Steve Kornacki @SteveKornacki From early 2019 through today, we have now polled a Trump/Biden match-up 16 times. This is the first one of them to show Trump ahead.
Then it I can’t work out, because it’s hard without being an American, is the likelihood of his legal problems rendering all of this irrelevant on the basis he won’t be able to stand. If that’s the case, there must be bags of value in the other Republican candidates, since there will need to be one.
Re his legal issues, don't bet on it. The documents case will almost certainly be pushed back to post-the election. In Georgia, Fani Willis the DA is indicating heavily it will go past November 2024. In the NY case, Trump has just won a reversal of his gag order on the grounds it is unconstitutional, which - may - increase his chances of getting a mistrial. You are therefore looking at the Jack Smith Fed Prosecutor case.
You also have to look at the politics of this. It's probably not a coincidence that the talk about prosecuting Trump ASAP have lessened as the poll numbers have shown this issues are not hurting him and may be helping him.
He hasn't 'just won' a reversal of his gag order. It's been paused while the State Supreme Court assess it.
That's also separate from the mistrial which ironically only Engoron can rule on (so he will not rule there has been, and in fact yesterday ruled there has not been).
However, that's not likely to be an issue in his running for the Presidency although it may ultimately lead him to financial ruin.
It's more interesting that (by rather circuitous reasoning) the Colorado judge ruled the President isn't an officer of the United States according to the framers of the amendment in question, but did note in passing that Trump was clearly guilty of insurrection.
Far from dying down, what has happened is as these trials move into the preliminary court phase the newsworthiness becomes a little less. I suspect when he actually takes the stand he will find life - difficult.
He has already given evidence in the NY fraudulent declaration case with no obvious damage amongst Republicans.
He wasn't defending himself against charges of insurrection then!
It is depressing that he seems to remain bullet proof. And indeed leading in the polls.
The key for him will be if that continues once his criminal cases begin and if he is convicted.
52% of Republicans have said they wouldn't vote for Trump again if he is convicted and then jailed
It will be interesting to see the size of next week's March against Anti-Semitism in London.
Will the numbers be as large as in the similar recent Paris march? Will any politicians and, if so, from which parties attend? Will celebrities concerned by racism be there? Who will the attendees be?
Is anyone keeping a count of celebrities and politicians on any of the marches so far?
The problem, we are told, with a “ceasefire”, is that it denies Israel’s right to defend itself.
But after several weeks of bombing, all Israel has managed to do is kill ~10,000 Palestinians, of which many will be children.
How many hostages have they recovered? How are Israel’s military aims distinguishable from simply expelling Palestinians from Gaza outright?
Israel has lost Gen Z opinion, to the extent that’s important, and is losing the support of the reasonable minded in the West.
The chaotic incompetence that missed a massive terrorist attack across their border has continued in Israel crossing back over the border to revenge themselves. They don’t seem to have clear aims aside from destroying Hamas as a threat (which thus far they’re making a crap job of), they’ve managed to lose a ton of international support since 7th October and the assault on the Al-Shifa hospital seems an absolute shit show.
Nice work Bibi.
LOL you are actually blaming Netanyahu for October 7th.
Asking for it were they?
What a foolish final statement.
Hamas are a death cult that needs to be crushed, the 7th of October was at their whim. However the secret services and the IDF were asleep at the wheel. The focus was on the West Bank when it should have been on Gaza. The buck stops with Bibi.
Subsequently Bibi has been rather casual with the hostages, as borne out by hostage families marching on Jerusalem. There has been little concern by Bibi for civilian collateral damage. Bibi doesn't like Palestinians, any Palestinians, not just the bad ones. When he's finished the death toll could be enormous.
Does being asleep at the wheel mean it was their fault.
What about all those householders who are burgled while they are asleep in their beds.
A majority of Israelis seem to hold Bibi in part responsible for being “asleep at the wheel”, so you are - per usual on this subject - barking up the wrong tree.
There ought to be a term for PB Israel ultras who are more ultra than the Israelis themselves.
Was October 7th the fault of Netanyahu.
An awfully convenient pretext for him to conquer Gaza.
Thanks Sunil you have summed up well the view, quite popular on PB and beyond, which is that Netanyahu was responsible for if not had a hand in Oct 7th as it served his broader aims.
I commend you for stating what others don't have the kahunas to say.
On Indy I think the change is not the support for YES, but the sense of it as an urgent necessity rather than a vague but pleasing aspiration
For a long time the Nats - brilliantly - kept dangling the YES Indy carrot like the donkey electorate was gonna eat it any moment. Now the donkey realises the carrot was a hologram, and any nice food is a long way down the road
Sure, the donkey would still LIKE a juicy carrot, but the donkey has accepted that there are now more pressing needs, like eating some grass, getting down the road, maybe humping a sexy jackass in the next village
So 45% support for YES no longer translates into anything like 45 points for the SNP, coz the SNP don’t have any fake carrots left, and the new SNP are also really quite shit, and resented for the whole carrot thing, and because donkey is bored of carrying them
I reckon the Nats are more likely to go under 30 seats than stay over, so the LDs are probably, rightly, modest favorites in this market
The 2014 referendum was not a hologram and nor was the demand for another one after the Brexit-fuelled Holyrood victory of the SNP on that specific platform.
Suspect your analogy comes mainly from a desire to present Sindy supporting Scottish people as donkies.
What? Of course 2014 was not a hologram. My point is that AFTER that vote the idea of an imminent new vote became increasingly fantastical, in reality, yet the SNP managed to persuade everyone, and keep persuading them, that Sindyref2 was just a few inches away. One more heave
That illusion is shattered. Stop being stupid. You’re already quite boring. Stupid AS WELL would make you unreadable
But you didn't say that. You just said they've been dangling their carrots "for a long time". If by this you specifically meant since 2014 well ok (ish) but how would we be expected to guess that?
After all you used to bang on about 2014 being very recent. So recent that it would be absurd to even think about another referendum despite it being voted for!
See? Hoist again, I'm afraid. Bamboozled by Kuntibula the Logic Monster.
Also given that we are being held hostage , it would not matter if SNP got ZERO votes , we would still have to do something else.
Like what though? It's hard to see a Sindy route which doesn't go via another referendum - and that's in the gift of Westminster.
Not if you look at it on the union treaty rather than some English later confection in English Law.
That would require UDI, which Westminster, the successor to the 1707 English and Scottish Parliaments, wouldn't grant either
Holyrood is the successor to the 1707 Scottish Parliament. Look at th eproceedings of the first session of that then emphatically Unionist body.
The first Speaker was a Nat!
And talking bollocks. The Estates of Scotland, to give them their correct name, were a different beast from the Scottish Parliament, and they were not prorogued, they were abolished.
Steve Kornacki @SteveKornacki From early 2019 through today, we have now polled a Trump/Biden match-up 16 times. This is the first one of them to show Trump ahead.
Then it I can’t work out, because it’s hard without being an American, is the likelihood of his legal problems rendering all of this irrelevant on the basis he won’t be able to stand. If that’s the case, there must be bags of value in the other Republican candidates, since there will need to be one.
Re his legal issues, don't bet on it. The documents case will almost certainly be pushed back to post-the election. In Georgia, Fani Willis the DA is indicating heavily it will go past November 2024. In the NY case, Trump has just won a reversal of his gag order on the grounds it is unconstitutional, which - may - increase his chances of getting a mistrial. You are therefore looking at the Jack Smith Fed Prosecutor case.
You also have to look at the politics of this. It's probably not a coincidence that the talk about prosecuting Trump ASAP have lessened as the poll numbers have shown this issues are not hurting him and may be helping him.
He hasn't 'just won' a reversal of his gag order. It's been paused while the State Supreme Court assess it.
That's also separate from the mistrial which ironically only Engoron can rule on (so he will not rule there has been, and in fact yesterday ruled there has not been).
However, that's not likely to be an issue in his running for the Presidency although it may ultimately lead him to financial ruin.
It's more interesting that (by rather circuitous reasoning) the Colorado judge ruled the President isn't an officer of the United States according to the framers of the amendment in question, but did note in passing that Trump was clearly guilty of insurrection.
Far from dying down, what has happened is as these trials move into the preliminary court phase the newsworthiness becomes a little less. I suspect when he actually takes the stand he will find life - difficult.
He has already given evidence in the NY fraudulent declaration case with no obvious damage amongst Republicans.
He wasn't defending himself against charges of insurrection then!
It is depressing that he seems to remain bullet proof. And indeed leading in the polls.
The key for him will be if that continues once his criminal cases begin and if he is convicted.
52% of Republicans have said they wouldn't vote for Trump again if he is convicted and then jailed
I just don’t see that happening before the election. If you have money in the US the criminal justice system seems to find it incredibly hard to prosecute you and obtain a conviction.
Replacing Sunak would be an act of grotesque irresponsibility. He is totally shit of course, but there is no-one less shit who presents themselves as either a serious or election-winning candidate.
Just as it was not in the interests of the nation or the Labour party for it to win in 2017 and 2019, it is not in the interests of nation or Tory party for it to win in 2024.
I’d be very dubious of any IDF claims re hostages being killed by Hamas .
It’s not in their interests to kill hostages as they are bargaining chips .
Yet, Hamas has killed hostages in the past.
Among other things, you are assuming uniformity and rationality. Organisations like Hamas have lethal internal power struggles nearly all the time and the people who win those struggles are not always disciples of Adlai Stevenson
'It's not in their interests to kill the hostages' is a very odd thing to claim when one of the most famous/infamous hostage situations in history ended with...errr... a Palestinian terrorist group massacring Israelis after they believed they were trapped (having already earlier killed hostages who were difficult to subdue and manage).
The sort of people who are willing to rape, maim, kill and kidnap men, women and children in a terrorist attack are really not, at heart, nice people who will think killing hostages is a step too far. They're not good guys.
Well quite. But also even if we ascribe a certain rationality, kidnappers killing hostages is hardly unknown or particularly rare - even in cases where the hostage takers haven't already murdered over a thousand people and view themselves as fighting a holy war against those they've taken hostages 'from'.
AUTUMN STATEMENT 1 There is zero chance of the inheritance tax rate being cut on Wednesday. The chancellor was clear today that all tax measures will be designed to stimulate growth - ie they will be supply side reforms - and an IHT cut does not fit that rubric. If it happens it will come in spring budget (it has been considered by Treasury)
The problem, we are told, with a “ceasefire”, is that it denies Israel’s right to defend itself.
But after several weeks of bombing, all Israel has managed to do is kill ~10,000 Palestinians, of which many will be children.
How many hostages have they recovered? How are Israel’s military aims distinguishable from simply expelling Palestinians from Gaza outright?
Israel has lost Gen Z opinion, to the extent that’s important, and is losing the support of the reasonable minded in the West.
Those middling people, who want to support good people on all sides, the state of Israel's right to exist without the threat of massacre or holocaust and the Palestinian's right to an autonomous state struggle with these questions, and find few answers from polemics of any sort:
What is the best policy for supporting peace loving people on all sides
How should Israel have responded instead if you oppose what they are doing
What is the best policy for Palestinians who do want their autonomy and also recognise Israel's rights.
My personal policy is that Israel must simultaneously make diplomatic overtures in support of a two-state solution, while focusing its military ambitions on recovery of its hostages, a blockade of Gaza, and surgical destruction of Hamas capability.
Palestinian supporters must call for the immediate release of hostages, condemn Hamas, and call for the resumption of democracy in Gaza.
Of course, I am a centrist dad, so these things are not going to happen. I agree it’s a bugger’s muddle, which is why by the way I kind of refuse to condemn those calling at present for a ceasefire.
Two ways of solving problems.
One is to have a map from here to the destination. The other is to have a vague idea of where the destination is, but basically look in front of you and do what seems to be the best choice of the immediate options available, then pause and reorientate and repeat.
I've been musing on it in the context of sixth formers failing to do physics questions, but it's probably true more widely. It's usually best to have an advance plan all the way to the destination, but what do we do when that plan doesn't exist? We bumble, wander, try low-cost bets to see what happens. And usually, that gets us somewhere OK.
So, right now, the realistic choices for Israel are to continue their current actions, or in some sense to pause or turn down their intensity, or to go in harder.
Which of those is really going to give them the best odds of achieving what they want? Not sure that it's their current path. One of the criteria for a just war is that it has a reasonable chance of success.
We know what Hamas's ideal destination is: no Israel.
