Turkey, South Africa and Kenya also proposed - as was legislation incompatible with the ECHR.
Revealing of Blair's thought on the matter: ..Guidance from Home Office ministers was that such measures would breach the UN convention on refugees, with Blair scribbling on one document: “Just return them. This is precisely the point. We must not allow the ECHR to stop us dealing with it.”..
I don't understand why the ECHR is such an 'all or nothing' issue. If 'activist judges' are stopping the west deal with its problems and nearly all governments agree about this then just find a way to sideline/disregard them. Why do they have such a grip? How has this gone on and on with no conclusion for 20 years?
Why do judges have a grip on the law?
Hmmm...
More seriously, it's a requirement of EU and Council of Europe membership that we honour the ECHR. Now we've left the EU the former doesn't apply, but unless we want to have the same level of personal freedom as Russia or Belarus with their famous vistas through wide open windows, we wouldn't want to get rid of the second.
It is worth pointing out that we don't always, as a country, accept rulings on this point. Votes for prisoners springs to mind. But our governments are obliged to follow their laws and treaty obligations and however exasperating that can be at times the alternative is a great deal worse.
Except that Russia was a member of the Council of Europe and the ECHR as recently as 2021.
It left because of the [latest] invasion of Ukraine, not because of the fact its a one-party dictatorship which murders or imprisons its political opponents, with no rule of law, or media pluralism.
How about we have the same level of personal freedom as Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc none of which are in this failed institution?
What, the United Kingdom?
Edited - and it's not just the membership, it's the enforcement. That was my point, really.
What's the point?
The ECHR can't enforce anything, the Council of Europe didn't even have Putin's Russia sanctioned prior to the latest invasion of Ukraine for being a dictatorship with no rule of law, no media pluralism, no free and fair elections.
The ECHR's rules are only enforced if our own courts enforce them, which rather makes the ECHR as much use as teaching abstinence to teenagers as the sole method of avoiding STDs and teenage pregnancies.
If we leave the ECHR its not the end of the world and will make us like our fellow Common Law nations like Australia, New Zealand and Canada not Putin's Russia or Belarus. There's a very naïve parochialism which seeks to only compare us to European nations, there is a big wide world outside our tiny continent.
Another view is that we should keep the ECHR just do what Blair originally thought back in 2003, put in some 'reservations' about matters of essential national interest, like stopping illegal immigration. It would be better to do that than just ignore its rulings. Why the UK decide to follow and enforce all its rulings despite disagreeing with them, when others do not, is all quite confusing. Rather than going all in or all out, it could alternatively just let the court drift off in to irrelevance, through unilaterally imposing temporary carve outs on its influence due to 'overriding concerns of essential national interest'.
Going back to @ydoethur comments above, the problem is judicial activism and the expansion of influence that is quite political in nature and goes far beyond the original intentions in creating the court.
Many of the judges are politicians not independent judges in the way the UK is familiar with
“When you think about the family, it’s about stability. Most of the kids who struggle in Bury are the products of crap parents and so what do we do to try to address that issue? “On the left it would just be: we’ll throw money at this and hope something sticks. Somebody like me thinks about this more fundamentally.”..
The article doesn't reveal what prescriptions his 'more fundamental' thinking* suggests. Anyone ?
*Unless that was a polite way of saying he does his thinking with his arse ?
I don't think this is true any more (if it was ever true). Tory policies on welfare, especially limits on benefits for third and subsequent children and policies on benefits for disabled people as well as general incompetence around UC have pushed a lot of people into poverty who are not "crap parents" by any stretch of the imagination. This is just standard Tory victim blaming.
Sunak won't rule out a May general election as he wants to maximise his room for manoeuvre.
As with 2007 the polls will be key, Brown bottled as he failed to have a big enough poll lead to risk an autumn 2007 election and Sunak will bottle if he is not close enough in polls to Starmer by Labour
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
Sadly I’m not hopeful it will be any time soon, but someone somewhere in the US needs to reach across the aisle and try to calm things down a little.
Trying to disqualify DJT from standing isn’t going to help, it both makes a martyr of him and legitimises the idea that courts can stop people from standing for election who haven’t been found guilty of election-related offences. Politically, it makes his supporters more likely to turn out in November, and feeds into his narrative that ‘they’ are out to get him.
(I only recall the cases of Lutfur Rahman and Phil Woolas being banned from standing in the UK, both following convictions for electoral fraud).
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
So Maine has also banned Trump from their presidential ballots, joining Colorado which has already done so.
At the moment the impact is more on the primaries than the general election as both Maine and Colorado are Democrat leaning states and neither voted for Trump in 2016 or 2020 beyond one elector for Trump in ME-2.
However if more states follow Maine and Colorado in banning Trump from ballots that will make it more difficult for Trump to get to the 51%+ of delegates he needs from the GOP primaries and caucuses to be certain to be chosen as nominee by the GOP at the Republican convention next summer
The main reason for falling crime worldwide is, surely, ageing societies
Young people commit most crime. Fewer youngsters = less crime. This also explains the discrepancy in perception. Older people are more sensitive to crime. More old people = more perceived crime
Even controlling for demographics there's much less crime than should be expected, like-for-like. Young people today are far, far less like to both drink and commit crime than young people in the past.
There's very sound reasons why.
1: Legalised abortion - would-have-been criminals are disproportionately far more likely to be aborted so never born in the first place.
2: Technology - young people today are more likely to be at home looking at their phone or playing games than bored and getting up to no good on the streets.
3: Leaded fuel and paint, and its removal.
I think you are right on Item 2. Not so sure about the first and third. Yes they sound reasonable assumptions but I would like to see actual evidence for it. Assuming the bans remain, will crime be higher in US states with abortion bans compared to those without in a couple of decades? It will be interesting to see.
On the leaded fuel, there was a piece of research a number of years ago: lead was banned by different countries at different times, and the research showed that in all cases, crime associated with young (late teens, early twenties) people, such as street violence, fell dramatically about ten to fifteen* years after the banning of leaded fuel. The conclusion was that the critical period was around 5 to 10* years of age. The key fact was that because of the staggering of the bans, there was no other common factor that could explain the fall. * Note: these numbers may not be 100% accurate, due tolapses in my memory, but are in the ballpark.
Indeed. There's also comparable evidence, using the same logic of staggered dates too, to measure the abortion effect. The economists behind Freakonomics came up with this theory and its been expanded upon and further evidence has demonstrated it in the decades since it was released.
Just as there were staggered dates for the banning of lead in paint and fuel, there were staggered dates for the legalisation of abortion and you can see the corresponding fall in crime decades later that matches with those bans a generation earlier.
The US states which only legalised abortion with Roe v Wade had a later fall in crime rates than those which had legalised it earlier.
On a theoretical basis this theory makes sense - crime is committed more by people who as children their parents would not or could not support them, and abortion happens more when parents will not or can not support their child, so disproportionately abortion prevents future-criminals being born. On an evidentiary basis the evidence supports this too.
Now that's not to suggest that everyone has to support legalised abortion because of the crime effect. Policies of eugenics and forced sterilisation etc could also lower crime in the future by the same logic, but I would hope (almost) everyone here would oppose eugenics and forced sterilisation etc - its simply interesting that it is a real effect.
And yes I expect in 20-30 years time there will be a measurable difference between those states that have recently criminalised abortion and those which have not in America.
The core argument for the legal right to abortion (imo) is that without it you can't have even a semblance of gender equality.
And, yes, as a positive practical impact it's surely a good thing if children are wanted when they come into the world. Life can be hard enough to navigate without the awful start of your birth being something your mother wanted to prevent but was forced by the State to go through with.
More Pointless Brexit red tape adding costs for consumers and damaging our economy. The gift that keeps on giving.
The Good News is that Plan A is and remains 2nd May. Sunak may prove frit, but he won't move to rule out the date which the entire Treasury machine is now revolving around.
That means we can get a change of government and demolish some of this post-Brexit stupidity. What the Tories never understood is that outside of the EEA the UK is a small market, which makes it deeply unattractive if we set ourselves up where Uk standards are slightly off-set from the EEA ones because thats what 17.4m people voted for.
I hope so. Given the centrality of the poor supply of new housing in this country to all our problems, the fact that the government is loading a whole new set of costs on the construction sector in the name of some meaningless concept of sovereignty is quite incredible. Brexit seems to have made us mad.
Have you looked at Saint Gibson’s role in Grenfell? Or VW’s emissions testing?
Signing off your own quality standards is common place. Most countries do it for most products.
Increased regulation is usually a reaction to an indecent or accident. See the FAA allowing Boeing to sign off their own 737 Max as being airworthy, for a recent example of regulations being written in blood.
The Tories are going to lose so many council seats in May. These seats were the ones that should have been contested in 2020, but elections were delayed until 2021 because of Covid. The Tories did very well that year, NEV was Con 40%, Lab 30%. A repeat of 2023 would mean an 8 or 9% swing* - shellacking territory.
Using this as a stepping stone to an autumn election would be a less than ideal strategy for Sunak.
