Quite surprised that Mr Hunt is restoring LHA back to the reduced rate (30th percentile of local market rent) introduced by the Conservatives about 8-9 years ago, rather than cutting it again by imposing a another cash freeze.
That will feel like a bonus to some, I think, as it will also catch up the 10.1% cut imposed 12 months ago.
Not sure whether that will win many votes.
Got to keep subsidising B2L landlords you know. Imagine how much cheaper housing might be if we didn't spend £16 billion quid a year to inflate rental prices...
The context is that ~70% of Housing Benefit claimants are in the social sector - so it is only a fraction of that money going to help private sector tenants.
I don't agree with boring. However the obsessive focus on a country the size of Wales is odd.
Patrick Wintour, diplomatic editor of the Guardian, described it as the biggest foreign policy crisis for 20 years. Really? Admittedly there is concern about wider potential instability in the region but when you consider Syria, Libya, the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power in Egypt, Afghanistan, Crimea and the Donbass. The full on Russia/Ukraine war. It's a ridiculous notion.
Yes, Ukraine is much bigger, in scale, precedent and portent
I know PB-ers decry me as a drama queen, but I think we came quite close to a nuclear incident of some kind when Putin was losing - fast and badly - in the Ukrainian offensive around and beyond Kharkiv
He wouldn’t have dropped a bomb, but testing a small device in the Black Sea? Sure, better than losing
As it happens, the Ukes ran out of spunkola and the front line stabiilised and the Russians realised they could mine everything to death and fix things indefinitely. Now Putin has had this qualified success, where else will he go?
Israel/Gaza, by contrast, is season 11 of a drama that never ends. Like Gray’s Anatomy
The Autumn Statement in full - We took a lot of money from you and we starved public services as we did it. We're now giving a bit of money back to you and public services are going to get even worse. Vote for us.
It's a bribe, and an unsustainable one (look at the spending assumptions needed to make it work), but it's an impressive one.
NI cut, but fiscal drag on income tax etc. is partly what pays for it. What’s the end result of that? It’s better for people earning through work than people earning through other ways. Yes? Am I right in that analysis?
Of course, it would not occur to you that they might have had a *negative* effect...
I was rather tongue in cheek!
But where are all those who said a ceasefire would be anti-semitic?
Who said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic? I cannot recall anyone on here saying that?
There were plenty here saying calls for a ceasefire were wrong, indeed that was how Parliament voted.
Is Jess Phillips allowed back now the IDF also want a ceasefire?
So you're making rubbish up, and no-one said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic...
But to your point: a 'ceasefire' can mean many different things. Most people I heard talk about this seemed to see it as 'Israel stop', with f-all to say about the hostages or rocket fire. It was all on Israel. This is more akin to a temporary peace deal, with give and take from both sides.
Which, if you read what I've been writing, is essentially what I was calling for (though I'd have preferred it to have gone further...).
I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. And if we go by the reporting, Hamas had earlier tried to negotiate a cessation of bombing to release some hostages and Israel were not willing to discuss it.
You could argue (as many here did) that Hamas should unilaterally have released hostages anyway but a) that's not how negotiations work and b) if Israel were still actively bombing Gaza there would have been no way for Hamas to release hostages and know they would be safe (again, this doesn't have to be because Hamas care about the wellbeing of hostages as much as they care about being seen as people you can sincerely do political negotiations with). So all the onus did sit with Israel for a ceasefire to happen.
"I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. "
That is rubbish. What is more, it is dangerous rubbish.
Hamas has fired many thousands of rockets into Israel over the years. And whilst these do not kill many people (often thanks to Iron Dome and the like), each once causes thousands of people to run for their shelters, any time of night and day. Imagine being an ordinary civilian living under that sort of pressure. In fact, if you're British and over eighty, you may not have to imagine.
That is not to excuse Israel. But Hamas's rockets give Israel a justifiable excuse to attack back. Hamas do not want peace.
I wasn't talking about "over the years", I was talking about the conflict now. And I'm aware "all" was hyperbole, and explained myself in response to TOPPING; but Israel have state of the art war capabilities and have killed roughly 0.5% of all the people in Gaza, and Hamas have home made rockets. One side of this war has much more power than the other, and so those asking for a ceasefire will obviously turn their attentions to that power, who is also an ally of ours, instead of the smaller power.
If we want to get into an argument about what "justifies" war, we need only look at the UN. Gaza is occupied territory, and has been since 1967, and it has been under blockade from land, sea and air since 2007. The UN states that an aggressor is defined by acts and not words, and such acts include "any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such an invasion or attack" and "blockade of the ports or coasts of a State by the armed forces of another State".
Gaza falls into a sticky area here - it isn't a recognised state. If it was it is clear that the long term actions of the state of Israel would clearly make Israel the aggressor. This is not to condone any of the war crimes Hamas has done in reaction to that, but to explain that in international law if Hamas (as the elected government of Gaza, as people here often point out) wanted to declare war on Israel the casus belli would be there and likely legal (if Gaza was considered a state). If Gaza is not a state, but part of Israel, then what Israel is doing is still illegal and the acts of an aggressor - and part of the argument for why many people describe Israel as an apartheid state.
I'm interested in why you feel the need to downplay the experiences of Israelis who have ad family members killed by those 'homemade' rockets, and all of those who have to run for shelters whenever Hamas (and Hezbollah...) fire them.
Because it is clear that the deaths of civilians are clearly one sided. I feel empathy for the individuals involved, of course, but if we're talking the whole picture it's clear that Israel kills more Palestinians by an extremely large margin then Hamas kills Israelis. As well as that, as I've said, the state of Israel has both the infrastructure and military power to enforce its will on the entire of Gaza - Hamas does not have that power at all. That is not to say it is okay for Hamas to kill civilians - as I said, I don't think that Hamas should do war crimes either - but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective.
I also note that you brought up the idea of "justifiable excuse to attack back" and then skipped over the literal justifications in international law for why Israel would likely be considered an aggressor.
"but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective."
7th October was pretty effective.
But that is what makes it so shocking to most people and to Israel, right? October 7th was the anomaly, not the rule. And Hamas managed to kill 1200 people and kidnap a few hundred, plus break down some parts of the border fence and some barracks - whereas Israel has levelled entire sections of Gaza, killed more than ten times that, and displaced many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians (and is arguing to displace all 2 million people in Gaza).
That, again, is not to say what Hamas did was acceptable or not a significant act of violence - but that in comparison to what the state of Israel can do (and has done in the past) it is not really in the same league.
Try re-writing that post with September 11 instead of October 7, and then the consequences for Afghanistan instead of Gaza. Exactly the same logic, excluding the final bit about displacing all people in Gaza, which isn't true anyway.
Having written that, I have realised that I don't really know what point you're making anyway. Terrorism is fine as long as the perpetrators aren't very good at it?
I of course don't believe that terrorism is fine - but I do believe that it doesn't come out of nowhere. September 11th is in some ways a very good analogy - because I don't think "they hate us for our freedoms" is why 9/11 happened, and I don't think the response to 9/11 was morally (or even politically) good or positive.
The belief here seems to be that terrorism comes from an evil desire from evil people. That's just not shown in the research. Terrorism happens when non state actors have political aims that they think are impossible to happen peacefully through the state, whether those aims are good or bad. Most (not all) of the people who commit terrorism are young men who see no future for themselves and become radicalised. The people at the top have narratives that feed this sense of futility and point it towards an enemy (real or imagined). Terrorism is fuelled by grievance.
There is a reason Osama Bin Laden's "Letter to America" has gone viral in this moment (and it isn't because the young are massively homophobic or anti-Semitic). It's because parts of it lay out a rationale for 9/11 that many of them were never taught - that American intervention in the Middle East, that the history of Western Imperialism, was never resolved. You can agree or disagree with that as an argument, you can agree or disagree with whether you think it is sincere coming from a guy whose family got rich off of oil investment and relationships with American capital, but it is an argument beyond "they hate us because they're evil".
Now, going back to 9/11 - has the American response to it done any good in the world? Is the American political psyche any better because of it? Is the world any better? Is Afghanistan, now back under Taliban rule, better? Is Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, any better? Why did ISIS arise? How did the world benefit from millions of dead Iraqis and Afghanis? I would say every outcomes from those wars - from the securitisation of everything, the spikes in islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, the destruction of whole countries and peoples - was bad. That seems like a very apt comparison to the reaction Israel is having against the Palestinians due to the actions of Hamas.
Have you considered spinning the telescope round?
Netanyahu & Co. are, in that analysis, the product of a state of unending, existential war since 1948.
Of course - and I've laid blame and culpability here on the Balfour Declaration and the US and Western Imperial history for that, too. I've also talked about the history of European and Christian anti-Semitism. But the Jewish people were not given a state in Germany, for example, or somewhere else in Europe - despite it being European Christian anti-Semitism that tried to eradicate them. They were given land in the Middle East, partly because that's what some Zionists wanted and partly because that benefited Western interests (and a lot because European anti-Semitism meant Europeans with power still didn't want Jewish people in Europe). That may make today's Zionists less culpable for that past - but it doesn't make them less culpable for the actions of the Israeli state today than today's Palestinians or (indeed) Hamas.
How’s about putting the blame on the Hamas terrorists who killed more than 1,000 innocent Israeli civilians on 7th October? Without that, there’s no escalation to the war.
Hamas simply don’t want the Jews to have a state. The terrorist attacks were to try and kybosh the talks between Israel and Saudi, the end result is likely to be wider isolation of Iran and Qatar within the region, and the rest of the Gulf embracing the opportunities to trade with Israel.
Before October 7th 2023 was one of the deadliest years for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and I think the deadliest year for children in the West Banks specifically on record. Is that not an escalation?
Was that because of Israel or Hamas?
If your fundamental position is that the problem for Gazans is Israel not Hamas then that is where we part company.
The Autumn Statement in full - We took a lot of money from you and we starved public services as we did it. We're now giving a bit of money back to you and public services are going to get even worse. Vote for us.
It's a bribe, and an unsustainable one (look at the spending assumptions needed to make it work), but it's an impressive one.
NI cut, but fiscal drag on income tax etc. is partly what pays for it. What’s the end result of that? It’s better for people earning through work than people earning through other ways. Yes? Am I right in that analysis?
Yes, fiscal drag to cut NI us a transfer of wealth from non working people to working people, it's the opposite of what Rishi had planned when he put in the NI rise and then planned the income tax cut. Hunt is proving to be a slightly better chancellor than I originally thought he would be, Rishi has proved to be unsuitable for the role of PM. He's clearly not up to it.
Yes but most voters don’t even know it exists, so cutting it has no political benefit.
My previous suggestion was to rename it Payroll Tax, only because Tax On Jobs is too politically loaded, and make payslips show you gross salary before it’s deducted. Everyone gets a 13% pay rise and it becomes much more transparent.
Surely the point is he wants to spread the tax cut.
So NI cut in January.
Plus income tax cut in April.
More noticed if done in two steps and builds momentum.
They are so far behind they can't wait until April for any changes to take effect.
Plus if I am listening correctly:
- Big Minimum wage rise from April. - 8.5% (?) Pension rise from April. - LHA rise from April.
Does it mean "can't wait until April", or "must wait beyond April" (if he believes things will improve)?
As I suggested earlier, I think failure to fund NHS bearing down on waiting lists is a hand grenade in his trousers.
I wonder what will happen to the National Benefit Cap, which was not mentioned? At the moment a significant limiter on LHA in places like London is the £20k/£23k total benefit cap. That may help Red Wall voters compared to Blue Wall / South-East.
Of course, it would not occur to you that they might have had a *negative* effect...
I was rather tongue in cheek!
But where are all those who said a ceasefire would be anti-semitic?
Who said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic? I cannot recall anyone on here saying that?
There were plenty here saying calls for a ceasefire were wrong, indeed that was how Parliament voted.
Is Jess Phillips allowed back now the IDF also want a ceasefire?
So you're making rubbish up, and no-one said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic...
But to your point: a 'ceasefire' can mean many different things. Most people I heard talk about this seemed to see it as 'Israel stop', with f-all to say about the hostages or rocket fire. It was all on Israel. This is more akin to a temporary peace deal, with give and take from both sides.
Which, if you read what I've been writing, is essentially what I was calling for (though I'd have preferred it to have gone further...).
I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. And if we go by the reporting, Hamas had earlier tried to negotiate a cessation of bombing to release some hostages and Israel were not willing to discuss it.
You could argue (as many here did) that Hamas should unilaterally have released hostages anyway but a) that's not how negotiations work and b) if Israel were still actively bombing Gaza there would have been no way for Hamas to release hostages and know they would be safe (again, this doesn't have to be because Hamas care about the wellbeing of hostages as much as they care about being seen as people you can sincerely do political negotiations with). So all the onus did sit with Israel for a ceasefire to happen.
"I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. "
That is rubbish. What is more, it is dangerous rubbish.