And for many on the Israeli Right, the ideal destination is no Arabs anywhere in Israel proper OR the Territories.
'many' = 'a tiny few'
If he'd said 'many on the Israeli right want to incorporate the West Bank into Israel and make Gaza uninhabitable,' however, he wouldn't have been far wrong.
We may be watching it happen over the next few months.
At some stage, I wonder if we need to stop giving Likud the cover of being called “on the right” as if they are a mainstream western party. “Hardline nationalist” seems fair.
Likud are the direct descendants of Irgun, the terrorist organisation behind the bombing of the King David Hotel. Ancient history of course, but in 2006 Netanyahu described it as a “legitimate act”.
Israel has basically been a Likud-run state for 20 years.
PR's wonderful, isn't it?
Your post is more or less correct, of course, but that 20 year period does include Likud co-founder Ariel Sharon's complete disengagement from Gaza in 2005 - a move that cost him and his party a huge amount, politically and personally.
Sharon staked his reputation on the Gaza disengagement being a huge step towards long term peace, on the basis that it would be that much harder for Hamas and the other terror groups in Gaza to recruit, if there was no obvious enemy to fight against, and if Israel was seen to be providing water, jobs and other economic resources to the Strip. That theory has now been tested to destruction and been found severely wanting.
Sharon was very brave to support Gaza disengagement.
But let’s remember Sharon’s long career, including his responsibility for various civilian massacres when commanding Unit 101 for the IDF, and his championing of Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
The problem with this whole situation is that very much, both sides are shits.
My sympathies are with the Israeli left, and the even smaller number of Palestinians democrats.
I think it is worth remembering Sharon was playing a very deep game in Gaza. It wasn't just, or even especially, that it would be a long step towards peace. It was to make annexing the West Bank (which is what he really wanted) easier by dividing the Palestinian Territories.
Even as he ordered the settlers out of Gaza, he was authorising more settlements in the West Bank.
I'm sorry, but that is complete bollocks. Almost no-one in Israel supports West Bank annexation - and certainly the Right do not - because the demographic implications lead long term to the destruction of the state of Israel. Netanyahu's goal in supporting settler movements is to create enough facts on the ground to render the negotiations required for a two state solution functionally impossible, and hence force the international community to come up with a plan that might actually work.
Which, in practice, probably means the Arab world stepping up and offering resettlement for those in the West Bank refugee camps.
I've been to both, and that's not what they tell me.
Edit - as for your last two sentences, they're contradictory to the point of being completely nonsensical. You're saying the solution is to remove the Palestinians and then somehow that will mean Israel won't annex the West Bank because...reasons?
Remove just the refugee camps, not the pre-existing towns and cities.
Immediately that tells me you have never been to the West Bank...
Steve Kornacki @SteveKornacki From early 2019 through today, we have now polled a Trump/Biden match-up 16 times. This is the first one of them to show Trump ahead.
Then it I can’t work out, because it’s hard without being an American, is the likelihood of his legal problems rendering all of this irrelevant on the basis he won’t be able to stand. If that’s the case, there must be bags of value in the other Republican candidates, since there will need to be one.
Re his legal issues, don't bet on it. The documents case will almost certainly be pushed back to post-the election. In Georgia, Fani Willis the DA is indicating heavily it will go past November 2024. In the NY case, Trump has just won a reversal of his gag order on the grounds it is unconstitutional, which - may - increase his chances of getting a mistrial. You are therefore looking at the Jack Smith Fed Prosecutor case.
You also have to look at the politics of this. It's probably not a coincidence that the talk about prosecuting Trump ASAP have lessened as the poll numbers have shown this issues are not hurting him and may be helping him.
He hasn't 'just won' a reversal of his gag order. It's been paused while the State Supreme Court assess it.
That's also separate from the mistrial which ironically only Engoron can rule on (so he will not rule there has been, and in fact yesterday ruled there has not been).
However, that's not likely to be an issue in his running for the Presidency although it may ultimately lead him to financial ruin.
It's more interesting that (by rather circuitous reasoning) the Colorado judge ruled the President isn't an officer of the United States according to the framers of the amendment in question, but did note in passing that Trump was clearly guilty of insurrection.
Far from dying down, what has happened is as these trials move into the preliminary court phase the newsworthiness becomes a little less. I suspect when he actually takes the stand he will find life - difficult.
He has already given evidence in the NY fraudulent declaration case with no obvious damage amongst Republicans.
He wasn't defending himself against charges of insurrection then!
It is depressing that he seems to remain bullet proof. And indeed leading in the polls.
The key for him will be if that continues once his criminal cases begin and if he is convicted.
52% of Republicans have said they wouldn't vote for Trump again if he is convicted and then jailed
I just don’t see that happening before the election. If you have money in the US the criminal justice system seems to find it incredibly hard to prosecute you and obtain a conviction.
His first criminal case starts as early as next March, a verdict in his civil fraud case will likely be in by Christmas.
The US actually has a higher conviction rate for white collar crime than we do in the UK
Steve Kornacki @SteveKornacki From early 2019 through today, we have now polled a Trump/Biden match-up 16 times. This is the first one of them to show Trump ahead.
Then it I can’t work out, because it’s hard without being an American, is the likelihood of his legal problems rendering all of this irrelevant on the basis he won’t be able to stand. If that’s the case, there must be bags of value in the other Republican candidates, since there will need to be one.
Re his legal issues, don't bet on it. The documents case will almost certainly be pushed back to post-the election. In Georgia, Fani Willis the DA is indicating heavily it will go past November 2024. In the NY case, Trump has just won a reversal of his gag order on the grounds it is unconstitutional, which - may - increase his chances of getting a mistrial. You are therefore looking at the Jack Smith Fed Prosecutor case.
You also have to look at the politics of this. It's probably not a coincidence that the talk about prosecuting Trump ASAP have lessened as the poll numbers have shown this issues are not hurting him and may be helping him.
He hasn't 'just won' a reversal of his gag order. It's been paused while the State Supreme Court assess it.
That's also separate from the mistrial which ironically only Engoron can rule on (so he will not rule there has been, and in fact yesterday ruled there has not been).
However, that's not likely to be an issue in his running for the Presidency although it may ultimately lead him to financial ruin.
It's more interesting that (by rather circuitous reasoning) the Colorado judge ruled the President isn't an officer of the United States according to the framers of the amendment in question, but did note in passing that Trump was clearly guilty of insurrection.
Far from dying down, what has happened is as these trials move into the preliminary court phase the newsworthiness becomes a little less. I suspect when he actually takes the stand he will find life - difficult.
So far the consensual view re Trump's trials hurting him have been wrong. That does not mean they will continue to be but....
Re the Colorado case, there has been a widespread view the President is not an Officer of the United States - not unanimous but a fair body of opinion. There will be another attempt no doubt to bar him from the ballot at the state level.
Re the Jan 6 hearings, I see 95% of the footage is being released so there will be some noise around that.
So far, he hasn't actually had any trials except the civil cases in New York, which are from his point of view the least serious.
And he keeps cocking those up. Partly because he's a rather dimwitted Nazi who is increasingly completely out of his tiny mind (do you agree with his claim he won all 50 states?) and partly because he doesn't really seem to have any defence.
AUTUMN STATEMENT 1 There is zero chance of the inheritance tax rate being cut on Wednesday. The chancellor was clear today that all tax measures will be designed to stimulate growth - ie they will be supply side reforms - and an IHT cut does not fit that rubric. If it happens it will come in spring budget (it has been considered by Treasury)
The problem, we are told, with a “ceasefire”, is that it denies Israel’s right to defend itself.
But after several weeks of bombing, all Israel has managed to do is kill ~10,000 Palestinians, of which many will be children.
How many hostages have they recovered? How are Israel’s military aims distinguishable from simply expelling Palestinians from Gaza outright?
Israel has lost Gen Z opinion, to the extent that’s important, and is losing the support of the reasonable minded in the West.
The chaotic incompetence that missed a massive terrorist attack across their border has continued in Israel crossing back over the border to revenge themselves. They don’t seem to have clear aims aside from destroying Hamas as a threat (which thus far they’re making a crap job of), they’ve managed to lose a ton of international support since 7th October and the assault on the Al-Shifa hospital seems an absolute shit show.
Nice work Bibi.
LOL you are actually blaming Netanyahu for October 7th.
Asking for it were they?
What a foolish final statement.
Hamas are a death cult that needs to be crushed, the 7th of October was at their whim. However the secret services and the IDF were asleep at the wheel. The focus was on the West Bank when it should have been on Gaza. The buck stops with Bibi.
Subsequently Bibi has been rather casual with the hostages, as borne out by hostage families marching on Jerusalem. There has been little concern by Bibi for civilian collateral damage. Bibi doesn't like Palestinians, any Palestinians, not just the bad ones. When he's finished the death toll could be enormous.
Does being asleep at the wheel mean it was their fault.
What about all those householders who are burgled while they are asleep in their beds.
A majority of Israelis seem to hold Bibi in part responsible for being “asleep at the wheel”, so you are - per usual on this subject - barking up the wrong tree.
There ought to be a term for PB Israel ultras who are more ultra than the Israelis themselves.
Was October 7th the fault of Netanyahu.
An awfully convenient pretext for him to conquer Gaza.
There is a reason the old saw about "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." is so popular.
It is because the majority of decisions made in conflicts are of the "WTF? WTAFF?" nature.
It will be interesting to see the size of next week's March against Anti-Semitism in London.
Will the numbers be as large as in the similar recent Paris march? Will any politicians and, if so, from which parties attend? Will celebrities concerned by racism be there? Who will the attendees be?
It will be interesting to see the size of next week's March against Anti-Semitism in London.
Will the numbers be as large as in the similar recent Paris march? Will any politicians and, if so, from which parties attend? Will celebrities concerned by racism be there? Who will the attendees be?
Is anyone keeping a count of celebrities and politicians on any of the marches so far?
I assume there will be a solid bloc of pious PBers at the anti antisemitism march. Will they count as slebs?
Polls have just closed, Betfair currently has Milei 1.62 and Massa 2.4, results are expected around midnight GMT, by which point in excess of 70% of votes should have been counted if progress is as per the first round. Turnout looks like 76%.
On Indy I think the change is not the support for YES, but the sense of it as an urgent necessity rather than a vague but pleasing aspiration
For a long time the Nats - brilliantly - kept dangling the YES Indy carrot like the donkey electorate was gonna eat it any moment. Now the donkey realises the carrot was a hologram, and any nice food is a long way down the road
Sure, the donkey would still LIKE a juicy carrot, but the donkey has accepted that there are now more pressing needs, like eating some grass, getting down the road, maybe humping a sexy jackass in the next village
So 45% support for YES no longer translates into anything like 45 points for the SNP, coz the SNP don’t have any fake carrots left, and the new SNP are also really quite shit, and resented for the whole carrot thing, and because donkey is bored of carrying them
I reckon the Nats are more likely to go under 30 seats than stay over, so the LDs are probably, rightly, modest favorites in this market
The 2014 referendum was not a hologram and nor was the demand for another one after the Brexit-fuelled Holyrood victory of the SNP on that specific platform.
Suspect your analogy comes mainly from a desire to present Sindy supporting Scottish people as donkies.
What? Of course 2014 was not a hologram. My point is that AFTER that vote the idea of an imminent new vote became increasingly fantastical, in reality, yet the SNP managed to persuade everyone, and keep persuading them, that Sindyref2 was just a few inches away. One more heave
That illusion is shattered. Stop being stupid. You’re already quite boring. Stupid AS WELL would make you unreadable
But you didn't say that. You just said they've been dangling their carrots "for a long time". If by this you specifically meant since 2014 well ok (ish) but how would we be expected to guess that?
After all you used to bang on about 2014 being very recent. So recent that it would be absurd to even think about another referendum despite it being voted for!
See? Hoist again, I'm afraid. Bamboozled by Kuntibula the Logic Monster.
Also given that we are being held hostage , it would not matter if SNP got ZERO votes , we would still have to do something else.
Like what though? It's hard to see a Sindy route which doesn't go via another referendum - and that's in the gift of Westminster.
Not if you look at it on the union treaty rather than some English later confection in English Law.
That would require UDI, which Westminster, the successor to the 1707 English and Scottish Parliaments, wouldn't grant either
Holyrood is the successor to the 1707 Scottish Parliament. Look at th eproceedings of the first session of that then emphatically Unionist body.
The first Speaker was a Nat!
