But drugs are readily available in prison and prison does not reform, or certainly not always. Any number of interviews with ex prison staff, gangsters and former prisoners online or in the press or in book form confirms that.
And as for the two lads they took the risk. They need to accept the consequences. I'll shed no tears for them. Only their victims. The more victims they rolled over the braver and more fearless they would have got.
The Telegraph, one of our most august journals, is doing some excellent work exposing Starmer as a lawyer.
A good while ago, a friend was assaulted and left badly brain damaged. Couple of kids did it. They claimed the fall and hitting his head was an accident.
His wife wasn’t so sure and got an expert on head injuries to look into the matter. I was astonished when she was shouted at by the prosecuting council outside the courtroom. Apparently her efforts were putting in jeopardy a plan to avoid prison for the two teenagers involved.
In the end they got short sentences.
A few years later, we heard, via her lawyer, that the two perpetrators had been badly injured themselves. It seemed that they had resumed their career of violent mugging - but had violently mugged a very nasty person in the local underworld. Makes you wonder if putting them away for a serious sentence would have saved them.
Roadmen meet real Gangsters, a good life lesson for them.
Many years ago, when I worked as benefit-fraud investigator, the very first guy I interviewed was a local hard nut / lunatic (had been sacked from his earlier employer for smashing up the yard with a sledge hammer). A year or so later a couple of road men threatened him on the street with a knife. He did no more than take the knife off them and stabbed one of them to death.
Horrible.
On a related note, I’ve been told the following. The “local” versions of the supermarkets (Tesco etc) are increasingly franchises. It seems the burden of shop lifting is falling on the franchise holders.
Since they can’t physically stop the shop lifters, one local guy has come up with a solution. A “cousin” who isn’t employed by him, who just hangs around the store. Scraggs shoplifters - and been taken to court for it a couple times already.
I have a feeling of horrible inevitability of where that will end.
Surely where it all ends is some places become too risky to have a shop. What you cite is a case of the Police not doing their job so someone else will. Effectively Plods attitude to shoplifting has decriminalised it and why would a Security guard on min wage risk getting stabbed by the local crackhead for a few quid of groceries.
My Stepdad used to be a delivery driver for Sainsburys. One day he was asked to pull his truck in front of a car as they suspected a drive off. He refused. He was not going to risk his wellbeing for 50 quid of petrol. The guy drove off. The cops were not interested. This is not a poor area but an affluent part of the country.
There will come a point, as we see in the USA, where stores will simply pull out of neighbourhoods leaving them with fewer and fewer shops and it will become a vicious circle.
Most big companies, in the U.K., have banned their staff from getting physically involved.
I think this is a good thing - dealing out justice without training, backup or equipment on minimum wage is not a good idea.
Amazon are already trialling, in the US, secured entry/exit from their Amazon Fresh stores. As opposed to the turnstile type system they use now.
If they overturn Colorado they will be rewriting their constitution to say it's ok to engage in treason if you running for president. Surely not even Trump appointees are willing to accept that.
No doubt the originalists on the SC will appreciate that.
Based on - if you take out Confederates convicted post the Civil War - a case involving a New Mexico County official.
There is a lot of wishful thinking on these court cases but, as I said before, to defeat Trump, defeat him at the ballot box - not by trying to knock him off the ballots.
I don't fully agree, since the same logic is used to argue he should not be punished for crimes because he should be defeated at the ballot box. But politicians should face legal consequences if they are convicted.
The issue here is not that excluding from standing is inherently wrong, since people are prevented from standing for all sorts of reasons, but whether thos reason is justified.
Legal scholars disagree but it looks thin even if formal conviction was not needed for some confederates. The bar should be very high, and though I think he clearly has committed insurrection it does seem weird to declare him ineligible without a specific conviction for it.
I disagree with that. There is a lot of guff on here about the need to 100% follow the law 100% of the time but that is not how it works (which is why we will hear about cases not being pursued because of the public interest).
The classic case is the 1960 election. There was clear signs the Illinois and Texas votes, to name two, had been rigged to favour JFK. But Nixon decided to not press ahead as he felt doing so would have caused a greater threat, namely undermining the US as a whole.
It’s the same with Trump’s case. He should have been condemned, eviscerated etc but not prosecuted. The greater threat to US democracy is not a candidate who - one way or another - will be out of the picture by 2028. It is in opening up a massive can of worms and effectively baking into the US system the idea you pursue your political opponents in the courts. .
All these court cases are doing is feeding into Trump’s narrative that he is being persecuted and, as I said before, the failings of the US judicial system make that an appealing message to many.
On Topic: The Colorado judgement will probably be nullified by the SC but it's a step in the right direction. The price of trying to overturn the result of the last election with intimidation and violence should be that you can't stand in future elections. This is so blindingly obvious it shouldn't even need debating in sane circles. Sadly this doesn't include the GOP these days. They flunked doing the necessary back when Trump was impeached for the second time. It would have been a big brave call, a quarter of adult Americans are members of his cult, but they really should have made it. It was their patriotic duty. And deferring the problem has only made it worse. Things are going to get very messy stateside next year. Not one of my more original conclusions, I know, but there you go.
I'm wondering how similar events would be dealt with in the UK. The Representation of the People Act 1983 allows for someone to be barred from standing from election, as happened with Luftur Rahman. However, that is for conduct during an election, not for conduct after an election.
Great question. If a British PM behaved as Donald Trump did in the aftermath of losing a GE, do we have a mechanism to throw them out of politics? Surely we do.
If they were still an MP, then they could be kicked out of Parliament. A sufficiently-long suspension, as Johnson faced, or any custodial sentence would lead to a recall petition and a by-election, but there's nothing there that stops someone from standing again.
The Representation of the People Act 1981, in response to Bobby Sands, bars someone from being an MP if they are serving a sentence of more than a year. Trump hasn't been found guilty in a criminal trial yet, of course.
I am somewhat surprised that someone can run for President if convicted of a crime (or even serving time in prison) when at least in some states, such as Florida, you cannot vote even years after leaving prison, yet they can.
Rules for who can run for President are determined at the federal level, so there’s no consistency necessary with rules determined at the state level.
Wouldn’t surprise me if Thomas and others are knitting a judgment, already, that the states have no rights over blocking candidates * for Federal elections. Probably using the various laws put in to end Jim Crow.
*Orange Republicans, only, of course.
Thomas is pretty horrendous, but it'd hardly be controversial to say that the right to stand for federal office is a federal rather than state matter. Indeed, the whole point of the US Supreme Court is to ensure consistency in the interpretation of the US Constitution across states.
I also happen to think the conservative justices in the US Supreme Court (and the original trial judge) are right on this one. Section 3 of the 14th amendment explicitly mentions senators, representatives, and electors for President, but NOT the President. The Colorado Supreme Court argued that inclusion of the President must have been intended within the generality of the term "offices under the United States" but that doesn't really make sense - the Constitution is peppered with explicit references to the President but he is notable by his absence from this one.
I hate to say it, and think it's ludicrous that an insurrectionist can stand. But I do believe that's what the Constitution means, sadly.
Clearly it's contestable as the Colorado Supreme Court has decided the other way. But I think they are wrong, and also think it's more likely that one or two of the liberal SCOTUS justices will join the conservative majority than the other way around.
The Colorado ruling also has the feeling to me of tactically forcing SCOTUS to decide and do so promptly. Keeping Trump on the ballot would also have been appealed, but there'd be no pressure on SCOTUS to take the case promptly, or indeed at all.
The Telegraph, one of our most august journals, is doing some excellent work exposing Starmer as a lawyer.
A good while ago, a friend was assaulted and left badly brain damaged. Couple of kids did it. They claimed the fall and hitting his head was an accident.
His wife wasn’t so sure and got an expert on head injuries to look into the matter. I was astonished when she was shouted at by the prosecuting council outside the courtroom. Apparently her efforts were putting in jeopardy a plan to avoid prison for the two teenagers involved.
In the end they got short sentences.
A few years later, we heard, via her lawyer, that the two perpetrators had been badly injured themselves. It seemed that they had resumed their career of violent mugging - but had violently mugged a very nasty person in the local underworld. Makes you wonder if putting them away for a serious sentence would have saved them.
Roadmen meet real Gangsters, a good life lesson for them.
Many years ago, when I worked as benefit-fraud investigator, the very first guy I interviewed was a local hard nut / lunatic (had been sacked from his earlier employer for smashing up the yard with a sledge hammer). A year or so later a couple of road men threatened him on the street with a knife. He did no more than take the knife off them and stabbed one of them to death.
Horrible.
On a related note, I’ve been told the following. The “local” versions of the supermarkets (Tesco etc) are increasingly franchises. It seems the burden of shop lifting is falling on the franchise holders.
Since they can’t physically stop the shop lifters, one local guy has come up with a solution. A “cousin” who isn’t employed by him, who just hangs around the store. Scraggs shoplifters - and been taken to court for it a couple times already.
I have a feeling of horrible inevitability of where that will end.
Surely where it all ends is some places become too risky to have a shop. What you cite is a case of the Police not doing their job so someone else will. Effectively Plods attitude to shoplifting has decriminalised it and why would a Security guard on min wage risk getting stabbed by the local crackhead for a few quid of groceries.
My Stepdad used to be a delivery driver for Sainsburys. One day he was asked to pull his truck in front of a car as they suspected a drive off. He refused. He was not going to risk his wellbeing for 50 quid of petrol. The guy drove off. The cops were not interested. This is not a poor area but an affluent part of the country.
There will come a point, as we see in the USA, where stores will simply pull out of neighbourhoods leaving them with fewer and fewer shops and it will become a vicious circle.
There wasn't a big problem before shops started removing check out staff. It seems unreasonable to me for shops to expect additional police resource when they could just use more check out staff.
That is more of an intuitive view than a fully coherent one as I can't really justify why the old status quo of checkout staff is fairer to society than self checkouts with higher levels of shoplifting so open to persuasion.
If they overturn Colorado they will be rewriting their constitution to say it's ok to engage in treason if you running for president. Surely not even Trump appointees are willing to accept that.
No doubt the originalists on the SC will appreciate that.
Based on - if you take out Confederates convicted post the Civil War - a case involving a New Mexico County official.
There is a lot of wishful thinking on these court cases but, as I said before, to defeat Trump, defeat him at the ballot box - not by trying to knock him off the ballots.
I don't fully agree, since the same logic is used to argue he should not be punished for crimes because he should be defeated at the ballot box. But politicians should face legal consequences if they are convicted.