“When you think about the family, it’s about stability. Most of the kids who struggle in Bury are the products of crap parents and so what do we do to try to address that issue? “On the left it would just be: we’ll throw money at this and hope something sticks. Somebody like me thinks about this more fundamentally.”..
The article doesn't reveal what prescriptions his 'more fundamental' thinking* suggests. Anyone ?
*Unless that was a polite way of saying he does his thinking with his arse ?
He's not wrong.
But how do you fix it is another question.
As far as I'm aware the single biggest determiner of whether a teenager succeeds at school, or an adult succeeds economically, isn't class or race or sex, its reading. And in particular, do parents read to their children when they're young.
But how you fix that? How you resolve issues for kids of parents who can't or won't make an effort, can't or won't read to them. Kids that grow up in homes with no books? I have no magic answer to any of that.
Is reading to children a problem with "crap" parents? Or is it a problem with parents who weren't read to when they were young, or who are working long hours on poor pay, or who are otherwise struggling financially? Is it about family structures (a single parent or two parents, the role of other adults like grandparents)?
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
He has no shame.
Besides, it's unlikely he'd accept a pardon, which would imply he'd committed a crime - something he doesn't accept. If he'd been convicted, maybe; certainly not before.
There was plenty of chatter in 2020/21 as to whether Trump would or could pardon himself. The US constitution doesn't rule it out and I expect that if Trump believed it would give him immunity, he'd have done it - except that to accept a pardon is to admit a crime. Pardons have been refused on precisely that point.
The US Constitution does not explicitly rule out self-pardons, but some think a common law interpretation of it would rule out self-pardons. The matter has not been tested. It would have to go to the Supreme Court, who I am sure would issue a judgement based on a careful and extensive legal analysis and not just on whatever their own political biases want. (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha)
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
Sadly I’m not hopeful it will be any time soon, but someone somewhere in the US needs to reach across the aisle and try to calm things down a little.
Trying to disqualify DJT from standing isn’t going to help, it both makes a martyr of him and legitimises the idea that courts can stop people from standing for election who haven’t been found guilty of election-related offences. Politically, it makes his supporters more likely to turn out in November, and feeds into his narrative that ‘they’ are out to get him.
(I only recall the cases of Lutfur Rahman and Phil Woolas being banned from standing in the UK, both following convictions for electoral fraud).
These highly dodgy legal maneuvers against Trump are insane. One step closer to a new Civil War
They are probably pointless and certainly counter-productive
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
The Tories are going to lose so many council seats in May. These seats were the ones that should have been contested in 2020, but elections were delayed until 2021 because of Covid. The Tories did very well that year, NEV was Con 40%, Lab 30%. A repeat of 2023 would mean an 8 or 9% swing* - shellacking territory.
Using this as a stepping stone to an autumn election would be a less than ideal strategy for Sunak.
So what, voters in an autumn election aren't going to be influenced by what the council seat results were in May but the economic situation might be a bit different by then and immigration numbers might have started to come down.
On current polls the Tories will lose council seats whether a May or autumn poll
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
Sadly I’m not hopeful it will be any time soon, but someone somewhere in the US needs to reach across the aisle and try to calm things down a little.
Trying to disqualify DJT from standing isn’t going to help, it both makes a martyr of him and legitimises the idea that courts can stop people from standing for election who haven’t been found guilty of election-related offences. Politically, it makes his supporters more likely to turn out in November, and feeds into his narrative that ‘they’ are out to get him.
(I only recall the cases of Lutfur Rahman and Phil Woolas being banned from standing in the UK, both following convictions for electoral fraud).
Rahman, of course, stood again as soon as he could and was elected.
I think the thing about "Trying to disqualify DJT from standing" is that it is a mistake to merely see it as a political tactic. There is (poorly-phrased) text in the US Constitution that (possibly) applies. Even if 99.9% of people think it isn't going to help, you only need 1 person to bring a case and then the courts have to come up with an answer. So whether you think it is a wise move politically or not, the country is stuck with the law it has. (Such are the dangers of writing bad law!)
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
Sadly I’m not hopeful it will be any time soon, but someone somewhere in the US needs to reach across the aisle and try to calm things down a little.
Trying to disqualify DJT from standing isn’t going to help, it both makes a martyr of him and legitimises the idea that courts can stop people from standing for election who haven’t been found guilty of election-related offences. Politically, it makes his supporters more likely to turn out in November, and feeds into his narrative that ‘they’ are out to get him.
(I only recall the cases of Lutfur Rahman and Phil Woolas being banned from standing in the UK, both following convictions for electoral fraud).
They make it more difficult for Trump to win the GOP nomination though if he is banned from enough state ballots that he fails to win 50%+ of GOP delegates before the convention.
Trump then throwing his toys out the pram and standing as an independent in the states he is still on the ballot in against the official GOP nominee would then be the dream scenario for Biden and the Dems
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
Sadly I’m not hopeful it will be any time soon, but someone somewhere in the US needs to reach across the aisle and try to calm things down a little.
Trying to disqualify DJT from standing isn’t going to help, it both makes a martyr of him and legitimises the idea that courts can stop people from standing for election who haven’t been found guilty of election-related offences. Politically, it makes his supporters more likely to turn out in November, and feeds into his narrative that ‘they’ are out to get him.
(I only recall the cases of Lutfur Rahman and Phil Woolas being banned from standing in the UK, both following convictions for electoral fraud).
They make it more difficult for Trump to win the GOP nomination though if he is banned from enough state ballots that he fails to win 50%+ of GOP delegates before the convention.
Trump then throwing his toys out the pram and standing as an independent in the states he is still on the ballot in against the official GOP nominee would then be the dream scenario for Biden and the Dems
Or even Trump not standing but telling his supporters to vote third party or not vote will be a dream scenario for the Dems.
On topic, Sunak won't rule out a May election because that's the window he's aiming for.
However, he won't call a May election because despite the Tories' preparations, the polls will stick stubbornly against them and you don't call an election you'll get battered in, if there's still the prospect that 'something might turn up'. In March, October or November will look more attractive.
And hence, yes, Sunak will get called a bottler.
That said, I don't think it'll make much difference either way. Brown's reputation took a big hit because he had been seen as a commanding intellect running a strong economy; a man who could take difficult decisions and get them right; someone who could anticipate events and act in advance. A serious politician. The Election That Never Was undermined all that.
By contrast, Sunak is already seen as weak, prone to U-turns and someone to be pushed about by the internal Tory factions. Plus, public services, immigration and the economy will matter a good deal more than personal ratings, the foundations for which are mostly already baked in anyway.
Also if the polls are improving a bit by Spring (such that a less heavy defeat looks possible) the natural urge will be to give them time to improve a bit more and bring a hung parliament (or even a narrow win) into the frame. Either way (polls improving or not) the likely decision is to wait. But not to the bitter end (the risk/reward of that doesn't work at all) so Oct/Nov looks a strong fav to me. The only way I see May is if the polls have turned dramatically in the Cons favour by the end of Q1. Chances of this? Almost nil imo. Perceptions are too rooted now. You'd need some calamity befalling Labour and Starmer is all about ensuring that doesn't get a sniff of happening.
Yep, I think this is right. Sadly. October seems most likely.
The issue with that for Sunak is that he's almost certainly going to have to endure a terrible set of results in the May locals.
Is there anything that could give him a boost in the summer? Falling mortgages maybe? Tax cuts feeding through? The economy picking up a bit? Could sporting success at Euro 2024 and/or the Paris Olympics help? Anything else?
It's hard to see any of these moving the dial much but a small amount hope is better than no hope at all. If you're 3-0 down at 89mins you'd still rather see 10mins stoppage time added than 3mins, even though 10mins is unlikely to be enough.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
He has no shame.
Besides, it's unlikely he'd accept a pardon, which would imply he'd committed a crime - something he doesn't accept. If he'd been convicted, maybe; certainly not before.
There was plenty of chatter in 2020/21 as to whether Trump would or could pardon himself. The US constitution doesn't rule it out and I expect that if Trump believed it would give him immunity, he'd have done it - except that to accept a pardon is to admit a crime. Pardons have been refused on precisely that point.
Sure - this is why it’s a smart political comment. But post conviction I bet Trump would take the pardon
Probably the best single source of information on violent crime in the US is the Census Bureau's Victimization survey. It shows a rise in violent crime between 2021 and 2022: https://ncvs.bjs.ojp.gov/quick-graphics#quickgraphicstop
The FBI data, which is more commonly used, is incomplete. Many crimes are not reported, and some jurisdictions do not report to the FBI. (The FBI made a change in their methodology recently. You'd have to be a specialist to know whether that has affected their results, and, if so, how.)
The most accurate crime statistics for the US are, almost certainly, for murder and car theft.
As almost always, it helps to remember that national trends are composed of many states and cities, which have different policies. The "progressive" Brennan Center helpfully supplies this table of major cities, which shows that murders are down nationally, but sharply up in some cities.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Good question - it's a tough one.
