and border system will help process claims quickly and stop the more egregious flouting of the rules. Targeted statutory change to clarify certain rules may assist. Beyond that agreement is needed on a pan-European level as to what to do with this issue. It does not suit the government to say this, because firstly it’s too much hard work and exposes their chronic underfunding of the system and secondly their big Brexit messaging doesn’t allow them (they think) to be seen to be working with others to put in place a new international accord.
It conveyed a strong sense that they could continue the conversation off air over coffee in which all this could be said in the open, while mutually amazed at the stupidity of the government, Tory members and many MPs.
It's always the small picture that tells the story and those two images alone make me livid with Starmer whether his refusal to call for ceasefire would make a difference or not.
Sounds like govt has a fight on its hands in Lords over new Rwanda treaty
Lord Sumption, former Supreme Court justice, accuses it of using Parliament to 'change the facts'
'For Parliament simply to say facts are different would be constitutionally really quite extraordinary'
Try again or just email info@cyclefree.co.uk. I'd be interested in your thoughts on that, when you have time.
🚨NEW Westminster Voting Intention among UK Muslims
📈45pt Labour lead
🌹Lab 64
🌳Con 19
🔶LD 9
🌍Green 5
⬜️Other 3 (=)
1,032 UK Muslims, 27 Oct - 3 Nov
But honestly, my slight trepidation about Labour, would probably be outweighed by the joy of seeing this government and the Tory Party getting such a well deserved kicking.
Asked if he described the Govt’s current Rwanda policy as "batshit", @JamesCleverly does not deny the claim. Instead he tells @amolrajan "I don't remember a conversation like that."
But ideas of multiculturalism are not inherently Jewish, and the people who suggest they are argue that it is specifically a plot to weaken "the West / white race". Multiculturalism is just how societies function - some people migrate, some of those people will keep the traditions from where they have come from, some will adopt the traditions of where they have gone to, and both will evolve to accommodate aspects of both traditions and form something new.
(Not trying to have a dig - genuinely curious.)
Norther Ireland will be digging up the streets looking for evidence of the Belfat slave market.
Do they think this is a Test match, and they have two days to get runs?
This would have made it clear that Labour had a genuinely balanced position.
The People Polling one for GB News was clearly neither an outlier nor a rogue.
A question will be whether Labour also take a sustained dent after yesterday or if that proves more ephemeral than the recent tory civil war. My guess is that it will be, based mainly on nous but it could also be bias on my part.
ReformUK in double digits in all three polls. Will that hold?
When a government has a setback of this nature, the sensible response is “we need time to consider the impact of this judgment and what this means for our policy. We will review the position with lawyers and assess the way forward. We are committed to [policy aim] but respect the court’s decision and will need to look at how we can achieve that, but that will take time.”
He then takes the whole issue off the table until the GE. There is no victory Sunak can score on this issue between now and the GE. Nothing, zilch, nip, nada. Anything he brings forward will be rushed and performative and tied up in Parliament / the courts. He cannot get any kind of resolution to this in the next 10 months. So he needs to forget it, and move on.
But Sunak is overpromoted and is working with a lot of other third rate, overpromoted chancers who don’t understand this. I think Cleverly, to his credit, does, but has little wriggle-room as the only adult in the room here.
(1922 Committee would probably have to be renamed the 19 Committee.)
Tory MPs voting to say Rwanda is safe doesn't *checks notes* actually make Rwanda safe...
The main opposition leader in Rwanda told @ShelaghFogarty that Rwanda wasn't safe for refugees and that the #RwandaPlan was a money making scheme
#BBCBreakfast
#Rwanda
I have seem some gnarly map projections based on these polls - one showing only 6 Tory seats (all in Scotland) and the LDs as the Official Opposition.
Latest:
— Cleverly says don’t need to leave ECHR
— Bar Council warns new policy raises “profound” questions about role of courts and parliament
— Former Supreme Court judge Jonathan Sumption says it’s “constitutionally really quite extraordinary”
There has been so much over the past 4 years (and more) to motivate people to kick the tories, and hard.
All Labour have to do is to be centrist, look moderately competent and, in some ways, to keep their heads down.
(This is polemic and may not be correct.)
The issue is that the level of despair and anger at the current government and Tory Party is running so high that people will just vote for the main alternative to be rid of them.
That is where the “no enthusiasm for Starmer” principle breaks down, because there might be no enthusiasm for him but does it matter when the primary goal of voters is just to get the government out?
There were reasons why one would want to back Major over Blair in 1997. Major was running a dysfunctional government at that point, but several orders of magnitude more competent and stable than what the Tories find themselves running now.
I am struggling to see why one would want to vote for the Tories right now. I genuinely am.
I remember the Australians had five slips and the commentators said it was the right field!
An equally interesting one is the VAT registration point which is so high that you can make a decent living while keeping below the limit so an awful lot of people do so. Yes it avoids some paperwork but it’s another insane barrier where the chart just screams problem
I think we could see some switching to other parties, but it won't make a difference. Even the LibDem position is in line with the other two, so no 2005 protest vote sweep up.
Goodness me.