The issue here is not that excluding from standing is inherently wrong, since people are prevented from standing for all sorts of reasons, but whether thos reason is justified.
Legal scholars disagree but it looks thin even if formal conviction was not needed for some confederates. The bar should be very high, and though I think he clearly has committed insurrection it does seem weird to declare him ineligible without a specific conviction for it.
I disagree with that. There is a lot of guff on here about the need to 100% follow the law 100% of the time but that is not how it works (which is why we will hear about cases not being pursued because of the public interest).
The classic case is the 1960 election. There was clear signs the Illinois and Texas votes, to name two, had been rigged to favour JFK. But Nixon decided to not press ahead as he felt doing so would have caused a greater threat, namely undermining the US as a whole.
It’s the same with Trump’s case. He should have been condemned, eviscerated etc but not prosecuted. The greater threat to US democracy is not a candidate who - one way or another - will be out of the picture by 2028. It is in opening up a massive can of worms and effectively baking into the US system the idea you pursue your political opponents in the courts. .
All these court cases are doing is feeding into Trump’s narrative that he is being persecuted and, as I said before, the failings of the US judicial system make that an appealing message to many.
Unpopular opinion alert.
Biden should have pardoned Trump.
It would have taken all the grievance out of his sails and just left him a diminished rather forlorn figure smarting about perceived injustices.
US State Dept spokesman describes the Houthi attacks on ships as 'reckless' and a threat to global trade. Since threatening global trade is the whole point wouldn't it be better to describe the attacks as deliberate and effective?
Honestly people are taking the p*** out of the west. When are we going to do something?
One small group in a small country thousands of miles aways influence on world trade and the global economy should really put an end to the idea that simple isolationism is all that is needed in foreign policy.
If they overturn Colorado they will be rewriting their constitution to say it's ok to engage in treason if you running for president. Surely not even Trump appointees are willing to accept that.
No doubt the originalists on the SC will appreciate that.
Based on - if you take out Confederates convicted post the Civil War - a case involving a New Mexico County official.
There is a lot of wishful thinking on these court cases but, as I said before, to defeat Trump, defeat him at the ballot box - not by trying to knock him off the ballots.
I don't fully agree, since the same logic is used to argue he should not be punished for crimes because he should be defeated at the ballot box. But politicians should face legal consequences if they are convicted.
The issue here is not that excluding from standing is inherently wrong, since people are prevented from standing for all sorts of reasons, but whether thos reason is justified.
Legal scholars disagree but it looks thin even if formal conviction was not needed for some confederates. The bar should be very high, and though I think he clearly has committed insurrection it does seem weird to declare him ineligible without a specific conviction for it.
I disagree with that. There is a lot of guff on here about the need to 100% follow the law 100% of the time but that is not how it works (which is why we will hear about cases not being pursued because of the public interest).
The classic case is the 1960 election. There was clear signs the Illinois and Texas votes, to name two, had been rigged to favour JFK. But Nixon decided to not press ahead as he felt doing so would have caused a greater threat, namely undermining the US as a whole.
It’s the same with Trump’s case. He should have been condemned, eviscerated etc but not prosecuted. The greater threat to US democracy is not a candidate who - one way or another - will be out of the picture by 2028. It is in opening up a massive can of worms and effectively baking into the US system the idea you pursue your political opponents in the courts. .
All these court cases are doing is feeding into Trump’s narrative that he is being persecuted and, as I said before, the failings of the US judicial system make that an appealing message to many.
I don't think anyone should be above the law. There is a prima facie case... no, there are multiple prima facie cases that Trump has broken the law. He should be prosecuted, just like anyone else should be.
That, however, is a different matter to the Colorado case or to Nixon's decision, which involve specific rules around elections. It's interesting you praise Nixon. Presumably you condemn Trump for doing the reverse: Nixon chose not to challenge results despite some evidence of irregularities; Trump chose to challenge results despite no evidence of irregularities.
The problem here seems to be that the Constitution is really badly written. Not much we can do about that now. I think something like the UK's 1983 Representation of the Peoples Act is appropriate: if you mess with elections, you should be barred from standing for a period. But it's up to the US what its laws are.
If they overturn Colorado they will be rewriting their constitution to say it's ok to engage in treason if you running for president. Surely not even Trump appointees are willing to accept that.
No doubt the originalists on the SC will appreciate that.
Based on - if you take out Confederates convicted post the Civil War - a case involving a New Mexico County official.
There is a lot of wishful thinking on these court cases but, as I said before, to defeat Trump, defeat him at the ballot box - not by trying to knock him off the ballots.
I don't fully agree, since the same logic is used to argue he should not be punished for crimes because he should be defeated at the ballot box. But politicians should face legal consequences if they are convicted.
The issue here is not that excluding from standing is inherently wrong, since people are prevented from standing for all sorts of reasons, but whether thos reason is justified.
Legal scholars disagree but it looks thin even if formal conviction was not needed for some confederates. The bar should be very high, and though I think he clearly has committed insurrection it does seem weird to declare him ineligible without a specific conviction for it.
I disagree with that. There is a lot of guff on here about the need to 100% follow the law 100% of the time but that is not how it works (which is why we will hear about cases not being pursued because of the public interest).
The classic case is the 1960 election. There was clear signs the Illinois and Texas votes, to name two, had been rigged to favour JFK. But Nixon decided to not press ahead as he felt doing so would have caused a greater threat, namely undermining the US as a whole.
It’s the same with Trump’s case. He should have been condemned, eviscerated etc but not prosecuted. The greater threat to US democracy is not a candidate who - one way or another - will be out of the picture by 2028. It is in opening up a massive can of worms and effectively baking into the US system the idea you pursue your political opponents in the courts. .
All these court cases are doing is feeding into Trump’s narrative that he is being persecuted and, as I said before, the failings of the US judicial system make that an appealing message to many.
Unpopular opinion alert.
Biden should have pardoned Trump.
It would have taken all the grievance out of his sails and just left him a diminished rather forlorn figure smarting about perceived injustices.
You can't unilaterally pardon someone. They have to accept the pardon. Trump could just have said no, on the grounds he (claims he) did nothing wrong.
Also, Trump has an inexhaustible supply of grievance.
Clearly it's contestable as the Colorado Supreme Court has decided the other way. But I think they are wrong, and also think it's more likely that one or two of the liberal SCOTUS justices will join the conservative majority than the other way around.
I think a ruling the liberals can join will probably be one which says "Trump hasn't been convicted of insurrection, we're done here" and doesn't take a position either way on whether a conviction for insurrection would or would not make you ineligible to be President. That seems like the narrower ruling and easier to get signup for.
The Telegraph, one of our most august journals, is doing some excellent work exposing Starmer as a lawyer.
A good while ago, a friend was assaulted and left badly brain damaged. Couple of kids did it. They claimed the fall and hitting his head was an accident.
His wife wasn’t so sure and got an expert on head injuries to look into the matter. I was astonished when she was shouted at by the prosecuting council outside the courtroom. Apparently her efforts were putting in jeopardy a plan to avoid prison for the two teenagers involved.
In the end they got short sentences.
A few years later, we heard, via her lawyer, that the two perpetrators had been badly injured themselves. It seemed that they had resumed their career of violent mugging - but had violently mugged a very nasty person in the local underworld. Makes you wonder if putting them away for a serious sentence would have saved them.
Roadmen meet real Gangsters, a good life lesson for them.
Many years ago, when I worked as benefit-fraud investigator, the very first guy I interviewed was a local hard nut / lunatic (had been sacked from his earlier employer for smashing up the yard with a sledge hammer). A year or so later a couple of road men threatened him on the street with a knife. He did no more than take the knife off them and stabbed one of them to death.
Horrible.
On a related note, I’ve been told the following. The “local” versions of the supermarkets (Tesco etc) are increasingly franchises. It seems the burden of shop lifting is falling on the franchise holders.
Since they can’t physically stop the shop lifters, one local guy has come up with a solution. A “cousin” who isn’t employed by him, who just hangs around the store. Scraggs shoplifters - and been taken to court for it a couple times already.
I have a feeling of horrible inevitability of where that will end.
Surely where it all ends is some places become too risky to have a shop. What you cite is a case of the Police not doing their job so someone else will. Effectively Plods attitude to shoplifting has decriminalised it and why would a Security guard on min wage risk getting stabbed by the local crackhead for a few quid of groceries.
My Stepdad used to be a delivery driver for Sainsburys. One day he was asked to pull his truck in front of a car as they suspected a drive off. He refused. He was not going to risk his wellbeing for 50 quid of petrol. The guy drove off. The cops were not interested. This is not a poor area but an affluent part of the country.
There will come a point, as we see in the USA, where stores will simply pull out of neighbourhoods leaving them with fewer and fewer shops and it will become a vicious circle.
There wasn't a big problem before shops started removing check out staff. It seems unreasonable to me for shops to expect additional police resource when they could just use more check out staff.
That is more of an intuitive view than a fully coherent one as I can't really justify why the old status quo of checkout staff is fairer to society than self checkouts with higher levels of shoplifting so open to persuasion.
It doesn't matter how many staff you have. The standing instructions in almost every major shop is for staff not to intervene or challenge shoplifters, simply to record them and pass on the information. No shop is willing to risk their staff being attacked when the police/system will do nothing about the crime even if they do catch the person.
O/T Watching Rishi's evidence to the Liaison Committee distracted by the figure behind him who's twice as wide as him and wearing an odd green garment. Deduced from the constant nodding of the double chin (all you could see of the face) that it was a supporter ....turns out it's his pps one Williams..
The Telegraph, one of our most august journals, is doing some excellent work exposing Starmer as a lawyer.
A good while ago, a friend was assaulted and left badly brain damaged. Couple of kids did it. They claimed the fall and hitting his head was an accident.
His wife wasn’t so sure and got an expert on head injuries to look into the matter. I was astonished when she was shouted at by the prosecuting council outside the courtroom. Apparently her efforts were putting in jeopardy a plan to avoid prison for the two teenagers involved.
In the end they got short sentences.
A few years later, we heard, via her lawyer, that the two perpetrators had been badly injured themselves. It seemed that they had resumed their career of violent mugging - but had violently mugged a very nasty person in the local underworld. Makes you wonder if putting them away for a serious sentence would have saved them.
Roadmen meet real Gangsters, a good life lesson for them.
Many years ago, when I worked as benefit-fraud investigator, the very first guy I interviewed was a local hard nut / lunatic (had been sacked from his earlier employer for smashing up the yard with a sledge hammer). A year or so later a couple of road men threatened him on the street with a knife. He did no more than take the knife off them and stabbed one of them to death.