Hamas has fired many thousands of rockets into Israel over the years. And whilst these do not kill many people (often thanks to Iron Dome and the like), each once causes thousands of people to run for their shelters, any time of night and day. Imagine being an ordinary civilian living under that sort of pressure. In fact, if you're British and over eighty, you may not have to imagine.
That is not to excuse Israel. But Hamas's rockets give Israel a justifiable excuse to attack back. Hamas do not want peace.
I wasn't talking about "over the years", I was talking about the conflict now. And I'm aware "all" was hyperbole, and explained myself in response to TOPPING; but Israel have state of the art war capabilities and have killed roughly 0.5% of all the people in Gaza, and Hamas have home made rockets. One side of this war has much more power than the other, and so those asking for a ceasefire will obviously turn their attentions to that power, who is also an ally of ours, instead of the smaller power.
If we want to get into an argument about what "justifies" war, we need only look at the UN. Gaza is occupied territory, and has been since 1967, and it has been under blockade from land, sea and air since 2007. The UN states that an aggressor is defined by acts and not words, and such acts include "any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such an invasion or attack" and "blockade of the ports or coasts of a State by the armed forces of another State".
Gaza falls into a sticky area here - it isn't a recognised state. If it was it is clear that the long term actions of the state of Israel would clearly make Israel the aggressor. This is not to condone any of the war crimes Hamas has done in reaction to that, but to explain that in international law if Hamas (as the elected government of Gaza, as people here often point out) wanted to declare war on Israel the casus belli would be there and likely legal (if Gaza was considered a state). If Gaza is not a state, but part of Israel, then what Israel is doing is still illegal and the acts of an aggressor - and part of the argument for why many people describe Israel as an apartheid state.
I'm interested in why you feel the need to downplay the experiences of Israelis who have ad family members killed by those 'homemade' rockets, and all of those who have to run for shelters whenever Hamas (and Hezbollah...) fire them.
Because it is clear that the deaths of civilians are clearly one sided. I feel empathy for the individuals involved, of course, but if we're talking the whole picture it's clear that Israel kills more Palestinians by an extremely large margin then Hamas kills Israelis. As well as that, as I've said, the state of Israel has both the infrastructure and military power to enforce its will on the entire of Gaza - Hamas does not have that power at all. That is not to say it is okay for Hamas to kill civilians - as I said, I don't think that Hamas should do war crimes either - but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective.
I also note that you brought up the idea of "justifiable excuse to attack back" and then skipped over the literal justifications in international law for why Israel would likely be considered an aggressor.
"but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective."
7th October was pretty effective.
But that is what makes it so shocking to most people and to Israel, right? October 7th was the anomaly, not the rule. And Hamas managed to kill 1200 people and kidnap a few hundred, plus break down some parts of the border fence and some barracks - whereas Israel has levelled entire sections of Gaza, killed more than ten times that, and displaced many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians (and is arguing to displace all 2 million people in Gaza).
That, again, is not to say what Hamas did was acceptable or not a significant act of violence - but that in comparison to what the state of Israel can do (and has done in the past) it is not really in the same league.
Try re-writing that post with September 11 instead of October 7, and then the consequences for Afghanistan instead of Gaza. Exactly the same logic, excluding the final bit about displacing all people in Gaza, which isn't true anyway.
Having written that, I have realised that I don't really know what point you're making anyway. Terrorism is fine as long as the perpetrators aren't very good at it?
I of course don't believe that terrorism is fine - but I do believe that it doesn't come out of nowhere. September 11th is in some ways a very good analogy - because I don't think "they hate us for our freedoms" is why 9/11 happened, and I don't think the response to 9/11 was morally (or even politically) good or positive.
The belief here seems to be that terrorism comes from an evil desire from evil people. That's just not shown in the research. Terrorism happens when non state actors have political aims that they think are impossible to happen peacefully through the state, whether those aims are good or bad. Most (not all) of the people who commit terrorism are young men who see no future for themselves and become radicalised. The people at the top have narratives that feed this sense of futility and point it towards an enemy (real or imagined). Terrorism is fuelled by grievance.
There is a reason Osama Bin Laden's "Letter to America" has gone viral in this moment (and it isn't because the young are massively homophobic or anti-Semitic). It's because parts of it lay out a rationale for 9/11 that many of them were never taught - that American intervention in the Middle East, that the history of Western Imperialism, was never resolved. You can agree or disagree with that as an argument, you can agree or disagree with whether you think it is sincere coming from a guy whose family got rich off of oil investment and relationships with American capital, but it is an argument beyond "they hate us because they're evil".
Now, going back to 9/11 - has the American response to it done any good in the world? Is the American political psyche any better because of it? Is the world any better? Is Afghanistan, now back under Taliban rule, better? Is Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, any better? Why did ISIS arise? How did the world benefit from millions of dead Iraqis and Afghanis? I would say every outcomes from those wars - from the securitisation of everything, the spikes in islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, the destruction of whole countries and peoples - was bad. That seems like a very apt comparison to the reaction Israel is having against the Palestinians due to the actions of Hamas.
Have you considered spinning the telescope round?
Netanyahu & Co. are, in that analysis, the product of a state of unending, existential war since 1948.
Of course - and I've laid blame and culpability here on the Balfour Declaration and the US and Western Imperial history for that, too. I've also talked about the history of European and Christian anti-Semitism. But the Jewish people were not given a state in Germany, for example, or somewhere else in Europe - despite it being European Christian anti-Semitism that tried to eradicate them. They were given land in the Middle East, partly because that's what some Zionists wanted and partly because that benefited Western interests (and a lot because European anti-Semitism meant Europeans with power still didn't want Jewish people in Europe). That may make today's Zionists less culpable for that past - but it doesn't make them less culpable for the actions of the Israeli state today than today's Palestinians or (indeed) Hamas.
How’s about putting the blame on the Hamas terrorists who killed more than 1,000 innocent Israeli civilians on 7th October? Without that, there’s no escalation to the war.
Hamas simply don’t want the Jews to have a state. The terrorist attacks were to try and kybosh the talks between Israel and Saudi, the end result is likely to be wider isolation of Iran and Qatar within the region, and the rest of the Gulf embracing the opportunities to trade with Israel.
Before October 7th 2023 was one of the deadliest years for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and I think the deadliest year for children in the West Banks specifically on record. Is that not an escalation?
Was that because of Israel or Hamas?
If your fundamental position is that the problem for Gazans is Israel not Hamas then that is where we part company.
Israel has been blockading Gaza. In 1967, Israel said being blockaded was a casus belli. Is a blockade only a casus belli when done to Israel and not when done by Israel?
Israel has been building settlements illegally in the West Bank and moving to annex territory, which undermines the viability of a Palestinian state including Gaza.
Israel has definitely been a major problem for Gazans. Whether they’re a bigger problem than Hamas is perhaps beside the point.
Hamas should not have carried out the 7 Oct attacks. If Israel doesn’t want to be attacked by Palestinians in the long run, they should reach a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians, not occupy their territory and blockade what few areas they control.
Surely the point is he wants to spread the tax cut.
So NI cut in January.
Plus income tax cut in April.
More noticed if done in two steps and builds momentum.
They are so far behing they can't wait until April for any changes to take effect.
There's the other side of the coin, which is the unrealistic departmental spending allocations. Thanks to inflation, they imply quite large cuts in departmental resources - which leaves Labour with something of a hospital pass if there were to be an early election. Delay it, and the current government will cop some of the blame. An early election might leave Labour with a narrowish majority and problems across spending departments.
It's a bribe, and an unsustainable one (look at the spending assumptions needed to make it work), but it's an impressive one.
NI cut, but fiscal drag on income tax etc. is partly what pays for it. What’s the end result of that? It’s better for people earning through work than people earning through other ways. Yes? Am I right in that analysis?
Lots of smoke and mirrors, but that's inevitable on a day like this;
Taxes are up not down. Personal tax cuts worth around £10bn just announced - less than a quarter of the personal tax rises already in train from threshold freezes. Taxes overall are hugely up levels at the 2019 election
Growth and household incomes are really grim next year - pain basically delayed from this year. Gdp growth of 0.7% would be weakest in an election year for over 30 years. Higher inflation forecast means household incomes will actually be FALLING in the election year.
So a 2p cut in NI funded by higher than expected inflation increasing the tax take via fiscal drag, and increasing the real-terms cuts to departmental spending. You get the impression that the government quite likes inflation.
Of course, it would not occur to you that they might have had a *negative* effect...
I was rather tongue in cheek!
But where are all those who said a ceasefire would be anti-semitic?
Who said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic? I cannot recall anyone on here saying that?
There were plenty here saying calls for a ceasefire were wrong, indeed that was how Parliament voted.
Is Jess Phillips allowed back now the IDF also want a ceasefire?
So you're making rubbish up, and no-one said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic...
But to your point: a 'ceasefire' can mean many different things. Most people I heard talk about this seemed to see it as 'Israel stop', with f-all to say about the hostages or rocket fire. It was all on Israel. This is more akin to a temporary peace deal, with give and take from both sides.
Which, if you read what I've been writing, is essentially what I was calling for (though I'd have preferred it to have gone further...).
I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. And if we go by the reporting, Hamas had earlier tried to negotiate a cessation of bombing to release some hostages and Israel were not willing to discuss it.
You could argue (as many here did) that Hamas should unilaterally have released hostages anyway but a) that's not how negotiations work and b) if Israel were still actively bombing Gaza there would have been no way for Hamas to release hostages and know they would be safe (again, this doesn't have to be because Hamas care about the wellbeing of hostages as much as they care about being seen as people you can sincerely do political negotiations with). So all the onus did sit with Israel for a ceasefire to happen.
"I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. "
That is rubbish. What is more, it is dangerous rubbish.
Hamas has fired many thousands of rockets into Israel over the years. And whilst these do not kill many people (often thanks to Iron Dome and the like), each once causes thousands of people to run for their shelters, any time of night and day. Imagine being an ordinary civilian living under that sort of pressure. In fact, if you're British and over eighty, you may not have to imagine.
That is not to excuse Israel. But Hamas's rockets give Israel a justifiable excuse to attack back. Hamas do not want peace.
I wasn't talking about "over the years", I was talking about the conflict now. And I'm aware "all" was hyperbole, and explained myself in response to TOPPING; but Israel have state of the art war capabilities and have killed roughly 0.5% of all the people in Gaza, and Hamas have home made rockets. One side of this war has much more power than the other, and so those asking for a ceasefire will obviously turn their attentions to that power, who is also an ally of ours, instead of the smaller power.
If we want to get into an argument about what "justifies" war, we need only look at the UN. Gaza is occupied territory, and has been since 1967, and it has been under blockade from land, sea and air since 2007. The UN states that an aggressor is defined by acts and not words, and such acts include "any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such an invasion or attack" and "blockade of the ports or coasts of a State by the armed forces of another State".
Gaza falls into a sticky area here - it isn't a recognised state. If it was it is clear that the long term actions of the state of Israel would clearly make Israel the aggressor. This is not to condone any of the war crimes Hamas has done in reaction to that, but to explain that in international law if Hamas (as the elected government of Gaza, as people here often point out) wanted to declare war on Israel the casus belli would be there and likely legal (if Gaza was considered a state). If Gaza is not a state, but part of Israel, then what Israel is doing is still illegal and the acts of an aggressor - and part of the argument for why many people describe Israel as an apartheid state.
I'm interested in why you feel the need to downplay the experiences of Israelis who have ad family members killed by those 'homemade' rockets, and all of those who have to run for shelters whenever Hamas (and Hezbollah...) fire them.
Because it is clear that the deaths of civilians are clearly one sided. I feel empathy for the individuals involved, of course, but if we're talking the whole picture it's clear that Israel kills more Palestinians by an extremely large margin then Hamas kills Israelis. As well as that, as I've said, the state of Israel has both the infrastructure and military power to enforce its will on the entire of Gaza - Hamas does not have that power at all. That is not to say it is okay for Hamas to kill civilians - as I said, I don't think that Hamas should do war crimes either - but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective.
I also note that you brought up the idea of "justifiable excuse to attack back" and then skipped over the literal justifications in international law for why Israel would likely be considered an aggressor.
"but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective."
7th October was pretty effective.
But that is what makes it so shocking to most people and to Israel, right? October 7th was the anomaly, not the rule. And Hamas managed to kill 1200 people and kidnap a few hundred, plus break down some parts of the border fence and some barracks - whereas Israel has levelled entire sections of Gaza, killed more than ten times that, and displaced many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians (and is arguing to displace all 2 million people in Gaza).
That, again, is not to say what Hamas did was acceptable or not a significant act of violence - but that in comparison to what the state of Israel can do (and has done in the past) it is not really in the same league.
Try re-writing that post with September 11 instead of October 7, and then the consequences for Afghanistan instead of Gaza. Exactly the same logic, excluding the final bit about displacing all people in Gaza, which isn't true anyway.
