Telegraph obituary of David Wilshire. Some Conservatives accused David Cameron of seizing the expenses scandal as an opportunity to clear out his backwoodsmen and Wilshire would certainly have been one with his opposition to homosexuality and the Good Friday Agreement but in any case it is hard to see how Wilshire could have remained in the Commons as his expenses claims bordered on, well, let's take the Telegraph's account:-
As the scandal over MPs’ expenses broke in May 2009, Wilshire’s local paper asked why he had claimed the maximum allowance for a second home in London when his constituency home was in the commuter belt. He replied: “In 22 years of living in London, I have always furnished the flat out of my own pocket.” Four days later the Telegraph revealed that he claimed thousands of pounds toward the cost of interior decoration for the flat, without having to submit receipts.
Questioned again by the local paper, he said he was “embarrassed, sad and sorry”; he had not yet spent the money allocated to him but would decorate the flat in the future, so would not be paying it back.
When it emerged that Wilshire had also spent over £1,000 of taxpayers’ money on furniture, contradicting his previous claims, he sent an explanatory email saying: “I obtained the cheapest self-assembly replacement available from MFI”. However he also said he had bought the flat four years earlier than he had previously said.
...
Further investigation by the Telegraph established that Wilshire had used parliamentary expenses to pay £105,000 over three years to Moorlands Research Services, a company he set up and owned with his partner Ann Palmer to run his office. He referred himself to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, telling the BBC the arrangement had been approved by the authorities and that the company had never made a profit and had been wound up. He equated his treatment over his expenses with the Holocaust, a statement for which he later apologised.
Next day, after a meeting with the Chief Whip, Wilshire announced that he would not be seeking re-election.
(btw I twice corrected the Telegraph's misspelling of Wilshire's name; so much for AI subbing!)
How come a handful of high profile Labour MPs (quite rightly) went to prison, and people like Wilshire were never prosecuted? The £105,000 looks suspiciously like theft from the public purse. Let's not even enter the realms of duck houses and a married MP couple's mortgage arrangements.
Some Tory MPs eg Aitken and Archer have been jailed for lying.
She was alive," the witness says. "She was bleeding from her back."
She goes on to detail how the men cut off parts of the victim's body during the assault.
"They sliced her breast and threw it on the street," she says. "They were playing with it."
The victim was passed to another man in uniform, she continues.
"He penetrated her, and shot her in the head before he finished. He didn't even pick up his pants; he shoots and ejaculates."
AND, from the same report:
Another, Nachman Dyksztejna, provided written testimony of seeing the bodies of two women in kibbutz Be'eri with their hands and legs tied to a bed.
"One was sexually terrorised with a knife stuck in her vagina and all her internal organs removed," his statement says.
-----------------
This is what Israelis are reading about. This is what they are learning was the fate of their young people. People they knew, and could well have been related to.
It's really impossible to see how there can be any meaningful ceasefire or cessation until the IDF has levelled Gaza. Israeli public opinion simply won't allow it.
What possesses people to commit such acts? I find it utterly beyond comprehension.
Are they drugged up? Are they orders of magnitude more evil than any person I have ever met (even the genuinely nasty people I've met)?
It's often said that anyone is capable of murder, and I believe that in the right (or rather wrong) circumstances, that is true. But this is a level of depravity that I cannot comprehend.
(On reflection, it's not totally unprecedented - similar examples exist from WW2 and before, and no doubt more recent conflicts too. Baffling to me though.)
You must read Ian Toll's Pacific War trilogy. He describes in some detail the behavior of Japanese troops who had been left to die, and their indiscriminate raping and murdering of local civilians. It is genuinely shocking.
Human beings are capable of terrible evil.
Read Christina Lamb's "Our Bodies,Their Battlefields" - grim, very grim.
Or this from Janice Turner's article in the Times this weekend -
So married couples already here who don’t meet the income requirement will either have to split up or leave the country .
The policy seems to have been designed to be as cruel as possible.
That is utterly vile stuff. From the party of family values.
Even more appalling it’s been done retrospectively. So those already here making a life for themselves are now being told they either split up or leave the country. I can’t imagine just how dreadful this must be for those effected , this will also lead to children being separated from either parent . Even by the low standards set by this government this is a new low .
Are they really doing it retrospectively?!