Horrible.
On a related note, I’ve been told the following. The “local” versions of the supermarkets (Tesco etc) are increasingly franchises. It seems the burden of shop lifting is falling on the franchise holders.
Since they can’t physically stop the shop lifters, one local guy has come up with a solution. A “cousin” who isn’t employed by him, who just hangs around the store. Scraggs shoplifters - and been taken to court for it a couple times already.
I have a feeling of horrible inevitability of where that will end.
Surely where it all ends is some places become too risky to have a shop. What you cite is a case of the Police not doing their job so someone else will. Effectively Plods attitude to shoplifting has decriminalised it and why would a Security guard on min wage risk getting stabbed by the local crackhead for a few quid of groceries.
My Stepdad used to be a delivery driver for Sainsburys. One day he was asked to pull his truck in front of a car as they suspected a drive off. He refused. He was not going to risk his wellbeing for 50 quid of petrol. The guy drove off. The cops were not interested. This is not a poor area but an affluent part of the country.
There will come a point, as we see in the USA, where stores will simply pull out of neighbourhoods leaving them with fewer and fewer shops and it will become a vicious circle.
There wasn't a big problem before shops started removing check out staff. It seems unreasonable to me for shops to expect additional police resource when they could just use more check out staff.
That is more of an intuitive view than a fully coherent one as I can't really justify why the old status quo of checkout staff is fairer to society than self checkouts with higher levels of shoplifting so open to persuasion.
There’s not much evidence that checkout staff do much to prevent shop lifting - they are not allowed (generally) to touch, let alone detain shoplifters. And they shouldn’t be expected to, I think.
If they overturn Colorado they will be rewriting their constitution to say it's ok to engage in treason if you running for president. Surely not even Trump appointees are willing to accept that.
No doubt the originalists on the SC will appreciate that.
Based on - if you take out Confederates convicted post the Civil War - a case involving a New Mexico County official.
There is a lot of wishful thinking on these court cases but, as I said before, to defeat Trump, defeat him at the ballot box - not by trying to knock him off the ballots.
I don't fully agree, since the same logic is used to argue he should not be punished for crimes because he should be defeated at the ballot box. But politicians should face legal consequences if they are convicted.
The issue here is not that excluding from standing is inherently wrong, since people are prevented from standing for all sorts of reasons, but whether thos reason is justified.
Legal scholars disagree but it looks thin even if formal conviction was not needed for some confederates. The bar should be very high, and though I think he clearly has committed insurrection it does seem weird to declare him ineligible without a specific conviction for it.
I disagree with that. There is a lot of guff on here about the need to 100% follow the law 100% of the time but that is not how it works (which is why we will hear about cases not being pursued because of the public interest).
The classic case is the 1960 election. There was clear signs the Illinois and Texas votes, to name two, had been rigged to favour JFK. But Nixon decided to not press ahead as he felt doing so would have caused a greater threat, namely undermining the US as a whole.
It’s the same with Trump’s case. He should have been condemned, eviscerated etc but not prosecuted. The greater threat to US democracy is not a candidate who - one way or another - will be out of the picture by 2028. It is in opening up a massive can of worms and effectively baking into the US system the idea you pursue your political opponents in the courts. .
All these court cases are doing is feeding into Trump’s narrative that he is being persecuted and, as I said before, the failings of the US judicial system make that an appealing message to many.
The Telegraph, one of our most august journals, is doing some excellent work exposing Starmer as a lawyer.
A good while ago, a friend was assaulted and left badly brain damaged. Couple of kids did it. They claimed the fall and hitting his head was an accident.
His wife wasn’t so sure and got an expert on head injuries to look into the matter. I was astonished when she was shouted at by the prosecuting council outside the courtroom. Apparently her efforts were putting in jeopardy a plan to avoid prison for the two teenagers involved.
In the end they got short sentences.
A few years later, we heard, via her lawyer, that the two perpetrators had been badly injured themselves. It seemed that they had resumed their career of violent mugging - but had violently mugged a very nasty person in the local underworld. Makes you wonder if putting them away for a serious sentence would have saved them.
Roadmen meet real Gangsters, a good life lesson for them.
Many years ago, when I worked as benefit-fraud investigator, the very first guy I interviewed was a local hard nut / lunatic (had been sacked from his earlier employer for smashing up the yard with a sledge hammer). A year or so later a couple of road men threatened him on the street with a knife. He did no more than take the knife off them and stabbed one of them to death.
Horrible.
On a related note, I’ve been told the following. The “local” versions of the supermarkets (Tesco etc) are increasingly franchises. It seems the burden of shop lifting is falling on the franchise holders.
Since they can’t physically stop the shop lifters, one local guy has come up with a solution. A “cousin” who isn’t employed by him, who just hangs around the store. Scraggs shoplifters - and been taken to court for it a couple times already.
I have a feeling of horrible inevitability of where that will end.
Surely where it all ends is some places become too risky to have a shop. What you cite is a case of the Police not doing their job so someone else will. Effectively Plods attitude to shoplifting has decriminalised it and why would a Security guard on min wage risk getting stabbed by the local crackhead for a few quid of groceries.
My Stepdad used to be a delivery driver for Sainsburys. One day he was asked to pull his truck in front of a car as they suspected a drive off. He refused. He was not going to risk his wellbeing for 50 quid of petrol. The guy drove off. The cops were not interested. This is not a poor area but an affluent part of the country.
There will come a point, as we see in the USA, where stores will simply pull out of neighbourhoods leaving them with fewer and fewer shops and it will become a vicious circle.
There wasn't a big problem before shops started removing check out staff. It seems unreasonable to me for shops to expect additional police resource when they could just use more check out staff.
That is more of an intuitive view than a fully coherent one as I can't really justify why the old status quo of checkout staff is fairer to society than self checkouts with higher levels of shoplifting so open to persuasion.
It doesn't matter how many staff you have. The standing instructions in almost every major shop is for staff not to intervene or challenge shoplifters, simply to record them and pass on the information. No shop is willing to risk their staff being attacked when the police/system will do nothing about the crime even if they do catch the person.
Whatever the rules, more staff being around may put off some shoplifters. In the past, it was difficult to exit the shop without going through checkout. Now, with self checkout, it's much easier. So, yes, it seems to me plausible that the shift to self-checkout may have had some influence on shoplifting behaviour.
This doesn't mean that the greater problem isn't around cuts to policing.
The Telegraph, one of our most august journals, is doing some excellent work exposing Starmer as a lawyer.
A good while ago, a friend was assaulted and left badly brain damaged. Couple of kids did it. They claimed the fall and hitting his head was an accident.
His wife wasn’t so sure and got an expert on head injuries to look into the matter. I was astonished when she was shouted at by the prosecuting council outside the courtroom. Apparently her efforts were putting in jeopardy a plan to avoid prison for the two teenagers involved.
In the end they got short sentences.
A few years later, we heard, via her lawyer, that the two perpetrators had been badly injured themselves. It seemed that they had resumed their career of violent mugging - but had violently mugged a very nasty person in the local underworld. Makes you wonder if putting them away for a serious sentence would have saved them.
Roadmen meet real Gangsters, a good life lesson for them.
Many years ago, when I worked as benefit-fraud investigator, the very first guy I interviewed was a local hard nut / lunatic (had been sacked from his earlier employer for smashing up the yard with a sledge hammer). A year or so later a couple of road men threatened him on the street with a knife. He did no more than take the knife off them and stabbed one of them to death.
Ouch !!!!
Did he get off by claiming self defence ?
I cannot recall the stats but a decent minority of stabbings are people having their own weapons used on them.
Which is why it's really dumb to carry a knife for "defence".
But drugs are readily available in prison and prison does not reform, or certainly not always. Any number of interviews with ex prison staff, gangsters and former prisoners online or in the press or in book form confirms that.
And as for the two lads they took the risk. They need to accept the consequences. I'll shed no tears for them. Only their victims. The more victims they rolled over the braver and more fearless they would have got.
Criminals need to be segregated for public safety, and I think a deprivation of general liberty is appropriate, but the Victorian model of prisons should really have died out a long time ago.
The Telegraph, one of our most august journals, is doing some excellent work exposing Starmer as a lawyer.
A good while ago, a friend was assaulted and left badly brain damaged. Couple of kids did it. They claimed the fall and hitting his head was an accident.
His wife wasn’t so sure and got an expert on head injuries to look into the matter. I was astonished when she was shouted at by the prosecuting council outside the courtroom. Apparently her efforts were putting in jeopardy a plan to avoid prison for the two teenagers involved.
In the end they got short sentences.
A few years later, we heard, via her lawyer, that the two perpetrators had been badly injured themselves. It seemed that they had resumed their career of violent mugging - but had violently mugged a very nasty person in the local underworld. Makes you wonder if putting them away for a serious sentence would have saved them.
Roadmen meet real Gangsters, a good life lesson for them.
Many years ago, when I worked as benefit-fraud investigator, the very first guy I interviewed was a local hard nut / lunatic (had been sacked from his earlier employer for smashing up the yard with a sledge hammer). A year or so later a couple of road men threatened him on the street with a knife. He did no more than take the knife off them and stabbed one of them to death.
Horrible.
On a related note, I’ve been told the following. The “local” versions of the supermarkets (Tesco etc) are increasingly franchises. It seems the burden of shop lifting is falling on the franchise holders.
Since they can’t physically stop the shop lifters, one local guy has come up with a solution. A “cousin” who isn’t employed by him, who just hangs around the store. Scraggs shoplifters - and been taken to court for it a couple times already.
I have a feeling of horrible inevitability of where that will end.
Surely where it all ends is some places become too risky to have a shop. What you cite is a case of the Police not doing their job so someone else will. Effectively Plods attitude to shoplifting has decriminalised it and why would a Security guard on min wage risk getting stabbed by the local crackhead for a few quid of groceries.
My Stepdad used to be a delivery driver for Sainsburys. One day he was asked to pull his truck in front of a car as they suspected a drive off. He refused. He was not going to risk his wellbeing for 50 quid of petrol. The guy drove off. The cops were not interested. This is not a poor area but an affluent part of the country.
There will come a point, as we see in the USA, where stores will simply pull out of neighbourhoods leaving them with fewer and fewer shops and it will become a vicious circle.
There wasn't a big problem before shops started removing check out staff. It seems unreasonable to me for shops to expect additional police resource when they could just use more check out staff.
That is more of an intuitive view than a fully coherent one as I can't really justify why the old status quo of checkout staff is fairer to society than self checkouts with higher levels of shoplifting so open to persuasion.