Having written that, I have realised that I don't really know what point you're making anyway. Terrorism is fine as long as the perpetrators aren't very good at it?
I of course don't believe that terrorism is fine - but I do believe that it doesn't come out of nowhere. September 11th is in some ways a very good analogy - because I don't think "they hate us for our freedoms" is why 9/11 happened, and I don't think the response to 9/11 was morally (or even politically) good or positive.
The belief here seems to be that terrorism comes from an evil desire from evil people. That's just not shown in the research. Terrorism happens when non state actors have political aims that they think are impossible to happen peacefully through the state, whether those aims are good or bad. Most (not all) of the people who commit terrorism are young men who see no future for themselves and become radicalised. The people at the top have narratives that feed this sense of futility and point it towards an enemy (real or imagined). Terrorism is fuelled by grievance.
There is a reason Osama Bin Laden's "Letter to America" has gone viral in this moment (and it isn't because the young are massively homophobic or anti-Semitic). It's because parts of it lay out a rationale for 9/11 that many of them were never taught - that American intervention in the Middle East, that the history of Western Imperialism, was never resolved. You can agree or disagree with that as an argument, you can agree or disagree with whether you think it is sincere coming from a guy whose family got rich off of oil investment and relationships with American capital, but it is an argument beyond "they hate us because they're evil".
Now, going back to 9/11 - has the American response to it done any good in the world? Is the American political psyche any better because of it? Is the world any better? Is Afghanistan, now back under Taliban rule, better? Is Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, any better? Why did ISIS arise? How did the world benefit from millions of dead Iraqis and Afghanis? I would say every outcomes from those wars - from the securitisation of everything, the spikes in islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, the destruction of whole countries and peoples - was bad. That seems like a very apt comparison to the reaction Israel is having against the Palestinians due to the actions of Hamas.
Have you considered spinning the telescope round?
Netanyahu & Co. are, in that analysis, the product of a state of unending, existential war since 1948.
Of course - and I've laid blame and culpability here on the Balfour Declaration and the US and Western Imperial history for that, too. I've also talked about the history of European and Christian anti-Semitism. But the Jewish people were not given a state in Germany, for example, or somewhere else in Europe - despite it being European Christian anti-Semitism that tried to eradicate them. They were given land in the Middle East, partly because that's what some Zionists wanted and partly because that benefited Western interests (and a lot because European anti-Semitism meant Europeans with power still didn't want Jewish people in Europe). That may make today's Zionists less culpable for that past - but it doesn't make them less culpable for the actions of the Israeli state today than today's Palestinians or (indeed) Hamas.
How’s about putting the blame on the Hamas terrorists who killed more than 1,000 innocent Israeli civilians on 7th October? Without that, there’s no escalation to the war.
Hamas simply don’t want the Jews to have a state. The terrorist attacks were to try and kybosh the talks between Israel and Saudi, the end result is likely to be wider isolation of Iran and Qatar within the region, and the rest of the Gulf embracing the opportunities to trade with Israel.
Before October 7th 2023 was one of the deadliest years for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and I think the deadliest year for children in the West Banks specifically on record. Is that not an escalation?
Was that because of Israel or Hamas?
If your fundamental position is that the problem for Gazans is Israel not Hamas then that is where we part company.
Is the increased settler movement from Israelis down to Hamas? When Palestinian civilians marched on the border fence and stood in peaceful protest and got sniped by IDF soldiers, was that down to Hamas?
Yes, this entire thread, this entire conversation is me explaining my position that I do in fact believe that more culpability for the actions of the Israeli state against the people of Gaza and the West Bank lies with the state of Israel and not Palestinians or Hamas.
It's a bribe, and an unsustainable one (look at the spending assumptions needed to make it work), but it's an impressive one.
NI cut, but fiscal drag on income tax etc. is partly what pays for it. What’s the end result of that? It’s better for people earning through work than people earning through other ways. Yes? Am I right in that analysis?
Lots of smoke and mirrors, but that's inevitable on a day like this;
Taxes are up not down. Personal tax cuts worth around £10bn just announced - less than a quarter of the personal tax rises already in train from threshold freezes. Taxes overall are hugely up levels at the 2019 election
Growth and household incomes are really grim next year - pain basically delayed from this year. Gdp growth of 0.7% would be weakest in an election year for over 30 years. Higher inflation forecast means household incomes will actually be FALLING in the election year.
It's a bribe, and an unsustainable one (look at the spending assumptions needed to make it work), but it's an impressive one.
NI cut, but fiscal drag on income tax etc. is partly what pays for it. What’s the end result of that? It’s better for people earning through work than people earning through other ways. Yes? Am I right in that analysis?
Yes. It is a small step towards the obvious conclusion: the complete abolition of NI and its incorporation into IT so we all pay the same. Why should we pay less tax on investment income or pensions than on earned income?
It's a bribe, and an unsustainable one (look at the spending assumptions needed to make it work), but it's an impressive one.
NI cut, but fiscal drag on income tax etc. is partly what pays for it. What’s the end result of that? It’s better for people earning through work than people earning through other ways. Yes? Am I right in that analysis?
Lots of smoke and mirrors, but that's inevitable on a day like this;
Taxes are up not down. Personal tax cuts worth around £10bn just announced - less than a quarter of the personal tax rises already in train from threshold freezes. Taxes overall are hugely up levels at the 2019 election
Growth and household incomes are really grim next year - pain basically delayed from this year. Gdp growth of 0.7% would be weakest in an election year for over 30 years. Higher inflation forecast means household incomes will actually be FALLING in the election year.
"Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ "Approximately 109,000 migrants illegally entered Britain on small boats since 2018. Some describe this as “an invasion”. What is your view of this description?"
If they do manage to narrow the gap to 10% or so I think they’ll go to the country in May. Try and catch Labour on the hoof,
But don’t make the mistake that this is now the favourite. If they don’t narrow the gap, they will still want to see if something turns up, and they have the budget for another rabbit out of the hat.
Surely the point is he wants to spread the tax cut.
So NI cut in January.
Plus income tax cut in April.
More noticed if done in two steps and builds momentum.
They are so far behing they can't wait until April for any changes to take effect.
There's the other side of the coin, which is the unrealistic departmental spending allocations. Thanks to inflation, they imply quite large cuts in departmental resources - which leaves Labour with something of a hospital pass if there were to be an early election. Delay it, and the current government will cop some of the blame. An early election might leave Labour with a narrowish majority and problems across spending departments.
I just put a few quid on an election before the summer. Seems to me more likely now than it did yesterday, FWIW.
Of course, it would not occur to you that they might have had a *negative* effect...
I was rather tongue in cheek!
But where are all those who said a ceasefire would be anti-semitic?
Who said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic? I cannot recall anyone on here saying that?
There were plenty here saying calls for a ceasefire were wrong, indeed that was how Parliament voted.
Is Jess Phillips allowed back now the IDF also want a ceasefire?
So you're making rubbish up, and no-one said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic...
But to your point: a 'ceasefire' can mean many different things. Most people I heard talk about this seemed to see it as 'Israel stop', with f-all to say about the hostages or rocket fire. It was all on Israel. This is more akin to a temporary peace deal, with give and take from both sides.
Which, if you read what I've been writing, is essentially what I was calling for (though I'd have preferred it to have gone further...).
I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. And if we go by the reporting, Hamas had earlier tried to negotiate a cessation of bombing to release some hostages and Israel were not willing to discuss it.
You could argue (as many here did) that Hamas should unilaterally have released hostages anyway but a) that's not how negotiations work and b) if Israel were still actively bombing Gaza there would have been no way for Hamas to release hostages and know they would be safe (again, this doesn't have to be because Hamas care about the wellbeing of hostages as much as they care about being seen as people you can sincerely do political negotiations with). So all the onus did sit with Israel for a ceasefire to happen.
"I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. "
That is rubbish. What is more, it is dangerous rubbish.
Hamas has fired many thousands of rockets into Israel over the years. And whilst these do not kill many people (often thanks to Iron Dome and the like), each once causes thousands of people to run for their shelters, any time of night and day. Imagine being an ordinary civilian living under that sort of pressure. In fact, if you're British and over eighty, you may not have to imagine.
That is not to excuse Israel. But Hamas's rockets give Israel a justifiable excuse to attack back. Hamas do not want peace.
I wasn't talking about "over the years", I was talking about the conflict now. And I'm aware "all" was hyperbole, and explained myself in response to TOPPING; but Israel have state of the art war capabilities and have killed roughly 0.5% of all the people in Gaza, and Hamas have home made rockets. One side of this war has much more power than the other, and so those asking for a ceasefire will obviously turn their attentions to that power, who is also an ally of ours, instead of the smaller power.
If we want to get into an argument about what "justifies" war, we need only look at the UN. Gaza is occupied territory, and has been since 1967, and it has been under blockade from land, sea and air since 2007. The UN states that an aggressor is defined by acts and not words, and such acts include "any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such an invasion or attack" and "blockade of the ports or coasts of a State by the armed forces of another State".
Gaza falls into a sticky area here - it isn't a recognised state. If it was it is clear that the long term actions of the state of Israel would clearly make Israel the aggressor. This is not to condone any of the war crimes Hamas has done in reaction to that, but to explain that in international law if Hamas (as the elected government of Gaza, as people here often point out) wanted to declare war on Israel the casus belli would be there and likely legal (if Gaza was considered a state). If Gaza is not a state, but part of Israel, then what Israel is doing is still illegal and the acts of an aggressor - and part of the argument for why many people describe Israel as an apartheid state.
I'm interested in why you feel the need to downplay the experiences of Israelis who have ad family members killed by those 'homemade' rockets, and all of those who have to run for shelters whenever Hamas (and Hezbollah...) fire them.
Because it is clear that the deaths of civilians are clearly one sided. I feel empathy for the individuals involved, of course, but if we're talking the whole picture it's clear that Israel kills more Palestinians by an extremely large margin then Hamas kills Israelis. As well as that, as I've said, the state of Israel has both the infrastructure and military power to enforce its will on the entire of Gaza - Hamas does not have that power at all. That is not to say it is okay for Hamas to kill civilians - as I said, I don't think that Hamas should do war crimes either - but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective.
I also note that you brought up the idea of "justifiable excuse to attack back" and then skipped over the literal justifications in international law for why Israel would likely be considered an aggressor.
"but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective."
7th October was pretty effective.
But that is what makes it so shocking to most people and to Israel, right? October 7th was the anomaly, not the rule. And Hamas managed to kill 1200 people and kidnap a few hundred, plus break down some parts of the border fence and some barracks - whereas Israel has levelled entire sections of Gaza, killed more than ten times that, and displaced many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians (and is arguing to displace all 2 million people in Gaza).
That, again, is not to say what Hamas did was acceptable or not a significant act of violence - but that in comparison to what the state of Israel can do (and has done in the past) it is not really in the same league.
Try re-writing that post with September 11 instead of October 7, and then the consequences for Afghanistan instead of Gaza. Exactly the same logic, excluding the final bit about displacing all people in Gaza, which isn't true anyway.
Having written that, I have realised that I don't really know what point you're making anyway. Terrorism is fine as long as the perpetrators aren't very good at it?
I think 148grrs is a classic punch up ideologue. Israel has the power, therefore bad. Hamas are just freedom fighters.
It's not "more power = more bad" it's "more power = more culpability". If you have power and do good things with it - you deserve more of the acclaim. If you have power and do bad with it, you deserve more of the blame.
I would not, for example, consider a slave killing his enslaver as morally equivalent to an enslaver killing a slave. A poor person who steals a loaf of bread to not starve is not morally equivalent to a rich person stealing a loaf of bread because they can get away with it. When it comes to geopolitics, there are bigger grey areas, but I think the logic still holds. Who was to blame for the violence of the oppressed Africans in South Africa? I would argue those who held up apartheid, not those fighting against it. Does that mean I think placing burning tyres around the necks of people is a good thing? No.
When I was taught about WW2 one of the things I learnt about was the plans for fighting back if England got invaded by the Nazis - the hidden weapons, the argument that everyone should become a bomber. If the Nazis had won, that would have been terrorism in their eyes. But I think there would be a clear moral justification to do it, and to lay the blame of any violence or casualties at the feet of the aggressor in that case - Nazi Germany. Now, you could argue that Nazi Germany was uniquely evil, but lets replace them with Napoleonic France. I'd still think the same. Or Germany in WW1 - I still think it would be justifiable for people to fight back. So if I recognise that if I, or my family, or my nation would be justified and not as culpable for violence in those circumstances, why should it not be the same for others?
I have made reference before to Nazi Germany in 1945 as the exact parallel of Gaza now. 99% percent of Gazans just want the bombing to stop and likely do not support Hamas. Yet if they tried to oust Hamas they will likely suffer themselves. Just as for ordinary, everyday Germans in 1945. The moral dilemna of the second World War was this - is it justified to destroy what you are trying to liberate? Ask the Dutch at Arnhem. They still revere the British and Poles who tried to through off the Nazi yoke, even with the consequences of failure.