Would you have approved of Hitler being shot in the 30s? (I would but I cannot shed the benefit of hindsight.)
What about Putin? (Me? No, because what follows could be worse.)
Trump poses an existential threat to US and thus Western democracy in my view. I think he needs to be stopped by any legal means possible.
“When you think about the family, it’s about stability. Most of the kids who struggle in Bury are the products of crap parents and so what do we do to try to address that issue? “On the left it would just be: we’ll throw money at this and hope something sticks. Somebody like me thinks about this more fundamentally.”..
The article doesn't reveal what prescriptions his 'more fundamental' thinking* suggests. Anyone ?
*Unless that was a polite way of saying he does his thinking with his arse ?
He's not wrong.
But how do you fix it is another question.
As far as I'm aware the single biggest determiner of whether a teenager succeeds at school, or an adult succeeds economically, isn't class or race or sex, its reading. And in particular, do parents read to their children when they're young.
But how you fix that? How you resolve issues for kids of parents who can't or won't make an effort, can't or won't read to them. Kids that grow up in homes with no books? I have no magic answer to any of that.
My parents did not read to me. You might be looking at this through middle class blinkers. Teaching children to read is the school's job (or the television's) not the parents. You might be right that it would help if parents did read to their children.
On topic, Sunak won't rule out a May election because that's the window he's aiming for.
However, he won't call a May election because despite the Tories' preparations, the polls will stick stubbornly against them and you don't call an election you'll get battered in, if there's still the prospect that 'something might turn up'. In March, October or November will look more attractive.
And hence, yes, Sunak will get called a bottler.
That said, I don't think it'll make much difference either way. Brown's reputation took a big hit because he had been seen as a commanding intellect running a strong economy; a man who could take difficult decisions and get them right; someone who could anticipate events and act in advance. A serious politician. The Election That Never Was undermined all that.
By contrast, Sunak is already seen as weak, prone to U-turns and someone to be pushed about by the internal Tory factions. Plus, public services, immigration and the economy will matter a good deal more than personal ratings, the foundations for which are mostly already baked in anyway.
Also if the polls are improving a bit by Spring (such that a less heavy defeat looks possible) the natural urge will be to give them time to improve a bit more and bring a hung parliament (or even a narrow win) into the frame. Either way (polls improving or not) the likely decision is to wait. But not to the bitter end (the risk/reward of that doesn't work at all) so Oct/Nov looks a strong fav to me. The only way I see May is if the polls have turned dramatically in the Cons favour by the end of Q1. Chances of this? Almost nil imo. Perceptions are too rooted now. You'd need some calamity befalling Labour and Starmer is all about ensuring that doesn't get a sniff of happening.
Yep, I think this is right. Sadly. October seems most likely.
The issue with that for Sunak is that he's almost certainly going to have to endure a terrible set of results in the May locals.
Is there anything that could give him a boost in the summer? Falling mortgages maybe? Tax cuts feeding through? The economy picking up a bit? Could sporting success at Euro 2024 and/or the Paris Olympics help? Anything else?
It's hard to see any of these moving the dial much but a small amount hope is better than no hope at all. If you're 3-0 down at 89mins you'd still rather see 10mins stoppage time added than 3mins, even though 10mins is unlikely to be enough.
I’ve always thought it was going to be 24th October, but am now leaning towards 2nd May.
The changing factors being the expected shellacking at the local elections, the bringing forward of the NI cut to January, and the King announcing plans to be overseas for most of October.
Just about the only black swan in the government’s favour could be England winning the Euros, or perhaps rapidly falling interest rates making mortgages cheaper, but many people will be still on fixed rates.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
It seems clear that the electorate has had enough of tories in power as long as the populist jacobin right is in place to enforce bad decisions in the name of a very narrow electoral segment. Boris Johnson one called Starmer a "human bollard" but given the nonstop drama division and antipragmatic stance of the erg, natcon style tories, which sours the business and planning environment for fdi, makes collaboration with our closes trading partners difficult, disrupts the nhs, insists upon ever more unfeasible tax cuts when the public finances are dire... a human bollard seems very appealing indeed. People just want a party in government that isn't split 8 different ways and can implement a strategy... any strategy at all. And hence the tories will not win the GE no matter how long they wait.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
I have no idea, I'm not the one who said "by any means necessary"
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
Do you think that all it would take to turn the US into a dictatorship would be for one man with bad thoughts to become President?
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
I have no idea, I'm not the one who said "by any means necessary"
But you had a clear idea of the logic a few minutes ago.
The old Leon would have owned the idea of a Putin-lite dictator brutalising the United States. But we all mellow.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Good question - it's a tough one.
Would you have approved of Hitler being shot in the 30s? (I would but I cannot shed the benefit of hindsight.)
What about Putin? (Me? No, because what follows could be worse.)
Trump poses an existential threat to US and thus Western democracy in my view. I think he needs to be stopped by any legal means possible.
So - and this is not a facetious question - you would stop short at internment without trial, or something violent?
Fair enough
I suspect - as I have mentioned here before - there are Dems who believe that, if it came to it, "by any means necessary" should and could include assassination
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
Do you think that all it would take to turn the US into a dictatorship would be for one man with bad thoughts to become President?
I suppose that, in addition, his supporters would need to storm Congress seeking out their political opponents, or something like that.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
I have no idea, I'm not the one who said "by any means necessary"
But you had a clear idea of the logic a few minutes ago.
The old Leon would have owned the idea of a Putin-lite dictator brutalising the United States. But we all mellow.
I'm being kind
To me, and to be honest, "taking Trump down by any means necessary" clearly includes - indeed, it positively suggests - the possibility of assassination
BBC Radio haters - there are some on PB - will hate the wonderful annual Looking Ahead 2024 prog on this evening at 8 pm. Radio at its best. Recommended:
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Good question - it's a tough one.
Would you have approved of Hitler being shot in the 30s? (I would but I cannot shed the benefit of hindsight.)
What about Putin? (Me? No, because what follows could be worse.)
Trump poses an existential threat to US and thus Western democracy in my view. I think he needs to be stopped by any legal means possible.
So - and this is not a facetious question - you would stop short at internment without trial, or something violent?
Fair enough
I suspect - as I have mentioned here before - there are Dems who believe that, if it came to it, "by any means necessary" should and could include assassination
Yes, on reflection I'd have to.
And were this 1933 I'd be saying the same about Hitler, which would turn out to be a tragic mistake.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
Do you think that all it would take to turn the US into a dictatorship would be for one man with bad thoughts to become President?
I suppose that, in addition, his supporters would need to storm Congress seeking out their political opponents, or something like that.
Trump doesn't need that if he can corrupt political institutions from the oval office. I think it is quite clear: it will be very very difficult to get rid of him if he gets elected and NATO would be toast. It would ironically be a disaster for brexit britain if Trump.wins, as we would most likely lose our security guarantees and find ourself totally alone. Brexiteers should know that Trump winning the presidential election would throw britain directly into the arms of Europe. Every cloud has a silver lining I guess. 🤷
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Bit lurid for my taste. The truth is, I have a strong intuition that US24 ends up with Donald Trump not back in the WH but I can't say for certain what the exact route is. It's a volatile complex situation. There are numerous ways to get from here to Not Trump in November. The best one (imo) would be it becomes clear enough soon enough that he can't win nationally and the GOP pick someone else as their candidate.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Bit lurid for my taste. The truth is, I have a strong intuition that US24 ends up with Donald Trump not back in the WH but I can't say for certain what the exact route is. It's a volatile complex situation. There are numerous ways to get from here to Not Trump in November. The best one (imo) would be it becomes clear enough soon enough that he can't win nationally and the GOP pick someone else as their candidate.
You're the one that said "by any means necessary", which obviously includes the possibility of violence. So you now resile from that?
Turkey, South Africa and Kenya also proposed - as was legislation incompatible with the ECHR.
Revealing of Blair's thought on the matter: ..Guidance from Home Office ministers was that such measures would breach the UN convention on refugees, with Blair scribbling on one document: “Just return them. This is precisely the point. We must not allow the ECHR to stop us dealing with it.”..
Why Mull? Why not go the whole hog and stick them on St Kilda? Or Rockall?
There seems to be something really weird in the British (or is it the Home Office?) psyche here.
Just return them is fine. Assuming you know where they have come from, and can assure their safety. Which we often can’t.
Someone in the Cabinet Office probably thought it would be amusing to Mull it over.
M. Howard commented that, in response to any crisis, the civil servants at the Home Office would produce a pile of policy proposals they had in various cupboards.
And that it was the duty of a Home Sec. to say no to each and every one.
The description of the meeting after the Brighton Bombing - Thatcher said no to a range of measures that ranged from insane to Donald Trump++
No matter what the problem or event, the HO answer is ID cards backed with a massive database of everyone.
The mandarins have been proposing the same thing now for several decades, in response to every terrorist attack, mass-casualty event, or natural disaster. Thankfully, the dozens of ministers who have been in the HO in the last half century, have kept telling them to go swing.
Not that I am particularly keen, but national ID cards isn't a completely daft solution to illegal immigration etc.