I find that hard to believe, and we need details
If you’re settled and married then applying this retrospectively is utterly wrong. But maybe they mean couples who are thinking of getting married? That’s more of a grey area
Any retrospective legislation would also surely fail in the courts
How can it possibly apply to people who have leave to remain or are otherwise already settled here? What about dependant children with British citizenship? Are they going to be deported?
It's a nonsense cruel unimplementable policy and it needs to be dropped PDQ.
@ShoaibMKhan So the £38,700 income threshold *will* apply to spouses of British citizens who are already in the UK.
They need to satisfy new, higher threshold when applying for extension of their visas.
This is unbelievably low and appalling, even for the Tories.
Why not simply round up anyone who is forrin, or looks forrin, or has a forrin name, and deport them back where they came from. Its what 17.4m people voted for.
Cue the Reverend HY telling us its what Jesus wants.
Sunak is Hindu not Christian
I'm not talking about him. I am talking about you and the remaining holier-than-thou types who claim to follow His word whilst supporting the exact opposite.
Call the policy out for what this is - immoral, unchristian, unconservative.
This is a fairly typical day's 'progress': the number of newly dead women and children exceeds the total number of newly dead
The magic carpet bombs killed 481 people on 25 October; 626 of those 481 were women and children
Bodycount is a very difficult metric to do accurately. Most people focus on the putative mendacity of one or both parties, but even with the best will in the world it is difficult to compile in near-real time: at a gross level you have to find and identify the bits. There's a reason why we have concepts like "missing in action" and "the unknown soldier".
I note that very, very few of those critiquing the casualty estimates provide any estimates of their own.
Art: Of course the Turner Prize winner is art. Because the artist said it was.
Woke: Leon is right. woke = awoken = was applied initially to civil rights and the oppression, and rising up, of in particular black Americans. It has since come to mean any perceived oppressed community, the latest version of which is the transgender community. It also perceives Israel and the Jews not to be an oppressed community, moreover they believe Israel/the Jews are doing a lot of oppresssing right now and throughout history and hence the same rules as those which protect the eg transgender community in the same breath condemn Israel and the Jews as an oppressing community.
And hence Harvard, MIT, Penn.
Exactly right. It’s the fundamental Woke doctrine of intersectionality and decolonialism applied to Jews, who are now seen as belonging to the colonialist and oppressor class
Just as it is fine to discriminate against intrinsically evil racist privileged cishet white males (note the gender of all three presidents) so it is now ok to discriminate against evil racist privileged Jews
This Woke doctrine overrides any other consideration, including common sense
Where is this 'woke doctrine' written down?
May I refer you to US Supreme Court Justice Stewart's answer to that (1964).
This is a fairly typical day's 'progress': the number of newly dead women and children exceeds the total number of newly dead
The magic carpet bombs killed 481 people on 25 October; 626 of those 481 were women and children
The Hamas numbers are nonsense. But the IDF also claimed to be dropping 1,000 bombs per day at the start of the conflict, all into an area with the same population density as London.
There are obviously horrendous civilian casualties and this nitpicking over the exact numbers is almost as bad as some of the Corbynite chaff on the original attack.
When I see nonsense numbers, I'll "nitpick" all I fucking like
Especially when those numbers are being used to accuse Israel of genocide, and are uncritically quoted by every supposedly respectable news broadcaster every single day
Most people swallow this shit whole - it NEEDS to be shown for the made up garbage it is
So, every news broadcaster (and indeed many governments, NGOs etc.) think these numbers are fairly accurate, but you think they’re “made up”… and we’re supposed to believe you? Are you in Gaza? Do you have some special knowledge of the region? Or expertise in assessing casualty numbers, or understanding urban warfare?
A fairly accurate 130% of the casualties were women and children
Fog of war; numbers are difficult to collate in real time and will be constantly revised as more bodies are excavated from rubble, or the family thought to have been killed at home turns out to have been eating at a local cafe. It is not just in Gaza. Israel's own death toll for 7th October was similarly revised.
So you actually believe that Hamas are really and truly trying their very best to provide accurate numbers?
Do you also believe them when they say they committed no sexual violence during their satanic sortie?
I do not believe "Hamas" are the ones counting the bodies, nor would I describe every British health worker or civil servant as "Conservatives" but none of this affects the underlying truth that death tolls are always fluid, in Gaza as in Israel and even as in Britain.
The daily numbers have always been provided by Hamas
Even the BBC accepts that FFS - they do at least preface their announcements with "according to Hamas"
What's changed is that the numbers were supplied by the "Ministry of Health"; they're now officially from whatever they call their Ministry of Truth
Hamas are not counting bodies
They don't care how many innocent people die as a result of their actions
Art: Of course the Turner Prize winner is art. Because the artist said it was.