There’s not much evidence that checkout staff do much to prevent shop lifting - they are not allowed (generally) to touch, let alone detain shoplifters. And they shouldn’t be expected to, I think.
It is not so much that checkout staff can detain shoplifters, its that people are far more likely to shoplift if there are no staff there watching them.
US State Dept spokesman describes the Houthi attacks on ships as 'reckless' and a threat to global trade. Since threatening global trade is the whole point wouldn't it be better to describe the attacks as deliberate and effective?
Honestly people are taking the p*** out of the west. When are we going to do something?
One small group in a small country thousands of miles aways influence on world trade and the global economy should really put an end to the idea that simple isolationism is all that is needed in foreign policy.
We've got so used to the postwar international settlement which underpins world prosperity, that we take it for granted. It is by no means a given.
The Telegraph, one of our most august journals, is doing some excellent work exposing Starmer as a lawyer.
A good while ago, a friend was assaulted and left badly brain damaged. Couple of kids did it. They claimed the fall and hitting his head was an accident.
His wife wasn’t so sure and got an expert on head injuries to look into the matter. I was astonished when she was shouted at by the prosecuting council outside the courtroom. Apparently her efforts were putting in jeopardy a plan to avoid prison for the two teenagers involved.
In the end they got short sentences.
A few years later, we heard, via her lawyer, that the two perpetrators had been badly injured themselves. It seemed that they had resumed their career of violent mugging - but had violently mugged a very nasty person in the local underworld. Makes you wonder if putting them away for a serious sentence would have saved them.
Roadmen meet real Gangsters, a good life lesson for them.
Many years ago, when I worked as benefit-fraud investigator, the very first guy I interviewed was a local hard nut / lunatic (had been sacked from his earlier employer for smashing up the yard with a sledge hammer). A year or so later a couple of road men threatened him on the street with a knife. He did no more than take the knife off them and stabbed one of them to death.
Horrible.
On a related note, I’ve been told the following. The “local” versions of the supermarkets (Tesco etc) are increasingly franchises. It seems the burden of shop lifting is falling on the franchise holders.
Since they can’t physically stop the shop lifters, one local guy has come up with a solution. A “cousin” who isn’t employed by him, who just hangs around the store. Scraggs shoplifters - and been taken to court for it a couple times already.
I have a feeling of horrible inevitability of where that will end.
Surely where it all ends is some places become too risky to have a shop. What you cite is a case of the Police not doing their job so someone else will. Effectively Plods attitude to shoplifting has decriminalised it and why would a Security guard on min wage risk getting stabbed by the local crackhead for a few quid of groceries.
My Stepdad used to be a delivery driver for Sainsburys. One day he was asked to pull his truck in front of a car as they suspected a drive off. He refused. He was not going to risk his wellbeing for 50 quid of petrol. The guy drove off. The cops were not interested. This is not a poor area but an affluent part of the country.
There will come a point, as we see in the USA, where stores will simply pull out of neighbourhoods leaving them with fewer and fewer shops and it will become a vicious circle.
There wasn't a big problem before shops started removing check out staff. It seems unreasonable to me for shops to expect additional police resource when they could just use more check out staff.
That is more of an intuitive view than a fully coherent one as I can't really justify why the old status quo of checkout staff is fairer to society than self checkouts with higher levels of shoplifting so open to persuasion.
It doesn't matter how many staff you have. The standing instructions in almost every major shop is for staff not to intervene or challenge shoplifters, simply to record them and pass on the information. No shop is willing to risk their staff being attacked when the police/system will do nothing about the crime even if they do catch the person.
Whatever the rules, more staff being around may put off some shoplifters. In the past, it was difficult to exit the shop without going through checkout. Now, with self checkout, it's much easier. So, yes, it seems to me plausible that the shift to self-checkout may have had some influence on shoplifting behaviour.
This doesn't mean that the greater problem isn't around cuts to policing.
It seems to me exactly the opposite. In the past it was possible simply to walk out through the closed till lines. Nowadays most supermarkets have gates across them when they are not in use and people are funneled through the self service areas. Honestly the lack of staff makes absolutely no difference at all. The shoplifters know damn well they will not be stopped and most of the time don't even bother to cover their faces as they also know they will get away with it even if identified and passed on to the police. There is no sanction and they know it.
The Telegraph, one of our most august journals, is doing some excellent work exposing Starmer as a lawyer.
A good while ago, a friend was assaulted and left badly brain damaged. Couple of kids did it. They claimed the fall and hitting his head was an accident.
His wife wasn’t so sure and got an expert on head injuries to look into the matter. I was astonished when she was shouted at by the prosecuting council outside the courtroom. Apparently her efforts were putting in jeopardy a plan to avoid prison for the two teenagers involved.
In the end they got short sentences.
A few years later, we heard, via her lawyer, that the two perpetrators had been badly injured themselves. It seemed that they had resumed their career of violent mugging - but had violently mugged a very nasty person in the local underworld. Makes you wonder if putting them away for a serious sentence would have saved them.
Roadmen meet real Gangsters, a good life lesson for them.
Many years ago, when I worked as benefit-fraud investigator, the very first guy I interviewed was a local hard nut / lunatic (had been sacked from his earlier employer for smashing up the yard with a sledge hammer). A year or so later a couple of road men threatened him on the street with a knife. He did no more than take the knife off them and stabbed one of them to death.
Are these what 'More in Common' call 'Civic Pragmatists', or perhaps 'Disengaged Battlers'?
If they overturn Colorado they will be rewriting their constitution to say it's ok to engage in treason if you running for president. Surely not even Trump appointees are willing to accept that.
No doubt the originalists on the SC will appreciate that.
Based on - if you take out Confederates convicted post the Civil War - a case involving a New Mexico County official.
There is a lot of wishful thinking on these court cases but, as I said before, to defeat Trump, defeat him at the ballot box - not by trying to knock him off the ballots.
I don't fully agree, since the same logic is used to argue he should not be punished for crimes because he should be defeated at the ballot box. But politicians should face legal consequences if they are convicted.
The issue here is not that excluding from standing is inherently wrong, since people are prevented from standing for all sorts of reasons, but whether thos reason is justified.
Legal scholars disagree but it looks thin even if formal conviction was not needed for some confederates. The bar should be very high, and though I think he clearly has committed insurrection it does seem weird to declare him ineligible without a specific conviction for it.
I disagree with that. There is a lot of guff on here about the need to 100% follow the law 100% of the time but that is not how it works (which is why we will hear about cases not being pursued because of the public interest).
The classic case is the 1960 election. There was clear signs the Illinois and Texas votes, to name two, had been rigged to favour JFK. But Nixon decided to not press ahead as he felt doing so would have caused a greater threat, namely undermining the US as a whole.
It’s the same with Trump’s case. He should have been condemned, eviscerated etc but not prosecuted. The greater threat to US democracy is not a candidate who - one way or another - will be out of the picture by 2028. It is in opening up a massive can of worms and effectively baking into the US system the idea you pursue your political opponents in the courts. .
All these court cases are doing is feeding into Trump’s narrative that he is being persecuted and, as I said before, the failings of the US judicial system make that an appealing message to many.
Unpopular opinion alert.
Biden should have pardoned Trump.
It would have taken all the grievance out of his sails and just left him a diminished rather forlorn figure smarting about perceived injustices.
Firstly, Biden can't pardon Trump in Georgia which remains, in my view, the place where the legal jeopardy is greatest.
Secondly, it wouldn't take the grievance out of Trump's sails. Nothing can, it's just what he does.
Thirdly, it would invite the response, "Ah, you see, they knew all along that Trump was innocent, and are panicking about the TRUTH coming out."
Clearly it's contestable as the Colorado Supreme Court has decided the other way. But I think they are wrong, and also think it's more likely that one or two of the liberal SCOTUS justices will join the conservative majority than the other way around.
I think a ruling the liberals can join will probably be one which says "Trump hasn't been convicted of insurrection, we're done here" and doesn't take a position either way on whether a conviction for insurrection would or would not make you ineligible to be President. That seems like the narrower ruling and easier to get signup for.
That's why I said it will be interesting to see the basis on which they rule. I've little doubt that Thomas and Alito will be looking for a more expansive ruling.
And they will in any event have to consider and rule on the immunity argument in the near future.
British girl, 8, crowned best female player at European chess tournament Bodhana Sivanandan, who got into chess ‘accidentally’ three years ago, described as a ‘phenomenon’ ... ... This summer, she was invited to 10 Downing Street and played chess with Rishi Sunak, before the government announced it was to invest £1m in the game to increase the number of English grandmasters. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/dec/20/british-girl-8-crowned-best-female-player-at-european-chess-tournament
Inflation, chess, suddenly it's all falling into place for the Prime Minister.
Yes, though under another name. It's in Gray's Inn Road. It's like Gaza in their soup kitchen, but consider the horrors they are fleeing from in Tal-y-Bont.
Clearly it's contestable as the Colorado Supreme Court has decided the other way. But I think they are wrong, and also think it's more likely that one or two of the liberal SCOTUS justices will join the conservative majority than the other way around.
I think a ruling the liberals can join will probably be one which says "Trump hasn't been convicted of insurrection, we're done here" and doesn't take a position either way on whether a conviction for insurrection would or would not make you ineligible to be President. That seems like the narrower ruling and easier to get signup for.
That's why I said it will be interesting to see the basis on which they rule. I've little doubt that Thomas and Alito will be looking for a more expansive ruling.
And they will in any event have to consider and rule on the immunity argument in the near future.
If they are appealing on a point of law, whether or not Trump has been “convicted” of insurrection may be irrelevant. I haven’t seen the papers but it may simply be on the basis of whether the Presidency is an “office” for the purposes of the amendment.
Someone needs to stand up for the vast hordes of Welsh people, huddled in their refugee camps on either end of the Severn Bridge, a desperate few attempting the perilous crossing aboard a 1998 Ford Fiesta, and others paying vast sums to unscrupulous people smugglers in the form of Newport Bus to board the T7. It's a human tragedy.
I'm just wondering why one of them is wearing an MCC tie.
The MCC is run by the Lizards In People Suits. The Lizards are controlled by the Zeta Reticulans. The ZR work for the Illuminati. The Illuminati are a sub-division of the Trilateral Commision.
If they overturn Colorado they will be rewriting their constitution to say it's ok to engage in treason if you running for president. Surely not even Trump appointees are willing to accept that.
No doubt the originalists on the SC will appreciate that.