And talking bollocks. The Estates of Scotland, to give them their correct name, were a different beast from the Scottish Parliament, and they were not prorogued, they were abolished.
Surely the first speaker was David Steel.
The first speaker was Winnie Ewing. (Although she was acting as speaker to oversee the oaths and Steel's election.)
And a lot of rubbish she spoke.
I blame autocorrect for the random capitalisation.
I’d be very dubious of any IDF claims re hostages being killed by Hamas .
It’s not in their interests to kill hostages as they are bargaining chips .
Yet, Hamas has killed hostages in the past.
Among other things, you are assuming uniformity and rationality. Organisations like Hamas have lethal internal power struggles nearly all the time and the people who win those struggles are not always disciples of Adlai Stevenson
'It's not in their interests to kill the hostages' is a very odd thing to claim when one of the most famous/infamous hostage situations in history ended with...errr... a Palestinian terrorist group massacring Israelis after they believed they were trapped (having already earlier killed hostages who were difficult to subdue and manage).
The sort of people who are willing to rape, maim, kill and kidnap men, women and children in a terrorist attack are really not, at heart, nice people who will think killing hostages is a step too far. They're not good guys.
Well quite. But also even if we ascribe a certain rationality, kidnappers killing hostages is hardly unknown or particularly rare - even in cases where the hostage takers haven't already murdered over a thousand people and view themselves as fighting a holy war against those they've taken hostages 'from'.
Yes, I think we're in heated agreement!
It is interesting and rather alarming that we've not heard from the hostages at all (afaik) - no videos pleading for negotiations etc.
Steve Kornacki @SteveKornacki From early 2019 through today, we have now polled a Trump/Biden match-up 16 times. This is the first one of them to show Trump ahead.
Then it I can’t work out, because it’s hard without being an American, is the likelihood of his legal problems rendering all of this irrelevant on the basis he won’t be able to stand. If that’s the case, there must be bags of value in the other Republican candidates, since there will need to be one.
Re his legal issues, don't bet on it. The documents case will almost certainly be pushed back to post-the election. In Georgia, Fani Willis the DA is indicating heavily it will go past November 2024. In the NY case, Trump has just won a reversal of his gag order on the grounds it is unconstitutional, which - may - increase his chances of getting a mistrial. You are therefore looking at the Jack Smith Fed Prosecutor case.
You also have to look at the politics of this. It's probably not a coincidence that the talk about prosecuting Trump ASAP have lessened as the poll numbers have shown this issues are not hurting him and may be helping him.
I, too, doubt that Trump’s legal issues will somehow prevent or thwart his candidacy.
To the extent there is an establishment plot against Trump, they’ve kind of left it too late.
As it happens, I don’t think there *is* an establishment plot against Trump, mores the pity. He’s a clear and present danger to the Republic.
There is not, it is more - as @HYUFD says - he is hated by many in the establishment classes and that has led them to take actions that look good on paper but without thinking through the counter-effects.
Polls have just closed, Betfair currently has Milei 1.62 and Massa 2.4, results are expected around midnight GMT, by which point in excess of 70% of votes should have been counted if progress is as per the first round. Turnout looks like 76%.
I think Massa the value here. There have been a couple of posts with him ahead, albeit by a couple of percent. There have been polls the other way too.
Steve Kornacki @SteveKornacki From early 2019 through today, we have now polled a Trump/Biden match-up 16 times. This is the first one of them to show Trump ahead.
Then it I can’t work out, because it’s hard without being an American, is the likelihood of his legal problems rendering all of this irrelevant on the basis he won’t be able to stand. If that’s the case, there must be bags of value in the other Republican candidates, since there will need to be one.
Re his legal issues, don't bet on it. The documents case will almost certainly be pushed back to post-the election. In Georgia, Fani Willis the DA is indicating heavily it will go past November 2024. In the NY case, Trump has just won a reversal of his gag order on the grounds it is unconstitutional, which - may - increase his chances of getting a mistrial. You are therefore looking at the Jack Smith Fed Prosecutor case.
You also have to look at the politics of this. It's probably not a coincidence that the talk about prosecuting Trump ASAP have lessened as the poll numbers have shown this issues are not hurting him and may be helping him.
I, too, doubt that Trump’s legal issues will somehow prevent or thwart his candidacy.
To the extent there is an establishment plot against Trump, they’ve kind of left it too late.
As it happens, I don’t think there *is* an establishment plot against Trump, mores the pity. He’s a clear and present danger to the Republic.
There is not, it is more - as @HYUFD says - he is hated by many in the establishment classes and that has led them to take actions that look good on paper but without thinking through the counter-effects.
It's very wrong of the American judicial system to try and enforce the law. How dare they? Don't they know people who won THE GREATEST VICTORY EVER are ABOVE IT?
The problem, we are told, with a “ceasefire”, is that it denies Israel’s right to defend itself.
But after several weeks of bombing, all Israel has managed to do is kill ~10,000 Palestinians, of which many will be children.
How many hostages have they recovered? How are Israel’s military aims distinguishable from simply expelling Palestinians from Gaza outright?
Israel has lost Gen Z opinion, to the extent that’s important, and is losing the support of the reasonable minded in the West.
The chaotic incompetence that missed a massive terrorist attack across their border has continued in Israel crossing back over the border to revenge themselves. They don’t seem to have clear aims aside from destroying Hamas as a threat (which thus far they’re making a crap job of), they’ve managed to lose a ton of international support since 7th October and the assault on the Al-Shifa hospital seems an absolute shit show.
Nice work Bibi.
LOL you are actually blaming Netanyahu for October 7th.
Asking for it were they?
What a foolish final statement.
Hamas are a death cult that needs to be crushed, the 7th of October was at their whim. However the secret services and the IDF were asleep at the wheel. The focus was on the West Bank when it should have been on Gaza. The buck stops with Bibi.
Subsequently Bibi has been rather casual with the hostages, as borne out by hostage families marching on Jerusalem. There has been little concern by Bibi for civilian collateral damage. Bibi doesn't like Palestinians, any Palestinians, not just the bad ones. When he's finished the death toll could be enormous.
Does being asleep at the wheel mean it was their fault.
What about all those householders who are burgled while they are asleep in their beds.
A majority of Israelis seem to hold Bibi in part responsible for being “asleep at the wheel”, so you are - per usual on this subject - barking up the wrong tree.
There ought to be a term for PB Israel ultras who are more ultra than the Israelis themselves.
Was October 7th the fault of Netanyahu.
An awfully convenient pretext for him to conquer Gaza.
And I heard that Jews were told not to go to the WTC on 9/11.
FFS mate, Hamas are the ones to blame. Hamas. Get in the real world.
Polls have just closed, Betfair currently has Milei 1.62 and Massa 2.4, results are expected around midnight GMT, by which point in excess of 70% of votes should have been counted if progress is as per the first round. Turnout looks like 76%.
I think Massa the value here. There have been a couple of posts with him ahead, albeit by a couple of percent. There have been polls the other way too.
Well I've had a nibble on Milei at 1.58 so we'll see!!
Trump in Iowa: I Do Not Like ‘Golden Showers’ from Prostitutes —
Gross and depraved speech by Trump raises more red flags 🚩
Speaking at a small high school gymnasium in Fort Dodge, Iowa on Saturday, Trump told his supporters what he feels about being urinated on by prostitutes. To be precise, Trump told those who attended that he doesn’t like “golden showers” from “hookers” because he is a “germaphobe.”.. https://twitter.com/meiselasb/status/1726118250449412486
Nigel Farage has arrived in the Outback, on ITV now
I have always objected to it because of its animal cruelty, but now have a double reason not to watch.
This edition is especially cruel to animals. Poor things have to be next to Nigel Farage.
Which is why I'm not sold on @Big_G_NorthWales ' plan for him to stay in Oz. Seems a bit harsh on the Aussies even if they do deserve taking down a peg.
Some nice completely deserted island where he has to live on nuts, as he forced us to live with his nuttery, would fit the bill.
Polls have just closed, Betfair currently has Milei 1.62 and Massa 2.4, results are expected around midnight GMT, by which point in excess of 70% of votes should have been counted if progress is as per the first round. Turnout looks like 76%.
I think Massa the value here. There have been a couple of posts with him ahead, albeit by a couple of percent. There have been polls the other way too.
Well I've had a nibble on Milei at 1.58 so we'll see!!
I’m due to give some advice on Argentina (regulations, tax, that sort of thing) next week. Might have to start paying attention to this man’s manifesto.
I was reflecting this afternoon on the times in my adulthood when British life has been disrupted by things that in hindsight seem completely mad. Almost all were related to epidemics of some sort.
- Not being able to eat beef on the bone because of BSE. Crazy, and almost forgotten now. Imagine life without rib of beef, or bone marrow or all those other accoutrements of 21st century beef life we take for granted - Piles of burning cattle corpses littering the fields of Britain, consumed in apocalyptic pyres to try to rid the country of foot and mouth. Weird to think back to that time - Obviously the Covid lockdowns - Curfews across most English cities as kids in summer 2011 went on a shopping spree with more emphasis on free audiovisual equipment than any political cause. The riots washed up as far as the bottom of our street, but nobody knew what they were rioting about - those days after 9/11 when we honestly thought Armageddon had started and viewed every low flying plane heading into LCY with terror
Remarkable how much weirdness we’ve had in only a couple of decades.
Also remarkable how easy it is to forget these things - until your post I forgot about the ban on beef on the bone and the 2011 riots. 9/11 only really is in consciousness in any large way because of its presence in films/dramas and documentaries. Foot and mouth is something it’s hard to remember off the top of the head if ten years ago, twenty or thirty.
Covid will become a fuzzy memory in ten years where everyone just has their war stories real or imagined. People will talk about that war with Ukraine and Russia and one of those big flare ups in the Middle East.
New big stories and disasters will take their places.
I dunno. Everywhere I go in the world people REALLY want to talk about Covid - especially their experience of lockdown. It’s partly a bonding thing. An amazing and horrific time that we all endured, across the world - and we all share it, it unites us as a species (and, btw, EVERYONE presumes it came from the lab)
It slightly surprises me. I’ve always assumed people will want to forget about it. Now I’m less sure. Covid was so profound, so vast, so global - it’s like we all lost a close relative in the same bizarre violent way at the same time. Think the death of a famous celebrity - Diana, JFK - but multiplied by a billion. And universal
The problem, we are told, with a “ceasefire”, is that it denies Israel’s right to defend itself.
But after several weeks of bombing, all Israel has managed to do is kill ~10,000 Palestinians, of which many will be children.
How many hostages have they recovered? How are Israel’s military aims distinguishable from simply expelling Palestinians from Gaza outright?
Israel has lost Gen Z opinion, to the extent that’s important, and is losing the support of the reasonable minded in the West.
The chaotic incompetence that missed a massive terrorist attack across their border has continued in Israel crossing back over the border to revenge themselves. They don’t seem to have clear aims aside from destroying Hamas as a threat (which thus far they’re making a crap job of), they’ve managed to lose a ton of international support since 7th October and the assault on the Al-Shifa hospital seems an absolute shit show.
Nice work Bibi.
LOL you are actually blaming Netanyahu for October 7th.
Asking for it were they?
What a foolish final statement.
Hamas are a death cult that needs to be crushed, the 7th of October was at their whim. However the secret services and the IDF were asleep at the wheel. The focus was on the West Bank when it should have been on Gaza. The buck stops with Bibi.
Subsequently Bibi has been rather casual with the hostages, as borne out by hostage families marching on Jerusalem. There has been little concern by Bibi for civilian collateral damage. Bibi doesn't like Palestinians, any Palestinians, not just the bad ones. When he's finished the death toll could be enormous.
Does being asleep at the wheel mean it was their fault.
What about all those householders who are burgled while they are asleep in their beds.
A majority of Israelis seem to hold Bibi in part responsible for being “asleep at the wheel”, so you are - per usual on this subject - barking up the wrong tree.
There ought to be a term for PB Israel ultras who are more ultra than the Israelis themselves.
Was October 7th the fault of Netanyahu.
An awfully convenient pretext for him to conquer Gaza.
Thanks Sunil you have summed up well the view, quite popular on PB and beyond, which is that Netanyahu was responsible for if not had a hand in Oct 7th as it served his broader aims.
I commend you for stating what others don't have the kahunas to say.