The daftness is in the insane proposals to link it to a mega database of everything about everyone.
And give access to everyone (Important People were to have their data on a separate, slavery secure system).
And which gets attached to every U.K. ID card proposal.
And which was just starting implantation when the Coalition cancelled the last attempt at ID cards.
Which would break a host of European data protection requirements, incidentally.
ID cards have had a number of issues over the years. 1) the database 2) they were not mandatory to have 3) they were not mandatory to carry 4) if the police did have the powers to charge people for not presenting one they'd not bother because of the time and the paperwork 5) generally people that will be most disadvantaged by the policy can't afford to get one
Though other countries do make them mandatory to carry. Why can't we?
The reason is that we prize the freedom not to, but that freedom comes at the price of difficulty enforcing borders.
Borders and cards have nothing to do with each other.
Switzerland does well at controlling its borders and has only a voluntary ID card system, its border enforcement has nothing to do with those cards.
Switzerland is guarded by some rather spectacular mountains.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Bit lurid for my taste. The truth is, I have a strong intuition that US24 ends up with Donald Trump not back in the WH but I can't say for certain what the exact route is. It's a volatile complex situation. There are numerous ways to get from here to Not Trump in November. The best one (imo) would be it becomes clear enough soon enough that he can't win nationally and the GOP pick someone else as their candidate.
2020-21 should have taught us that Not X in November does not mean Not X in January.
On topic, Sunak won't rule out a May election because that's the window he's aiming for.
However, he won't call a May election because despite the Tories' preparations, the polls will stick stubbornly against them and you don't call an election you'll get battered in, if there's still the prospect that 'something might turn up'. In March, October or November will look more attractive.
And hence, yes, Sunak will get called a bottler.
That said, I don't think it'll make much difference either way. Brown's reputation took a big hit because he had been seen as a commanding intellect running a strong economy; a man who could take difficult decisions and get them right; someone who could anticipate events and act in advance. A serious politician. The Election That Never Was undermined all that.
By contrast, Sunak is already seen as weak, prone to U-turns and someone to be pushed about by the internal Tory factions. Plus, public services, immigration and the economy will matter a good deal more than personal ratings, the foundations for which are mostly already baked in anyway.
Also if the polls are improving a bit by Spring (such that a less heavy defeat looks possible) the natural urge will be to give them time to improve a bit more and bring a hung parliament (or even a narrow win) into the frame. Either way (polls improving or not) the likely decision is to wait. But not to the bitter end (the risk/reward of that doesn't work at all) so Oct/Nov looks a strong fav to me. The only way I see May is if the polls have turned dramatically in the Cons favour by the end of Q1. Chances of this? Almost nil imo. Perceptions are too rooted now. You'd need some calamity befalling Labour and Starmer is all about ensuring that doesn't get a sniff of happening.
Yep, I think this is right. Sadly. October seems most likely.
The issue with that for Sunak is that he's almost certainly going to have to endure a terrible set of results in the May locals.
Is there anything that could give him a boost in the summer? Falling mortgages maybe? Tax cuts feeding through? The economy picking up a bit? Could sporting success at Euro 2024 and/or the Paris Olympics help? Anything else?
It's hard to see any of these moving the dial much but a small amount hope is better than no hope at all. If you're 3-0 down at 89mins you'd still rather see 10mins stoppage time added than 3mins, even though 10mins is unlikely to be enough.
I’ve always thought it was going to be 24th October, but am now leaning towards 2nd May.
The changing factors being the expected shellacking at the local elections, the bringing forward of the NI cut to January, and the King announcing plans to be overseas for most of October.
Just about the only black swan in the government’s favour could be England winning the Euros, or perhaps rapidly falling interest rates making mortgages cheaper, but many people will be still on fixed rates.
Also I don't see mortgage rates dropping that quickly although it would be useful for Twin A...
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Bit lurid for my taste. The truth is, I have a strong intuition that US24 ends up with Donald Trump not back in the WH but I can't say for certain what the exact route is. It's a volatile complex situation. There are numerous ways to get from here to Not Trump in November. The best one (imo) would be it becomes clear enough soon enough that he can't win nationally and the GOP pick someone else as their candidate.
You're the one that said "by any means necessary", which obviously includes the possibility of violence. So you now resile from that?
You, of all people, should appreciate ill judged hyperbole. Resile, forsooth.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
Do you think that all it would take to turn the US into a dictatorship would be for one man with bad thoughts to become President?
I don’t. I think it would need that man to be supported by an extremist and anti-democratic political movement connected to media sources producing disinformation, backed up by an army of “useful idiots” posting to social media and online forums.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
Do you think that all it would take to turn the US into a dictatorship would be for one man with bad thoughts to become President?
No, I don't think it's that easy. But it's not necessarily that difficult either -- there are plenty of current and historical examples of countries sliding from democratic to sort of democratic to autocratic and merely preserving a veneer of democracy. It does require somebody with the ruthlessness and effectiveness to pull it off, by taking advantage of the powers of their position to gradually increase their chances of reelection and marginalise their opponents. And I think in the Trump case that's one ray of hope -- last time around he didn't seem to be exactly laser focused on cementing himself in power, and what he did do wasn't as effective as a more competent politician might have been able to do in the same position. I hope we don't have to find out whether second time around he's learnt from the first time.
(Also, for a long term dictatorship it really would have to be somebody younger -- at Trump's age, even in a worst case scenario it would be likely to unravel to somewhat more status quo when he died.)
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
Do you think that all it would take to turn the US into a dictatorship would be for one man with bad thoughts to become President?
I don’t. I think it would need that man to be supported by an extremist and anti-democratic political movement connected to media sources producing disinformation, backed up by an army of “useful idiots” posting to social media and online forums.
And this all failed to materialise in 2016-2020 just because Mike Pence escaped the mob?
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
Why do you dislike Louise so much?
Because I spent a month knocking on doors and posting leaflets for her ahead of the 2010 election, then she decided she couldn’t be arsed to serve as an MP after a couple of years.
There are plenty of people in the US who think any means necessary should be used to stop their political opponents. They are the ones making death threats against Colorado judges or breaking into Nancy Pelosi’s house. They are the ones tweeting about the 2nd Amendment. The threat of political violence in the US is overwhelmingly from the right.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
What was Louise Mensch's crime to beat the likes of Fiona Onasanya, Nadine Dorries, Margaret Ferrier, Christopher Chope, Claudia Webbe, Chris Huhne ffs!, ... and too many others to list?
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
Do you think that all it would take to turn the US into a dictatorship would be for one man with bad thoughts to become President?
I don’t. I think it would need that man to be supported by an extremist and anti-democratic political movement connected to media sources producing disinformation, backed up by an army of “useful idiots” posting to social media and online forums.
And this all failed to materialise in 2016-2020 just because Mike Pence escaped the mob?
A friend of mine, who ironically works on risk management, once narrowly avoided stabbing herself in the eye while using a screwdriver to extract an old nail. So, she continued doing what she had done before and, guess what? She ended up stabbing herself in the eye. (Fortunately, no permanent damage was done.)
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
Why do you dislike Louise so much?
Because I spent a month knocking on doors and posting leaflets for her ahead of the 2010 election, then she decided she couldn’t be arsed to serve as an MP after a couple of years.
I would be annoyed too.
Jared O'Mara was also the worst PM of all time but the current Tory intake are running a close second.
“When you think about the family, it’s about stability. Most of the kids who struggle in Bury are the products of crap parents and so what do we do to try to address that issue? “On the left it would just be: we’ll throw money at this and hope something sticks. Somebody like me thinks about this more fundamentally.”..
The article doesn't reveal what prescriptions his 'more fundamental' thinking* suggests. Anyone ?
*Unless that was a polite way of saying he does his thinking with his arse ?
He's not wrong.
But how do you fix it is another question.
As far as I'm aware the single biggest determiner of whether a teenager succeeds at school, or an adult succeeds economically, isn't class or race or sex, its reading. And in particular, do parents read to their children when they're young.
But how you fix that? How you resolve issues for kids of parents who can't or won't make an effort, can't or won't read to them. Kids that grow up in homes with no books? I have no magic answer to any of that.
My parents did not read to me. You might be looking at this through middle class blinkers. Teaching children to read is the school's job (or the television's) not the parents. You might be right that it would help if parents did read to their children.
I could not disagree with you more forcefully - it is never television's job to do the parenting, and if it is "middle class" to read to children, then that's part of the class divide, because reading is so incredibly important.
Schools have a critical role to play in education, but if a child isn't read to when they're young then they're starting school behind their peers and with a more limited vocabulary than their peers.
And if a child doesn't read for pleasure then they're even further behind, and the bug of wanting to read for pleasure in no small part is instilled by whether or not parents read to them when they were young.
That's not seeking to besmirch your parents, I'm sure they were loving in other ways, but it is a crucial things for parents to do and not doing it is a real shame.
Turkey, South Africa and Kenya also proposed - as was legislation incompatible with the ECHR.