Woke: Leon is right. woke = awoken = was applied initially to civil rights and the oppression, and rising up, of in particular black Americans. It has since come to mean any perceived oppressed community, the latest version of which is the transgender community. It also perceives Israel and the Jews not to be an oppressed community, moreover they believe Israel/the Jews are doing a lot of oppresssing right now and throughout history and hence the same rules as those which protect the eg transgender community in the same breath condemn Israel and the Jews as an oppressing community.
And hence Harvard, MIT, Penn.
Exactly right. It’s the fundamental Woke doctrine of intersectionality and decolonialism applied to Jews, who are now seen as belonging to the colonialist and oppressor class
Just as it is fine to discriminate against intrinsically evil racist privileged cishet white males (note the gender of all three presidents) so it is now ok to discriminate against evil racist privileged Jews
This Woke doctrine overrides any other consideration, including common sense
Where is this 'woke doctrine' written down?
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Social Chapter).
She was alive," the witness says. "She was bleeding from her back."
She goes on to detail how the men cut off parts of the victim's body during the assault.
"They sliced her breast and threw it on the street," she says. "They were playing with it."
The victim was passed to another man in uniform, she continues.
"He penetrated her, and shot her in the head before he finished. He didn't even pick up his pants; he shoots and ejaculates."
AND, from the same report:
Another, Nachman Dyksztejna, provided written testimony of seeing the bodies of two women in kibbutz Be'eri with their hands and legs tied to a bed.
"One was sexually terrorised with a knife stuck in her vagina and all her internal organs removed," his statement says.
-----------------
This is what Israelis are reading about. This is what they are learning was the fate of their young people. People they knew, and could well have been related to.
It's really impossible to see how there can be any meaningful ceasefire or cessation until the IDF has levelled Gaza. Israeli public opinion simply won't allow it.
What possesses people to commit such acts? I find it utterly beyond comprehension.
Are they drugged up? Are they orders of magnitude more evil than any person I have ever met (even the genuinely nasty people I've met)?
It's often said that anyone is capable of murder, and I believe that in the right (or rather wrong) circumstances, that is true. But this is a level of depravity that I cannot comprehend.
(On reflection, it's not totally unprecedented - similar examples exist from WW2 and before, and no doubt more recent conflicts too. Baffling to me though.)
You must read Ian Toll's Pacific War trilogy. He describes in some detail the behavior of Japanese troops who had been left to die, and their indiscriminate raping and murdering of local civilians. It is genuinely shocking.
Human beings are capable of terrible evil.
Read Christina Lamb's "Our Bodies,Their Battlefields" - grim, very grim.
Or this from Janice Turner's article in the Times this weekend -
She was alive," the witness says. "She was bleeding from her back."
She goes on to detail how the men cut off parts of the victim's body during the assault.
"They sliced her breast and threw it on the street," she says. "They were playing with it."
The victim was passed to another man in uniform, she continues.
"He penetrated her, and shot her in the head before he finished. He didn't even pick up his pants; he shoots and ejaculates."
AND, from the same report:
Another, Nachman Dyksztejna, provided written testimony of seeing the bodies of two women in kibbutz Be'eri with their hands and legs tied to a bed.
"One was sexually terrorised with a knife stuck in her vagina and all her internal organs removed," his statement says.
-----------------
This is what Israelis are reading about. This is what they are learning was the fate of their young people. People they knew, and could well have been related to.
It's really impossible to see how there can be any meaningful ceasefire or cessation until the IDF has levelled Gaza. Israeli public opinion simply won't allow it.
What possesses people to commit such acts? I find it utterly beyond comprehension.
Are they drugged up? Are they orders of magnitude more evil than any person I have ever met (even the genuinely nasty people I've met)?
It's often said that anyone is capable of murder, and I believe that in the right (or rather wrong) circumstances, that is true. But this is a level of depravity that I cannot comprehend.
(On reflection, it's not totally unprecedented - similar examples exist from WW2 and before, and no doubt more recent conflicts too. Baffling to me though.)
You must read Ian Toll's Pacific War trilogy. He describes in some detail the behavior of Japanese troops who had been left to die, and their indiscriminate raping and murdering of local civilians. It is genuinely shocking.
Human beings are capable of terrible evil.