You are making a spurious interpretation of posts that people like myself have made on here. I do not agree with Sunil's assertion that October 7th was engineered by Netanyahu, that is nonsense. My point simply was Netanyahu has a culpability through his dereliction of duty. I would agree that he is quite probably comfortable taking personal political advantage over the wickedness of Hamas on 7th October. Firstly to claw back political support and secondly because he doesn't like Palestinians.
Please don't confuse a dislike of Benjamin Netanya with anti-Semitism. The two notions are wholly different. I couldn't care less what creed or colour Benjamin Netanyahu is, he is a bad man irrespective of these factors.
Trump in Iowa: I Do Not Like ‘Golden Showers’ from Prostitutes —
Gross and depraved speech by Trump raises more red flags 🚩
Speaking at a small high school gymnasium in Fort Dodge, Iowa on Saturday, Trump told his supporters what he feels about being urinated on by prostitutes. To be precise, Trump told those who attended that he doesn’t like “golden showers” from “hookers” because he is a “germaphobe.”.. https://twitter.com/meiselasb/status/1726118250449412486
I saw some golden showers outside the loos in Regent's Park a few months back
Nigel Farage has arrived in the Outback, on ITV now
I have always objected to it because of its animal cruelty, but now have a double reason not to watch.
This edition is especially cruel to animals. Poor things have to be next to Nigel Farage.
Which is why I'm not sold on @Big_G_NorthWales ' plan for him to stay in Oz. Seems a bit harsh on the Aussies even if they do deserve taking down a peg.
Some nice completely deserted island where he has to live on nuts, as he forced us to live with his nuttery, would fit the bill.
Trump in Iowa: I Do Not Like ‘Golden Showers’ from Prostitutes —
Gross and depraved speech by Trump raises more red flags 🚩
Speaking at a small high school gymnasium in Fort Dodge, Iowa on Saturday, Trump told his supporters what he feels about being urinated on by prostitutes. To be precise, Trump told those who attended that he doesn’t like “golden showers” from “hookers” because he is a “germaphobe.”.. https://twitter.com/meiselasb/status/1726118250449412486
I was reflecting this afternoon on the times in my adulthood when British life has been disrupted by things that in hindsight seem completely mad. Almost all were related to epidemics of some sort.
- Not being able to eat beef on the bone because of BSE. Crazy, and almost forgotten now. Imagine life without rib of beef, or bone marrow or all those other accoutrements of 21st century beef life we take for granted - Piles of burning cattle corpses littering the fields of Britain, consumed in apocalyptic pyres to try to rid the country of foot and mouth. Weird to think back to that time - Obviously the Covid lockdowns - Curfews across most English cities as kids in summer 2011 went on a shopping spree with more emphasis on free audiovisual equipment than any political cause. The riots washed up as far as the bottom of our street, but nobody knew what they were rioting about - those days after 9/11 when we honestly thought Armageddon had started and viewed every low flying plane heading into LCY with terror
Remarkable how much weirdness we’ve had in only a couple of decades.
Also remarkable how easy it is to forget these things - until your post I forgot about the ban on beef on the bone and the 2011 riots. 9/11 only really is in consciousness in any large way because of its presence in films/dramas and documentaries. Foot and mouth is something it’s hard to remember off the top of the head if ten years ago, twenty or thirty.
Covid will become a fuzzy memory in ten years where everyone just has their war stories real or imagined. People will talk about that war with Ukraine and Russia and one of those big flare ups in the Middle East.
New big stories and disasters will take their places.
I dunno. Everywhere I go in the world people REALLY want to talk about Covid - especially their experience of lockdown. It’s partly a bonding thing. An amazing and horrific time that we all endured, across the world - and we all share it, it unites us as a species (and, btw, EVERYONE presumes it came from the lab)
It slightly surprises me. I’ve always assumed people will want to forget about it. Now I’m less sure. Covid was so profound, so vast, so global - it’s like we all lost a close relative in the same bizarre violent way at the same time. Think the death of a famous celebrity - Diana, JFK - but multiplied by a billion. And universal
I think for most of us in the U.K. we have moved on. The covid inquiry is keeping a minor flame alive, but the end of that process is likely in the next decade, and tbh most have decided what they think.
I think broadly there are two camps. One, people who lost close family and two, those who didn’t. I’m in the latter and for us the period was one of those strange life experiences. Part of it was fun, novel, and then wearying.
For those who lost people, I think there is often anger about it, I think in the main they are wrong if they blame the government, but that’s their right.
The problem, we are told, with a “ceasefire”, is that it denies Israel’s right to defend itself.
But after several weeks of bombing, all Israel has managed to do is kill ~10,000 Palestinians, of which many will be children.
How many hostages have they recovered? How are Israel’s military aims distinguishable from simply expelling Palestinians from Gaza outright?
Israel has lost Gen Z opinion, to the extent that’s important, and is losing the support of the reasonable minded in the West.
The chaotic incompetence that missed a massive terrorist attack across their border has continued in Israel crossing back over the border to revenge themselves. They don’t seem to have clear aims aside from destroying Hamas as a threat (which thus far they’re making a crap job of), they’ve managed to lose a ton of international support since 7th October and the assault on the Al-Shifa hospital seems an absolute shit show.
Nice work Bibi.
LOL you are actually blaming Netanyahu for October 7th.
Asking for it were they?
What a foolish final statement.
Hamas are a death cult that needs to be crushed, the 7th of October was at their whim. However the secret services and the IDF were asleep at the wheel. The focus was on the West Bank when it should have been on Gaza. The buck stops with Bibi.
Subsequently Bibi has been rather casual with the hostages, as borne out by hostage families marching on Jerusalem. There has been little concern by Bibi for civilian collateral damage. Bibi doesn't like Palestinians, any Palestinians, not just the bad ones. When he's finished the death toll could be enormous.
Does being asleep at the wheel mean it was their fault.
What about all those householders who are burgled while they are asleep in their beds.
A majority of Israelis seem to hold Bibi in part responsible for being “asleep at the wheel”, so you are - per usual on this subject - barking up the wrong tree.
There ought to be a term for PB Israel ultras who are more ultra than the Israelis themselves.
Was October 7th the fault of Netanyahu.
An awfully convenient pretext for him to conquer Gaza.
Thanks Sunil you have summed up well the view, quite popular on PB and beyond, which is that Netanyahu was responsible for if not had a hand in Oct 7th as it served his broader aims.
I commend you for stating what others don't have the kahunas to say.
You are making a spurious interpretation of posts that people like myself have made on here. I do not agree with Sunil's assertion that October 7th was engineered by Netanyahu, that is nonsense. My point simply was Netanyahu has a culpability through his dereliction of duty. I would agree that he is quite probably comfortable taking personal political advantage over the wickedness of Hamas on 7th October. Firstly to claw back political support and secondly because he doesn't like Palestinians.
Please don't confuse a dislike of Benjamin Netanya with anti-Semitism. The two notions are wholly different. I couldn't care less what creed or colour Benjamin Netanyahu is, he is a bad man irrespective of these factors.
I did NOT state 7/10 was "engineered" by Bibi, I just said (and I quote):
"An awfully convenient pretext for him to conquer Gaza."
Polls have just closed, Betfair currently has Milei 1.62 and Massa 2.4, results are expected around midnight GMT, by which point in excess of 70% of votes should have been counted if progress is as per the first round. Turnout looks like 76%.
I think Massa the value here. There have been a couple of posts with him ahead, albeit by a couple of percent. There have been polls the other way too.
Well I've had a nibble on Milei at 1.58 so we'll see!!
I’m due to give some advice on Argentina (regulations, tax, that sort of thing) next week. Might have to start paying attention to this man’s manifesto.
Big move to Milei on the market, now into 1.11, Massa at 4 - not sure what this is based on but presumably leaked early results.
The problem, we are told, with a “ceasefire”, is that it denies Israel’s right to defend itself.
But after several weeks of bombing, all Israel has managed to do is kill ~10,000 Palestinians, of which many will be children.
How many hostages have they recovered? How are Israel’s military aims distinguishable from simply expelling Palestinians from Gaza outright?
Israel has lost Gen Z opinion, to the extent that’s important, and is losing the support of the reasonable minded in the West.
The chaotic incompetence that missed a massive terrorist attack across their border has continued in Israel crossing back over the border to revenge themselves. They don’t seem to have clear aims aside from destroying Hamas as a threat (which thus far they’re making a crap job of), they’ve managed to lose a ton of international support since 7th October and the assault on the Al-Shifa hospital seems an absolute shit show.
Nice work Bibi.
LOL you are actually blaming Netanyahu for October 7th.
Asking for it were they?
What a foolish final statement.
Hamas are a death cult that needs to be crushed, the 7th of October was at their whim. However the secret services and the IDF were asleep at the wheel. The focus was on the West Bank when it should have been on Gaza. The buck stops with Bibi.
Subsequently Bibi has been rather casual with the hostages, as borne out by hostage families marching on Jerusalem. There has been little concern by Bibi for civilian collateral damage. Bibi doesn't like Palestinians, any Palestinians, not just the bad ones. When he's finished the death toll could be enormous.
Does being asleep at the wheel mean it was their fault.
What about all those householders who are burgled while they are asleep in their beds.
A majority of Israelis seem to hold Bibi in part responsible for being “asleep at the wheel”, so you are - per usual on this subject - barking up the wrong tree.
There ought to be a term for PB Israel ultras who are more ultra than the Israelis themselves.
Was October 7th the fault of Netanyahu.
An awfully convenient pretext for him to conquer Gaza.
Thanks Sunil you have summed up well the view, quite popular on PB and beyond, which is that Netanyahu was responsible for if not had a hand in Oct 7th as it served his broader aims.
I commend you for stating what others don't have the kahunas to say.
You are making a spurious interpretation of posts that people like myself have made on here. I do not agree with Sunil's assertion that October 7th was engineered by Netanyahu, that is nonsense. My point simply was Netanyahu has a culpability through his dereliction of duty. I would agree that he is quite probably comfortable taking personal political advantage over the wickedness of Hamas on 7th October. Firstly to claw back political support and secondly because he doesn't like Palestinians.
Please don't confuse a dislike of Benjamin Netanya with anti-Semitism. The two notions are wholly different. I couldn't care less what creed or colour Benjamin Netanyahu is, he is a bad man irrespective of these factors.
I did NOT state 7/10 was "engineered" by Bibi, I just said (and I quote):
"An awfully convenient pretext for him to conquer Gaza."
My bad.
I used @TOPPING 's interpretation of your statement.
Trump in Iowa: I Do Not Like ‘Golden Showers’ from Prostitutes —
Gross and depraved speech by Trump raises more red flags 🚩
Speaking at a small high school gymnasium in Fort Dodge, Iowa on Saturday, Trump told his supporters what he feels about being urinated on by prostitutes. To be precise, Trump told those who attended that he doesn’t like “golden showers” from “hookers” because he is a “germaphobe.”.. https://twitter.com/meiselasb/status/1726118250449412486
Is urine not basically sterile?
"Necessary? Is it necessary for me to drink my own urine? No, but I do it anyway because it's sterile and I like the taste!"
The problem, we are told, with a “ceasefire”, is that it denies Israel’s right to defend itself.
But after several weeks of bombing, all Israel has managed to do is kill ~10,000 Palestinians, of which many will be children.
How many hostages have they recovered? How are Israel’s military aims distinguishable from simply expelling Palestinians from Gaza outright?
Israel has lost Gen Z opinion, to the extent that’s important, and is losing the support of the reasonable minded in the West.
Those middling people, who want to support good people on all sides, the state of Israel's right to exist without the threat of massacre or holocaust and the Palestinian's right to an autonomous state struggle with these questions, and find few answers from polemics of any sort:
What is the best policy for supporting peace loving people on all sides
How should Israel have responded instead if you oppose what they are doing
What is the best policy for Palestinians who do want their autonomy and also recognise Israel's rights.
My personal policy is that Israel must simultaneously make diplomatic overtures in support of a two-state solution, while focusing its military ambitions on recovery of its hostages, a blockade of Gaza, and surgical destruction of Hamas capability.
Palestinian supporters must call for the immediate release of hostages, condemn Hamas, and call for the resumption of democracy in Gaza.
Of course, I am a centrist dad, so these things are not going to happen. I agree it’s a bugger’s muddle, which is why by the way I kind of refuse to condemn those calling at present for a ceasefire.
Two ways of solving problems.
One is to have a map from here to the destination. The other is to have a vague idea of where the destination is, but basically look in front of you and do what seems to be the best choice of the immediate options available, then pause and reorientate and repeat.