Revealing of Blair's thought on the matter: ..Guidance from Home Office ministers was that such measures would breach the UN convention on refugees, with Blair scribbling on one document: “Just return them. This is precisely the point. We must not allow the ECHR to stop us dealing with it.”..
Why Mull? Why not go the whole hog and stick them on St Kilda? Or Rockall?
There seems to be something really weird in the British (or is it the Home Office?) psyche here.
Just return them is fine. Assuming you know where they have come from, and can assure their safety. Which we often can’t.
Someone in the Cabinet Office probably thought it would be amusing to Mull it over.
M. Howard commented that, in response to any crisis, the civil servants at the Home Office would produce a pile of policy proposals they had in various cupboards.
And that it was the duty of a Home Sec. to say no to each and every one.
The description of the meeting after the Brighton Bombing - Thatcher said no to a range of measures that ranged from insane to Donald Trump++
No matter what the problem or event, the HO answer is ID cards backed with a massive database of everyone.
The mandarins have been proposing the same thing now for several decades, in response to every terrorist attack, mass-casualty event, or natural disaster. Thankfully, the dozens of ministers who have been in the HO in the last half century, have kept telling them to go swing.
Not that I am particularly keen, but national ID cards isn't a completely daft solution to illegal immigration etc.
The daftness is in the insane proposals to link it to a mega database of everything about everyone.
And give access to everyone (Important People were to have their data on a separate, slavery secure system).
And which gets attached to every U.K. ID card proposal.
And which was just starting implantation when the Coalition cancelled the last attempt at ID cards.
Which would break a host of European data protection requirements, incidentally.
ID cards have had a number of issues over the years. 1) the database 2) they were not mandatory to have 3) they were not mandatory to carry 4) if the police did have the powers to charge people for not presenting one they'd not bother because of the time and the paperwork 5) generally people that will be most disadvantaged by the policy can't afford to get one
Though other countries do make them mandatory to carry. Why can't we?
The reason is that we prize the freedom not to, but that freedom comes at the price of difficulty enforcing borders.
Borders and cards have nothing to do with each other.
Switzerland does well at controlling its borders and has only a voluntary ID card system, its border enforcement has nothing to do with those cards.
Switzerland is guarded by some rather spectacular mountains.
More to the point, in Switzerland, employers who employ illegals potentially face jail.
“When you think about the family, it’s about stability. Most of the kids who struggle in Bury are the products of crap parents and so what do we do to try to address that issue? “On the left it would just be: we’ll throw money at this and hope something sticks. Somebody like me thinks about this more fundamentally.”..
The article doesn't reveal what prescriptions his 'more fundamental' thinking* suggests. Anyone ?
*Unless that was a polite way of saying he does his thinking with his arse ?
He's not wrong.
But how do you fix it is another question.
As far as I'm aware the single biggest determiner of whether a teenager succeeds at school, or an adult succeeds economically, isn't class or race or sex, its reading. And in particular, do parents read to their children when they're young.
But how you fix that? How you resolve issues for kids of parents who can't or won't make an effort, can't or won't read to them. Kids that grow up in homes with no books? I have no magic answer to any of that.
Make reading cool. Make reading to your kids the in thing to boast about on Instagram…
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Bit lurid for my taste. The truth is, I have a strong intuition that US24 ends up with Donald Trump not back in the WH but I can't say for certain what the exact route is. It's a volatile complex situation. There are numerous ways to get from here to Not Trump in November. The best one (imo) would be it becomes clear enough soon enough that he can't win nationally and the GOP pick someone else as their candidate.
2020-21 should have taught us that Not X in November does not mean Not X in January.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
Why do you dislike Louise so much?
Because I spent a month knocking on doors and posting leaflets for her ahead of the 2010 election, then she decided she couldn’t be arsed to serve as an MP after a couple of years.
I can always forgive the towering literary genius behind Career Girls.
Turkey, South Africa and Kenya also proposed - as was legislation incompatible with the ECHR.
Revealing of Blair's thought on the matter: ..Guidance from Home Office ministers was that such measures would breach the UN convention on refugees, with Blair scribbling on one document: “Just return them. This is precisely the point. We must not allow the ECHR to stop us dealing with it.”..
Why Mull? Why not go the whole hog and stick them on St Kilda? Or Rockall?
There seems to be something really weird in the British (or is it the Home Office?) psyche here.
Just return them is fine. Assuming you know where they have come from, and can assure their safety. Which we often can’t.
Someone in the Cabinet Office probably thought it would be amusing to Mull it over.
M. Howard commented that, in response to any crisis, the civil servants at the Home Office would produce a pile of policy proposals they had in various cupboards.
And that it was the duty of a Home Sec. to say no to each and every one.
The description of the meeting after the Brighton Bombing - Thatcher said no to a range of measures that ranged from insane to Donald Trump++
No matter what the problem or event, the HO answer is ID cards backed with a massive database of everyone.
The mandarins have been proposing the same thing now for several decades, in response to every terrorist attack, mass-casualty event, or natural disaster. Thankfully, the dozens of ministers who have been in the HO in the last half century, have kept telling them to go swing.
Not that I am particularly keen, but national ID cards isn't a completely daft solution to illegal immigration etc.
The daftness is in the insane proposals to link it to a mega database of everything about everyone.
And give access to everyone (Important People were to have their data on a separate, slavery secure system).
And which gets attached to every U.K. ID card proposal.
And which was just starting implantation when the Coalition cancelled the last attempt at ID cards.
Which would break a host of European data protection requirements, incidentally.
ID cards have had a number of issues over the years. 1) the database 2) they were not mandatory to have 3) they were not mandatory to carry 4) if the police did have the powers to charge people for not presenting one they'd not bother because of the time and the paperwork 5) generally people that will be most disadvantaged by the policy can't afford to get one
Though other countries do make them mandatory to carry. Why can't we?
The reason is that we prize the freedom not to, but that freedom comes at the price of difficulty enforcing borders.
Borders and cards have nothing to do with each other.
Switzerland does well at controlling its borders and has only a voluntary ID card system, its border enforcement has nothing to do with those cards.
Switzerland is guarded by some rather spectacular mountains.
More to the point, in Switzerland, employers who employ illegals potentially face jail.
They do in England too, but in England they're not likely to get caught or face justice if they are. And in England more importantly the illegals are punished too (and more severely) when the employers are caught.
In Switzerland the illegals are rewarded for reporting their employers.
If employer and employee both have an incentive to cover up illegal behaviour, then that's when you have serious problems. Change the incentives, people change their behaviour.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
Why do you dislike Louise so much?
Because I spent a month knocking on doors and posting leaflets for her ahead of the 2010 election, then she decided she couldn’t be arsed to serve as an MP after a couple of years.
I would be annoyed too.
Jared O'Mara was also the worst PM of all time but the current Tory intake are running a close second.
Actual terrorists have been elected as MPs. O’Mara was terrible, but he wasn’t a terrorist. Nor was he a rapist. Two MPs have been convicted of sexual assault.
So Maine has also banned Trump from their presidential ballots, joining Colorado which has already done so.
At the moment the impact is more on the primaries than the general election as both Maine and Colorado are Democrat leaning states and neither voted for Trump in 2016 or 2020 beyond one elector for Trump in ME-2.
However if more states follow Maine and Colorado in banning Trump from ballots that will make it more difficult for Trump to get to the 51%+ of delegates he needs from the GOP primaries and caucuses to be certain to be chosen as nominee by the GOP at the Republican convention next summer
The other point is that there will be a lot of people paying zero attention to politics, and moves such as this do push the concerns about the proto-dictator high up the news.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
Do you think that all it would take to turn the US into a dictatorship would be for one man with bad thoughts to become President?
I don’t. I think it would need that man to be supported by an extremist and anti-democratic political movement connected to media sources producing disinformation, backed up by an army of “useful idiots” posting to social media and online forums.
And this all failed to materialise in 2016-2020 just because Mike Pence escaped the mob?
A friend of mine, who ironically works on risk management, once narrowly avoided stabbing herself in the eye while using a screwdriver to extract an old nail. So, she continued doing what she had done before and, guess what? She ended up stabbing herself in the eye. (Fortunately, no permanent damage was done.)
The flaw in the system is letting people choose their own leaders. It gives them the idea that they're in charge and it runs the risk of them choosing a bad person. You might get away with it a few times but eventually you'll get stabbed in the eye.
The best way to save democracy is therefore to take it out of the hands of the people and appoint the most qualified candidate directly.
The only thing the next Labour government needs to do is simple: build more houses.
If they fail on that, I'll be ripping up my membership card and abstaining.
They won't, but they should abolish or seriously reform planning to enable people to build houses crashing the planning premium that currently exists that makes land with permission worth potentially 10x to 100x land without it.
Its not land we have a shortage of in this country, its permission, which is why land with permission is so valuable and land without is not.
Address that, the housing crisis would be solved within a few years.
There's no divine reason to require planning consent. Prior to the mistake of introducing it, England had no shortage of housing as people would just build houses whenever they were needed and land was only about 2% of the cost of housing at the time. Now land is about a third of the value of the house.