Read Christina Lamb's "Our Bodies,Their Battlefields" - grim, very grim.
Or this from Janice Turner's article in the Times this weekend -
"In a new preface to her wide-ranging and grave book Our Bodies: Their Battlefield, Christina Lamb notes: “In the last eight years I have seen more sexual violence inflicted upon women by soldiers and militias than any other time in my 35-year career.”
She also reports that invading Russians filmed themselves raping Ukrainian women then posted it on porn sites. Maybe the two are connected. Was the choreographed depravity of Hamas in part men gleefully enacting a violent sexual template they’d absorbed online? Hamas footage is the ultimate revenge porn.
Rape, as Lamb notes drily, is not just an ancient weapon but a cheap one, which draws female non-combatants into an orbit of terror. Bullets are quotidian horrors compared to being gang-raped daily like the Nigerian girls stolen by Boko Haram or the Japanese imperial army’s “comfort women”. One captured Hamas gunman said commanders ordered fighters to “sully” Israeli girls. God knows what female Israeli soldiers held hostage face deep below Gaza.
Yet for all the terror, damage and shame that war rape brings, it is seldom prosecuted. It is seen as trivial relative to other atrocities, more an unfortunate consequence of war than a human rights abuse."
The silence of so many human rights activists and feminist groups, the denial sends out a message to rapists that they will almost certainly get away with it.
And it's not just in war time. When I was doing my forensic science course as part of my barrister's training we had to see pictures of what being raped with a broken glass bottle does to a woman. That was in peacetime in this country.
What makes men do such things?
It completely baffles me.
I'd prefer you to say 'some men', indeed an extremely small proportion of men (one man is too many of course).
But I wonder if you believe all men, any man, is capable of these heinous act? I hope you don't.
On what basis do you say "an extremely small proportion of men". Aren't you just saying - or hoping I will say - what you would very much like to be true? Look at what @dixiedean has said or @maxh. I have been sexually assaulted on at least 9 different occasions. 9 different men. Take that ratio - and apply it to all the women who have been assaulted, most of who will not have reported those assaults to the authorities - and think about what that proportion of the male population is.
We will get nowhere on this if we tell ourselves comforting lies about how many men think it acceptable to behave appallingly to women, how many men can be conditioned and taught to hate and abuse and exploit and, apropos the previous thread, how much of a part in all this the porn of today - which is not merely about titillating boys with the sight of naked women - plays in all this.
Sorry. Decent men need to face up to this not hope that this is just down to a few psychopaths.
I've never believed that it's 'just a few psychopaths' - just as that is evidently not true either of the perpetrators of documented genocides.
But I don't think @Benpointer 's question is a stupid one, as I don't think any of us really knows what proportion of men (and women) possess the capacity for violence, and in what degree.
Boris Johnson has been unable to supply the Covid-19 inquiry with any of his Whatsapp messages for almost the entirety of the first lockdown.
Johnson was advised to stop using his old phone in May 2021 after it emerged that his number had been freely available online for 15 years.
He was initially unable to hand over Whatsapp messages to the inquiry because he could not remember the passcode. Earlier this year he was able to access the device with the support of experts and it had been assumed the messages were passed on.
However, Johnson has told the inquiry that even with access to the device, experts were unable to retrieve any of his messages from January 31 to June 7, which covers a critical period from the run-up to the first Covid lockdown to the easing of restrictions. “The technical team has been unable to determine the cause of this,” he has told the inquiry.
Johnson said that the content of the messages was likely to have been provided by others. A source close to Johnson denied that he had deleted the messages. Rishi Sunak has separately told the inquiry that he no longer has access to Whatsapp messages from his time as chancellor.
Anyone who believes this sort of guff is a mug, it's about as plausible as the many MPs who have claimed to have been hacked whenever they were caught posting something offensive.
can you show me all your messages on every electronic forum, along with any written diaries or memos you may have made, in professional and personal capacities, over the last four years?
Cheers.
Anything that’s written will be there. As nobody deleted them. Everybody knows Johnson’s Whatsapp will be full of inappropriate, hubristic commentary. How convenient that they’ve been disappeared.
You can lose phones, or they can go wrong (I lost access to my old WhatsApp when my old phone went beserk, and would not transfer over data).
And I *bet* that your data would contain "inappropriate, hubristic commentary"; unless you are a dry, humourless soul. Stuff that could be made to look embarrassing by any enemies.