** checks notes and reminds herself of the Gender Recognition Act and the recent Scottish judgment saying that a piece of paper could change sex **
** then reminds herself that those only affected women and so were not important whereas grown up things like asserting the safety of a faraway country of which we know little are **
Incoming
But, yes, the British political consensus will be "say whatever the US wants us to say". (It is weird to me that this is kind of expressed openly and no major questioning of this is happening in the news - why should our foreign policy decisions be mostly dictated by another state (in this case the US))
Oh dear. Another game in this men's world cup that isn’t going to be close, barring an amazing turnaround.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/cricket/66859420
Lots of facts are acts of deeming. Like today being Thursday. It could be Zursday, or we might not name days at all.
Parliament could deem North Korea to be a safe country to return people to. Our courts are full of people, like senior judges, who can distinguish between 'de re' and 'de dicto' truths without much trouble and should be able to deal with it.
If anything eventuates - and we just don’t know - expect revelations in the coming year
I know that’s not satisfactory but you asked and that’s the best I can do
Even if nothing eventuates it is an extraordinary story in itself
Just switched cricket on and blinked several times at South Africa 31 for 4
...
The treatment for sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia is the first to be licensed using the gene-editing tool known as Crispr, for which its discoverers were awarded the Nobel prize in 2020.
...
In trials, 28 out of 29 sickle cell patients were free of severe pain and 39 of 42 beta thalassemia patients no longer needed blood transfusions for at least a year. It's hoped it could be a permanent fix.
Trials are continuing in the UK, US, France, Germany and Italy.
Around 15,000 people in the UK have sickle cell disease, most with an African or Caribbean family background. Almost 300 babies are born in the UK with sickle cell disease each year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-67435266
Welcome news. Following yesterday's thread, we should perhaps note this is an American drug based on American academic research.
As for sacking Braverman being popular, it has seen the Tory voteshare fall to just 19% and 21% in the last 3 polls. Even the 28% of voters who want to withdraw from the
ECHR is almost 10% higher than that.
What does a South African rain dance look like?
(They could always come back tomorrow to finish the match, there’s nothing else going on)
And a rosier one, Tories at 16:
These are based of the polls putting the Tories at 19% and 21%, respectively
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bNJsT5EE0o
Ben Warner spotted exactly what a number of us on PB said at the time, that graph projecting COVID #2 wave was BS because we already have some of those numbers they are "projecting" as fact and they are very wide of the mark (let alone again the number were so high it was just impossible).
He claims he reported it to the powers that be and yet it was still used in the press conference.
And of course we saw this same nonsensical predictions deployed a number of times.
(PS 'Eventuates' really?!)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67436228
Another British firm sold but perhaps the interesting thing here, as the Chancellor is said to be looking at tweaking ISAs to increase investment in British companies, is that its share price doubled on that news. Efficient market, anyone?
Quite how you manage to shoehorn this largely irrelevant topic* into everything else beats me, but you are welcome to do so. Just as I’m as welcome to think you’re straining at gnats and swallowing camels and therefore choose to ignore what you write.
* I would debate with you properly why you’re wrong on this but this isn’t the place. There’s a time and a place for proper debate on the the topic and I have done so both in the national press and on television several times. But on a political forum where people are assured of anonymity it just encourages flaming from the Right of the kind that you are generally against.
As always look at the movement on a polling company by polling company basis rather than the actuals. Conservatives down 2% on YouGov and PeoplePolling.
The Varangians did have a lot of Norse chaps, but also at least some Anglo-Saxons (unsure if that was just after 1066).
The word limit used to be 800 words, but Cyclefree busted thru that and now it's around 1200-1300 max. To get an article published send it to one or more of the three by a PM or by email (ask them for their email as they are not likely to put it online). and then wait. There's no guarantee of publication - one of mine was spiked due to TrussPM/Queen death taking priority - but them's the breaks. Being a poor soul means I cannot offer bribery, although perhaps offers of extravagant footwear may assist. Good luck.
If what you want to say is too long then one technique may be to produce a shorter version, get that published, then discuss a longer version with interested people later on via a blog or backstage discussion.
The most grown up task Labour has at the moment is to be the main political movement for decent Muslims and unequivocally (given recent history) pro-Jewish.
The recent abominable events may possibly even assist, melancholy though that thought it; as it is a bit clearer that support for the Jewish community in UK is not identical to support for everything the current Israeli government does, any more than support for moderate Muslims is that same as support for Isis.
lol
Just you wait @Dura_Ace just you wait
If it EVENTUATES it will change the way we look at humanity. Cheers from the jungle
This confirms what some of us on here said pointing out the graphs / models were pumping out predictions that were absolute horse shit, embarrassingly so, and yet they stood there and used them as if they were morons. Now Boris won't have understood the clear issues, but the eggheads sure of hell should have.
As for was the 2nd lockdown right. I would say yes. My position was pretty clear, until vaccines we were right to be strict. But after that we needed to move to living with the virus much sooner. And that all the tier stuff was nonsense, we needed a consistent set of non-emergency / non-lockdown rules which we followed over that period. Oh and no f##king foreign holidays in 2020, but literally this never gets raised by the inquiry, despite it being the key component of how we got COVID wave #2.
The fact that wave #2 was a significant danger doesn't excuse using dodgy data ala Bad Al.