Based on - if you take out Confederates convicted post the Civil War - a case involving a New Mexico County official.
There is a lot of wishful thinking on these court cases but, as I said before, to defeat Trump, defeat him at the ballot box - not by trying to knock him off the ballots.
I don't fully agree, since the same logic is used to argue he should not be punished for crimes because he should be defeated at the ballot box. But politicians should face legal consequences if they are convicted.
The issue here is not that excluding from standing is inherently wrong, since people are prevented from standing for all sorts of reasons, but whether thos reason is justified.
Legal scholars disagree but it looks thin even if formal conviction was not needed for some confederates. The bar should be very high, and though I think he clearly has committed insurrection it does seem weird to declare him ineligible without a specific conviction for it.
I disagree with that. There is a lot of guff on here about the need to 100% follow the law 100% of the time but that is not how it works (which is why we will hear about cases not being pursued because of the public interest).
The classic case is the 1960 election. There was clear signs the Illinois and Texas votes, to name two, had been rigged to favour JFK. But Nixon decided to not press ahead as he felt doing so would have caused a greater threat, namely undermining the US as a whole.
It’s the same with Trump’s case. He should have been condemned, eviscerated etc but not prosecuted. The greater threat to US democracy is not a candidate who - one way or another - will be out of the picture by 2028. It is in opening up a massive can of worms and effectively baking into the US system the idea you pursue your political opponents in the courts. .
All these court cases are doing is feeding into Trump’s narrative that he is being persecuted and, as I said before, the failings of the US judicial system make that an appealing message to many.
Unpopular opinion alert.
Biden should have pardoned Trump.
It would have taken all the grievance out of his sails and just left him a diminished rather forlorn figure smarting about perceived injustices.
You can't unilaterally pardon someone. They have to accept the pardon. Trump could just have said no, on the grounds he (claims he) did nothing wrong.
Also, Trump has an inexhaustible supply of grievance.
I think by choosing not to accept it would have taken the heat out of the situation too.
The Nixon pardon was unpopular, but it was done for a reason (ostensibly, anyway - I know that much has been written behind the motives of Ford). The idea that it didn’t help the country to be re-litigating Nixons failures, and that it was time to move on. It was a precedent that could have been followed here, and may have prevented a Trump return.
Just seen a headline with Johnson wittering on about "bludgers and skivers" - I'm not even sure what a bludger is to be honest. I know there's an Australian political site called pollbludger (like PB but more politics and swearing and fewer travelogues).
I may not praise the Conservative Party that often but one of the best things they did was send Boris Johnson to political oblivion (to be fair, he was stabbed some 50 times so a bit more than Caesar)
Busy out and about this morning - the inflation number welcome and as in America I'm sure we'll see interest rates fall in the New Year (it's a pity for savers however who are enjoying their best spell for a generation). As 1997 showed, however, a good economy doesn't always save a bad Government.
I wonder for example whether the Government will seek to impose a lower fare increase for rail passengers than the pre-existing formula would have demanded (8%). Delaying any rise until March looks an electoral gesture and it wouldn't surprise me if any increase was at or even below inflation (thought which inflation ,measure remains to be seen).
Just seen a headline with Johnson wittering on about "bludgers and skivers" - I'm not even sure what a bludger is to be honest. I know there's an Australian political site called pollbludger (like PB but more politics and swearing and fewer travelogues).
I may not praise the Conservative Party that often but one of the best things they did was send Boris Johnson to political oblivion (to be fair, he was stabbed some 50 times so a bit more than Caesar)
Busy out and about this morning - the inflation number welcome and as in America I'm sure we'll see interest rates fall in the New Year (it's a pity for savers however who are enjoying their best spell for a generation). As 1997 showed, however, a good economy doesn't always save a bad Government.
I wonder for example whether the Government will seek to impose a lower fare increase for rail passengers than the pre-existing formula would have demanded (8%). Delaying any rise until March looks an electoral gesture and it wouldn't surprise me if any increase was at or even below inflation (thought which inflation ,measure remains to be seen).
Is a bludger the kind of person who treats their responsibilities as a bit of a joke or chore to be passed onto underlings perhaps?
Clearly it's contestable as the Colorado Supreme Court has decided the other way. But I think they are wrong, and also think it's more likely that one or two of the liberal SCOTUS justices will join the conservative majority than the other way around.
I think a ruling the liberals can join will probably be one which says "Trump hasn't been convicted of insurrection, we're done here" and doesn't take a position either way on whether a conviction for insurrection would or would not make you ineligible to be President. That seems like the narrower ruling and easier to get signup for.
That's why I said it will be interesting to see the basis on which they rule. I've little doubt that Thomas and Alito will be looking for a more expansive ruling.
And they will in any event have to consider and rule on the immunity argument in the near future.
If they are appealing on a point of law, whether or not Trump has been “convicted” of insurrection may be irrelevant. I haven’t seen the papers but it may simply be on the basis of whether the Presidency is an “office” for the purposes of the amendment.
"They" haven't appealed yet, as they would be Trump's legal team and they won't have filed papers yet as the Colorado Supreme Court decision is only just out.
They'd be mad not to raise every possible argument (albeit noting there is some evidence they are indeed mad). One of those would surely be that a factual finding that a person has been engaged in insurrection can only be based on conviction for a relevant offence. That's a legal rather than factual argument - there is clearly no dispute about the fact that he's not been convicted as at today's date, and the legal point is whether Colorado was entitled to make the factual finding he had in the absence of a conviction.
A problem for conservative justices on that, though, is that the Constitution could have referred to conviction, but doesn't. It requires more contortion for conservatives to read it in, as their natural position is "the constitution means what it says".
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is facing a fresh headache after Parliament’s standards watchdog confirmed it had placed Tory MP Miriam Cates under investigation.
The backbench MP – who represents Penistone and Stocksbridge – is facing claims that she has caused "significant damage to the reputation of the House as a whole, or of its members generally", according to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
This is a really strange thing - have we ever had this before?
The rumour is that she’s received money from Foreign government
Surely not on the scale of the yuans in David Cameron’s pocket?
Believing that Richard Kemp would be a great advocate for your cause shows how far down the rabbit hole the Israel stans have fallen.
I remember opining at the start that Israel's response to Oct 7th would be so brutal and indiscriminate it would test the support of all bar their most deeply partisan supporters. We're seeing this now, I think.
But it was October 7th that made me, among others no doubt, a "partisan supporter".
British girl, 8, crowned best female player at European chess tournament Bodhana Sivanandan, who got into chess ‘accidentally’ three years ago, described as a ‘phenomenon’ ... ... This summer, she was invited to 10 Downing Street and played chess with Rishi Sunak, before the government announced it was to invest £1m in the game to increase the number of English grandmasters. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/dec/20/british-girl-8-crowned-best-female-player-at-european-chess-tournament
Inflation, chess, suddenly it's all falling into place for the Prime Minister.
Can't access due to the anti-woke firewall my Uni has installed to address rampant wokism in academia blocking the Grauniad, but I guess it goes something like this: "Bodhana accidentally got interested in chess when she, as a five year old, asked her mum about the funny climbing frame that had popped up in her local park. Her mum explained it was actually a public chess set provided by Rishi Sunak and explained the basics of the game. The rest, as they say, is history"?
Wondering what British foreign and defence policy would be in a scenario where Trump let Ukraine fall and disbanded NATO.
We would probably have to ‘rearm’ and look for an alliance with the Germans and French, assuming that the latter hadn’t also fallen under Putins spell. Would we take in Ukrainian refugees?
How would the British right react? I can see Farage backing Trump, but there would be a dividing line with the Conservative right that went all in on Ukraine.
Either way a hard path for a new government to navigate.
In that event we should unite in a new Five Eyes/AUKUS pact with the USA
Europe will never spend enough to defend itself
What US interest is there in defending the UK but not France or Germany? That's the realpolitik.
American public sentiment sees Britain and Canada as the allies most worth defending
I don’t believe Trump will go against that. It is highly possible he will abandon mainland Europe
At the same time our multiple military and diplomatic ties to the USA - from Five Eyes to our nuclear deterrent - mean we are dependent on America (and they are dependent on us to a lesser extent) which again makes the choice obvious. Stick with Washington
Your faith in US public opinion is touching but, I would argue, entirely misplaced. A US public that is prepared to stand by and watch Putin trample through the whole of mainland Europe is not going to suddenly demand that the US commits troops and vast sums of money to prevent him crossing the Channel to us.
I’ve just shown you the actual polling, not what is in your head
The polling does not tell us anything about the clamour there would be to save the UK from a Putin who had already overrun the whole of Europe without the US lifting a finger.
Still not sure how Putin is supposed to overrun the whole of Europe when he has had his military smashed in Ukraine where he has somewhat easier logistical lines than pushing through Poland and onto Germany and France. Where will he be getting the millions of trained soldiers and weapons from?
The threat to the UK from Putin is nuclear and sneaky subterfuge.
One side-effect of Ukraine blowing up Russian tanks and planes is that Russia will replace them with new, better tanks and planes. But you are right that in the medium term, a greater danger is posed by Russia interfering in our politics and cutting undersea cables carrying telecoms and electricity.
How many decades will that take and their latest ones are pretty crap as well so hardly challenging.
British girl, 8, crowned best female player at European chess tournament Bodhana Sivanandan, who got into chess ‘accidentally’ three years ago, described as a ‘phenomenon’ ... ... This summer, she was invited to 10 Downing Street and played chess with Rishi Sunak, before the government announced it was to invest £1m in the game to increase the number of English grandmasters. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/dec/20/british-girl-8-crowned-best-female-player-at-european-chess-tournament
Inflation, chess, suddenly it's all falling into place for the Prime Minister.
Can't access due to the anti-woke firewall my Uni has installed to address rampant wokism in academia blocking the Grauniad, but I guess it goes something like this: "Bodhana accidentally got interested in chess when she, as a five year old, asked her mum about the funny climbing frame that had popped up in her local park. Her mum explained it was actually a public chess set provided by Rishi Sunak and explained the basics of the game. The rest, as they say, is history"?
"...Bodhana, who started playing chess at the age of five during the coronavirus pandemic after she found a chessboard and pieces in a bag given by her father’s friend, has said she is “not sure” of her chances are for the upcoming International Chess Congress in Hastings, East Sussex, on 28 December..."
Believing that Richard Kemp would be a great advocate for your cause shows how far down the rabbit hole the Israel stans have fallen.
I remember opining at the start that Israel's response to Oct 7th would be so brutal and indiscriminate it would test the support of all bar their most deeply partisan supporters. We're seeing this now, I think.