You fail to see that Hamas is the problem here. Hamas = Nazi Party.
I also have to take issue with the idea that anyone who celebrates rape and murder is not evil. They are. Pure and simple evil.
Aside: Pleased to see this pedestrian priority lark working locally. Walking into town this morning a bloke in an SUV stopped for me to cross a bell-mouth side road entrance to the central island - one of our more notorious rat runs - as he should. Turned out he was doing a U-turn round the pedestrian refuge, so he stopped for me *twice*, on the other side as well. Great stuff .
It's a bribe, and an unsustainable one (look at the spending assumptions needed to make it work), but it's an impressive one.
NI cut, but fiscal drag on income tax etc. is partly what pays for it. What’s the end result of that? It’s better for people earning through work than people earning through other ways. Yes? Am I right in that analysis?
Yes. It is a small step towards the obvious conclusion: the complete abolition of NI and its incorporation into IT so we all pay the same. Why should we pay less tax on investment income or pensions than on earned income?
Because pensioners vote Conservative?
It's an interesting experiment; the orthodoxy is that people think "tax bad, NI good" which is why we've had the quiet shift from income tax to NI over decades. Pushing the other way is probably a good thing, but I'm curious to see how it lands with voters.
"Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ "Approximately 109,000 migrants illegally entered Britain on small boats since 2018. Some describe this as “an invasion”. What is your view of this description?"
If they do manage to narrow the gap to 10% or so I think they’ll go to the country in May. Try and catch Labour on the hoof,
But don’t make the mistake that this is now the favourite. If they don’t narrow the gap, they will still want to see if something turns up, and they have the budget for another rabbit out of the hat.
Unless the poll gap narrows to 5% or less or the Tories even take the lead Sunak will stick with an autumn 2024 general election, he isn't going to give up 6 months of being UK PM just to give Starmer a slightly smaller majority
Absolutely. We've seen the 2% NI cut. The March budget won't contain income tax cut but will contain a large increase in the personal allowance maybe to £15,000pa or maybe even more which focuses the biggest proportionate reduction in tax on lower income individuals workers and pensioners.
It'll probably get worse. The number of people who believe in doing the absolute minimum necessary in their job/work is increasing according to surveys.
So although inflation has come down the OBR is still being eeyoreish?
The way we record economic growth means it tends to be uprated after the event but presumably the OBR takes that into account?
Even the ones from 6 months ago weren't exactly stellar. Hand wavingly speaking, you need 2% growth to be standing still with increasing inflation, aging population etc.
Absolutely. We've seen the 2% NI cut. The March budget won't contain income tax cut but will contain a large increase in the personal allowance maybe to £15,000pa or maybe even more which focuses the biggest proportionate reduction in tax on lower income individuals workers and pensioners.
Then it's election time May 2024!
Very decent odds, if you have a strong conviction regarding the date.
"Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ "Approximately 109,000 migrants illegally entered Britain on small boats since 2018. Some describe this as “an invasion”. What is your view of this description?"
Oh for fucks sake, has he gone full push-polling now? There was no need for the leading question and all the pollsters have spilt their lattes in anger.
The government's doing a splendid job, according to the Chancellor's autumn statement, so we should probably let them carry on.
Mind you, the Shadow Chancellor says the government's rubbish. It's hard to know what to think.
Perhaps if we asked people to indicate a single-choice preference via a system of polling places and secret ballots, we could come to a conclusion
Too simple. Why don’t we give them a system of choosing someone for their local area who can, in effect, form an electoral college to decide the conclusion?
Of course, it would not occur to you that they might have had a *negative* effect...
I was rather tongue in cheek!
But where are all those who said a ceasefire would be anti-semitic?
Who said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic? I cannot recall anyone on here saying that?
There were plenty here saying calls for a ceasefire were wrong, indeed that was how Parliament voted.
Is Jess Phillips allowed back now the IDF also want a ceasefire?
So you're making rubbish up, and no-one said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic...
But to your point: a 'ceasefire' can mean many different things. Most people I heard talk about this seemed to see it as 'Israel stop', with f-all to say about the hostages or rocket fire. It was all on Israel. This is more akin to a temporary peace deal, with give and take from both sides.
Which, if you read what I've been writing, is essentially what I was calling for (though I'd have preferred it to have gone further...).
I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. And if we go by the reporting, Hamas had earlier tried to negotiate a cessation of bombing to release some hostages and Israel were not willing to discuss it.
You could argue (as many here did) that Hamas should unilaterally have released hostages anyway but a) that's not how negotiations work and b) if Israel were still actively bombing Gaza there would have been no way for Hamas to release hostages and know they would be safe (again, this doesn't have to be because Hamas care about the wellbeing of hostages as much as they care about being seen as people you can sincerely do political negotiations with). So all the onus did sit with Israel for a ceasefire to happen.
"I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. "
That is rubbish. What is more, it is dangerous rubbish.
Hamas has fired many thousands of rockets into Israel over the years. And whilst these do not kill many people (often thanks to Iron Dome and the like), each once causes thousands of people to run for their shelters, any time of night and day. Imagine being an ordinary civilian living under that sort of pressure. In fact, if you're British and over eighty, you may not have to imagine.
That is not to excuse Israel. But Hamas's rockets give Israel a justifiable excuse to attack back. Hamas do not want peace.
I wasn't talking about "over the years", I was talking about the conflict now. And I'm aware "all" was hyperbole, and explained myself in response to TOPPING; but Israel have state of the art war capabilities and have killed roughly 0.5% of all the people in Gaza, and Hamas have home made rockets. One side of this war has much more power than the other, and so those asking for a ceasefire will obviously turn their attentions to that power, who is also an ally of ours, instead of the smaller power.
If we want to get into an argument about what "justifies" war, we need only look at the UN. Gaza is occupied territory, and has been since 1967, and it has been under blockade from land, sea and air since 2007. The UN states that an aggressor is defined by acts and not words, and such acts include "any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such an invasion or attack" and "blockade of the ports or coasts of a State by the armed forces of another State".
Gaza falls into a sticky area here - it isn't a recognised state. If it was it is clear that the long term actions of the state of Israel would clearly make Israel the aggressor. This is not to condone any of the war crimes Hamas has done in reaction to that, but to explain that in international law if Hamas (as the elected government of Gaza, as people here often point out) wanted to declare war on Israel the casus belli would be there and likely legal (if Gaza was considered a state). If Gaza is not a state, but part of Israel, then what Israel is doing is still illegal and the acts of an aggressor - and part of the argument for why many people describe Israel as an apartheid state.
I'm interested in why you feel the need to downplay the experiences of Israelis who have ad family members killed by those 'homemade' rockets, and all of those who have to run for shelters whenever Hamas (and Hezbollah...) fire them.
Because it is clear that the deaths of civilians are clearly one sided. I feel empathy for the individuals involved, of course, but if we're talking the whole picture it's clear that Israel kills more Palestinians by an extremely large margin then Hamas kills Israelis. As well as that, as I've said, the state of Israel has both the infrastructure and military power to enforce its will on the entire of Gaza - Hamas does not have that power at all. That is not to say it is okay for Hamas to kill civilians - as I said, I don't think that Hamas should do war crimes either - but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective.
I also note that you brought up the idea of "justifiable excuse to attack back" and then skipped over the literal justifications in international law for why Israel would likely be considered an aggressor.
"but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective."
7th October was pretty effective.
But that is what makes it so shocking to most people and to Israel, right? October 7th was the anomaly, not the rule. And Hamas managed to kill 1200 people and kidnap a few hundred, plus break down some parts of the border fence and some barracks - whereas Israel has levelled entire sections of Gaza, killed more than ten times that, and displaced many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians (and is arguing to displace all 2 million people in Gaza).
That, again, is not to say what Hamas did was acceptable or not a significant act of violence - but that in comparison to what the state of Israel can do (and has done in the past) it is not really in the same league.
Try re-writing that post with September 11 instead of October 7, and then the consequences for Afghanistan instead of Gaza. Exactly the same logic, excluding the final bit about displacing all people in Gaza, which isn't true anyway.
Having written that, I have realised that I don't really know what point you're making anyway. Terrorism is fine as long as the perpetrators aren't very good at it?
I of course don't believe that terrorism is fine - but I do believe that it doesn't come out of nowhere. September 11th is in some ways a very good analogy - because I don't think "they hate us for our freedoms" is why 9/11 happened, and I don't think the response to 9/11 was morally (or even politically) good or positive.
The belief here seems to be that terrorism comes from an evil desire from evil people. That's just not shown in the research. Terrorism happens when non state actors have political aims that they think are impossible to happen peacefully through the state, whether those aims are good or bad. Most (not all) of the people who commit terrorism are young men who see no future for themselves and become radicalised. The people at the top have narratives that feed this sense of futility and point it towards an enemy (real or imagined). Terrorism is fuelled by grievance.
There is a reason Osama Bin Laden's "Letter to America" has gone viral in this moment (and it isn't because the young are massively homophobic or anti-Semitic). It's because parts of it lay out a rationale for 9/11 that many of them were never taught - that American intervention in the Middle East, that the history of Western Imperialism, was never resolved. You can agree or disagree with that as an argument, you can agree or disagree with whether you think it is sincere coming from a guy whose family got rich off of oil investment and relationships with American capital, but it is an argument beyond "they hate us because they're evil".
Now, going back to 9/11 - has the American response to it done any good in the world? Is the American political psyche any better because of it? Is the world any better? Is Afghanistan, now back under Taliban rule, better? Is Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, any better? Why did ISIS arise? How did the world benefit from millions of dead Iraqis and Afghanis? I would say every outcomes from those wars - from the securitisation of everything, the spikes in islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, the destruction of whole countries and peoples - was bad. That seems like a very apt comparison to the reaction Israel is having against the Palestinians due to the actions of Hamas.
Have you considered spinning the telescope round?
Netanyahu & Co. are, in that analysis, the product of a state of unending, existential war since 1948.
Of course - and I've laid blame and culpability here on the Balfour Declaration and the US and Western Imperial history for that, too. I've also talked about the history of European and Christian anti-Semitism. But the Jewish people were not given a state in Germany, for example, or somewhere else in Europe - despite it being European Christian anti-Semitism that tried to eradicate them. They were given land in the Middle East, partly because that's what some Zionists wanted and partly because that benefited Western interests (and a lot because European anti-Semitism meant Europeans with power still didn't want Jewish people in Europe). That may make today's Zionists less culpable for that past - but it doesn't make them less culpable for the actions of the Israeli state today than today's Palestinians or (indeed) Hamas.
How’s about putting the blame on the Hamas terrorists who killed more than 1,000 innocent Israeli civilians on 7th October? Without that, there’s no escalation to the war.
Hamas simply don’t want the Jews to have a state. The terrorist attacks were to try and kybosh the talks between Israel and Saudi, the end result is likely to be wider isolation of Iran and Qatar within the region, and the rest of the Gulf embracing the opportunities to trade with Israel.
Before October 7th 2023 was one of the deadliest years for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and I think the deadliest year for children in the West Banks specifically on record. Is that not an escalation?
Was that because of Israel or Hamas?
If your fundamental position is that the problem for Gazans is Israel not Hamas then that is where we part company.
Is the increased settler movement from Israelis down to Hamas? When Palestinian civilians marched on the border fence and stood in peaceful protest and got sniped by IDF soldiers, was that down to Hamas?
Yes, this entire thread, this entire conversation is me explaining my position that I do in fact believe that more culpability for the actions of the Israeli state against the people of Gaza and the West Bank lies with the state of Israel and not Palestinians or Hamas.
Obviously the 'culpability for the actions of the Israeli state against the people of Gaza and the West Bank lies with the state of Israel and not Palestinians or Hamas.' is true.
But again you are focusing ONLY on what Israel has done to Gazans. Not what Hamas has done to them. What else do you think the money spent building tunnels could have been used for. The murdering, raping, mind poisoning culture that they revel in.
Of course, it would not occur to you that they might have had a *negative* effect...
I was rather tongue in cheek!
But where are all those who said a ceasefire would be anti-semitic?
Who said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic? I cannot recall anyone on here saying that?
There were plenty here saying calls for a ceasefire were wrong, indeed that was how Parliament voted.
Is Jess Phillips allowed back now the IDF also want a ceasefire?
So you're making rubbish up, and no-one said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic...
But to your point: a 'ceasefire' can mean many different things. Most people I heard talk about this seemed to see it as 'Israel stop', with f-all to say about the hostages or rocket fire. It was all on Israel. This is more akin to a temporary peace deal, with give and take from both sides.
Which, if you read what I've been writing, is essentially what I was calling for (though I'd have preferred it to have gone further...).
I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. And if we go by the reporting, Hamas had earlier tried to negotiate a cessation of bombing to release some hostages and Israel were not willing to discuss it.