What we are seeing with this inquiry is unprecedented, and IMO will negatively affect the way the country is run.
It’s surprisingly easy to lose WhatsApp messages. If your phone is lost or stolen you can lose months of chats - or entire archives. Or if your phone has a meltdown
I’ve suffered both and it’s really annoying
That's rubbish. As you read below, it's absolutely impossible to accidentally lose messages. Impossible ... (/sarcasm)
I'm *really* looking forward to Starmer's government having to operate under this new world. Except, of course, they'll rapidly try to make what's happened impossible to happen again. To them, at least...
(Incidentally, have Starmer's messages and correspondence had to be handed over to the inquiry? For the actions and words of the LotO also impact on a government's actions, and it may add context to what was happening. Or do Labour get a free pass?)
Depends.
If they employ their fat, lazy, stupid mates as senior figures and completely bugger up public services, they'll deserve the opprobrium.
If however they don't have a pandemic to demonstrate their intellectual feebleness, lack of moral courage and total incompetence they might get away with it.
I'm thinking of the Iraq War in particular. That went into nowhere near as much detail of the lies made by Blair, Campbell and others in government. It would have been interesting to see that decision put under this sort of (ahem) (non)-forensic examination.
Blair and Campbell used formal communications, which were examined. They were called out for their decisions and their justifications for the Iraq war. Blair's entire reputation was trashed for how he executed and justified his decision making.
Perhaps Blair should be languishing in a Hague war crimes prison, but we never got that far. On that same token, perhaps Johnson should be prosecuted for his negligence (hinted at, sorry blamed by Hancock) for his role in tens if thousands of unnecessary COVID fatalities.
Bullshit. There would have been loads of chats and other conversations, as well as the 'formal' communications. These informal conversations are now being examined; and that is what has changed.
Look at it this way (and I don't expect you to, sadly): *you* are in Johnson's situation back in March 2020. You are not an expert in epidemics, or even medical matters. You ask questions of more knowledgeable people. Some of these questions appear dumb-assed with hindsight. What we'll get is politicians afraid to ask questions because they might be used against them in future.
One result of this will be more power to the civil service. Another will be worse government. Another will be an utter lack of preparedness, and action, when another emergency strikes.
Oh come off it. The critique isn't about Johnson researching information to fill gaps in his understanding so that he could then use it for informed decision making. No one can criticise him for that. However eyebrows are raised at his apparent casual attitude to mass fatalities and hair brained, insane questions about "hairdryers".
(Snip)
You are the one being ridiculous. I know you *hate* johnson and the Conservatives, but ffs, try to at least be *reasonable* in your criticism. 'apparent casual attitude' is what comes across in all too many informal communications. Including yours, I reckon.
Can we agree on at least one thing: no-one in government, including Johnson, wanted anyone to die?
I don't "hate" Johnson although I consider him a venal, dangerous, incompetent fool. But I wouldn't wish any harm on him. So did he want anyone to die? I am sure he didn't, but I doubt he has had one night of missed sleep crying over whether any of the 150,000 people who died could have been saved if he had been more alert, or better still not the Prime Minister tasked with managing a pandemic.
Why do you doubt it?
As I've said all along, from the start of the epidemic; I wouldn't want to be one of the people making the decisions, because there were no 'good' answers at the time: only bad or horrible ones, and it was clear the aftermath would just be an orgy of "I was right and you were wrong" directed at the decision-makers.
Boris Johnson has been unable to supply the Covid-19 inquiry with any of his Whatsapp messages for almost the entirety of the first lockdown.
Johnson was advised to stop using his old phone in May 2021 after it emerged that his number had been freely available online for 15 years.
He was initially unable to hand over Whatsapp messages to the inquiry because he could not remember the passcode. Earlier this year he was able to access the device with the support of experts and it had been assumed the messages were passed on.
However, Johnson has told the inquiry that even with access to the device, experts were unable to retrieve any of his messages from January 31 to June 7, which covers a critical period from the run-up to the first Covid lockdown to the easing of restrictions. “The technical team has been unable to determine the cause of this,” he has told the inquiry.
Johnson said that the content of the messages was likely to have been provided by others. A source close to Johnson denied that he had deleted the messages. Rishi Sunak has separately told the inquiry that he no longer has access to Whatsapp messages from his time as chancellor.
Anyone who believes this sort of guff is a mug, it's about as plausible as the many MPs who have claimed to have been hacked whenever they were caught posting something offensive.
can you show me all your messages on every electronic forum, along with any written diaries or memos you may have made, in professional and personal capacities, over the last four years?