But it was October 7th that made me, among others no doubt, a "partisan supporter".
Me too, but no longer. It's become collective punishment of the population of Gaza.
British girl, 8, crowned best female player at European chess tournament Bodhana Sivanandan, who got into chess ‘accidentally’ three years ago, described as a ‘phenomenon’ ... ... This summer, she was invited to 10 Downing Street and played chess with Rishi Sunak, before the government announced it was to invest £1m in the game to increase the number of English grandmasters. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/dec/20/british-girl-8-crowned-best-female-player-at-european-chess-tournament
Inflation, chess, suddenly it's all falling into place for the Prime Minister.
Can't access due to the anti-woke firewall my Uni has installed to address rampant wokism in academia blocking the Grauniad, but I guess it goes something like this: "Bodhana accidentally got interested in chess when she, as a five year old, asked her mum about the funny climbing frame that had popped up in her local park. Her mum explained it was actually a public chess set provided by Rishi Sunak and explained the basics of the game. The rest, as they say, is history"?
Actually she started playing when she was bored during lockdown. So it's a Covid dividend.
The Telegraph, one of our most august journals, is doing some excellent work exposing Starmer as a lawyer.
A good while ago, a friend was assaulted and left badly brain damaged. Couple of kids did it. They claimed the fall and hitting his head was an accident.
His wife wasn’t so sure and got an expert on head injuries to look into the matter. I was astonished when she was shouted at by the prosecuting council outside the courtroom. Apparently her efforts were putting in jeopardy a plan to avoid prison for the two teenagers involved.
In the end they got short sentences.
A few years later, we heard, via her lawyer, that the two perpetrators had been badly injured themselves. It seemed that they had resumed their career of violent mugging - but had violently mugged a very nasty person in the local underworld. Makes you wonder if putting them away for a serious sentence would have saved them.
Roadmen meet real Gangsters, a good life lesson for them.
No - another fucking tragedy.
I saw what was left of my friend. You don’t wish that on anyone. Life changing injuries are a very euphemistic expression.
If they choose that lifestyle they have to accept the consequences that come with it and you will always come across someone tougher than you. So, for the Roadmen, this is a life lesson and a tragedy of their own making.
Their short sentence should have been a wake up call. A longer sentence may have been bad for them especially if the violent muggings are, or were, dependency related. Drugs are quite readily available in the boob after all.
“If they choose that lifestyle they have to accept the consequences that come with it”
What about the argument, once you get mixed up in gangs, it’s like being top secret rocket scientist or secret agent, they don’t let you go, you are their prisoner? So second chances to turn life round are very hard, and very unlikely to begin with any spell in prison?
Context (missing) seems key. If the target group is refugees of school age (particularly female) then it seems quite appropriate. Otherwise, it does seem odd. Without knowing how the decision to make it was made and what the intended audience is, it's surely hard to judge?
Believing that Richard Kemp would be a great advocate for your cause shows how far down the rabbit hole the Israel stans have fallen.
I remember opining at the start that Israel's response to Oct 7th would be so brutal and indiscriminate it would test the support of all bar their most deeply partisan supporters. We're seeing this now, I think.
But it was October 7th that made me, among others no doubt, a "partisan supporter".
All of this would have been calculated by Hamas who may be many things but the one thing they aren't is stupid. The scale of the attack on Israel on October 7th laid the trap for Israel and pro-Israeli opinion. A hard response risked creating sympathy for the Palestinians especially as images of the Israeli response emerged. A weak response would have emboldened Hamas and other groups to further attacks and made Israel look weak to her allies.
Hamas of course care nothing for the thousands of deaths they have instigated - indeed, they may be looking to the radiclaisation of the next generation of martyrs to perpetuate the struggle. I'm quite sure Israel is aware of the dilemma and this has tempered the response to a degree.
The Telegraph, one of our most august journals, is doing some excellent work exposing Starmer as a lawyer.
A good while ago, a friend was assaulted and left badly brain damaged. Couple of kids did it. They claimed the fall and hitting his head was an accident.
His wife wasn’t so sure and got an expert on head injuries to look into the matter. I was astonished when she was shouted at by the prosecuting council outside the courtroom. Apparently her efforts were putting in jeopardy a plan to avoid prison for the two teenagers involved.
In the end they got short sentences.
A few years later, we heard, via her lawyer, that the two perpetrators had been badly injured themselves. It seemed that they had resumed their career of violent mugging - but had violently mugged a very nasty person in the local underworld. Makes you wonder if putting them away for a serious sentence would have saved them.
Roadmen meet real Gangsters, a good life lesson for them.
No - another fucking tragedy.
I saw what was left of my friend. You don’t wish that on anyone. Life changing injuries are a very euphemistic expression.
If they choose that lifestyle they have to accept the consequences that come with it and you will always come across someone tougher than you. So, for the Roadmen, this is a life lesson and a tragedy of their own making.
Their short sentence should have been a wake up call. A longer sentence may have been bad for them especially if the violent muggings are, or were, dependency related. Drugs are quite readily available in the boob after all.
My grandfather was a "road man" for the council before he retired in the 1960s, mostly involved in cutting back grass verges on rural roads. I will look on him in a new light now.
Context (missing) seems key. If the target group is refugees of school age (particularly female) then it seems quite appropriate. Otherwise, it does seem odd. Without knowing how the decision to make it was made and what the intended audience is, it's surely hard to judge?
William doesn't need context. If it scores some anti-Woke points it's a win.
And to think he was once my go-to anti-Brexit poster.
Yes, though under another name. It's in Gray's Inn Road. It's like Gaza in their soup kitchen, but consider the horrors they are fleeing from in Tal-y-Bont.
British girl, 8, crowned best female player at European chess tournament Bodhana Sivanandan, who got into chess ‘accidentally’ three years ago, described as a ‘phenomenon’ ... ... This summer, she was invited to 10 Downing Street and played chess with Rishi Sunak, before the government announced it was to invest £1m in the game to increase the number of English grandmasters. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/dec/20/british-girl-8-crowned-best-female-player-at-european-chess-tournament
Inflation, chess, suddenly it's all falling into place for the Prime Minister.
Can't access due to the anti-woke firewall my Uni has installed to address rampant wokism in academia blocking the Grauniad, but I guess it goes something like this: "Bodhana accidentally got interested in chess when she, as a five year old, asked her mum about the funny climbing frame that had popped up in her local park. Her mum explained it was actually a public chess set provided by Rishi Sunak and explained the basics of the game. The rest, as they say, is history"?
"...Bodhana, who started playing chess at the age of five during the coronavirus pandemic after she found a chessboard and pieces in a bag given by her father’s friend, has said she is “not sure” of her chances are for the upcoming International Chess Congress in Hastings, East Sussex, on 28 December..."
Ah. I was so nearly right No chance the friend was Sunak so he can still take the credit?
Context (missing) seems key. If the target group is refugees of school age (particularly female) then it seems quite appropriate. Otherwise, it does seem odd. Without knowing how the decision to make it was made and what the intended audience is, it's surely hard to judge?
Surely they could have used AI to produce the same images / messages…?
Yes, though under another name. It's in Gray's Inn Road. It's like Gaza in their soup kitchen, but consider the horrors they are fleeing from in Tal-y-Bont.
The Telegraph, one of our most august journals, is doing some excellent work exposing Starmer as a lawyer.
A good while ago, a friend was assaulted and left badly brain damaged. Couple of kids did it. They claimed the fall and hitting his head was an accident.
His wife wasn’t so sure and got an expert on head injuries to look into the matter. I was astonished when she was shouted at by the prosecuting council outside the courtroom. Apparently her efforts were putting in jeopardy a plan to avoid prison for the two teenagers involved.
In the end they got short sentences.
A few years later, we heard, via her lawyer, that the two perpetrators had been badly injured themselves. It seemed that they had resumed their career of violent mugging - but had violently mugged a very nasty person in the local underworld. Makes you wonder if putting them away for a serious sentence would have saved them.
Roadmen meet real Gangsters, a good life lesson for them.
No - another fucking tragedy.
I saw what was left of my friend. You don’t wish that on anyone. Life changing injuries are a very euphemistic expression.
If they choose that lifestyle they have to accept the consequences that come with it and you will always come across someone tougher than you. So, for the Roadmen, this is a life lesson and a tragedy of their own making.
Their short sentence should have been a wake up call. A longer sentence may have been bad for them especially if the violent muggings are, or were, dependency related. Drugs are quite readily available in the boob after all.
“If they choose that lifestyle they have to accept the consequences that come with it”
What about the argument, once you get mixed up in gangs, it’s like being top secret rocket scientist or secret agent, they don’t let you go, you are their prisoner? So second chances to turn life round are very hard, and very unlikely to begin with any spell in prison?
I do some stuff with a charity that also tries to create structures for ex-cons to fit into when they come out of prison.
A big problem is that, very often, most of their friends are criminals, so going straight means dumping their friends and sometimes family.
So proving them with a new social structure is quite important.
If they overturn Colorado they will be rewriting their constitution to say it's ok to engage in treason if you running for president. Surely not even Trump appointees are willing to accept that.
No doubt the originalists on the SC will appreciate that.
Based on - if you take out Confederates convicted post the Civil War - a case involving a New Mexico County official.
There is a lot of wishful thinking on these court cases but, as I said before, to defeat Trump, defeat him at the ballot box - not by trying to knock him off the ballots.
I don't fully agree, since the same logic is used to argue he should not be punished for crimes because he should be defeated at the ballot box. But politicians should face legal consequences if they are convicted.
The issue here is not that excluding from standing is inherently wrong, since people are prevented from standing for all sorts of reasons, but whether thos reason is justified.
Legal scholars disagree but it looks thin even if formal conviction was not needed for some confederates. The bar should be very high, and though I think he clearly has committed insurrection it does seem weird to declare him ineligible without a specific conviction for it.
I disagree with that. There is a lot of guff on here about the need to 100% follow the law 100% of the time but that is not how it works (which is why we will hear about cases not being pursued because of the public interest).
The classic case is the 1960 election. There was clear signs the Illinois and Texas votes, to name two, had been rigged to favour JFK. But Nixon decided to not press ahead as he felt doing so would have caused a greater threat, namely undermining the US as a whole.
It’s the same with Trump’s case. He should have been condemned, eviscerated etc but not prosecuted. The greater threat to US democracy is not a candidate who - one way or another - will be out of the picture by 2028. It is in opening up a massive can of worms and effectively baking into the US system the idea you pursue your political opponents in the courts. .