I've been musing on it in the context of sixth formers failing to do physics questions, but it's probably true more widely. It's usually best to have an advance plan all the way to the destination, but what do we do when that plan doesn't exist? We bumble, wander, try low-cost bets to see what happens. And usually, that gets us somewhere OK.
So, right now, the realistic choices for Israel are to continue their current actions, or in some sense to pause or turn down their intensity, or to go in harder.
Which of those is really going to give them the best odds of achieving what they want? Not sure that it's their current path. One of the criteria for a just war is that it has a reasonable chance of success.
We know what Hamas's ideal destination is: no Israel.
And for many on the Israeli Right, the ideal destination is no Arabs anywhere in Israel proper OR the Territories.
'many' = 'a tiny few'
If he'd said 'many on the Israeli right want to incorporate the West Bank into Israel and make Gaza uninhabitable,' however, he wouldn't have been far wrong.
We may be watching it happen over the next few months.
At some stage, I wonder if we need to stop giving Likud the cover of being called “on the right” as if they are a mainstream western party. “Hardline nationalist” seems fair.
Likud are the direct descendants of Irgun, the terrorist organisation behind the bombing of the King David Hotel. Ancient history of course, but in 2006 Netanyahu described it as a “legitimate act”.
Israel has basically been a Likud-run state for 20 years.
PR's wonderful, isn't it?
Your post is more or less correct, of course, but that 20 year period does include Likud co-founder Ariel Sharon's complete disengagement from Gaza in 2005 - a move that cost him and his party a huge amount, politically and personally.
Sharon staked his reputation on the Gaza disengagement being a huge step towards long term peace, on the basis that it would be that much harder for Hamas and the other terror groups in Gaza to recruit, if there was no obvious enemy to fight against, and if Israel was seen to be providing water, jobs and other economic resources to the Strip. That theory has now been tested to destruction and been found severely wanting.
Sharon was very brave to support Gaza disengagement.
But let’s remember Sharon’s long career, including his responsibility for various civilian massacres when commanding Unit 101 for the IDF, and his championing of Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
The problem with this whole situation is that very much, both sides are shits.
My sympathies are with the Israeli left, and the even smaller number of Palestinians democrats.
I think it is worth remembering Sharon was playing a very deep game in Gaza. It wasn't just, or even especially, that it would be a long step towards peace. It was to make annexing the West Bank (which is what he really wanted) easier by dividing the Palestinian Territories.
Even as he ordered the settlers out of Gaza, he was authorising more settlements in the West Bank.
I'm sorry, but that is complete bollocks. Almost no-one in Israel supports West Bank annexation - and certainly the Right do not - because the demographic implications lead long term to the destruction of the state of Israel. Netanyahu's goal in supporting settler movements is to create enough facts on the ground to render the negotiations required for a two state solution functionally impossible, and hence force the international community to come up with a plan that might actually work.
Which, in practice, probably means the Arab world stepping up and offering resettlement for those in the West Bank refugee camps.
I've been to both, and that's not what they tell me.
Edit - as for your last two sentences, they're contradictory to the point of being completely nonsensical. You're saying the solution is to remove the Palestinians and then somehow that will mean Israel won't annex the West Bank because...reasons?
Remove just the refugee camps, not the pre-existing towns and cities.
Immediately that tells me you have never been to the West Bank...
Not sure if your point is about the relative lack of a practical distinction, or that removing the one but not the other changes neither the facts on the ground nor the political climate - both of which I would agree with - but there is an important legal distinction to be made between the two, and a useful precedent that can be set.
I dunno. Everywhere I go in the world people REALLY want to talk about Covid - especially their experience of lockdown. It’s partly a bonding thing. An amazing and horrific time that we all endured, across the world - and we all share it, it unites us as a species (and, btw, EVERYONE presumes it came from the lab)
It slightly surprises me. I’ve always assumed people will want to forget about it. Now I’m less sure. Covid was so profound, so vast, so global - it’s like we all lost a close relative in the same bizarre violent way at the same time. Think the death of a famous celebrity - Diana, JFK - but multiplied by a billion. And universal
I think for most of us in the U.K. we have moved on. The covid inquiry is keeping a minor flame alive, but the end of that process is likely in the next decade, and tbh most have decided what they think.
I think broadly there are two camps. One, people who lost close family and two, those who didn’t. I’m in the latter and for us the period was one of those strange life experiences. Part of it was fun, novel, and then wearying.
For those who lost people, I think there is often anger about it, I think in the main they are wrong if they blame the government, but that’s their right.
My guess is that mostly people locally have had the arguments and the conversations with each other and are moving on, because there's nothing new and no reason to go over the same ground again -- but if you meet somebody from another country it might well be material for fresh discussion, because by and large people probably haven't had the opportunity for that kind of cross-border comparison conversation. It's an experience everywhere went through, but differently in different places. Plus if you happen to work in the tourist industry COVID likely affected your job in a pretty big way on top of everything else.
Polls have just closed, Betfair currently has Milei 1.62 and Massa 2.4, results are expected around midnight GMT, by which point in excess of 70% of votes should have been counted if progress is as per the first round. Turnout looks like 76%.
I think Massa the value here. There have been a couple of posts with him ahead, albeit by a couple of percent. There have been polls the other way too.
Well I've had a nibble on Milei at 1.58 so we'll see!!
I’m due to give some advice on Argentina (regulations, tax, that sort of thing) next week. Might have to start paying attention to this man’s manifesto.
Big move to Milei on the market, now into 1.11, Massa at 4 - not sure what this is based on but presumably leaked early results.
My Argentinian colleague rather scarily described him to me as the love child of Bolsonaro and Truss, which is the stuff of fever dreams.
I was reflecting this afternoon on the times in my adulthood when British life has been disrupted by things that in hindsight seem completely mad. Almost all were related to epidemics of some sort.
- Not being able to eat beef on the bone because of BSE. Crazy, and almost forgotten now. Imagine life without rib of beef, or bone marrow or all those other accoutrements of 21st century beef life we take for granted - Piles of burning cattle corpses littering the fields of Britain, consumed in apocalyptic pyres to try to rid the country of foot and mouth. Weird to think back to that time - Obviously the Covid lockdowns - Curfews across most English cities as kids in summer 2011 went on a shopping spree with more emphasis on free audiovisual equipment than any political cause. The riots washed up as far as the bottom of our street, but nobody knew what they were rioting about - those days after 9/11 when we honestly thought Armageddon had started and viewed every low flying plane heading into LCY with terror
Remarkable how much weirdness we’ve had in only a couple of decades.
Also remarkable how easy it is to forget these things - until your post I forgot about the ban on beef on the bone and the 2011 riots. 9/11 only really is in consciousness in any large way because of its presence in films/dramas and documentaries. Foot and mouth is something it’s hard to remember off the top of the head if ten years ago, twenty or thirty.
Covid will become a fuzzy memory in ten years where everyone just has their war stories real or imagined. People will talk about that war with Ukraine and Russia and one of those big flare ups in the Middle East.
New big stories and disasters will take their places.
I dunno. Everywhere I go in the world people REALLY want to talk about Covid - especially their experience of lockdown. It’s partly a bonding thing. An amazing and horrific time that we all endured, across the world - and we all share it, it unites us as a species (and, btw, EVERYONE presumes it came from the lab)
It slightly surprises me. I’ve always assumed people will want to forget about it. Now I’m less sure. Covid was so profound, so vast, so global - it’s like we all lost a close relative in the same bizarre violent way at the same time. Think the death of a famous celebrity - Diana, JFK - but multiplied by a billion. And universal
I think for most of us in the U.K. we have moved on. The covid inquiry is keeping a minor flame alive, but the end of that process is likely in the next decade, and tbh most have decided what they think.
I think broadly there are two camps. One, people who lost close family and two, those who didn’t. I’m in the latter and for us the period was one of those strange life experiences. Part of it was fun, novel, and then wearying.
For those who lost people, I think there is often anger about it, I think in the main they are wrong if they blame the government, but that’s their right.
I think Covid was in that global league that means it won’t be forgotten anytime soon. But the fear, the weirdness of the lockdowns, the sheer unknown will of course be forgotten.
Those smaller but equally weird domestic traumas I mentioned though are already far away in the rear view mirror. For years we could not eat joints of beef on the bone. No T-bone steak, no short ribs, no cote de boeuf, no oxtail. And I remember the moment when we all wondered about the dodgy burgers we’d been eating for years and considered that this thing might just kill the majority of the British population. And now we’ve all forgotten.
Cynically, I suspect that even if he is jailed before the election (which as others have pointed out will likely not happen), many of those 52% will find a reason why in fact they are still OK with voting for him. The excuse with the easiest mental gymnastics is probably "the trial was unfair/a witch-hunt and Trump didn't actually commit any crime, he's being persecuted by his political enemies". People are not very good at predicting their future behaviour under a hypothetical, so I wouldn't put much weight on that poll.
The problem, we are told, with a “ceasefire”, is that it denies Israel’s right to defend itself.
But after several weeks of bombing, all Israel has managed to do is kill ~10,000 Palestinians, of which many will be children.
How many hostages have they recovered? How are Israel’s military aims distinguishable from simply expelling Palestinians from Gaza outright?
Israel has lost Gen Z opinion, to the extent that’s important, and is losing the support of the reasonable minded in the West.
The chaotic incompetence that missed a massive terrorist attack across their border has continued in Israel crossing back over the border to revenge themselves. They don’t seem to have clear aims aside from destroying Hamas as a threat (which thus far they’re making a crap job of), they’ve managed to lose a ton of international support since 7th October and the assault on the Al-Shifa hospital seems an absolute shit show.
Nice work Bibi.
LOL you are actually blaming Netanyahu for October 7th.
Asking for it were they?
What a foolish final statement.
Hamas are a death cult that needs to be crushed, the 7th of October was at their whim. However the secret services and the IDF were asleep at the wheel. The focus was on the West Bank when it should have been on Gaza. The buck stops with Bibi.
Subsequently Bibi has been rather casual with the hostages, as borne out by hostage families marching on Jerusalem. There has been little concern by Bibi for civilian collateral damage. Bibi doesn't like Palestinians, any Palestinians, not just the bad ones. When he's finished the death toll could be enormous.
Does being asleep at the wheel mean it was their fault.
What about all those householders who are burgled while they are asleep in their beds.
A majority of Israelis seem to hold Bibi in part responsible for being “asleep at the wheel”, so you are - per usual on this subject - barking up the wrong tree.
There ought to be a term for PB Israel ultras who are more ultra than the Israelis themselves.
Was October 7th the fault of Netanyahu.
An awfully convenient pretext for him to conquer Gaza.
Thanks Sunil you have summed up well the view, quite popular on PB and beyond, which is that Netanyahu was responsible for if not had a hand in Oct 7th as it served his broader aims.
I commend you for stating what others don't have the kahunas to say.
You are making a spurious interpretation of posts that people like myself have made on here. I do not agree with Sunil's assertion that October 7th was engineered by Netanyahu, that is nonsense. My point simply was Netanyahu has a culpability through his dereliction of duty. I would agree that he is quite probably comfortable taking personal political advantage over the wickedness of Hamas on 7th October. Firstly to claw back political support and secondly because he doesn't like Palestinians.
Please don't confuse a dislike of Benjamin Netanya with anti-Semitism. The two notions are wholly different. I couldn't care less what creed or colour Benjamin Netanyahu is, he is a bad man irrespective of these factors.
I did NOT state 7/10 was "engineered" by Bibi, I just said (and I quote):
"An awfully convenient pretext for him to conquer Gaza."
My bad.
I used @TOPPING 's interpretation of your statement.
Steve Kornacki @SteveKornacki From early 2019 through today, we have now polled a Trump/Biden match-up 16 times. This is the first one of them to show Trump ahead.
Then it I can’t work out, because it’s hard without being an American, is the likelihood of his legal problems rendering all of this irrelevant on the basis he won’t be able to stand. If that’s the case, there must be bags of value in the other Republican candidates, since there will need to be one.
Re his legal issues, don't bet on it. The documents case will almost certainly be pushed back to post-the election. In Georgia, Fani Willis the DA is indicating heavily it will go past November 2024. In the NY case, Trump has just won a reversal of his gag order on the grounds it is unconstitutional, which - may - increase his chances of getting a mistrial. You are therefore looking at the Jack Smith Fed Prosecutor case.