You could argue (as many here did) that Hamas should unilaterally have released hostages anyway but a) that's not how negotiations work and b) if Israel were still actively bombing Gaza there would have been no way for Hamas to release hostages and know they would be safe (again, this doesn't have to be because Hamas care about the wellbeing of hostages as much as they care about being seen as people you can sincerely do political negotiations with). So all the onus did sit with Israel for a ceasefire to happen.
"I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. "
That is rubbish. What is more, it is dangerous rubbish.
Hamas has fired many thousands of rockets into Israel over the years. And whilst these do not kill many people (often thanks to Iron Dome and the like), each once causes thousands of people to run for their shelters, any time of night and day. Imagine being an ordinary civilian living under that sort of pressure. In fact, if you're British and over eighty, you may not have to imagine.
That is not to excuse Israel. But Hamas's rockets give Israel a justifiable excuse to attack back. Hamas do not want peace.
I wasn't talking about "over the years", I was talking about the conflict now. And I'm aware "all" was hyperbole, and explained myself in response to TOPPING; but Israel have state of the art war capabilities and have killed roughly 0.5% of all the people in Gaza, and Hamas have home made rockets. One side of this war has much more power than the other, and so those asking for a ceasefire will obviously turn their attentions to that power, who is also an ally of ours, instead of the smaller power.
If we want to get into an argument about what "justifies" war, we need only look at the UN. Gaza is occupied territory, and has been since 1967, and it has been under blockade from land, sea and air since 2007. The UN states that an aggressor is defined by acts and not words, and such acts include "any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such an invasion or attack" and "blockade of the ports or coasts of a State by the armed forces of another State".
Gaza falls into a sticky area here - it isn't a recognised state. If it was it is clear that the long term actions of the state of Israel would clearly make Israel the aggressor. This is not to condone any of the war crimes Hamas has done in reaction to that, but to explain that in international law if Hamas (as the elected government of Gaza, as people here often point out) wanted to declare war on Israel the casus belli would be there and likely legal (if Gaza was considered a state). If Gaza is not a state, but part of Israel, then what Israel is doing is still illegal and the acts of an aggressor - and part of the argument for why many people describe Israel as an apartheid state.
I'm interested in why you feel the need to downplay the experiences of Israelis who have ad family members killed by those 'homemade' rockets, and all of those who have to run for shelters whenever Hamas (and Hezbollah...) fire them.
Because it is clear that the deaths of civilians are clearly one sided. I feel empathy for the individuals involved, of course, but if we're talking the whole picture it's clear that Israel kills more Palestinians by an extremely large margin then Hamas kills Israelis. As well as that, as I've said, the state of Israel has both the infrastructure and military power to enforce its will on the entire of Gaza - Hamas does not have that power at all. That is not to say it is okay for Hamas to kill civilians - as I said, I don't think that Hamas should do war crimes either - but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective.
I also note that you brought up the idea of "justifiable excuse to attack back" and then skipped over the literal justifications in international law for why Israel would likely be considered an aggressor.
"but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective."
7th October was pretty effective.
But that is what makes it so shocking to most people and to Israel, right? October 7th was the anomaly, not the rule. And Hamas managed to kill 1200 people and kidnap a few hundred, plus break down some parts of the border fence and some barracks - whereas Israel has levelled entire sections of Gaza, killed more than ten times that, and displaced many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians (and is arguing to displace all 2 million people in Gaza).
That, again, is not to say what Hamas did was acceptable or not a significant act of violence - but that in comparison to what the state of Israel can do (and has done in the past) it is not really in the same league.
Try re-writing that post with September 11 instead of October 7, and then the consequences for Afghanistan instead of Gaza. Exactly the same logic, excluding the final bit about displacing all people in Gaza, which isn't true anyway.
Having written that, I have realised that I don't really know what point you're making anyway. Terrorism is fine as long as the perpetrators aren't very good at it?
I of course don't believe that terrorism is fine - but I do believe that it doesn't come out of nowhere. September 11th is in some ways a very good analogy - because I don't think "they hate us for our freedoms" is why 9/11 happened, and I don't think the response to 9/11 was morally (or even politically) good or positive.
The belief here seems to be that terrorism comes from an evil desire from evil people. That's just not shown in the research. Terrorism happens when non state actors have political aims that they think are impossible to happen peacefully through the state, whether those aims are good or bad. Most (not all) of the people who commit terrorism are young men who see no future for themselves and become radicalised. The people at the top have narratives that feed this sense of futility and point it towards an enemy (real or imagined). Terrorism is fuelled by grievance.
There is a reason Osama Bin Laden's "Letter to America" has gone viral in this moment (and it isn't because the young are massively homophobic or anti-Semitic). It's because parts of it lay out a rationale for 9/11 that many of them were never taught - that American intervention in the Middle East, that the history of Western Imperialism, was never resolved. You can agree or disagree with that as an argument, you can agree or disagree with whether you think it is sincere coming from a guy whose family got rich off of oil investment and relationships with American capital, but it is an argument beyond "they hate us because they're evil".
Now, going back to 9/11 - has the American response to it done any good in the world? Is the American political psyche any better because of it? Is the world any better? Is Afghanistan, now back under Taliban rule, better? Is Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, any better? Why did ISIS arise? How did the world benefit from millions of dead Iraqis and Afghanis? I would say every outcomes from those wars - from the securitisation of everything, the spikes in islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, the destruction of whole countries and peoples - was bad. That seems like a very apt comparison to the reaction Israel is having against the Palestinians due to the actions of Hamas.
Have you considered spinning the telescope round?
Netanyahu & Co. are, in that analysis, the product of a state of unending, existential war since 1948.
Of course - and I've laid blame and culpability here on the Balfour Declaration and the US and Western Imperial history for that, too. I've also talked about the history of European and Christian anti-Semitism. But the Jewish people were not given a state in Germany, for example, or somewhere else in Europe - despite it being European Christian anti-Semitism that tried to eradicate them. They were given land in the Middle East, partly because that's what some Zionists wanted and partly because that benefited Western interests (and a lot because European anti-Semitism meant Europeans with power still didn't want Jewish people in Europe). That may make today's Zionists less culpable for that past - but it doesn't make them less culpable for the actions of the Israeli state today than today's Palestinians or (indeed) Hamas.
How’s about putting the blame on the Hamas terrorists who killed more than 1,000 innocent Israeli civilians on 7th October? Without that, there’s no escalation to the war.
Hamas simply don’t want the Jews to have a state. The terrorist attacks were to try and kybosh the talks between Israel and Saudi, the end result is likely to be wider isolation of Iran and Qatar within the region, and the rest of the Gulf embracing the opportunities to trade with Israel.
Before October 7th 2023 was one of the deadliest years for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and I think the deadliest year for children in the West Banks specifically on record. Is that not an escalation?
Was that because of Israel or Hamas?
If your fundamental position is that the problem for Gazans is Israel not Hamas then that is where we part company.
Israel has been blockading Gaza. In 1967, Israel said being blockaded was a casus belli. Is a blockade only a casus belli when done to Israel and not when done by Israel?
Israel has been building settlements illegally in the West Bank and moving to annex territory, which undermines the viability of a Palestinian state including Gaza.
Israel has definitely been a major problem for Gazans. Whether they’re a bigger problem than Hamas is perhaps beside the point.
Hamas should not have carried out the 7 Oct attacks. If Israel doesn’t want to be attacked by Palestinians in the long run, they should reach a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians, not occupy their territory and blockade what few areas they control.
Accepting what you say is true (and I agree about a lot of if) how are 2 million Gazans fed, watered, in jobs etc if they are blockaded? Who pays for Gaza? (Genuine question asked by my dad).
It'll probably get worse. The number of people who believe in doing the absolute minimum necessary in their job/work is increasing according to surveys.
We also have absolutely stupid nonsense with cliffedge / massive marginal tax rates e.g. if you earn £90k+, you basically don't want a pay rise unless its massive, as the marginal tax rate is huge...result, can i have more holiday instead ... great for productivity.....
It's a bribe, and an unsustainable one (look at the spending assumptions needed to make it work), but it's an impressive one.
NI cut, but fiscal drag on income tax etc. is partly what pays for it. What’s the end result of that? It’s better for people earning through work than people earning through other ways. Yes? Am I right in that analysis?
Yes. It is a small step towards the obvious conclusion: the complete abolition of NI and its incorporation into IT so we all pay the same. Why should we pay less tax on investment income or pensions than on earned income?
Because pensioners vote Conservative?
It's an interesting experiment; the orthodoxy is that people think "tax bad, NI good" which is why we've had the quiet shift from income tax to NI over decades. Pushing the other way is probably a good thing, but I'm curious to see how it lands with voters.
It seemed a stealth tax that Chancellors could get away with. And Chancellors indulged when they shouldn’t have. This is a small step in the right direction.
I am shocked there is any predicted growth tbh.... conditions are tough, taxes are high, inflation is high, interest rates are high, productivity is low...physical retail is in the toilet.
To me it feel like Wylie Coyote when he runs off the cliff and hasn't realised no ground below.
I don't agree with boring. However the obsessive focus on a country the size of Wales is odd.
Patrick Wintour, diplomatic editor of the Guardian, described it as the biggest foreign policy crisis for 20 years. Really? Admittedly there is concern about wider potential instability in the region but when you consider Syria, Libya, the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power in Egypt, Afghanistan, Crimea and the Donbass. The full on Russia/Ukraine war. It's a ridiculous notion.
Yes, Ukraine is much bigger, in scale, precedent and portent
I know PB-ers decry me as a drama queen, but I think we came quite close to a nuclear incident of some kind when Putin was losing - fast and badly - in the Ukrainian offensive around and beyond Kharkiv
He wouldn’t have dropped a bomb, but testing a small device in the Black Sea? Sure, better than losing
As it happens, the Ukes ran out of spunkola and the front line stabiilised and the Russians realised they could mine everything to death and fix things indefinitely. Now Putin has had this qualified success, where else will he go?
Israel/Gaza, by contrast, is season 11 of a drama that never ends. Like Gray’s Anatomy
I think you are right on that.
Ukraine will define whether Russian Rampage continues for the next decades as they have for the last 2 decades, and whether it will impinge on Eastern and Western Europe - and especially whether the rescue of Eastern Europe and its people from the Russian Empire continues, or not.
The Middle East will be a continuing mess, perhaps regardless.
Of course, it would not occur to you that they might have had a *negative* effect...
I was rather tongue in cheek!
But where are all those who said a ceasefire would be anti-semitic?
Who said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic? I cannot recall anyone on here saying that?
There were plenty here saying calls for a ceasefire were wrong, indeed that was how Parliament voted.
Is Jess Phillips allowed back now the IDF also want a ceasefire?
So you're making rubbish up, and no-one said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic...
But to your point: a 'ceasefire' can mean many different things. Most people I heard talk about this seemed to see it as 'Israel stop', with f-all to say about the hostages or rocket fire. It was all on Israel. This is more akin to a temporary peace deal, with give and take from both sides.
Which, if you read what I've been writing, is essentially what I was calling for (though I'd have preferred it to have gone further...).
I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. And if we go by the reporting, Hamas had earlier tried to negotiate a cessation of bombing to release some hostages and Israel were not willing to discuss it.
You could argue (as many here did) that Hamas should unilaterally have released hostages anyway but a) that's not how negotiations work and b) if Israel were still actively bombing Gaza there would have been no way for Hamas to release hostages and know they would be safe (again, this doesn't have to be because Hamas care about the wellbeing of hostages as much as they care about being seen as people you can sincerely do political negotiations with). So all the onus did sit with Israel for a ceasefire to happen.
"I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. "
That is rubbish. What is more, it is dangerous rubbish.
Hamas has fired many thousands of rockets into Israel over the years. And whilst these do not kill many people (often thanks to Iron Dome and the like), each once causes thousands of people to run for their shelters, any time of night and day. Imagine being an ordinary civilian living under that sort of pressure. In fact, if you're British and over eighty, you may not have to imagine.
That is not to excuse Israel. But Hamas's rockets give Israel a justifiable excuse to attack back. Hamas do not want peace.
I wasn't talking about "over the years", I was talking about the conflict now. And I'm aware "all" was hyperbole, and explained myself in response to TOPPING; but Israel have state of the art war capabilities and have killed roughly 0.5% of all the people in Gaza, and Hamas have home made rockets. One side of this war has much more power than the other, and so those asking for a ceasefire will obviously turn their attentions to that power, who is also an ally of ours, instead of the smaller power.
If we want to get into an argument about what "justifies" war, we need only look at the UN. Gaza is occupied territory, and has been since 1967, and it has been under blockade from land, sea and air since 2007. The UN states that an aggressor is defined by acts and not words, and such acts include "any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such an invasion or attack" and "blockade of the ports or coasts of a State by the armed forces of another State".