All these court cases are doing is feeding into Trump’s narrative that he is being persecuted and, as I said before, the failings of the US judicial system make that an appealing message to many.
Unpopular opinion alert.
Biden should have pardoned Trump.
It would have taken all the grievance out of his sails and just left him a diminished rather forlorn figure smarting about perceived injustices.
You can't unilaterally pardon someone. They have to accept the pardon. Trump could just have said no, on the grounds he (claims he) did nothing wrong.
Also, Trump has an inexhaustible supply of grievance.
I think by choosing not to accept it would have taken the heat out of the situation too.
The Nixon pardon was unpopular, but it was done for a reason (ostensibly, anyway - I know that much has been written behind the motives of Ford). The idea that it didn’t help the country to be re-litigating Nixons failures, and that it was time to move on. It was a precedent that could have been followed here, and may have prevented a Trump return.
Perhaps a tacit deal? Retire from politics in exchange for no criminal prosecution. Given I can't see him being president again and neither can I see him going to jail, this would have ensured the outcome I think we're heading for in any case. But who knows? It's a crazy crazy situation. Too late now but the best solution would have been a guilty verdict when he was impeached followed by a motion to bar him from standing again for public office.
If they overturn Colorado they will be rewriting their constitution to say it's ok to engage in treason if you running for president. Surely not even Trump appointees are willing to accept that.
No doubt the originalists on the SC will appreciate that.
Based on - if you take out Confederates convicted post the Civil War - a case involving a New Mexico County official.
There is a lot of wishful thinking on these court cases but, as I said before, to defeat Trump, defeat him at the ballot box - not by trying to knock him off the ballots.
I don't fully agree, since the same logic is used to argue he should not be punished for crimes because he should be defeated at the ballot box. But politicians should face legal consequences if they are convicted.
The issue here is not that excluding from standing is inherently wrong, since people are prevented from standing for all sorts of reasons, but whether thos reason is justified.
Legal scholars disagree but it looks thin even if formal conviction was not needed for some confederates. The bar should be very high, and though I think he clearly has committed insurrection it does seem weird to declare him ineligible without a specific conviction for it.
I disagree with that. There is a lot of guff on here about the need to 100% follow the law 100% of the time but that is not how it works (which is why we will hear about cases not being pursued because of the public interest).
The classic case is the 1960 election. There was clear signs the Illinois and Texas votes, to name two, had been rigged to favour JFK. But Nixon decided to not press ahead as he felt doing so would have caused a greater threat, namely undermining the US as a whole.
It’s the same with Trump’s case. He should have been condemned, eviscerated etc but not prosecuted. The greater threat to US democracy is not a candidate who - one way or another - will be out of the picture by 2028. It is in opening up a massive can of worms and effectively baking into the US system the idea you pursue your political opponents in the courts. .
All these court cases are doing is feeding into Trump’s narrative that he is being persecuted and, as I said before, the failings of the US judicial system make that an appealing message to many.
Unpopular opinion alert.
Biden should have pardoned Trump.
It would have taken all the grievance out of his sails and just left him a diminished rather forlorn figure smarting about perceived injustices.
You can't unilaterally pardon someone. They have to accept the pardon. Trump could just have said no, on the grounds he (claims he) did nothing wrong.
Also, Trump has an inexhaustible supply of grievance.
I think by choosing not to accept it would have taken the heat out of the situation too.
The Nixon pardon was unpopular, but it was done for a reason (ostensibly, anyway - I know that much has been written behind the motives of Ford). The idea that it didn’t help the country to be re-litigating Nixons failures, and that it was time to move on. It was a precedent that could have been followed here, and may have prevented a Trump return.
Nixon wasn't running to be President again. That's the big difference.
Yes, though under another name. It's in Gray's Inn Road. It's like Gaza in their soup kitchen, but consider the horrors they are fleeing from in Tal-y-Bont.
On Topic: The Colorado judgement will probably be nullified by the SC but it's a step in the right direction. The price of trying to overturn the result of the last election with intimidation and violence should be that you can't stand in future elections. This is so blindingly obvious it shouldn't even need debating in sane circles. Sadly this doesn't include the GOP these days. They flunked doing the necessary back when Trump was impeached for the second time. It would have been a big brave call, a quarter of adult Americans are members of his cult, but they really should have made it. It was their patriotic duty. And deferring the problem has only made it worse. Things are going to get very messy stateside next year. Not one of my more original conclusions, I know, but there you go.
I'm wondering how similar events would be dealt with in the UK. The Representation of the People Act 1983 allows for someone to be barred from standing from election, as happened with Luftur Rahman. However, that is for conduct during an election, not for conduct after an election.
Great question. If a British PM behaved as Donald Trump did in the aftermath of losing a GE, do we have a mechanism to throw them out of politics? Surely we do.
If they were still an MP, then they could be kicked out of Parliament. A sufficiently-long suspension, as Johnson faced, or any custodial sentence would lead to a recall petition and a by-election, but there's nothing there that stops someone from standing again.
The Representation of the People Act 1981, in response to Bobby Sands, bars someone from being an MP if they are serving a sentence of more than a year. Trump hasn't been found guilty in a criminal trial yet, of course.
So I guess (as over there) you just have to rely on the voters then. If the voters go mad or bad, bang goes their democracy. At the end of the day maybe that's how it has to be.
Are you losing your conviction that Trump won't win?
But drugs are readily available in prison and prison does not reform, or certainly not always. Any number of interviews with ex prison staff, gangsters and former prisoners online or in the press or in book form confirms that.
And as for the two lads they took the risk. They need to accept the consequences. I'll shed no tears for them. Only their victims. The more victims they rolled over the braver and more fearless they would have got.
Criminals need to be segregated for public safety, and I think a deprivation of general liberty is appropriate, but the Victorian model of prisons should really have died out a long time ago.
I don't know if the public will ever seriously accept prison reform, sadly. Pretty much everyone with any contact with it knows that the system doesn't work, and to even approach working it would need truly vast investment. But too many who don't follow the issue are (understandably) pretty uncaring about prison conditions. Remember David Cameron's ludicrous claim about prisoners voting making him 'physically sick'?
I agree that a (fairly small) number of criminals require segregation from society, and also that illegal behaviour requires sanction, and among potential sanctions incarceration should be one. However, prisons are dangerous places where, as Taz notes, reform is rare and addictive illegal drugs are easily available.
On Topic: The Colorado judgement will probably be nullified by the SC but it's a step in the right direction. The price of trying to overturn the result of the last election with intimidation and violence should be that you can't stand in future elections. This is so blindingly obvious it shouldn't even need debating in sane circles. Sadly this doesn't include the GOP these days. They flunked doing the necessary back when Trump was impeached for the second time. It would have been a big brave call, a quarter of adult Americans are members of his cult, but they really should have made it. It was their patriotic duty. And deferring the problem has only made it worse. Things are going to get very messy stateside next year. Not one of my more original conclusions, I know, but there you go.
I'm wondering how similar events would be dealt with in the UK. The Representation of the People Act 1983 allows for someone to be barred from standing from election, as happened with Luftur Rahman. However, that is for conduct during an election, not for conduct after an election.
Great question. If a British PM behaved as Donald Trump did in the aftermath of losing a GE, do we have a mechanism to throw them out of politics? Surely we do.
If they were still an MP, then they could be kicked out of Parliament. A sufficiently-long suspension, as Johnson faced, or any custodial sentence would lead to a recall petition and a by-election, but there's nothing there that stops someone from standing again.
The Representation of the People Act 1981, in response to Bobby Sands, bars someone from being an MP if they are serving a sentence of more than a year. Trump hasn't been found guilty in a criminal trial yet, of course.
So I guess (as over there) you just have to rely on the voters then. If the voters go mad or bad, bang goes their democracy. At the end of the day maybe that's how it has to be.
Are you losing your conviction that Trump won't win?
The Telegraph, one of our most august journals, is doing some excellent work exposing Starmer as a lawyer.
A good while ago, a friend was assaulted and left badly brain damaged. Couple of kids did it. They claimed the fall and hitting his head was an accident.
His wife wasn’t so sure and got an expert on head injuries to look into the matter. I was astonished when she was shouted at by the prosecuting council outside the courtroom. Apparently her efforts were putting in jeopardy a plan to avoid prison for the two teenagers involved.
In the end they got short sentences.
A few years later, we heard, via her lawyer, that the two perpetrators had been badly injured themselves. It seemed that they had resumed their career of violent mugging - but had violently mugged a very nasty person in the local underworld. Makes you wonder if putting them away for a serious sentence would have saved them.
Roadmen meet real Gangsters, a good life lesson for them.
No - another fucking tragedy.
I saw what was left of my friend. You don’t wish that on anyone. Life changing injuries are a very euphemistic expression.
If they choose that lifestyle they have to accept the consequences that come with it and you will always come across someone tougher than you. So, for the Roadmen, this is a life lesson and a tragedy of their own making.
Their short sentence should have been a wake up call. A longer sentence may have been bad for them especially if the violent muggings are, or were, dependency related. Drugs are quite readily available in the boob after all.
“If they choose that lifestyle they have to accept the consequences that come with it”
What about the argument, once you get mixed up in gangs, it’s like being top secret rocket scientist or secret agent, they don’t let you go, you are their prisoner? So second chances to turn life round are very hard, and very unlikely to begin with any spell in prison?
A lot of young gangsters are (and probably always have been) vulnerable types who have been groomed and entangled with obligations and initiations, and often don't feel (correctly, in many cases) that they have other places to turn once they're in. Gangs are hard to leave, especially if you end up being a loose-end liability to them.
A better question maybe is why are gangs able to achieve such power? Generally it's about access to risky but lucrative markets for illegal substances or services. I'm not saying that legalising drugs, sex work, gambling etc and so on would get rid of gangs (there are push factors as well as pull factors - an unequal society also incentives gangster behaviour, plus protection and, increasingly, kidnapping is also a thing). But a sensible, objective look at the situation as a whole from arms' length surely provokes the discussion?
The Telegraph, one of our most august journals, is doing some excellent work exposing Starmer as a lawyer.
A good while ago, a friend was assaulted and left badly brain damaged. Couple of kids did it. They claimed the fall and hitting his head was an accident.
His wife wasn’t so sure and got an expert on head injuries to look into the matter. I was astonished when she was shouted at by the prosecuting council outside the courtroom. Apparently her efforts were putting in jeopardy a plan to avoid prison for the two teenagers involved.
In the end they got short sentences.