You also have to look at the politics of this. It's probably not a coincidence that the talk about prosecuting Trump ASAP have lessened as the poll numbers have shown this issues are not hurting him and may be helping him.
He hasn't 'just won' a reversal of his gag order. It's been paused while the State Supreme Court assess it.
That's also separate from the mistrial which ironically only Engoron can rule on (so he will not rule there has been, and in fact yesterday ruled there has not been).
However, that's not likely to be an issue in his running for the Presidency although it may ultimately lead him to financial ruin.
It's more interesting that (by rather circuitous reasoning) the Colorado judge ruled the President isn't an officer of the United States according to the framers of the amendment in question, but did note in passing that Trump was clearly guilty of insurrection.
Far from dying down, what has happened is as these trials move into the preliminary court phase the newsworthiness becomes a little less. I suspect when he actually takes the stand he will find life - difficult.
He has already given evidence in the NY fraudulent declaration case with no obvious damage amongst Republicans.
He wasn't defending himself against charges of insurrection then!
It is depressing that he seems to remain bullet proof. And indeed leading in the polls.
The key for him will be if that continues once his criminal cases begin and if he is convicted.
52% of Republicans have said they wouldn't vote for Trump again if he is convicted and then jailed
I just don’t see that happening before the election. If you have money in the US the criminal justice system seems to find it incredibly hard to prosecute you and obtain a conviction.
His first criminal case starts as early as next March, a verdict in his civil fraud case will likely be in by Christmas.
The US actually has a higher conviction rate for white collar crime than we do in the UK
Hard to know what Trump is playing at in his New York case, but it seems to be that he and his lawyers or being such a bunch of shits that how could the judge NOT be biased against him?
It won't work - the judge has been crazy lenient in (for example) letting Trump Jr ramble on about how Donald's grand-pappy Trump built a brothel in the Klondike - no relevance whatsoever to intent to commit fraud. There won't be grounds for appeal on quantum, which is likely to be a fine north of $250m - perhaps significantly more. The Trump family will be closed down from operating any business in New York. And we will find out what his property empire is truly worth in a fire sale.
I dunno. Everywhere I go in the world people REALLY want to talk about Covid - especially their experience of lockdown. It’s partly a bonding thing. An amazing and horrific time that we all endured, across the world - and we all share it, it unites us as a species (and, btw, EVERYONE presumes it came from the lab)
It slightly surprises me. I’ve always assumed people will want to forget about it. Now I’m less sure. Covid was so profound, so vast, so global - it’s like we all lost a close relative in the same bizarre violent way at the same time. Think the death of a famous celebrity - Diana, JFK - but multiplied by a billion. And universal
I think for most of us in the U.K. we have moved on. The covid inquiry is keeping a minor flame alive, but the end of that process is likely in the next decade, and tbh most have decided what they think.
I think broadly there are two camps. One, people who lost close family and two, those who didn’t. I’m in the latter and for us the period was one of those strange life experiences. Part of it was fun, novel, and then wearying.
For those who lost people, I think there is often anger about it, I think in the main they are wrong if they blame the government, but that’s their right.
My guess is that mostly people locally have had the arguments and the conversations with each other and are moving on, because there's nothing new and no reason to go over the same ground again -- but if you meet somebody from another country it might well be material for fresh discussion, because by and large people probably haven't had the opportunity for that kind of cross-border comparison conversation. It's an experience everywhere went through, but differently in different places. Plus if you happen to work in the tourist industry COVID likely affected your job in a pretty big way on top of everything else.
And then there's those of us who have children whose development has been blighted by the restrictions, even the really spiteful ones like closing playgrounds. There have been huge backlogs in getting paediatric appointments let alone access to any therapy. We have just been lucky enough to get our child into a special school which is fantastic, but there is a huge shortage of places despite a massive increase in government spending on special education. Do our views not count?
It will be interesting to see the size of next week's March against Anti-Semitism in London.
Will the numbers be as large as in the similar recent Paris march? Will any politicians and, if so, from which parties attend? Will celebrities concerned by racism be there? Who will the attendees be?
Trump in Iowa: I Do Not Like ‘Golden Showers’ from Prostitutes —
Gross and depraved speech by Trump raises more red flags 🚩
Speaking at a small high school gymnasium in Fort Dodge, Iowa on Saturday, Trump told his supporters what he feels about being urinated on by prostitutes. To be precise, Trump told those who attended that he doesn’t like “golden showers” from “hookers” because he is a “germaphobe.”.. https://twitter.com/meiselasb/status/1726118250449412486
Is urine not basically sterile?
Yet the religious right can't get enough of this depraved man.
I predict he will totally refuse to debate Biden in the main campaign.
The problem, we are told, with a “ceasefire”, is that it denies Israel’s right to defend itself.
But after several weeks of bombing, all Israel has managed to do is kill ~10,000 Palestinians, of which many will be children.
How many hostages have they recovered? How are Israel’s military aims distinguishable from simply expelling Palestinians from Gaza outright?
Israel has lost Gen Z opinion, to the extent that’s important, and is losing the support of the reasonable minded in the West.
The chaotic incompetence that missed a massive terrorist attack across their border has continued in Israel crossing back over the border to revenge themselves. They don’t seem to have clear aims aside from destroying Hamas as a threat (which thus far they’re making a crap job of), they’ve managed to lose a ton of international support since 7th October and the assault on the Al-Shifa hospital seems an absolute shit show.
Nice work Bibi.
LOL you are actually blaming Netanyahu for October 7th.
Asking for it were they?
What a foolish final statement.
Hamas are a death cult that needs to be crushed, the 7th of October was at their whim. However the secret services and the IDF were asleep at the wheel. The focus was on the West Bank when it should have been on Gaza. The buck stops with Bibi.
Subsequently Bibi has been rather casual with the hostages, as borne out by hostage families marching on Jerusalem. There has been little concern by Bibi for civilian collateral damage. Bibi doesn't like Palestinians, any Palestinians, not just the bad ones. When he's finished the death toll could be enormous.
Does being asleep at the wheel mean it was their fault.
What about all those householders who are burgled while they are asleep in their beds.
A majority of Israelis seem to hold Bibi in part responsible for being “asleep at the wheel”, so you are - per usual on this subject - barking up the wrong tree.
There ought to be a term for PB Israel ultras who are more ultra than the Israelis themselves.
Was October 7th the fault of Netanyahu.
An awfully convenient pretext for him to conquer Gaza.
Thanks Sunil you have summed up well the view, quite popular on PB and beyond, which is that Netanyahu was responsible for if not had a hand in Oct 7th as it served his broader aims.
I commend you for stating what others don't have the kahunas to say.
You are making a spurious interpretation of posts that people like myself have made on here. I do not agree with Sunil's assertion that October 7th was engineered by Netanyahu, that is nonsense. My point simply was Netanyahu has a culpability through his dereliction of duty. I would agree that he is quite probably comfortable taking personal political advantage over the wickedness of Hamas on 7th October. Firstly to claw back political support and secondly because he doesn't like Palestinians.
Please don't confuse a dislike of Benjamin Netanya with anti-Semitism. The two notions are wholly different. I couldn't care less what creed or colour Benjamin Netanyahu is, he is a bad man irrespective of these factors.
Nigel Farage has arrived in the Outback, on ITV now
I have always objected to it because of its animal cruelty, but now have a double reason not to watch.
This edition is especially cruel to animals. Poor things have to be next to Nigel Farage.
Which is why I'm not sold on @Big_G_NorthWales ' plan for him to stay in Oz. Seems a bit harsh on the Aussies even if they do deserve taking down a peg.
Some nice completely deserted island where he has to live on nuts, as he forced us to live with his nuttery, would fit the bill.
It will be interesting to see the size of next week's March against Anti-Semitism in London.
Will the numbers be as large as in the similar recent Paris march? Will any politicians and, if so, from which parties attend? Will celebrities concerned by racism be there? Who will the attendees be?
Is anyone keeping a count of celebrities and politicians on any of the marches so far?
I assume there will be a solid bloc of pious PBers at the anti antisemitism march. Will they count as slebs?
Does it ever occur to you that some might be going because they are genuinely concerned for their Jewish friends and family here, that they are appalled at the sheer nastiness being exhibited in public and online to Jews here, at the fact that in the weeks since the massacre the number of anti-semitic attacks is higher than in the whole of 2022 and that turning up to show friendship and support is a small act of kindness and decency to set against the callous sneering indifference and worse being displayed by so many people?
Watching the cricket this morning, it was amazing how India just couldn't hit any boundaries for two 60 minute periods, with just one boundary in between.
Has John Glen been fired yet . That seemed almost to show some humanity . Fancy wanting to spend some money on poor children when you can watch them go hungry whilst you dish the goodies to your core voters !
Polls have just closed, Betfair currently has Milei 1.62 and Massa 2.4, results are expected around midnight GMT, by which point in excess of 70% of votes should have been counted if progress is as per the first round. Turnout looks like 76%.
Polls have just closed, Betfair currently has Milei 1.62 and Massa 2.4, results are expected around midnight GMT, by which point in excess of 70% of votes should have been counted if progress is as per the first round. Turnout looks like 76%.
I dunno. Everywhere I go in the world people REALLY want to talk about Covid - especially their experience of lockdown. It’s partly a bonding thing. An amazing and horrific time that we all endured, across the world - and we all share it, it unites us as a species (and, btw, EVERYONE presumes it came from the lab)
It slightly surprises me. I’ve always assumed people will want to forget about it. Now I’m less sure. Covid was so profound, so vast, so global - it’s like we all lost a close relative in the same bizarre violent way at the same time. Think the death of a famous celebrity - Diana, JFK - but multiplied by a billion. And universal
I think for most of us in the U.K. we have moved on. The covid inquiry is keeping a minor flame alive, but the end of that process is likely in the next decade, and tbh most have decided what they think.
I think broadly there are two camps. One, people who lost close family and two, those who didn’t. I’m in the latter and for us the period was one of those strange life experiences. Part of it was fun, novel, and then wearying.
For those who lost people, I think there is often anger about it, I think in the main they are wrong if they blame the government, but that’s their right.
My guess is that mostly people locally have had the arguments and the conversations with each other and are moving on, because there's nothing new and no reason to go over the same ground again -- but if you meet somebody from another country it might well be material for fresh discussion, because by and large people probably haven't had the opportunity for that kind of cross-border comparison conversation. It's an experience everywhere went through, but differently in different places. Plus if you happen to work in the tourist industry COVID likely affected your job in a pretty big way on top of everything else.
And then there's those of us who have children whose development has been blighted by the restrictions, even the really spiteful ones like closing playgrounds. There have been huge backlogs in getting paediatric appointments let alone access to any therapy. We have just been lucky enough to get our child into a special school which is fantastic, but there is a huge shortage of places despite a massive increase in government spending on special education. Do our views not count?
I didn't say your views didn't count or that lockdowns and the knock-on effects of restrictions weren't a big deal; I suggested that most people (in your situation or otherwise) probably aren't having regular debates with others about how bad the COVID period was or wasn't, but are instead dealing as best they can with their personal situations.
I'm glad you've been able to find a school place that works for your child, and I also think we need a government that will do more about NHS backlogs.
A shame that Argentina seems to be going full on whacko, rather like Brazil, rather than taking the radical steps it needs to without all the baggage.
I’ve dealt with Argentina’s fiscal and regulatory setup enough to know they would benefit hugely from something akin to a dose of Thatcher (or at least Macron).
They need to take a sword to some of their very protectionist regulation, liberalise and open up economy and capital markets and strengthen institutions and the rule of law. But they’re not going to achieve that if their leader is soft in the head, which Milei appears to be.
The danger is he repeats the same mistakes ex Soviet states made in the 90s and gangterises the economy, but also puts everyone off change so much that they go back to the old Peronist ways.
AUTUMN STATEMENT 1 There is zero chance of the inheritance tax rate being cut on Wednesday. The chancellor was clear today that all tax measures will be designed to stimulate growth - ie they will be supply side reforms - and an IHT cut does not fit that rubric. If it happens it will come in spring budget (it has been considered by Treasury)
Has John Glen been fired yet . That seemed almost to show some humanity . Fancy wanting to spend some money on poor children when you can watch them go hungry whilst you dish the goodies to your core voters !