Cheers.
Anything that’s written will be there. As nobody deleted them. Everybody knows Johnson’s Whatsapp will be full of inappropriate, hubristic commentary. How convenient that they’ve been disappeared.
You can lose phones, or they can go wrong (I lost access to my old WhatsApp when my old phone went beserk, and would not transfer over data).
And I *bet* that your data would contain "inappropriate, hubristic commentary"; unless you are a dry, humourless soul. Stuff that could be made to look embarrassing by any enemies.
What we are seeing with this inquiry is unprecedented, and IMO will negatively affect the way the country is run.
It’s surprisingly easy to lose WhatsApp messages. If your phone is lost or stolen you can lose months of chats - or entire archives. Or if your phone has a meltdown
I’ve suffered both and it’s really annoying
That's rubbish. As you read below, it's absolutely impossible to accidentally lose messages. Impossible ... (/sarcasm)
I'm *really* looking forward to Starmer's government having to operate under this new world. Except, of course, they'll rapidly try to make what's happened impossible to happen again. To them, at least...
(Incidentally, have Starmer's messages and correspondence had to be handed over to the inquiry? For the actions and words of the LotO also impact on a government's actions, and it may add context to what was happening. Or do Labour get a free pass?)
Depends.
If they employ their fat, lazy, stupid mates as senior figures and completely bugger up public services, they'll deserve the opprobrium.
If however they don't have a pandemic to demonstrate their intellectual feebleness, lack of moral courage and total incompetence they might get away with it.
I'm thinking of the Iraq War in particular. That went into nowhere near as much detail of the lies made by Blair, Campbell and others in government. It would have been interesting to see that decision put under this sort of (ahem) (non)-forensic examination.
Blair and Campbell used formal communications, which were examined. They were called out for their decisions and their justifications for the Iraq war. Blair's entire reputation was trashed for how he executed and justified his decision making.
Perhaps Blair should be languishing in a Hague war crimes prison, but we never got that far. On that same token, perhaps Johnson should be prosecuted for his negligence (hinted at, sorry blamed by Hancock) for his role in tens if thousands of unnecessary COVID fatalities.
Bullshit. There would have been loads of chats and other conversations, as well as the 'formal' communications. These informal conversations are now being examined; and that is what has changed.
Look at it this way (and I don't expect you to, sadly): *you* are in Johnson's situation back in March 2020. You are not an expert in epidemics, or even medical matters. You ask questions of more knowledgeable people. Some of these questions appear dumb-assed with hindsight. What we'll get is politicians afraid to ask questions because they might be used against them in future.
One result of this will be more power to the civil service. Another will be worse government. Another will be an utter lack of preparedness, and action, when another emergency strikes.
Oh come off it. The critique isn't about Johnson researching information to fill gaps in his understanding so that he could then use it for informed decision making. No one can criticise him for that. However eyebrows are raised at his apparent casual attitude to mass fatalities and hair brained, insane questions about "hairdryers".
(Snip)
You are the one being ridiculous. I know you *hate* johnson and the Conservatives, but ffs, try to at least be *reasonable* in your criticism. 'apparent casual attitude' is what comes across in all too many informal communications. Including yours, I reckon.
Can we agree on at least one thing: no-one in government, including Johnson, wanted anyone to die?
I don't "hate" Johnson although I consider him a venal, dangerous, incompetent fool. But I wouldn't wish any harm on him. So did he want anyone to die? I am sure he didn't, but I doubt he has had one night of missed sleep crying over whether any of the 150,000 people who died could have been saved if he had been more alert, or better still not the Prime Minister tasked with managing a pandemic.
Why do you doubt it?
As I've said all along, from the start of the epidemic; I wouldn't want to be one of the people making the decisions, because there were no 'good' answers at the time: only bad or horrible ones, and it was clear the aftermath would just be an orgy of "I was right and you were wrong" directed at the decision-makers.
There was a TV program, a few years back, where some politicians were given a crisis management game to play out. It was quite clear that a common factor was trying not to make any decision with any downside.
When presented with a decision that had downsides (deaths) each way*, the politicians wibbled about how unfair it was.
*closing or not closing anti-flooding doors on the London Tube, IIRC
She was alive," the witness says. "She was bleeding from her back."
She goes on to detail how the men cut off parts of the victim's body during the assault.