Gaza falls into a sticky area here - it isn't a recognised state. If it was it is clear that the long term actions of the state of Israel would clearly make Israel the aggressor. This is not to condone any of the war crimes Hamas has done in reaction to that, but to explain that in international law if Hamas (as the elected government of Gaza, as people here often point out) wanted to declare war on Israel the casus belli would be there and likely legal (if Gaza was considered a state). If Gaza is not a state, but part of Israel, then what Israel is doing is still illegal and the acts of an aggressor - and part of the argument for why many people describe Israel as an apartheid state.
I'm interested in why you feel the need to downplay the experiences of Israelis who have ad family members killed by those 'homemade' rockets, and all of those who have to run for shelters whenever Hamas (and Hezbollah...) fire them.
Because it is clear that the deaths of civilians are clearly one sided. I feel empathy for the individuals involved, of course, but if we're talking the whole picture it's clear that Israel kills more Palestinians by an extremely large margin then Hamas kills Israelis. As well as that, as I've said, the state of Israel has both the infrastructure and military power to enforce its will on the entire of Gaza - Hamas does not have that power at all. That is not to say it is okay for Hamas to kill civilians - as I said, I don't think that Hamas should do war crimes either - but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective.
I also note that you brought up the idea of "justifiable excuse to attack back" and then skipped over the literal justifications in international law for why Israel would likely be considered an aggressor.
"but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective."
7th October was pretty effective.
But that is what makes it so shocking to most people and to Israel, right? October 7th was the anomaly, not the rule. And Hamas managed to kill 1200 people and kidnap a few hundred, plus break down some parts of the border fence and some barracks - whereas Israel has levelled entire sections of Gaza, killed more than ten times that, and displaced many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians (and is arguing to displace all 2 million people in Gaza).
That, again, is not to say what Hamas did was acceptable or not a significant act of violence - but that in comparison to what the state of Israel can do (and has done in the past) it is not really in the same league.
Try re-writing that post with September 11 instead of October 7, and then the consequences for Afghanistan instead of Gaza. Exactly the same logic, excluding the final bit about displacing all people in Gaza, which isn't true anyway.
Having written that, I have realised that I don't really know what point you're making anyway. Terrorism is fine as long as the perpetrators aren't very good at it?
I of course don't believe that terrorism is fine - but I do believe that it doesn't come out of nowhere. September 11th is in some ways a very good analogy - because I don't think "they hate us for our freedoms" is why 9/11 happened, and I don't think the response to 9/11 was morally (or even politically) good or positive.
The belief here seems to be that terrorism comes from an evil desire from evil people. That's just not shown in the research. Terrorism happens when non state actors have political aims that they think are impossible to happen peacefully through the state, whether those aims are good or bad. Most (not all) of the people who commit terrorism are young men who see no future for themselves and become radicalised. The people at the top have narratives that feed this sense of futility and point it towards an enemy (real or imagined). Terrorism is fuelled by grievance.
There is a reason Osama Bin Laden's "Letter to America" has gone viral in this moment (and it isn't because the young are massively homophobic or anti-Semitic). It's because parts of it lay out a rationale for 9/11 that many of them were never taught - that American intervention in the Middle East, that the history of Western Imperialism, was never resolved. You can agree or disagree with that as an argument, you can agree or disagree with whether you think it is sincere coming from a guy whose family got rich off of oil investment and relationships with American capital, but it is an argument beyond "they hate us because they're evil".
Now, going back to 9/11 - has the American response to it done any good in the world? Is the American political psyche any better because of it? Is the world any better? Is Afghanistan, now back under Taliban rule, better? Is Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, any better? Why did ISIS arise? How did the world benefit from millions of dead Iraqis and Afghanis? I would say every outcomes from those wars - from the securitisation of everything, the spikes in islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, the destruction of whole countries and peoples - was bad. That seems like a very apt comparison to the reaction Israel is having against the Palestinians due to the actions of Hamas.
Have you considered spinning the telescope round?
Netanyahu & Co. are, in that analysis, the product of a state of unending, existential war since 1948.
Of course - and I've laid blame and culpability here on the Balfour Declaration and the US and Western Imperial history for that, too. I've also talked about the history of European and Christian anti-Semitism. But the Jewish people were not given a state in Germany, for example, or somewhere else in Europe - despite it being European Christian anti-Semitism that tried to eradicate them. They were given land in the Middle East, partly because that's what some Zionists wanted and partly because that benefited Western interests (and a lot because European anti-Semitism meant Europeans with power still didn't want Jewish people in Europe). That may make today's Zionists less culpable for that past - but it doesn't make them less culpable for the actions of the Israeli state today than today's Palestinians or (indeed) Hamas.
How’s about putting the blame on the Hamas terrorists who killed more than 1,000 innocent Israeli civilians on 7th October? Without that, there’s no escalation to the war.
Hamas simply don’t want the Jews to have a state. The terrorist attacks were to try and kybosh the talks between Israel and Saudi, the end result is likely to be wider isolation of Iran and Qatar within the region, and the rest of the Gulf embracing the opportunities to trade with Israel.
Before October 7th 2023 was one of the deadliest years for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and I think the deadliest year for children in the West Banks specifically on record. Is that not an escalation?
Was that because of Israel or Hamas?
If your fundamental position is that the problem for Gazans is Israel not Hamas then that is where we part company.
Israel has been blockading Gaza. In 1967, Israel said being blockaded was a casus belli. Is a blockade only a casus belli when done to Israel and not when done by Israel?
Israel has been building settlements illegally in the West Bank and moving to annex territory, which undermines the viability of a Palestinian state including Gaza.
Israel has definitely been a major problem for Gazans. Whether they’re a bigger problem than Hamas is perhaps beside the point.
Hamas should not have carried out the 7 Oct attacks. If Israel doesn’t want to be attacked by Palestinians in the long run, they should reach a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians, not occupy their territory and blockade what few areas they control.
Accepting what you say is true (and I agree about a lot of if) how are 2 million Gazans fed, watered, in jobs etc if they are blockaded? Who pays for Gaza? (Genuine question asked by my dad).
Israel partly mitigates the effects of its own blockade. Most of the Gazan GDP comes from international aid. Israel likes having cheap Palestinian labour.
FWIW I agree that the OBR growth estimates look, once again, highly pessimistic. We will be in serious trouble if growth is as low as that because we have huge financial pressures on the spending side of the balance sheet.
What I think will happen is that growth will be higher generating much more tax revenue than forecast but that money will be spent sustaining the NHS, care costs and education leaving the square root of diddly squat for anything else.
How will they be unable to pay a relatively small fraction of £2.25 million as a tax bill when in possession of a £2.25 million estate?
Bizarre.
This from the newspaper who does the week in the life...lawyer on £100k a year, able to expense travel and meals...moaning that struggle to make ends meet.
Mr. grss, Jews were trying to get themselves land in that part of the world under the Seleucids, over 2,000 years ago. It's also where the so-called Jewish War chronicled by Josephus occurred.
The idea giving them land in Germany would be comparable might be considered optimistic.
But it is known there were many discussions about where the new Jewish state could have been, including places like Madagascar, and if the idea was that this was in some way in apology for the Holocaust, or to assure Jewish safety, then it would make more sense for those responsible for those things be the ones to give up something - not that other colonised people should suffer that fate.
That's a bogus argument IMO. The stain of anti-Semitism is such , that wherever Jews went they would get accused of 'stealing' land and 'displacing' people. Unless you are talking about Antarctica, and even then people would probably complain about the penguins...
Life for Jews in the ME was far from good under Islamic rule, whatever the odd 'historians' you refer to say. Remember how Amin al-Husseini drafted declaration to Germany that said:
"Germany and Italy recognize the right of the Arab countries to solve the question of the Jewish elements, which exist in Palestine and in the other Arab countries, as required by the national and ethnic (völkisch) interests of the Arabs, and as the Jewish question was solved in Germany and Italy."
So if the stain of anti-Semitism would always make it that the Jewish people would be othered and accused of theft, why put the Jewish state in a place where that argument can be made more coherently rather than somewhere where it is more clear that it was an act of reparations? The people of Palestine, no matter their leaders, had nothing to do with the death camps and nothing to do with European anti-Semites colluding with the Nazis. Palestinians did not convince the Europeans and Americans to enforce stricter immigration controls against Jewish refugees that meant many either stayed where they were or tried to flee to the Middle East. If the concern were truly about making things right to the Jewish people, then would it not make more sense to give mainly European Jewish people a safe haven in Europe? Deal with European anti-Semitism? Instead Europeans decided to give Jewish people land far away, and use it as a way of saying to their own Jewish population "you're safer not staying here".
The other point is that Israel was, by many early Zionists, conceived of as a colonialist project. Activists like Jabotinsky called for "A Jewish state with a Jewish majority on both sides of the Jordan" and argued for expulsion of all Palestinians from the partitioned land (like many of today's Israeli ministers argue). Jabotinsky worked very closely and impacted the political thought of Benzion Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu's father. (For an interesting read I suggest this: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42896509?seq=1)
How will they be unable to pay a relatively small fraction of £2.25 million as a tax bill when in possession of a £2.25 million estate?
Bizarre.
Well it is possible if it is largely a property, but this really is a first world problem in the extreme. Don't think there will be much sympathy from most over this predicament. Arrangements can be made.
Of course, it would not occur to you that they might have had a *negative* effect...
I was rather tongue in cheek!
But where are all those who said a ceasefire would be anti-semitic?
Who said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic? I cannot recall anyone on here saying that?
There were plenty here saying calls for a ceasefire were wrong, indeed that was how Parliament voted.
Is Jess Phillips allowed back now the IDF also want a ceasefire?
So you're making rubbish up, and no-one said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic...
But to your point: a 'ceasefire' can mean many different things. Most people I heard talk about this seemed to see it as 'Israel stop', with f-all to say about the hostages or rocket fire. It was all on Israel. This is more akin to a temporary peace deal, with give and take from both sides.
Which, if you read what I've been writing, is essentially what I was calling for (though I'd have preferred it to have gone further...).
I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. And if we go by the reporting, Hamas had earlier tried to negotiate a cessation of bombing to release some hostages and Israel were not willing to discuss it.
You could argue (as many here did) that Hamas should unilaterally have released hostages anyway but a) that's not how negotiations work and b) if Israel were still actively bombing Gaza there would have been no way for Hamas to release hostages and know they would be safe (again, this doesn't have to be because Hamas care about the wellbeing of hostages as much as they care about being seen as people you can sincerely do political negotiations with). So all the onus did sit with Israel for a ceasefire to happen.
"I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. "
That is rubbish. What is more, it is dangerous rubbish.
Hamas has fired many thousands of rockets into Israel over the years. And whilst these do not kill many people (often thanks to Iron Dome and the like), each once causes thousands of people to run for their shelters, any time of night and day. Imagine being an ordinary civilian living under that sort of pressure. In fact, if you're British and over eighty, you may not have to imagine.
That is not to excuse Israel. But Hamas's rockets give Israel a justifiable excuse to attack back. Hamas do not want peace.
I wasn't talking about "over the years", I was talking about the conflict now. And I'm aware "all" was hyperbole, and explained myself in response to TOPPING; but Israel have state of the art war capabilities and have killed roughly 0.5% of all the people in Gaza, and Hamas have home made rockets. One side of this war has much more power than the other, and so those asking for a ceasefire will obviously turn their attentions to that power, who is also an ally of ours, instead of the smaller power.
If we want to get into an argument about what "justifies" war, we need only look at the UN. Gaza is occupied territory, and has been since 1967, and it has been under blockade from land, sea and air since 2007. The UN states that an aggressor is defined by acts and not words, and such acts include "any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such an invasion or attack" and "blockade of the ports or coasts of a State by the armed forces of another State".
Gaza falls into a sticky area here - it isn't a recognised state. If it was it is clear that the long term actions of the state of Israel would clearly make Israel the aggressor. This is not to condone any of the war crimes Hamas has done in reaction to that, but to explain that in international law if Hamas (as the elected government of Gaza, as people here often point out) wanted to declare war on Israel the casus belli would be there and likely legal (if Gaza was considered a state). If Gaza is not a state, but part of Israel, then what Israel is doing is still illegal and the acts of an aggressor - and part of the argument for why many people describe Israel as an apartheid state.
I'm interested in why you feel the need to downplay the experiences of Israelis who have ad family members killed by those 'homemade' rockets, and all of those who have to run for shelters whenever Hamas (and Hezbollah...) fire them.
Because it is clear that the deaths of civilians are clearly one sided. I feel empathy for the individuals involved, of course, but if we're talking the whole picture it's clear that Israel kills more Palestinians by an extremely large margin then Hamas kills Israelis. As well as that, as I've said, the state of Israel has both the infrastructure and military power to enforce its will on the entire of Gaza - Hamas does not have that power at all. That is not to say it is okay for Hamas to kill civilians - as I said, I don't think that Hamas should do war crimes either - but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective.