Aiui you can get child benefits on up to £100,000 a year, so it is not just the children of the poor. Either we have universal benefits or we don't. The justifications for universality are that it gives the rich a stake in maintaining benefits to the poor, and more mundanely that means testing would cost more than it saved. Whether that is true in the age of computers, I'm not sure.
I was reflecting this afternoon on the times in my adulthood when British life has been disrupted by things that in hindsight seem completely mad. Almost all were related to epidemics of some sort.
- Not being able to eat beef on the bone because of BSE. Crazy, and almost forgotten now. Imagine life without rib of beef, or bone marrow or all those other accoutrements of 21st century beef life we take for granted - Piles of burning cattle corpses littering the fields of Britain, consumed in apocalyptic pyres to try to rid the country of foot and mouth. Weird to think back to that time - Obviously the Covid lockdowns - Curfews across most English cities as kids in summer 2011 went on a shopping spree with more emphasis on free audiovisual equipment than any political cause. The riots washed up as far as the bottom of our street, but nobody knew what they were rioting about - those days after 9/11 when we honestly thought Armageddon had started and viewed every low flying plane heading into LCY with terror
Remarkable how much weirdness we’ve had in only a couple of decades.
Also remarkable how easy it is to forget these things - until your post I forgot about the ban on beef on the bone and the 2011 riots. 9/11 only really is in consciousness in any large way because of its presence in films/dramas and documentaries. Foot and mouth is something it’s hard to remember off the top of the head if ten years ago, twenty or thirty.
Covid will become a fuzzy memory in ten years where everyone just has their war stories real or imagined. People will talk about that war with Ukraine and Russia and one of those big flare ups in the Middle East.
New big stories and disasters will take their places.
I dunno. Everywhere I go in the world people REALLY want to talk about Covid - especially their experience of lockdown. It’s partly a bonding thing. An amazing and horrific time that we all endured, across the world - and we all share it, it unites us as a species (and, btw, EVERYONE presumes it came from the lab)
It slightly surprises me. I’ve always assumed people will want to forget about it. Now I’m less sure. Covid was so profound, so vast, so global - it’s like we all lost a close relative in the same bizarre violent way at the same time. Think the death of a famous celebrity - Diana, JFK - but multiplied by a billion. And universal
I think for most of us in the U.K. we have moved on. The covid inquiry is keeping a minor flame alive, but the end of that process is likely in the next decade, and tbh most have decided what they think.
I think broadly there are two camps. One, people who lost close family and two, those who didn’t. I’m in the latter and for us the period was one of those strange life experiences. Part of it was fun, novel, and then wearying.
For those who lost people, I think there is often anger about it, I think in the main they are wrong if they blame the government, but that’s their right.
I think Covid was in that global league that means it won’t be forgotten anytime soon. But the fear, the weirdness of the lockdowns, the sheer unknown will of course be forgotten.
Those smaller but equally weird domestic traumas I mentioned though are already far away in the rear view mirror. For years we could not eat joints of beef on the bone. No T-bone steak, no short ribs, no cote de boeuf, no oxtail. And I remember the moment when we all wondered about the dodgy burgers we’d been eating for years and considered that this thing might just kill the majority of the British population. And now we’ve all forgotten.
A shame that Argentina seems to be going full on whacko, rather like Brazil, rather than taking the radical steps it needs to without all the baggage.
I’ve dealt with Argentina’s fiscal and regulatory setup enough to know they would benefit hugely from something akin to a dose of Thatcher (or at least Macron).
They need to take a sword to some of their very protectionist regulation, liberalise and open up economy and capital markets and strengthen institutions and the rule of law. But they’re not going to achieve that if their leader is soft in the head, which Milei appears to be.
The danger is he repeats the same mistakes ex Soviet states made in the 90s and gangterises the economy, but also puts everyone off change so much that they go back to the old Peronist ways.
Brazil of course has now dumped its rightwing populist 'whacko' Bolsonaro, for the leftist Lula.
Argentina has just had enough of the leftist Peronists and Kirchners who have governed them for years and their poor economic management which is why they were ready even to vote for a rightwing populist like Milei to get change
It will be interesting to see the size of next week's March against Anti-Semitism in London.
Will the numbers be as large as in the similar recent Paris march? Will any politicians and, if so, from which parties attend? Will celebrities concerned by racism be there? Who will the attendees be?
I am actually thinking of going, if only for five minutes, just to show willing. But I am fucked if I am registering. What the hell is the point of that?
Has John Glen been fired yet . That seemed almost to show some humanity . Fancy wanting to spend some money on poor children when you can watch them go hungry whilst you dish the goodies to your core voters !
Aiui you can get child benefits on up to £100,000 a year, so it is not just the children of the poor. Either we have universal benefits or we don't. The justifications for universality are that it gives the rich a stake in maintaining benefits to the poor, and more mundanely that means testing would cost more than it saved. Whether that is true in the age of computers, I'm not sure.
Simplest solution is to make it taxable income
You wouldn’t save as much as means testing but you get 40-45% back and it would be essentially cost free from a financial perspective to implement
Has John Glen been fired yet . That seemed almost to show some humanity . Fancy wanting to spend some money on poor children when you can watch them go hungry whilst you dish the goodies to your core voters !
He wasn't fired, but he was demoted out of the Treasury (though he retains the same 'also attends Cabinet' level in his new role).
On Indy I think the change is not the support for YES, but the sense of it as an urgent necessity rather than a vague but pleasing aspiration
For a long time the Nats - brilliantly - kept dangling the YES Indy carrot like the donkey electorate was gonna eat it any moment. Now the donkey realises the carrot was a hologram, and any nice food is a long way down the road
Sure, the donkey would still LIKE a juicy carrot, but the donkey has accepted that there are now more pressing needs, like eating some grass, getting down the road, maybe humping a sexy jackass in the next village
So 45% support for YES no longer translates into anything like 45 points for the SNP, coz the SNP don’t have any fake carrots left, and the new SNP are also really quite shit, and resented for the whole carrot thing, and because donkey is bored of carrying them
I reckon the Nats are more likely to go under 30 seats than stay over, so the LDs are probably, rightly, modest favorites in this market
The 2014 referendum was not a hologram and nor was the demand for another one after the Brexit-fuelled Holyrood victory of the SNP on that specific platform.
Suspect your analogy comes mainly from a desire to present Sindy supporting Scottish people as donkies.
What? Of course 2014 was not a hologram. My point is that AFTER that vote the idea of an imminent new vote became increasingly fantastical, in reality, yet the SNP managed to persuade everyone, and keep persuading them, that Sindyref2 was just a few inches away. One more heave
That illusion is shattered. Stop being stupid. You’re already quite boring. Stupid AS WELL would make you unreadable
But you didn't say that. You just said they've been dangling their carrots "for a long time". If by this you specifically meant since 2014 well ok (ish) but how would we be expected to guess that?
After all you used to bang on about 2014 being very recent. So recent that it would be absurd to even think about another referendum despite it being voted for!
See? Hoist again, I'm afraid. Bamboozled by Kuntibula the Logic Monster.
Also given that we are being held hostage , it would not matter if SNP got ZERO votes , we would still have to do something else.
Like what though? It's hard to see a Sindy route which doesn't go via another referendum - and that's in the gift of Westminster.
Not if you look at it on the union treaty rather than some English later confection in English Law.
That would require UDI, which Westminster, the successor to the 1707 English and Scottish Parliaments, wouldn't grant either
Holyrood is the successor to the 1707 Scottish Parliament. Look at th eproceedings of the first session of that then emphatically Unionist body.
The first Speaker was a Nat!
And talking bollocks. The Estates of Scotland, to give them their correct name, were a different beast from the Scottish Parliament, and they were not prorogued, they were abolished.
Surely the first speaker was David Steel.
The first speaker was Winnie Ewing. (Although she was acting as speaker to oversee the oaths and Steel's election.)
And a lot of rubbish she spoke.
I blame autocorrect for the random capitalisation.
I was reflecting this afternoon on the times in my adulthood when British life has been disrupted by things that in hindsight seem completely mad. Almost all were related to epidemics of some sort.
- Not being able to eat beef on the bone because of BSE. Crazy, and almost forgotten now. Imagine life without rib of beef, or bone marrow or all those other accoutrements of 21st century beef life we take for granted - Piles of burning cattle corpses littering the fields of Britain, consumed in apocalyptic pyres to try to rid the country of foot and mouth. Weird to think back to that time - Obviously the Covid lockdowns - Curfews across most English cities as kids in summer 2011 went on a shopping spree with more emphasis on free audiovisual equipment than any political cause. The riots washed up as far as the bottom of our street, but nobody knew what they were rioting about - those days after 9/11 when we honestly thought Armageddon had started and viewed every low flying plane heading into LCY with terror
Remarkable how much weirdness we’ve had in only a couple of decades.
Also remarkable how easy it is to forget these things - until your post I forgot about the ban on beef on the bone and the 2011 riots. 9/11 only really is in consciousness in any large way because of its presence in films/dramas and documentaries. Foot and mouth is something it’s hard to remember off the top of the head if ten years ago, twenty or thirty.
Covid will become a fuzzy memory in ten years where everyone just has their war stories real or imagined. People will talk about that war with Ukraine and Russia and one of those big flare ups in the Middle East.
New big stories and disasters will take their places.
I dunno. Everywhere I go in the world people REALLY want to talk about Covid - especially their experience of lockdown. It’s partly a bonding thing. An amazing and horrific time that we all endured, across the world - and we all share it, it unites us as a species (and, btw, EVERYONE presumes it came from the lab)
It slightly surprises me. I’ve always assumed people will want to forget about it. Now I’m less sure. Covid was so profound, so vast, so global - it’s like we all lost a close relative in the same bizarre violent way at the same time. Think the death of a famous celebrity - Diana, JFK - but multiplied by a billion. And universal
I think for most of us in the U.K. we have moved on. The covid inquiry is keeping a minor flame alive, but the end of that process is likely in the next decade, and tbh most have decided what they think.
I think broadly there are two camps. One, people who lost close family and two, those who didn’t. I’m in the latter and for us the period was one of those strange life experiences. Part of it was fun, novel, and then wearying.
For those who lost people, I think there is often anger about it, I think in the main they are wrong if they blame the government, but that’s their right.
I think Covid was in that global league that means it won’t be forgotten anytime soon. But the fear, the weirdness of the lockdowns, the sheer unknown will of course be forgotten.
Those smaller but equally weird domestic traumas I mentioned though are already far away in the rear view mirror. For years we could not eat joints of beef on the bone. No T-bone steak, no short ribs, no cote de boeuf, no oxtail. And I remember the moment when we all wondered about the dodgy burgers we’d been eating for years and considered that this thing might just kill the majority of the British population. And now we’ve all forgotten.
I read a lot of old thrillers, detective novels,etc from the first half of the 1900's. I've been struck, post covid, how many indirect references there have been to the trauma of both WW1 and the 'Spanish Flu'. Never a 'OMG FLU' - but just .... troubled people, doubts, echos.
Has John Glen been fired yet . That seemed almost to show some humanity . Fancy wanting to spend some money on poor children when you can watch them go hungry whilst you dish the goodies to your core voters !
Aiui you can get child benefits on up to £100,000 a year, so it is not just the children of the poor. Either we have universal benefits or we don't. The justifications for universality are that it gives the rich a stake in maintaining benefits to the poor, and more mundanely that means testing would cost more than it saved. Whether that is true in the age of computers, I'm not sure.
Simplest solution is to make it taxable income
You wouldn’t save as much as means testing but you get 40-45% back and it would be essentially cost free from a financial perspective to implement
Is it a situation where attempting to shrink the headline size of the state has paradoxically made things worse?
(The argument against universal benefits always used to be that it was a waste to take money from people and then return it- cheaper and more efficient to just let them keep it in the first place. Now that transferring money is costs next to nothing, that might not be the case any more. And means testing, as well as being expensive, is the oldest andbiggest example of the sort of cliff edges that everyone sane thinks we should be getting out of the tax system.)
On Indy I think the change is not the support for YES, but the sense of it as an urgent necessity rather than a vague but pleasing aspiration
For a long time the Nats - brilliantly - kept dangling the YES Indy carrot like the donkey electorate was gonna eat it any moment. Now the donkey realises the carrot was a hologram, and any nice food is a long way down the road
Sure, the donkey would still LIKE a juicy carrot, but the donkey has accepted that there are now more pressing needs, like eating some grass, getting down the road, maybe humping a sexy jackass in the next village
So 45% support for YES no longer translates into anything like 45 points for the SNP, coz the SNP don’t have any fake carrots left, and the new SNP are also really quite shit, and resented for the whole carrot thing, and because donkey is bored of carrying them
I reckon the Nats are more likely to go under 30 seats than stay over, so the LDs are probably, rightly, modest favorites in this market
The 2014 referendum was not a hologram and nor was the demand for another one after the Brexit-fuelled Holyrood victory of the SNP on that specific platform.