"They sliced her breast and threw it on the street," she says. "They were playing with it."
The victim was passed to another man in uniform, she continues.
"He penetrated her, and shot her in the head before he finished. He didn't even pick up his pants; he shoots and ejaculates."
AND, from the same report:
Another, Nachman Dyksztejna, provided written testimony of seeing the bodies of two women in kibbutz Be'eri with their hands and legs tied to a bed.
"One was sexually terrorised with a knife stuck in her vagina and all her internal organs removed," his statement says.
-----------------
This is what Israelis are reading about. This is what they are learning was the fate of their young people. People they knew, and could well have been related to.
It's really impossible to see how there can be any meaningful ceasefire or cessation until the IDF has levelled Gaza. Israeli public opinion simply won't allow it.
What possesses people to commit such acts? I find it utterly beyond comprehension.
Are they drugged up? Are they orders of magnitude more evil than any person I have ever met (even the genuinely nasty people I've met)?
It's often said that anyone is capable of murder, and I believe that in the right (or rather wrong) circumstances, that is true. But this is a level of depravity that I cannot comprehend.
(On reflection, it's not totally unprecedented - similar examples exist from WW2 and before, and no doubt more recent conflicts too. Baffling to me though.)
You must read Ian Toll's Pacific War trilogy. He describes in some detail the behavior of Japanese troops who had been left to die, and their indiscriminate raping and murdering of local civilians. It is genuinely shocking.
Human beings are capable of terrible evil.
Read Christina Lamb's "Our Bodies,Their Battlefields" - grim, very grim.
Or this from Janice Turner's article in the Times this weekend -
She was alive," the witness says. "She was bleeding from her back."
She goes on to detail how the men cut off parts of the victim's body during the assault.
"They sliced her breast and threw it on the street," she says. "They were playing with it."
The victim was passed to another man in uniform, she continues.
"He penetrated her, and shot her in the head before he finished. He didn't even pick up his pants; he shoots and ejaculates."
AND, from the same report:
Another, Nachman Dyksztejna, provided written testimony of seeing the bodies of two women in kibbutz Be'eri with their hands and legs tied to a bed.
"One was sexually terrorised with a knife stuck in her vagina and all her internal organs removed," his statement says.
-----------------
This is what Israelis are reading about. This is what they are learning was the fate of their young people. People they knew, and could well have been related to.
It's really impossible to see how there can be any meaningful ceasefire or cessation until the IDF has levelled Gaza. Israeli public opinion simply won't allow it.
What possesses people to commit such acts? I find it utterly beyond comprehension.
Are they drugged up? Are they orders of magnitude more evil than any person I have ever met (even the genuinely nasty people I've met)?
It's often said that anyone is capable of murder, and I believe that in the right (or rather wrong) circumstances, that is true. But this is a level of depravity that I cannot comprehend.
(On reflection, it's not totally unprecedented - similar examples exist from WW2 and before, and no doubt more recent conflicts too. Baffling to me though.)
You must read Ian Toll's Pacific War trilogy. He describes in some detail the behavior of Japanese troops who had been left to die, and their indiscriminate raping and murdering of local civilians. It is genuinely shocking.
Human beings are capable of terrible evil.
Read Christina Lamb's "Our Bodies,Their Battlefields" - grim, very grim.
Or this from Janice Turner's article in the Times this weekend -
"In a new preface to her wide-ranging and grave book Our Bodies: Their Battlefield, Christina Lamb notes: “In the last eight years I have seen more sexual violence inflicted upon women by soldiers and militias than any other time in my 35-year career.”
She also reports that invading Russians filmed themselves raping Ukrainian women then posted it on porn sites. Maybe the two are connected. Was the choreographed depravity of Hamas in part men gleefully enacting a violent sexual template they’d absorbed online? Hamas footage is the ultimate revenge porn.
Rape, as Lamb notes drily, is not just an ancient weapon but a cheap one, which draws female non-combatants into an orbit of terror. Bullets are quotidian horrors compared to being gang-raped daily like the Nigerian girls stolen by Boko Haram or the Japanese imperial army’s “comfort women”. One captured Hamas gunman said commanders ordered fighters to “sully” Israeli girls. God knows what female Israeli soldiers held hostage face deep below Gaza.
Yet for all the terror, damage and shame that war rape brings, it is seldom prosecuted. It is seen as trivial relative to other atrocities, more an unfortunate consequence of war than a human rights abuse."