I also note that you brought up the idea of "justifiable excuse to attack back" and then skipped over the literal justifications in international law for why Israel would likely be considered an aggressor.
"but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective."
7th October was pretty effective.
But that is what makes it so shocking to most people and to Israel, right? October 7th was the anomaly, not the rule. And Hamas managed to kill 1200 people and kidnap a few hundred, plus break down some parts of the border fence and some barracks - whereas Israel has levelled entire sections of Gaza, killed more than ten times that, and displaced many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians (and is arguing to displace all 2 million people in Gaza).
That, again, is not to say what Hamas did was acceptable or not a significant act of violence - but that in comparison to what the state of Israel can do (and has done in the past) it is not really in the same league.
Try re-writing that post with September 11 instead of October 7, and then the consequences for Afghanistan instead of Gaza. Exactly the same logic, excluding the final bit about displacing all people in Gaza, which isn't true anyway.
Having written that, I have realised that I don't really know what point you're making anyway. Terrorism is fine as long as the perpetrators aren't very good at it?
I of course don't believe that terrorism is fine - but I do believe that it doesn't come out of nowhere. September 11th is in some ways a very good analogy - because I don't think "they hate us for our freedoms" is why 9/11 happened, and I don't think the response to 9/11 was morally (or even politically) good or positive.
The belief here seems to be that terrorism comes from an evil desire from evil people. That's just not shown in the research. Terrorism happens when non state actors have political aims that they think are impossible to happen peacefully through the state, whether those aims are good or bad. Most (not all) of the people who commit terrorism are young men who see no future for themselves and become radicalised. The people at the top have narratives that feed this sense of futility and point it towards an enemy (real or imagined). Terrorism is fuelled by grievance.
There is a reason Osama Bin Laden's "Letter to America" has gone viral in this moment (and it isn't because the young are massively homophobic or anti-Semitic). It's because parts of it lay out a rationale for 9/11 that many of them were never taught - that American intervention in the Middle East, that the history of Western Imperialism, was never resolved. You can agree or disagree with that as an argument, you can agree or disagree with whether you think it is sincere coming from a guy whose family got rich off of oil investment and relationships with American capital, but it is an argument beyond "they hate us because they're evil".
Now, going back to 9/11 - has the American response to it done any good in the world? Is the American political psyche any better because of it? Is the world any better? Is Afghanistan, now back under Taliban rule, better? Is Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, any better? Why did ISIS arise? How did the world benefit from millions of dead Iraqis and Afghanis? I would say every outcomes from those wars - from the securitisation of everything, the spikes in islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, the destruction of whole countries and peoples - was bad. That seems like a very apt comparison to the reaction Israel is having against the Palestinians due to the actions of Hamas.
But, so often, the Che Guevaras, Maos, Pol Pots, Osama bin Ladens, Sukarnos, Khomeinis et al, are appreciably worse than the people they overthrow. Many terrorists are indeed evil people, whose motivation is greed, and a desire for revenge on their ideological, religious, or ethnic opponents and their families.
That is what makes the people who lap up OBL’s comments on tik tok complete fools. They know what Al Qaeda does, and what it stands for.
How will they be unable to pay a relatively small fraction of £2.25 million as a tax bill when in possession of a £2.25 million estate?
Bizarre.
Well it is possible if it is largely a property, but this really is a first world problem in the extreme. Don't think there will be much sympathy from most over this predicament. Arrangements can be made.
Loads of clicks for the newspapers though.
Obviously, people in such situations are better off paying for their own advice from licenced professionals rather than journalists.
Mr. grss, Jews were trying to get themselves land in that part of the world under the Seleucids, over 2,000 years ago. It's also where the so-called Jewish War chronicled by Josephus occurred.
The idea giving them land in Germany would be comparable might be considered optimistic.
But it is known there were many discussions about where the new Jewish state could have been, including places like Madagascar, and if the idea was that this was in some way in apology for the Holocaust, or to assure Jewish safety, then it would make more sense for those responsible for those things be the ones to give up something - not that other colonised people should suffer that fate.
A Jewish State would have been resented, wherever it was located.
"Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ "Approximately 109,000 migrants illegally entered Britain on small boats since 2018. Some describe this as “an invasion”. What is your view of this description?"
The fact that People Polling conduct so many polls of this type for their Farage-sympathising GB News client must surely impact upon the make up of their survey panel of voters. People who don't like being repeatedly asked questions on contrived right wing talking points eventually will eventually cease to be members of their panel. And in turn that's a problem for People Polling, because you can only correct so far for imbalances in panel composition by using weighting.
I think that's why People Polling have a very significant house effect in their political polling - they have consistently recorded lower Conservative vote shares and higher Reform UK vote shares than other polling companies, and in turn higher Labour poll leads.
Even as a newbie, for me they are already a discredited polling company.
I am shocked there is any predicted growth tbh.... conditions are tough, taxes are high, inflation is high, interest rates are high, productivity is low...physical retail is in the toilet.
To me it feel like Wylie Coyote when he runs off the cliff and hasn't realised no ground below.
We’ve got net migration of 500-700,000. If you can’t squeeze a tiny bit of growth from the fastest influx of migrants in our nation’s history then something is awry
We are so fucked. We are a national Ponzi scheme just waiting for a Fascist to take advantage
True except that the cliff edge is at £100k not £90k
If answer to my statement, i know...my point was if you are on that 90 odd k and being offered an inline with inflation pay rise, to go above the £100k, its not worth it.
I am shocked there is any predicted growth tbh.... conditions are tough, taxes are high, inflation is high, interest rates are high, productivity is low...physical retail is in the toilet.
To me it feel like Wylie Coyote when he runs off the cliff and hasn't realised no ground below.
We’ve got net migration of 500-700,000. If you can’t squeeze a tiny bit of growth from the fastest influx of migrants in our nation’s history then something is awry
We are so fucked. We are a national Ponzi scheme just waiting for a Fascist to take advantage
I didn't see National Insurance contributions being axed/reduced, etc. Timeframe still works (especially as the NICs reduction kicks in on January 6th)
Mr. grss, Jews were trying to get themselves land in that part of the world under the Seleucids, over 2,000 years ago. It's also where the so-called Jewish War chronicled by Josephus occurred.
The idea giving them land in Germany would be comparable might be considered optimistic.
But it is known there were many discussions about where the new Jewish state could have been, including places like Madagascar, and if the idea was that this was in some way in apology for the Holocaust, or to assure Jewish safety, then it would make more sense for those responsible for those things be the ones to give up something - not that other colonised people should suffer that fate.
Of all the colonised people who suffered in the aftermath of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Palestinians weren't in the top three.
Focussing the 'income tax' cut on NI rather than IT is clearly the right move.
However workers are still paying 30% on every pound earned among £12,570pa. £12,570pa is well below the full time minimum wage. Isn't it time to put up the personal allowance? Hopefully as I mentioned earlier this will be addressed in the March 2024 Budget.
I am shocked there is any predicted growth tbh.... conditions are tough, taxes are high, inflation is high, interest rates are high, productivity is low...physical retail is in the toilet.
To me it feel like Wylie Coyote when he runs off the cliff and hasn't realised no ground below.
We’ve got net migration of 500-700,000. If you can’t squeeze a tiny bit of growth from the fastest influx of migrants in our nation’s history then something is awry
We are so fucked. We are a national Ponzi scheme just waiting for a Fascist to take advantage
GDP / capita seems like a much better metric.
GDP/Capita is always the best metric for developed economies.
How will they be unable to pay a relatively small fraction of £2.25 million as a tax bill when in possession of a £2.25 million estate?
That's purely a cashflow issue that can be managed by various methods, I think - having gone through this recently.
No idea of the actual case, but in a worst case the liability is £770,000, ie 40% of 2.25m - 325K.
This doesn't seem much as long as it is someone else's liability. Even for the well heeled it's really quite a chunk. And such an estate may, in some places, be just a decently nice house and nothing more.
Of course, it would not occur to you that they might have had a *negative* effect...
I was rather tongue in cheek!
But where are all those who said a ceasefire would be anti-semitic?
Who said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic? I cannot recall anyone on here saying that?
There were plenty here saying calls for a ceasefire were wrong, indeed that was how Parliament voted.
Is Jess Phillips allowed back now the IDF also want a ceasefire?
So you're making rubbish up, and no-one said a ceasefire would be anti-Semitic...
But to your point: a 'ceasefire' can mean many different things. Most people I heard talk about this seemed to see it as 'Israel stop', with f-all to say about the hostages or rocket fire. It was all on Israel. This is more akin to a temporary peace deal, with give and take from both sides.
Which, if you read what I've been writing, is essentially what I was calling for (though I'd have preferred it to have gone further...).
I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. And if we go by the reporting, Hamas had earlier tried to negotiate a cessation of bombing to release some hostages and Israel were not willing to discuss it.
You could argue (as many here did) that Hamas should unilaterally have released hostages anyway but a) that's not how negotiations work and b) if Israel were still actively bombing Gaza there would have been no way for Hamas to release hostages and know they would be safe (again, this doesn't have to be because Hamas care about the wellbeing of hostages as much as they care about being seen as people you can sincerely do political negotiations with). So all the onus did sit with Israel for a ceasefire to happen.
"I mean, Israel was the one doing all of the bombing - so they were the only ones who you could call for a ceasefire from. "
That is rubbish. What is more, it is dangerous rubbish.
Hamas has fired many thousands of rockets into Israel over the years. And whilst these do not kill many people (often thanks to Iron Dome and the like), each once causes thousands of people to run for their shelters, any time of night and day. Imagine being an ordinary civilian living under that sort of pressure. In fact, if you're British and over eighty, you may not have to imagine.
That is not to excuse Israel. But Hamas's rockets give Israel a justifiable excuse to attack back. Hamas do not want peace.
I wasn't talking about "over the years", I was talking about the conflict now. And I'm aware "all" was hyperbole, and explained myself in response to TOPPING; but Israel have state of the art war capabilities and have killed roughly 0.5% of all the people in Gaza, and Hamas have home made rockets. One side of this war has much more power than the other, and so those asking for a ceasefire will obviously turn their attentions to that power, who is also an ally of ours, instead of the smaller power.
If we want to get into an argument about what "justifies" war, we need only look at the UN. Gaza is occupied territory, and has been since 1967, and it has been under blockade from land, sea and air since 2007. The UN states that an aggressor is defined by acts and not words, and such acts include "any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such an invasion or attack" and "blockade of the ports or coasts of a State by the armed forces of another State".
Gaza falls into a sticky area here - it isn't a recognised state. If it was it is clear that the long term actions of the state of Israel would clearly make Israel the aggressor. This is not to condone any of the war crimes Hamas has done in reaction to that, but to explain that in international law if Hamas (as the elected government of Gaza, as people here often point out) wanted to declare war on Israel the casus belli would be there and likely legal (if Gaza was considered a state). If Gaza is not a state, but part of Israel, then what Israel is doing is still illegal and the acts of an aggressor - and part of the argument for why many people describe Israel as an apartheid state.
I'm interested in why you feel the need to downplay the experiences of Israelis who have ad family members killed by those 'homemade' rockets, and all of those who have to run for shelters whenever Hamas (and Hezbollah...) fire them.
Because it is clear that the deaths of civilians are clearly one sided. I feel empathy for the individuals involved, of course, but if we're talking the whole picture it's clear that Israel kills more Palestinians by an extremely large margin then Hamas kills Israelis. As well as that, as I've said, the state of Israel has both the infrastructure and military power to enforce its will on the entire of Gaza - Hamas does not have that power at all. That is not to say it is okay for Hamas to kill civilians - as I said, I don't think that Hamas should do war crimes either - but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective.
I also note that you brought up the idea of "justifiable excuse to attack back" and then skipped over the literal justifications in international law for why Israel would likely be considered an aggressor.
"but to say that when they attack Israel and Israelis they are ineffective, and when Israeli attacks Palestinians they are highly effective."
7th October was pretty effective.
But that is what makes it so shocking to most people and to Israel, right? October 7th was the anomaly, not the rule. And Hamas managed to kill 1200 people and kidnap a few hundred, plus break down some parts of the border fence and some barracks - whereas Israel has levelled entire sections of Gaza, killed more than ten times that, and displaced many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians (and is arguing to displace all 2 million people in Gaza).
That, again, is not to say what Hamas did was acceptable or not a significant act of violence - but that in comparison to what the state of Israel can do (and has done in the past) it is not really in the same league.
Try re-writing that post with September 11 instead of October 7, and then the consequences for Afghanistan instead of Gaza. Exactly the same logic, excluding the final bit about displacing all people in Gaza, which isn't true anyway.
Having written that, I have realised that I don't really know what point you're making anyway. Terrorism is fine as long as the perpetrators aren't very good at it?
I of course don't believe that terrorism is fine - but I do believe that it doesn't come out of nowhere. September 11th is in some ways a very good analogy - because I don't think "they hate us for our freedoms" is why 9/11 happened, and I don't think the response to 9/11 was morally (or even politically) good or positive.