Suspect your analogy comes mainly from a desire to present Sindy supporting Scottish people as donkies.
What? Of course 2014 was not a hologram. My point is that AFTER that vote the idea of an imminent new vote became increasingly fantastical, in reality, yet the SNP managed to persuade everyone, and keep persuading them, that Sindyref2 was just a few inches away. One more heave
That illusion is shattered. Stop being stupid. You’re already quite boring. Stupid AS WELL would make you unreadable
But you didn't say that. You just said they've been dangling their carrots "for a long time". If by this you specifically meant since 2014 well ok (ish) but how would we be expected to guess that?
After all you used to bang on about 2014 being very recent. So recent that it would be absurd to even think about another referendum despite it being voted for!
See? Hoist again, I'm afraid. Bamboozled by Kuntibula the Logic Monster.
Also given that we are being held hostage , it would not matter if SNP got ZERO votes , we would still have to do something else.
Like what though? It's hard to see a Sindy route which doesn't go via another referendum - and that's in the gift of Westminster.
Not if you look at it on the union treaty rather than some English later confection in English Law.
That would require UDI, which Westminster, the successor to the 1707 English and Scottish Parliaments, wouldn't grant either
Holyrood is the successor to the 1707 Scottish Parliament. Look at th eproceedings of the first session of that then emphatically Unionist body.
The first Speaker was a Nat!
And talking bollocks. The Estates of Scotland, to give them their correct name, were a different beast from the Scottish Parliament, and they were not prorogued, they were abolished.
Surely the first speaker was David Steel.
The first speaker was Winnie Ewing. (Although she was acting as speaker to oversee the oaths and Steel's election.)
And a lot of rubbish she spoke.
I blame autocorrect for the random capitalisation.
I only just noticed that our last two PMs also served next to each other as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, with Truss making way for Sunak. Clearly this means that the person who followed Sunak will be the next Tory leader at least...Steve Barclay.
Well, at least he is likely to retain his seat given he has a 30k majority, so I wouldn't rule it out.
I only just noticed that our last two PMs also served next to each other as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, with Truss making way for Sunak. Clearly this means that the person who followed Sunak will be the next Tory leader at least...Steve Barclay.
Well, at least he is likely to retain his seat given he has a 30k majority, so I wouldn't rule it out.
A Cambridge-educated lawyer. No good can come of it.
On Indy I think the change is not the support for YES, but the sense of it as an urgent necessity rather than a vague but pleasing aspiration
For a long time the Nats - brilliantly - kept dangling the YES Indy carrot like the donkey electorate was gonna eat it any moment. Now the donkey realises the carrot was a hologram, and any nice food is a long way down the road
Sure, the donkey would still LIKE a juicy carrot, but the donkey has accepted that there are now more pressing needs, like eating some grass, getting down the road, maybe humping a sexy jackass in the next village
So 45% support for YES no longer translates into anything like 45 points for the SNP, coz the SNP don’t have any fake carrots left, and the new SNP are also really quite shit, and resented for the whole carrot thing, and because donkey is bored of carrying them
I reckon the Nats are more likely to go under 30 seats than stay over, so the LDs are probably, rightly, modest favorites in this market
The 2014 referendum was not a hologram and nor was the demand for another one after the Brexit-fuelled Holyrood victory of the SNP on that specific platform.
Suspect your analogy comes mainly from a desire to present Sindy supporting Scottish people as donkies.
What? Of course 2014 was not a hologram. My point is that AFTER that vote the idea of an imminent new vote became increasingly fantastical, in reality, yet the SNP managed to persuade everyone, and keep persuading them, that Sindyref2 was just a few inches away. One more heave
That illusion is shattered. Stop being stupid. You’re already quite boring. Stupid AS WELL would make you unreadable
But you didn't say that. You just said they've been dangling their carrots "for a long time". If by this you specifically meant since 2014 well ok (ish) but how would we be expected to guess that?
After all you used to bang on about 2014 being very recent. So recent that it would be absurd to even think about another referendum despite it being voted for!
See? Hoist again, I'm afraid. Bamboozled by Kuntibula the Logic Monster.
Also given that we are being held hostage , it would not matter if SNP got ZERO votes , we would still have to do something else.
Like what though? It's hard to see a Sindy route which doesn't go via another referendum - and that's in the gift of Westminster.
Not if you look at it on the union treaty rather than some English later confection in English Law.
That would require UDI, which Westminster, the successor to the 1707 English and Scottish Parliaments, wouldn't grant either
Holyrood is the successor to the 1707 Scottish Parliament. Look at th eproceedings of the first session of that then emphatically Unionist body.
The first Speaker was a Nat!
And talking bollocks. The Estates of Scotland, to give them their correct name, were a different beast from the Scottish Parliament, and they were not prorogued, they were abolished.
Surely the first speaker was David Steel.
The first speaker was Winnie Ewing. (Although she was acting as speaker to oversee the oaths and Steel's election.)
And a lot of rubbish she spoke.
I blame autocorrect for the random capitalisation.
so says one of our colonial masters
I had no idea ydoethur had risen so high!
Borderline Illuminati by the looks of things. It's like the Immortal ydoethur vs Salmond. There can be only one.
Comments
52% of Republicans have said they wouldn't vote for Trump again if he is convicted and then jailed
https://www.axios.com/2023/08/03/republicans-vote-trump-prison-poll-jan-6-trial
I commend you for stating what others don't have the kahunas to say.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G59FLLpz_bU
A talk at UCL earlier this month, apparently to Conservatives.
I fear that you are right.
The US actually has a higher conviction rate for white collar crime than we do in the UK
And he keeps cocking those up. Partly because he's a rather dimwitted Nazi who is increasingly completely out of his tiny mind (do you agree with his claim he won all 50 states?) and partly because he doesn't really seem to have any defence.
It is because the majority of decisions made in conflicts are of the "WTF? WTAFF?" nature.
Polls have just closed, Betfair currently has Milei 1.62 and Massa 2.4, results are expected around midnight GMT, by which point in excess of 70% of votes should have been counted if progress is as per the first round. Turnout looks like 76%.
https://resultados.gob.ar/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb12KmMMDJA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4gK-_2ZpxQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e8Iw3Frf1A
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-argentina-election/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Argentine_general_election
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.218482031
Many thanks,
DC
https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1726333076618494186
And a lot of rubbish she spoke.
I blame autocorrect for the random capitalisation.
He should stay there permanently
FFS mate, Hamas are the ones to blame. Hamas. Get in the real world.
Trump in Iowa: I Do Not Like ‘Golden Showers’ from Prostitutes —
Gross and depraved speech by Trump raises more red flags 🚩
Speaking at a small high school gymnasium in Fort Dodge, Iowa on Saturday, Trump told his supporters what he feels about being urinated on by prostitutes. To be precise, Trump told those who attended that he doesn’t like “golden showers” from “hookers” because he is a “germaphobe.”..
https://twitter.com/meiselasb/status/1726118250449412486
Which is why I'm not sold on @Big_G_NorthWales ' plan for him to stay in Oz. Seems a bit harsh on the Aussies even if they do deserve taking down a peg.
Some nice completely deserted island where he has to live on nuts, as he forced us to live with his nuttery, would fit the bill.
It slightly surprises me. I’ve always assumed people will want to forget about it. Now I’m less sure. Covid was so profound, so vast, so global - it’s like we all lost a close relative in the same bizarre violent way at the same time. Think the death of a famous celebrity - Diana, JFK - but multiplied by a billion. And universal
Please don't confuse a dislike of Benjamin Netanya with anti-Semitism. The two notions are wholly different. I couldn't care less what creed or colour Benjamin Netanyahu is, he is a bad man irrespective of these factors.
I think broadly there are two camps. One, people who lost close family and two, those who didn’t. I’m in the latter and for us the period was one of those strange life experiences. Part of it was fun, novel, and then wearying.
For those who lost people, I think there is often anger about it, I think in the main they are wrong if they blame the government, but that’s their right.
"An awfully convenient pretext for him to conquer Gaza."
Has there been an exit poll?
I used @TOPPING 's interpretation of your statement.
EXCLUSIVE
A senior Treasury minister questioned whether wealthy pensioners should get winter fuel payments last month
John Glen, then Chief Sec, told Cambridge Uni event the money could be better spent on child poverty
Listen to leaked recording below
https://t.co/BVemtxGvV9
Those smaller but equally weird domestic traumas I mentioned though are already far away in the rear view mirror. For years we could not eat joints of beef on the bone. No T-bone steak, no short ribs, no cote de boeuf, no oxtail. And I remember the moment when we all wondered about the dodgy burgers we’d been eating for years and considered that this thing might just kill the majority of the
British population. And now we’ve all forgotten.
Roger Milei, the man on the tilei.
(I know we ain't actually called Roger.)
It won't work - the judge has been crazy lenient in (for example) letting Trump Jr ramble on about how Donald's grand-pappy Trump built a brothel in the Klondike - no relevance whatsoever to intent to commit fraud. There won't be grounds for appeal on quantum, which is likely to be a fine north of $250m - perhaps significantly more. The Trump family will be closed down from operating any business in New York. And we will find out what his property empire is truly worth in a fire sale.
I predict he will totally refuse to debate Biden in the main campaign.
He will fall apart in a debate.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-20/ty-article-opinion/.premium/a-brief-history-of-the-netanyahu-hamas-alliance/0000018b-47d9-d242-abef-57ff1be90000
This one is also worth a look:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/live-blog/2023-11-19/argentina-presidential-runoff-election
I'm glad you've been able to find a school place that works for your child, and I also think we need a government that will do more about NHS backlogs.
I’ve dealt with Argentina’s fiscal and regulatory setup enough to know they would benefit hugely from something akin to a dose of Thatcher (or at least Macron).
They need to take a sword to some of their very protectionist regulation, liberalise and open up economy and capital markets and strengthen institutions and the rule of law. But they’re not going to achieve that if their leader is soft in the head, which Milei appears to be.
The danger is he repeats the same mistakes ex Soviet states made in the 90s and gangterises the economy, but also puts everyone off change so much that they go back to the old Peronist ways.
Lab 41%
Con 29%
LD 13%
Reform 7%
Green 5%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#National_poll_results
India seemed a safe bet for the cricket World Cup. Did they “choke”?
To blame a lack of bottle is unfair"
https://www.economist.com/culture/2023/11/10/india-are-dominating-the-cricket-world-cup-will-they-choke
Pity any kangaroos whose dangly bits have been removed to be fed to Farage.
https://i2-prod.devonlive.com/incoming/article2122907.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/0_PA-1153166.jpg
Argentina has just had enough of the leftist Peronists and Kirchners who have governed them for years and their poor economic management which is why they were ready even to vote for a rightwing populist like Milei to get change
You wouldn’t save as much as means testing but you get 40-45% back and it would be essentially cost free from a financial perspective to implement
Joe Biden
@JoeBiden
·
1h
This month, the American people voted to protect our fundamental freedoms like the right to choose.
They voted to protect our democracy.
They voted against the extremism of our opponents.
They voted for the progress that
@KamalaHarris
and I have been making.
===
I would strongly advise leaving Kamala out of your tweets Joe.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/19/trump-rhetoric-reminiscent-of-nazi-era-jb-pritzker
Whilst the absolute values are a bit closer than many others, the trend has more in common.
And yes, this entire comment was a setup for that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDe60CbIagg&t=1s
(The argument against universal benefits always used to be that it was a waste to take money from people and then return it- cheaper and more efficient to just let them keep it in the first place. Now that transferring money is costs next to nothing, that might not be the case any more. And means testing, as well as being expensive, is the oldest andbiggest example of the sort of cliff edges that everyone sane thinks we should be getting out of the tax system.)
Service at Cenotaph is held to remember Jewish veterans who fought Nazi fascism in WWII and mark 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12768025/Service-Cenotaph-Jewish-veterans-Nazi-WWII-anniversary-Warsaw-Ghetto-uprising.html
Well, at least he is likely to retain his seat given he has a 30k majority, so I wouldn't rule it out.