The silence of so many human rights activists and feminist groups, the denial sends out a message to rapists that they will almost certainly get away with it.
And it's not just in war time. When I was doing my forensic science course as part of my barrister's training we had to see pictures of what being raped with a broken glass bottle does to a woman. That was in peacetime in this country.
What makes men do such things?
It completely baffles me.
I'd prefer you to say 'some men', indeed an extremely small proportion of men (one man is too many of course).
But I wonder if you believe all men, any man, is capable of these heinous act? I hope you don't.
On what basis do you say "an extremely small proportion of men". Aren't you just saying - or hoping I will say - what you would very much like to be true? Look at what @dixiedean has said or @maxh. I have been sexually assaulted on at least 9 different occasions. 9 different men. Take that ratio - and apply it to all the women who have been assaulted, most of who will not have reported those assaults to the authorities - and think about what that proportion of the male population is.
We will get nowhere on this if we tell ourselves comforting lies about how many men think it acceptable to behave appallingly to women, how many men can be conditioned and taught to hate and abuse and exploit and, apropos the previous thread, how much of a part in all this the porn of today - which is not merely about titillating boys with the sight of naked women - plays in all this.
Sorry. Decent men need to face up to this not hope that this is just down to a few psychopaths.
I've never believed that it's 'just a few psychopaths' - just as that is evidently not true either of the perpetrators of documented genocides.
But I don't think @Benpointer 's question is a stupid one, as I don't think any of us really knows what proportion of men (and women) possess the capacity for violence, and in what degree.
It's a high enough proportion that rape is a crime that is exceptionally difficult to prosecute because juries are unwilling to convict. It's the only crime where the victim's testimony is routinely discounted as being untrustworthy.
So I think it's fair to say that this is a problem about attitudes in general, and not the aberrant behaviour of a small minority.
Cleverly's spousal visa proposal is abhorrent. Regrettably Yvette Cooper has not said that Labour would revoke it if it passed into law. Do they want me to vote for the SNP?
This is a fairly typical day's 'progress': the number of newly dead women and children exceeds the total number of newly dead
The magic carpet bombs killed 481 people on 25 October; 626 of those 481 were women and children
The Hamas numbers are nonsense. But the IDF also claimed to be dropping 1,000 bombs per day at the start of the conflict, all into an area with the same population density as London.
There are obviously horrendous civilian casualties and this nitpicking over the exact numbers is almost as bad as some of the Corbynite chaff on the original attack.
When I see nonsense numbers, I'll "nitpick" all I fucking like
Especially when those numbers are being used to accuse Israel of genocide, and are uncritically quoted by every supposedly respectable news broadcaster every single day
Most people swallow this shit whole - it NEEDS to be shown for the made up garbage it is
So, every news broadcaster (and indeed many governments, NGOs etc.) think these numbers are fairly accurate, but you think they’re “made up”… and we’re supposed to believe you? Are you in Gaza? Do you have some special knowledge of the region? Or expertise in assessing casualty numbers, or understanding urban warfare?
A fairly accurate 130% of the casualties were women and children
May be all the adult men were self identifying as women?
Comments
NEW THREAD
Maybe there wasn't enough evidence in this case
Or this from Janice Turner's article in the Times this weekend - How can it possibly apply to people who have leave to remain or are otherwise already settled here? What about dependant children with British citizenship? Are they going to be deported?
It's a nonsense cruel unimplementable policy and it needs to be dropped PDQ.
Call the policy out for what this is - immoral, unchristian, unconservative.
Even the BBC accepts that FFS - they do at least preface their announcements with "according to Hamas"
What's changed is that the numbers were supplied by the "Ministry of Health"; they're now officially from whatever they call their Ministry of Truth
Hamas are not counting bodies
They don't care how many innocent people die as a result of their actions
But I don't think @Benpointer 's question is a stupid one, as I don't think any of us really knows what proportion of men (and women) possess the capacity for violence, and in what degree.
As I've said all along, from the start of the epidemic; I wouldn't want to be one of the people making the decisions, because there were no 'good' answers at the time: only bad or horrible ones, and it was clear the aftermath would just be an orgy of "I was right and you were wrong" directed at the decision-makers.
When presented with a decision that had downsides (deaths) each way*, the politicians wibbled about how unfair it was.
*closing or not closing anti-flooding doors on the London Tube, IIRC
So I think it's fair to say that this is a problem about attitudes in general, and not the aberrant behaviour of a small minority.