Bring land back down to 2% of the value of the house, and housing costs would plummet and people would be far, far better off.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
Do you think that all it would take to turn the US into a dictatorship would be for one man with bad thoughts to become President?
I don’t. I think it would need that man to be supported by an extremist and anti-democratic political movement connected to media sources producing disinformation, backed up by an army of “useful idiots” posting to social media and online forums.
And this all failed to materialise in 2016-2020 just because Mike Pence escaped the mob?
A friend of mine, who ironically works on risk management, once narrowly avoided stabbing herself in the eye while using a screwdriver to extract an old nail. So, she continued doing what she had done before and, guess what? She ended up stabbing herself in the eye. (Fortunately, no permanent damage was done.)
The flaw in the system is letting people choose their own leaders. It gives them the idea that they're in charge and it runs the risk of them choosing a bad person. You might get away with it a few times but eventually you'll get stabbed in the eye.
The best way to save democracy is therefore to take it out of the hands of the people and appoint the most qualified candidate directly.
Yes, I am aware that several Republican politicians in the US have more or less proposed this. More evidence of the problems in the US right.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
Why do you dislike Louise so much?
Because I spent a month knocking on doors and posting leaflets for her ahead of the 2010 election, then she decided she couldn’t be arsed to serve as an MP after a couple of years.
I would be annoyed too.
Jared O'Mara was also the worst PM of all time but the current Tory intake are running a close second.
Being useless (as well as being not that uncommon) cannot possibly be worse than being corrupt or mendacious or in the pocket of a foreign power.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
Do you think that all it would take to turn the US into a dictatorship would be for one man with bad thoughts to become President?
I don’t. I think it would need that man to be supported by an extremist and anti-democratic political movement connected to media sources producing disinformation, backed up by an army of “useful idiots” posting to social media and online forums.
And this all failed to materialise in 2016-2020 just because Mike Pence escaped the mob?
No, because Trump didn't really understand how the politics of dictatorship works. Fortunately, he still doesn't - though he understands it better.
As well as the points needed above is, crucially, a toleration of violence against those the system deems to be social outsiders. See the South, blacks and the Klan for an example. Or Russia, now.
How do you turn any country into a dictatorship while preserving a figleaf of democracy and the rule of law in the constitution? Intimidation. You have to prove that there is a price to be paid for going against the regime, and that the system of law will act on the side of the regime, not on the letter of the law. And you have to create the expectation that there *will* be a price to be paid.
Turkey, South Africa and Kenya also proposed - as was legislation incompatible with the ECHR.
Revealing of Blair's thought on the matter: ..Guidance from Home Office ministers was that such measures would breach the UN convention on refugees, with Blair scribbling on one document: “Just return them. This is precisely the point. We must not allow the ECHR to stop us dealing with it.”..
Why Mull? Why not go the whole hog and stick them on St Kilda? Or Rockall?
There seems to be something really weird in the British (or is it the Home Office?) psyche here.
Just return them is fine. Assuming you know where they have come from, and can assure their safety. Which we often can’t.
Someone in the Cabinet Office probably thought it would be amusing to Mull it over.
M. Howard commented that, in response to any crisis, the civil servants at the Home Office would produce a pile of policy proposals they had in various cupboards.
And that it was the duty of a Home Sec. to say no to each and every one.
The description of the meeting after the Brighton Bombing - Thatcher said no to a range of measures that ranged from insane to Donald Trump++
No matter what the problem or event, the HO answer is ID cards backed with a massive database of everyone.
The mandarins have been proposing the same thing now for several decades, in response to every terrorist attack, mass-casualty event, or natural disaster. Thankfully, the dozens of ministers who have been in the HO in the last half century, have kept telling them to go swing.
Not that I am particularly keen, but national ID cards isn't a completely daft solution to illegal immigration etc.
The daftness is in the insane proposals to link it to a mega database of everything about everyone.
And give access to everyone (Important People were to have their data on a separate, slavery secure system).
And which gets attached to every U.K. ID card proposal.
And which was just starting implantation when the Coalition cancelled the last attempt at ID cards.
Which would break a host of European data protection requirements, incidentally.
ID cards have had a number of issues over the years. 1) the database 2) they were not mandatory to have 3) they were not mandatory to carry 4) if the police did have the powers to charge people for not presenting one they'd not bother because of the time and the paperwork 5) generally people that will be most disadvantaged by the policy can't afford to get one
Though other countries do make them mandatory to carry. Why can't we?
The reason is that we prize the freedom not to, but that freedom comes at the price of difficulty enforcing borders.
Borders and cards have nothing to do with each other.
Switzerland does well at controlling its borders and has only a voluntary ID card system, its border enforcement has nothing to do with those cards.
Switzerland is guarded by some rather spectacular mountains.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
What was Louise Mensch's crime to beat the likes of Fiona Onasanya, Nadine Dorries, Margaret Ferrier, Christopher Chope, Claudia Webbe, Chris Huhne ffs!, ... and too many others to list?
(Jared - fair enough.)
A good cross-party list of bad-uns, but unlike Louise I didn’t go canvassing for them!
I think that every election with a large swing generates a few unexpected MPs, many of whom weren’t very well vetted. We saw it in 2010, 2017, and 2019, and will likely see it again in 2024. I still have to laugh when it comes out that some new MP said something horrifically racist on Twitter a decade ago - the parties are all terrible at vetting their candidates, and the candidates themselves are terrible at deleting stuff they don’t want to be public, before announcing their candidacy.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
Do you think that all it would take to turn the US into a dictatorship would be for one man with bad thoughts to become President?
I don’t. I think it would need that man to be supported by an extremist and anti-democratic political movement connected to media sources producing disinformation, backed up by an army of “useful idiots” posting to social media and online forums.
And this all failed to materialise in 2016-2020 just because Mike Pence escaped the mob?
A friend of mine, who ironically works on risk management, once narrowly avoided stabbing herself in the eye while using a screwdriver to extract an old nail. So, she continued doing what she had done before and, guess what? She ended up stabbing herself in the eye. (Fortunately, no permanent damage was done.)
The flaw in the system is letting people choose their own leaders. It gives them the idea that they're in charge and it runs the risk of them choosing a bad person. You might get away with it a few times but eventually you'll get stabbed in the eye.
The best way to save democracy is therefore to take it out of the hands of the people and appoint the most qualified candidate directly.
Though in many cases, The People are the last people to get a say. They generally end up with a shortlist of two; if they are lucky, at least one of them is at least acceptable under the circumstances, but that's not guaranteed.
The US system has thrown up Trump/Clinton, Trump/Biden and looks set to put Trump/Biden on the menu again next time. Meanwhile, the UK system has delivered May/Corbyn, Johnson/Corbyn and seems set on Sunak/Starmer.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
What was Louise Mensch's crime to beat the likes of Fiona Onasanya, Nadine Dorries, Margaret Ferrier, Christopher Chope, Claudia Webbe, Chris Huhne ffs!, ... and too many others to list?
(Jared - fair enough.)
A good cross-party list of bad-uns, but unlike Louise I didn’t go canvassing for them!
Maybe the issue is that you are a poor judge of character?
That spending her life helping the constituents of wherever it was with their casework and assiduously scrutinising new legislation just possibly wasn’t why she was standing for Parliament should surely have occurred to you?
The only thing the next Labour government needs to do is simple: build more houses.
If they fail on that, I'll be ripping up my membership card and abstaining.
It should definitely be a top priority. Force every council to build new social housing equivalent to, say, 5% of their current private and social housing stock during the lifetime of the first parliament.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Bit lurid for my taste. The truth is, I have a strong intuition that US24 ends up with Donald Trump not back in the WH but I can't say for certain what the exact route is. It's a volatile complex situation. There are numerous ways to get from here to Not Trump in November. The best one (imo) would be it becomes clear enough soon enough that he can't win nationally and the GOP pick someone else as their candidate.
You're the one that said "by any means necessary", which obviously includes the possibility of violence. So you now resile from that?
There was an implied 'legal' in there (murder isn't generally in my Overton window when I'm discussing electoral politics). However I like the idea of 'resiling' from something (it sounds quite weighty and important) so let's pretend there wasn't so I can have the honour.
“When you think about the family, it’s about stability. Most of the kids who struggle in Bury are the products of crap parents and so what do we do to try to address that issue? “On the left it would just be: we’ll throw money at this and hope something sticks. Somebody like me thinks about this more fundamentally.”..
The article doesn't reveal what prescriptions his 'more fundamental' thinking* suggests. Anyone ?
*Unless that was a polite way of saying he does his thinking with his arse ?
He's not wrong.
But how do you fix it is another question.
As far as I'm aware the single biggest determiner of whether a teenager succeeds at school, or an adult succeeds economically, isn't class or race or sex, its reading. And in particular, do parents read to their children when they're young.
But how you fix that? How you resolve issues for kids of parents who can't or won't make an effort, can't or won't read to them. Kids that grow up in homes with no books? I have no magic answer to any of that.