The belief here seems to be that terrorism comes from an evil desire from evil people. That's just not shown in the research. Terrorism happens when non state actors have political aims that they think are impossible to happen peacefully through the state, whether those aims are good or bad. Most (not all) of the people who commit terrorism are young men who see no future for themselves and become radicalised. The people at the top have narratives that feed this sense of futility and point it towards an enemy (real or imagined). Terrorism is fuelled by grievance.
There is a reason Osama Bin Laden's "Letter to America" has gone viral in this moment (and it isn't because the young are massively homophobic or anti-Semitic). It's because parts of it lay out a rationale for 9/11 that many of them were never taught - that American intervention in the Middle East, that the history of Western Imperialism, was never resolved. You can agree or disagree with that as an argument, you can agree or disagree with whether you think it is sincere coming from a guy whose family got rich off of oil investment and relationships with American capital, but it is an argument beyond "they hate us because they're evil".
Now, going back to 9/11 - has the American response to it done any good in the world? Is the American political psyche any better because of it? Is the world any better? Is Afghanistan, now back under Taliban rule, better? Is Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, any better? Why did ISIS arise? How did the world benefit from millions of dead Iraqis and Afghanis? I would say every outcomes from those wars - from the securitisation of everything, the spikes in islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, the destruction of whole countries and peoples - was bad. That seems like a very apt comparison to the reaction Israel is having against the Palestinians due to the actions of Hamas.
Have you considered spinning the telescope round?
Netanyahu & Co. are, in that analysis, the product of a state of unending, existential war since 1948.
Of course - and I've laid blame and culpability here on the Balfour Declaration and the US and Western Imperial history for that, too. I've also talked about the history of European and Christian anti-Semitism. But the Jewish people were not given a state in Germany, for example, or somewhere else in Europe - despite it being European Christian anti-Semitism that tried to eradicate them. They were given land in the Middle East, partly because that's what some Zionists wanted and partly because that benefited Western interests (and a lot because European anti-Semitism meant Europeans with power still didn't want Jewish people in Europe). That may make today's Zionists less culpable for that past - but it doesn't make them less culpable for the actions of the Israeli state today than today's Palestinians or (indeed) Hamas.
I think it would have been unethical to impose a ban on Jewish emigration to Palestine, after 1890.
It'll probably get worse. The number of people who believe in doing the absolute minimum necessary in their job/work is increasing according to surveys.
AI is gonna put them all out of work. All this will seem laughably irrelevant in 5 years
And good riddance
the only people left with jobs will be artisanal flint knappers, travel journalists and teenage hookers. Lol
It would help if we had more spending on capital equipment and infrastructure, so that people can be more productive at work.
(Checks government plans.)
Bugger.
Full expensing was made permanent. That is a huge mover of the productivity needle. Also, raising the minimum wage will force companies to invest in capital rather than load up on people. You're point may have landed without these two items but they are pretty central to today's announcement.
True except that the cliff edge is at £100k not £90k
If answer to my statement, i know...my point was if you are on that 90 odd k and being offered an inline with inflation pay rise, to go above the £100k, its not worth it.
True except that the cliff edge is at £100k not £90k
If answer to my statement, i know...my point was if you are on that 90 odd k and being offered an inline with inflation pay rise, to go above the £100k, its not worth it.
I am shocked there is any predicted growth tbh.... conditions are tough, taxes are high, inflation is high, interest rates are high, productivity is low...physical retail is in the toilet.
To me it feel like Wylie Coyote when he runs off the cliff and hasn't realised no ground below.
We’ve got net migration of 500-700,000. If you can’t squeeze a tiny bit of growth from the fastest influx of migrants in our nation’s history then something is awry
We are so fucked. We are a national Ponzi scheme just waiting for a Fascist to take advantage
It'll probably get worse. The number of people who believe in doing the absolute minimum necessary in their job/work is increasing according to surveys.
AI is gonna put them all out of work. All this will seem laughably irrelevant in 5 years
And good riddance
the only people left with jobs will be artisanal flint knappers, travel journalists and teenage hookers. Lol
Hoping that doesn't include the new startup i am involved with....it for the record doesn't involve flint knapping
Comments
Surely the point is he wants to spread the tax cut.
So NI cut in January.
Plus income tax cut in April.
More noticed if done in two steps and builds momentum.
They are so far behing they can't wait until April for any changes to take effect.
It's not current expendure.
It looks to be the last column from the Statista 'housing benefit in real terms' graph, which does not define its base year anywhere, but does show that Housing Benefit expenditure is *half* of what it was in 2013.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/283949/housing-benefit-united-kingdom-uk-government-spending/
The context is that ~70% of Housing Benefit claimants are in the social sector - so it is only a fraction of that money going to help private sector tenants.
I know PB-ers decry me as a drama queen, but I think we came quite close to a nuclear incident of some kind when Putin was losing - fast and badly - in the Ukrainian offensive around and beyond Kharkiv
He wouldn’t have dropped a bomb, but testing a small device in the Black Sea? Sure, better than losing
As it happens, the Ukes ran out of spunkola and the front line stabiilised and the Russians realised they could mine everything to death and fix things indefinitely. Now Putin has had this qualified success, where else will he go?
Israel/Gaza, by contrast, is season 11 of a drama that never ends. Like Gray’s Anatomy
Not very much at all, I think.
(In the very low millions for biodiversity projects and demining.)
If your fundamental position is that the problem for Gazans is Israel not Hamas then that is where we part company.
My previous suggestion was to rename it Payroll Tax, only because Tax On Jobs is too politically loaded, and make payslips show you gross salary before it’s deducted. Everyone gets a 13% pay rise and it becomes much more transparent.
The self-employed don't get company pensions, sick leave, paternity/maternity leave etc etc.
- Big Minimum wage rise from April.
- 8.5% (?) Pension rise from April.
- LHA rise from April.
Does it mean "can't wait until April", or "must wait beyond April" (if he believes things will improve)?
As I suggested earlier, I think failure to fund NHS bearing down on waiting lists is a hand grenade in his trousers.
I wonder what will happen to the National Benefit Cap, which was not mentioned? At the moment a significant limiter on LHA in places like London is the £20k/£23k total benefit cap. That may help Red Wall voters compared to Blue Wall / South-East.
Quite an impressive performance.
Israel has been building settlements illegally in the West Bank and moving to annex territory, which undermines the viability of a Palestinian state including Gaza.
Israel has definitely been a major problem for Gazans. Whether they’re a bigger problem than Hamas is perhaps beside the point.
Hamas should not have carried out the 7 Oct attacks. If Israel doesn’t want to be attacked by Palestinians in the long run, they should reach a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians, not occupy their territory and blockade what few areas they control.
Delay it, and the current government will cop some of the blame. An early election might leave Labour with a narrowish majority and problems across spending departments.
Taxes are up not down. Personal tax cuts worth around £10bn just announced - less than a quarter of the personal tax rises already in train from threshold freezes. Taxes overall are hugely up levels at the 2019 election
https://twitter.com/TorstenBell/status/1727318372277481515
Growth and household incomes are really grim next year - pain basically delayed from this year. Gdp growth of 0.7% would be weakest in an election year for over 30 years. Higher inflation forecast means household incomes will actually be FALLING in the election year.
https://twitter.com/TorstenBell/status/1727311668227756138
Yes, this entire thread, this entire conversation is me explaining my position that I do in fact believe that more culpability for the actions of the Israeli state against the people of Gaza and the West Bank lies with the state of Israel and not Palestinians or Hamas.
https://twitter.com/OBR_UK/status/1727309473608610010
"Matt Goodwin
@GoodwinMJ
"Approximately 109,000 migrants illegally entered Britain on small boats since 2018. Some describe this as “an invasion”. What is your view of this description?"
All Brits:
True 51%
False 29%
Conservatives 77% "true"
Labour 59% "false"
Leavers 78% "true"
Remainers 52% "false"
Midlands/Wales 58% "true"
Londoners 53% "false"
People Polling/Migration Watch Oct 5
http://mattgoodwin.org
7:59 AM · Nov 22, 2023"
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1727235388761145390
But don’t make the mistake that this is now the favourite. If they don’t narrow the gap, they will still want to see if something turns up, and they have the budget for another rabbit out of the hat.
Seems to me more likely now than it did yesterday, FWIW.
You fail to see that Hamas is the problem here. Hamas = Nazi Party.
I also have to take issue with the idea that anyone who celebrates rape and murder is not evil. They are. Pure and simple evil.
Aside: Pleased to see this pedestrian priority lark working locally. Walking into town this morning a bloke in an SUV stopped for me to cross a bell-mouth side road entrance to the central island - one of our more notorious rat runs - as he should. Turned out he was doing a U-turn round the pedestrian refuge, so he stopped for me *twice*, on the other side as well. Great stuff
It's an interesting experiment; the orthodoxy is that people think "tax bad, NI good" which is why we've had the quiet shift from income tax to NI over decades. Pushing the other way is probably a good thing, but I'm curious to see how it lands with voters.
The way we record economic growth means it tends to be uprated after the event but presumably the OBR takes that into account?
A much smaller number entered and did not apply for asylum, so were acting illegally.
A significant number of people in the UK on visas illegally failed to leave when their visas ran out. That figure could be over 500,000 at present.
Then it's election time May 2024!
What about fiscal drag? As usual Governments like tax rises that people don't see c.f. Brown and removal of dividend credit for pension funds.
Otherwise ok.
(Checks government plans.)
Bugger.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Dutch_general_election
They'll have to become productive via shoplifting from the Co-op and ten quid pub car park hand shandies.
Our Ange was right. The tories are scum.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/inheritance/inheritance-tax-bill-estate-children-death-beneficiaries/
Obviously the 'culpability for the actions of the Israeli state against the people of Gaza and the West Bank lies with the state of Israel and not Palestinians or Hamas.' is true.
But again you are focusing ONLY on what Israel has done to Gazans. Not what Hamas has done to them. What else do you think the money spent building tunnels could have been used for. The murdering, raping, mind poisoning culture that they revel in.
To me it feel like Wylie Coyote when he runs off the cliff and hasn't realised no ground below.
Ukraine will define whether Russian Rampage continues for the next decades as they have for the last 2 decades, and whether it will impinge on Eastern and Western Europe - and especially whether the rescue of Eastern Europe and its people from the Russian Empire continues, or not.
The Middle East will be a continuing mess, perhaps regardless.
That's purely a cashflow issue that can be managed by various methods, I think - having gone through this recently.
Also it should be renamed. It's not an inheritance tax it's an estate tax.
What I think will happen is that growth will be higher generating much more tax revenue than forecast but that money will be spent sustaining the NHS, care costs and education leaving the square root of diddly squat for anything else.
No IHT cut for them today though, will there be in the Spring budget or the Tory election manifesto?
The other point is that Israel was, by many early Zionists, conceived of as a colonialist project. Activists like Jabotinsky called for "A Jewish state with a Jewish majority on both sides of the Jordan" and argued for expulsion of all Palestinians from the partitioned land (like many of today's Israeli ministers argue). Jabotinsky worked very closely and impacted the political thought of Benzion Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu's father.
(For an interesting read I suggest this: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42896509?seq=1)
That is what makes the people who lap up OBL’s comments on tik tok complete fools. They know what Al Qaeda does, and what it stands for.
Obviously, people in such situations are better off paying for their own advice from licenced professionals rather than journalists.
The fact that People Polling conduct so many polls of this type for their Farage-sympathising GB News client must surely impact upon the make up of their survey panel of voters. People who don't like being repeatedly asked questions on contrived right wing talking points eventually will eventually cease to be members of their panel. And in turn that's a problem for People Polling, because you can only correct so far for imbalances in panel composition by using weighting.
I think that's why People Polling have a very significant house effect in their political polling - they have consistently recorded lower Conservative vote shares and higher Reform UK vote shares than other polling companies, and in turn higher Labour poll leads.
Even as a newbie, for me they are already a discredited polling company.
We are so fucked. We are a national Ponzi scheme just waiting for a Fascist to take advantage
IHT must be paid before the estate is inherited regardless of whether the property is sold in time or not - that's why there are probate/IHT loans.
I didn't see National Insurance contributions being axed/reduced, etc. Timeframe still works (especially as the NICs reduction kicks in on January 6th)
However workers are still paying 30% on every pound earned among £12,570pa. £12,570pa is well below the full time minimum wage. Isn't it time to put up the personal allowance? Hopefully as I mentioned earlier this will be addressed in the March 2024 Budget.
This doesn't seem much as long as it is someone else's liability. Even for the well heeled it's really quite a chunk. And such an estate may, in some places, be just a decently nice house and nothing more.
And good riddance
the only people left with jobs will be artisanal flint knappers, travel journalists and teenage hookers. Lol
And these figures suggest it is gonna FALL