A few years later, we heard, via her lawyer, that the two perpetrators had been badly injured themselves. It seemed that they had resumed their career of violent mugging - but had violently mugged a very nasty person in the local underworld. Makes you wonder if putting them away for a serious sentence would have saved them.
Roadmen meet real Gangsters, a good life lesson for them.
No - another fucking tragedy.
I saw what was left of my friend. You don’t wish that on anyone. Life changing injuries are a very euphemistic expression.
If they choose that lifestyle they have to accept the consequences that come with it and you will always come across someone tougher than you. So, for the Roadmen, this is a life lesson and a tragedy of their own making.
Their short sentence should have been a wake up call. A longer sentence may have been bad for them especially if the violent muggings are, or were, dependency related. Drugs are quite readily available in the boob after all.
“If they choose that lifestyle they have to accept the consequences that come with it”
What about the argument, once you get mixed up in gangs, it’s like being top secret rocket scientist or secret agent, they don’t let you go, you are their prisoner? So second chances to turn life round are very hard, and very unlikely to begin with any spell in prison?
But then if they have left someone brain damaged, off to prison they must go, no shouting about it, no matter what my do good Christian side will try to argue.
But drugs are readily available in prison and prison does not reform, or certainly not always. Any number of interviews with ex prison staff, gangsters and former prisoners online or in the press or in book form confirms that.
And as for the two lads they took the risk. They need to accept the consequences. I'll shed no tears for them. Only their victims. The more victims they rolled over the braver and more fearless they would have got.
Criminals need to be segregated for public safety, and I think a deprivation of general liberty is appropriate, but the Victorian model of prisons should really have died out a long time ago.
I don't know if the public will ever seriously accept prison reform, sadly. Pretty much everyone with any contact with it knows that the system doesn't work, and to even approach working it would need truly vast investment. But too many who don't follow the issue are (understandably) pretty uncaring about prison conditions. Remember David Cameron's ludicrous claim about prisoners voting making him 'physically sick'?
I agree that a (fairly small) number of criminals require segregation from society, and also that illegal behaviour requires sanction, and among potential sanctions incarceration should be one. However, prisons are dangerous places where, as Taz notes, reform is rare and addictive illegal drugs are easily available.
Actually, I agreed with Cameron on that.
If you've broken the law to the extent you've a custodial sentence you shouldn't be allowed to vote to change it.
That doesn't mean prisoners voices and experiences can't still be heard, however.
The Telegraph, one of our most august journals, is doing some excellent work exposing Starmer as a lawyer.
A good while ago, a friend was assaulted and left badly brain damaged. Couple of kids did it. They claimed the fall and hitting his head was an accident.
His wife wasn’t so sure and got an expert on head injuries to look into the matter. I was astonished when she was shouted at by the prosecuting council outside the courtroom. Apparently her efforts were putting in jeopardy a plan to avoid prison for the two teenagers involved.
In the end they got short sentences.
A few years later, we heard, via her lawyer, that the two perpetrators had been badly injured themselves. It seemed that they had resumed their career of violent mugging - but had violently mugged a very nasty person in the local underworld. Makes you wonder if putting them away for a serious sentence would have saved them.
Roadmen meet real Gangsters, a good life lesson for them.
No - another fucking tragedy.
I saw what was left of my friend. You don’t wish that on anyone. Life changing injuries are a very euphemistic expression.
If they choose that lifestyle they have to accept the consequences that come with it and you will always come across someone tougher than you. So, for the Roadmen, this is a life lesson and a tragedy of their own making.
Their short sentence should have been a wake up call. A longer sentence may have been bad for them especially if the violent muggings are, or were, dependency related. Drugs are quite readily available in the boob after all.
My grandfather was a "road man" for the council before he retired in the 1960s, mostly involved in cutting back grass verges on rural roads. I will look on him in a new light now.
Comments
And as for the two lads they took the risk. They need to accept the consequences. I'll shed no tears for them. Only their victims. The more victims they rolled over the braver and more fearless they would have got.
I think this is a good thing - dealing out justice without training, backup or equipment on minimum wage is not a good idea.
Amazon are already trialling, in the US, secured entry/exit from their Amazon Fresh stores. As opposed to the turnstile type system they use now.
The classic case is the 1960 election. There was clear signs the Illinois and Texas votes, to name two, had been rigged to favour JFK. But Nixon decided to not press ahead as he felt doing so would have caused a greater threat, namely undermining the US as a whole.
It’s the same with Trump’s case. He should have been condemned, eviscerated etc but not prosecuted. The greater threat to US democracy is not a candidate who - one way or another - will be out of the picture by 2028. It is in opening up a massive can of worms and effectively baking into the US system the idea you pursue your political opponents in the courts. .
All these court cases are doing is feeding into Trump’s narrative that he is being persecuted and, as I said before, the failings of the US judicial system make that an appealing message to many.
The Colorado ruling also has the feeling to me of tactically forcing SCOTUS to decide and do so promptly. Keeping Trump on the ballot would also have been appealed, but there'd be no pressure on SCOTUS to take the case promptly, or indeed at all.
That is more of an intuitive view than a fully coherent one as I can't really justify why the old status quo of checkout staff is fairer to society than self checkouts with higher levels of shoplifting so open to persuasion.
Biden should have pardoned Trump.
It would have taken all the grievance out of his sails and just left him a diminished rather forlorn figure smarting about perceived injustices.
That, however, is a different matter to the Colorado case or to Nixon's decision, which involve specific rules around elections. It's interesting you praise Nixon. Presumably you condemn Trump for doing the reverse: Nixon chose not to challenge results despite some evidence of irregularities; Trump chose to challenge results despite no evidence of irregularities.
The problem here seems to be that the Constitution is really badly written. Not much we can do about that now. I think something like the UK's 1983 Representation of the Peoples Act is appropriate: if you mess with elections, you should be barred from standing for a period. But it's up to the US what its laws are.
Also, Trump has an inexhaustible supply of grievance.
Deduced from the constant nodding of the double chin (all you could see of the face) that it was a supporter ....turns out it's his pps one Williams..
This doesn't mean that the greater problem isn't around cuts to policing.
https://x.com/justice_forum/status/1737165994940924340
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-illusion-of-being-observed-can-make-you-better-person/
It is by no means a given.
Secondly, it wouldn't take the grievance out of Trump's sails. Nothing can, it's just what he does.
Thirdly, it would invite the response, "Ah, you see, they knew all along that Trump was innocent, and are panicking about the TRUTH coming out."
And they will in any event have to consider and rule on the immunity argument in the near future.
Bodhana Sivanandan, who got into chess ‘accidentally’ three years ago, described as a ‘phenomenon’
...
...
This summer, she was invited to 10 Downing Street and played chess with Rishi Sunak, before the government announced it was to invest £1m in the game to increase the number of English grandmasters.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/dec/20/british-girl-8-crowned-best-female-player-at-european-chess-tournament
Inflation, chess, suddenly it's all falling into place for the Prime Minister.
https://londonwelsh.org/
This is basic stuff. Come on.
The Nixon pardon was unpopular, but it was done for a reason (ostensibly, anyway - I know that much has been written behind the motives of Ford). The idea that it didn’t help the country to be re-litigating Nixons failures, and that it was time to move on. It was a precedent that could have been followed here, and may have prevented a Trump return.
Just seen a headline with Johnson wittering on about "bludgers and skivers" - I'm not even sure what a bludger is to be honest. I know there's an Australian political site called pollbludger (like PB but more politics and swearing and fewer travelogues).
I may not praise the Conservative Party that often but one of the best things they did was send Boris Johnson to political oblivion (to be fair, he was stabbed some 50 times so a bit more than Caesar)
Busy out and about this morning - the inflation number welcome and as in America I'm sure we'll see interest rates fall in the New Year (it's a pity for savers however who are enjoying their best spell for a generation). As 1997 showed, however, a good economy doesn't always save a bad Government.
I wonder for example whether the Government will seek to impose a lower fare increase for rail passengers than the pre-existing formula would have demanded (8%). Delaying any rise until March looks an electoral gesture and it wouldn't surprise me if any increase was at or even below inflation (thought which inflation ,measure remains to be seen).
They'd be mad not to raise every possible argument (albeit noting there is some evidence they are indeed mad). One of those would surely be that a factual finding that a person has been engaged in insurrection can only be based on conviction for a relevant offence. That's a legal rather than factual argument - there is clearly no dispute about the fact that he's not been convicted as at today's date, and the legal point is whether Colorado was entitled to make the factual finding he had in the absence of a conviction.
A problem for conservative justices on that, though, is that the Constitution could have referred to conviction, but doesn't. It requires more contortion for conservatives to read it in, as their natural position is "the constitution means what it says".
"Bodhana accidentally got interested in chess when she, as a five year old, asked her mum about the funny climbing frame that had popped up in her local park. Her mum explained it was actually a public chess set provided by Rishi Sunak and explained the basics of the game. The rest, as they say, is history"?
What about the argument, once you get mixed up in gangs, it’s like being top secret rocket scientist or secret agent, they don’t let you go, you are their prisoner? So second chances to turn life round are very hard, and very unlikely to begin with any spell in prison?
Hamas of course care nothing for the thousands of deaths they have instigated - indeed, they may be looking to the radiclaisation of the next generation of martyrs to perpetuate the struggle. I'm quite sure Israel is aware of the dilemma and this has tempered the response to a degree.
I will look on him in a new light now.
And to think he was once my go-to anti-Brexit poster.
Yea-ey, we wept, when we remembered Bre-con
There the wicked
Carried us away by the M53
Required from us a song
Now how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
A big problem is that, very often, most of their friends are criminals, so going straight means dumping their friends and sometimes family.
So proving them with a new social structure is quite important.
NEW THREAD
I agree that a (fairly small) number of criminals require segregation from society, and also that illegal behaviour requires sanction, and among potential sanctions incarceration should be one. However, prisons are dangerous places where, as Taz notes, reform is rare and addictive illegal drugs are easily available.
A better question maybe is why are gangs able to achieve such power? Generally it's about access to risky but lucrative markets for illegal substances or services. I'm not saying that legalising drugs, sex work, gambling etc and so on would get rid of gangs (there are push factors as well as pull factors - an unequal society also incentives gangster behaviour, plus protection and, increasingly, kidnapping is also a thing). But a sensible, objective look at the situation as a whole from arms' length surely provokes the discussion?
If you've broken the law to the extent you've a custodial sentence you shouldn't be allowed to vote to change it.
That doesn't mean prisoners voices and experiences can't still be heard, however.