Is reading to children a problem with "crap" parents? Or is it a problem with parents who weren't read to when they were young, or who are working long hours on poor pay, or who are otherwise struggling financially? Is it about family structures (a single parent or two parents, the role of other adults like grandparents)?
The question of causation is a good one. Does reading to children help or do parents who read do other stuff (including passing on their genes) that is correlated with success? IIRC a good portion of Freakonomics (a book I don't particularly like) is devoted to the argument that reading to your kids actually has no effect at all. It's not an argument I necessarily believe although I am certainly ready to believe that it has a smaller impact then simple correlation would suggest, owing to omitted variable bias. I think reading to children has some effect, anecdotally. I used to read my eldest Mrs Tiggywinkle a lot and I once found her holding the book, turning the pages and "reading" it (ie reciting long chunks of it from memory) aged 2. She is still an avid reader!
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
What was Louise Mensch's crime to beat the likes of Fiona Onasanya, Nadine Dorries, Margaret Ferrier, Christopher Chope, Claudia Webbe, Chris Huhne ffs!, ... and too many others to list?
(Jared - fair enough.)
A good cross-party list of bad-uns, but unlike Louise I didn’t go canvassing for them!
Maybe the issue is that you are a poor judge of character?
Or was between jobs at the time, thanks to a large recession, and disliked Gordon Brown with a passion.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
Why do you dislike Louise so much?
Because I spent a month knocking on doors and posting leaflets for her ahead of the 2010 election, then she decided she couldn’t be arsed to serve as an MP after a couple of years.
I would be annoyed too.
Jared O'Mara was also the worst PM of all time but the current Tory intake are running a close second.
Actual terrorists have been elected as MPs. O’Mara was terrible, but he wasn’t a terrorist. Nor was he a rapist. Two MPs have been convicted of sexual assault.
Turkey, South Africa and Kenya also proposed - as was legislation incompatible with the ECHR.
Revealing of Blair's thought on the matter: ..Guidance from Home Office ministers was that such measures would breach the UN convention on refugees, with Blair scribbling on one document: “Just return them. This is precisely the point. We must not allow the ECHR to stop us dealing with it.”..
Why Mull? Why not go the whole hog and stick them on St Kilda? Or Rockall?
There seems to be something really weird in the British (or is it the Home Office?) psyche here.
Just return them is fine. Assuming you know where they have come from, and can assure their safety. Which we often can’t.
Someone in the Cabinet Office probably thought it would be amusing to Mull it over.
M. Howard commented that, in response to any crisis, the civil servants at the Home Office would produce a pile of policy proposals they had in various cupboards.
And that it was the duty of a Home Sec. to say no to each and every one.
The description of the meeting after the Brighton Bombing - Thatcher said no to a range of measures that ranged from insane to Donald Trump++
No matter what the problem or event, the HO answer is ID cards backed with a massive database of everyone.
The mandarins have been proposing the same thing now for several decades, in response to every terrorist attack, mass-casualty event, or natural disaster. Thankfully, the dozens of ministers who have been in the HO in the last half century, have kept telling them to go swing.
Not that I am particularly keen, but national ID cards isn't a completely daft solution to illegal immigration etc.
The daftness is in the insane proposals to link it to a mega database of everything about everyone.
And give access to everyone (Important People were to have their data on a separate, slavery secure system).
And which gets attached to every U.K. ID card proposal.
And which was just starting implantation when the Coalition cancelled the last attempt at ID cards.
Which would break a host of European data protection requirements, incidentally.
ID cards have had a number of issues over the years. 1) the database 2) they were not mandatory to have 3) they were not mandatory to carry 4) if the police did have the powers to charge people for not presenting one they'd not bother because of the time and the paperwork 5) generally people that will be most disadvantaged by the policy can't afford to get one
Though other countries do make them mandatory to carry. Why can't we?
The reason is that we prize the freedom not to, but that freedom comes at the price of difficulty enforcing borders.
Borders and cards have nothing to do with each other.
Switzerland does well at controlling its borders and has only a voluntary ID card system, its border enforcement has nothing to do with those cards.
Switzerland is guarded by some rather spectacular mountains.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
Why do you dislike Louise so much?
Because I spent a month knocking on doors and posting leaflets for her ahead of the 2010 election, then she decided she couldn’t be arsed to serve as an MP after a couple of years.
I would be annoyed too.
Jared O'Mara was also the worst PM of all time but the current Tory intake are running a close second.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
What was Louise Mensch's crime to beat the likes of Fiona Onasanya, Nadine Dorries, Margaret Ferrier, Christopher Chope, Claudia Webbe, Chris Huhne ffs!, ... and too many others to list?
(Jared - fair enough.)
A good cross-party list of bad-uns, but unlike Louise I didn’t go canvassing for them!
Maybe the issue is that you are a poor judge of character?
Or was between jobs at the time, thanks to a large recession, and disliked Gordon Brown with a passion.
“When you think about the family, it’s about stability. Most of the kids who struggle in Bury are the products of crap parents and so what do we do to try to address that issue? “On the left it would just be: we’ll throw money at this and hope something sticks. Somebody like me thinks about this more fundamentally.”..
The article doesn't reveal what prescriptions his 'more fundamental' thinking* suggests. Anyone ?
*Unless that was a polite way of saying he does his thinking with his arse ?
He's not wrong.
But how do you fix it is another question.
As far as I'm aware the single biggest determiner of whether a teenager succeeds at school, or an adult succeeds economically, isn't class or race or sex, its reading. And in particular, do parents read to their children when they're young.
But how you fix that? How you resolve issues for kids of parents who can't or won't make an effort, can't or won't read to them. Kids that grow up in homes with no books? I have no magic answer to any of that.
Is reading to children a problem with "crap" parents? Or is it a problem with parents who weren't read to when they were young, or who are working long hours on poor pay, or who are otherwise struggling financially? Is it about family structures (a single parent or two parents, the role of other adults like grandparents)?
The question of causation is a good one. Does reading to children help or do parents who read do other stuff (including passing on their genes) that is correlated with success? IIRC a good portion of Freakonomics (a book I don't particularly like) is devoted to the argument that reading to your kids actually has no effect at all. It's not an argument I necessarily believe although I am certainly ready to believe that it has a smaller impact then simple correlation would suggest, owing to omitted variable bias. I think reading to children has some effect, anecdotally. I used to read my eldest Mrs Tiggywinkle a lot and I once found her holding the book, turning the pages and "reading" it (ie reciting long chunks of it from memory) aged 2. She is still an avid reader!
Indeed. Over the long-term the big difference is between people who read (themselves) regularly and people who do not.
The role parents play though is in sparking that love of reading.
Kids who are read to regularly and enjoy the experience transition to reading themselves at a far higher rate than kids who do not.
For my eldest it was Monkey Puzzle that she did that with, reciting chunks of it from memory while "reading", she loved that book. Kids transition from reading by repetition, to actually reading though, and now she'll read novels for pleasure which is so important.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
Why do you dislike Louise so much?
Because I spent a month knocking on doors and posting leaflets for her ahead of the 2010 election, then she decided she couldn’t be arsed to serve as an MP after a couple of years.
I would be annoyed too.
Jared O'Mara was also the worst PM of all time but the current Tory intake are running a close second.
Actual terrorists have been elected as MPs. O’Mara was terrible, but he wasn’t a terrorist. Nor was he a rapist. Two MPs have been convicted of sexual assault.
“My journey into the European Parliament did not succeed until 1999. Whilst I did spend many enjoyable days doing battle with Commission Presidents Barroso, Junker and others, I have to admit that I think my job would have been far more exciting had it been Delors sitting in the seat next to me just across the aisle.
“There is no doubt that this was the man that drove the European project forward. He was an immense, towering figure – though just not one politically to my taste.”
But we are importing nearly 18%. That is not good.
On the contrary, I don't think it's bad at all. It indicates that plentiful wind power and mild temperatures across Europe are currently causing the spot price of electricity to drop, making it more economical for us to import surplus electricity from Europe than to use expensive gas to generate it here. It's just the markets (and interconnectors) working as they should, and it all helps to reduce CO2 emissions.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Does the same petty literalness apply to Trump's intention to be a dictator?
Do you think that all it would take to turn the US into a dictatorship would be for one man with bad thoughts to become President?
I don’t. I think it would need that man to be supported by an extremist and anti-democratic political movement connected to media sources producing disinformation, backed up by an army of “useful idiots” posting to social media and online forums.
And this all failed to materialise in 2016-2020 just because Mike Pence escaped the mob?
No, because Trump didn't really understand how the politics of dictatorship works. Fortunately, he still doesn't - though he understands it better.
As well as the points needed above is, crucially, a toleration of violence against those the system deems to be social outsiders. See the South, blacks and the Klan for an example. Or Russia, now.
How do you turn any country into a dictatorship while preserving a figleaf of democracy and the rule of law in the constitution? Intimidation. You have to prove that there is a price to be paid for going against the regime, and that the system of law will act on the side of the regime, not on the letter of the law. And you have to create the expectation that there *will* be a price to be paid.
The bottom line is what ability the other institutional pillars of a democracy have to resist the takeover? The judiciary, the military, local government, etc. If they have already been captured, or the government can control them by giving orders, through power over appointments and dismissals, or can use extra-democratic means to enforce their will (aka beating people up, and worse), then our defences against dictatorship are extremely fragile.
The only thing the next Labour government needs to do is simple: build more houses.
If they fail on that, I'll be ripping up my membership card and abstaining.
They won't, but they should abolish or seriously reform planning to enable people to build houses crashing the planning premium that currently exists that makes land with permission worth potentially 10x to 100x land without it.
Its not land we have a shortage of in this country, its permission, which is why land with permission is so valuable and land without is not.
Address that, the housing crisis would be solved within a few years.
There's no divine reason to require planning consent. Prior to the mistake of introducing it, England had no shortage of housing as people would just build houses whenever they were needed and land was only about 2% of the cost of housing at the time. Now land is about a third of the value of the house.
Bring land back down to 2% of the value of the house, and housing costs would plummet and people would be far, far better off.
Honestly, the planning system really isn’t the problem.
I didn't think we could have worse than Richard Burgon but the 2019 Tory intake seems to make him look intelligent.
I still put Jared O’Mara down as the worst MP of the 21st century, followed by Louise Mensch.
Why do you dislike Louise so much?
Because I spent a month knocking on doors and posting leaflets for her ahead of the 2010 election, then she decided she couldn’t be arsed to serve as an MP after a couple of years.
I would be annoyed too.
Jared O'Mara was also the worst PM of all time but the current Tory intake are running a close second.
Actual terrorists have been elected as MPs. O’Mara was terrible, but he wasn’t a terrorist. Nor was he a rapist. Two MPs have been convicted of sexual assault.
But she does have a point: imprison him and he is a martyr. Shame him, pardon him and ignore him then the healing can begin
The US... nor us, to be fair... does not appear to be capable of ignoring Trump. So, why don't we just start with shame him and then shame him some more.
You can't compromise with Donald Trump because he's a 100% taker with zero interest in anything other than himself. He's going to have to be taken down by any means necessary. I think this is dawning and will continue to dawn until it happens.
"By any means necessary"
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Bit lurid for my taste. The truth is, I have a strong intuition that US24 ends up with Donald Trump not back in the WH but I can't say for certain what the exact route is. It's a volatile complex situation. There are numerous ways to get from here to Not Trump in November. The best one (imo) would be it becomes clear enough soon enough that he can't win nationally and the GOP pick someone else as their candidate.
You're the one that said "by any means necessary", which obviously includes the possibility of violence. So you now resile from that?
There was an implied 'legal' in there (murder isn't generally in my Overton window when I'm discussing electoral politics). However I like the idea of 'resiling' from something (it sounds quite weighty and important) so let's pretend there wasn't so I can have the honour.
Comments
As with 2007 the polls will be key, Brown bottled as he failed to have a big enough poll lead to risk an autumn 2007 election and Sunak will bottle if he is not close enough in polls to Starmer by Labour
Trying to disqualify DJT from standing isn’t going to help, it both makes a martyr of him and legitimises the idea that courts can stop people from standing for election who haven’t been found guilty of election-related offences. Politically, it makes his supporters more likely to turn out in November, and feeds into his narrative that ‘they’ are out to get him.
(I only recall the cases of Lutfur Rahman and Phil Woolas being banned from standing in the UK, both following convictions for electoral fraud).
At the moment the impact is more on the primaries than the general election as both Maine and Colorado are Democrat leaning states and neither voted for Trump in 2016 or 2020 beyond one elector for Trump in ME-2.
However if more states follow Maine and Colorado in banning Trump from ballots that will make it more difficult for Trump to get to the 51%+ of delegates he needs from the GOP primaries and caucuses to be certain to be chosen as nominee by the GOP at the Republican convention next summer
And, yes, as a positive practical impact it's surely a good thing if children are wanted when they come into the world. Life can be hard enough to navigate without the awful start of your birth being something your mother wanted to prevent but was forced by the State to go through with.
Using this as a stepping stone to an autumn election would be a less than ideal strategy for Sunak.
Is reading to children a problem with "crap" parents? Or is it a problem with parents who weren't read to when they were young, or who are working long hours on poor pay, or who are otherwise struggling financially? Is it about family structures (a single parent or two parents, the role of other adults like grandparents)?
They are probably pointless and certainly counter-productive
On current polls the Tories will lose council seats whether a May or autumn poll
I think the thing about "Trying to disqualify DJT from standing" is that it is a mistake to merely see it as a political tactic. There is (poorly-phrased) text in the US Constitution that (possibly) applies. Even if 99.9% of people think it isn't going to help, you only need 1 person to bring a case and then the courts have to come up with an answer. So whether you think it is a wise move politically or not, the country is stuck with the law it has. (Such are the dangers of writing bad law!)
And there we have it. What does that mean?
If the legal maneuvers are struck down by SCOTUS, what next? Where do the Dems go? Intern him without trial? Kidnap him ane send him to Guantanamo? Take him out with an assassin?
That is the logic of "by any means necessary": if Trump escapes these legal dirty tricks and looks set to win in 2024, will you approve of shooting him?
Trump then throwing his toys out the pram and standing as an independent in the states he is still on the ballot in against the official GOP nominee would then be the dream scenario for Biden and the Dems
https://www.theverge.com/c/features/23997516/harassment-twitter-sarah-jeong-canceled-social-change
The issue with that for Sunak is that he's almost certainly going to have to endure a terrible set of results in the May locals.
Is there anything that could give him a boost in the summer? Falling mortgages maybe? Tax cuts feeding through? The economy picking up a bit? Could sporting success at Euro 2024 and/or the Paris Olympics help? Anything else?
It's hard to see any of these moving the dial much but a small amount hope is better than no hope at all. If you're 3-0 down at 89mins you'd still rather see 10mins stoppage time added than 3mins, even though 10mins is unlikely to be enough.
https://ncvs.bjs.ojp.gov/quick-graphics#quickgraphicstop
The FBI data, which is more commonly used, is incomplete. Many crimes are not reported, and some jurisdictions do not report to the FBI. (The FBI made a change in their methodology recently. You'd have to be a specialist to know whether that has affected their results, and, if so, how.)
The most accurate crime statistics for the US are, almost certainly, for murder and car theft.
As almost always, it helps to remember that national trends are composed of many states and cities, which have different policies. The "progressive" Brennan Center helpfully supplies this table of major cities, which shows that murders are down nationally, but sharply up in some cities.
Would you have approved of Hitler being shot in the 30s? (I would but I cannot shed the benefit of hindsight.)
What about Putin? (Me? No, because what follows could be worse.)
Trump poses an existential threat to US and thus Western democracy in my view. I think he needs to be stopped by any legal means possible.
The changing factors being the expected shellacking at the local elections, the bringing forward of the NI cut to January, and the King announcing plans to be overseas for most of October.
Just about the only black swan in the government’s favour could be England winning the Euros, or perhaps rapidly falling interest rates making mortgages cheaper, but many people will be still on fixed rates.
The old Leon would have owned the idea of a Putin-lite dictator brutalising the United States. But we all mellow.
Fair enough
I suspect - as I have mentioned here before - there are Dems who believe that, if it came to it, "by any means necessary" should and could include assassination
To me, and to be honest, "taking Trump down by any means necessary" clearly includes - indeed, it positively suggests - the possibility of assassination
And were this 1933 I'd be saying the same about Hitler, which would turn out to be a tragic mistake.
I did point this out at the time -
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/11/21/trumps-plan-d-its-all-about-the-electoral-college/
Resile, forsooth.
(Also, for a long term dictatorship it really would have to be somebody younger -- at Trump's age, even in a worst case scenario it would be likely to unravel to somewhat more status quo when he died.)
Average PB user
(Jared - fair enough.)
Jared O'Mara was also the worst PM of all time but the current Tory intake are running a close second.
Schools have a critical role to play in education, but if a child isn't read to when they're young then they're starting school behind their peers and with a more limited vocabulary than their peers.
And if a child doesn't read for pleasure then they're even further behind, and the bug of wanting to read for pleasure in no small part is instilled by whether or not parents read to them when they were young.
That's not seeking to besmirch your parents, I'm sure they were loving in other ways, but it is a crucial things for parents to do and not doing it is a real shame.
If they fail on that, I'll be ripping up my membership card and abstaining.
In Switzerland the illegals are rewarded for reporting their employers.
If employer and employee both have an incentive to cover up illegal behaviour, then that's when you have serious problems. Change the incentives, people change their behaviour.
The best way to save democracy is therefore to take it out of the hands of the people and appoint the most qualified candidate directly.
Its not land we have a shortage of in this country, its permission, which is why land with permission is so valuable and land without is not.
Address that, the housing crisis would be solved within a few years.
There's no divine reason to require planning consent. Prior to the mistake of introducing it, England had no shortage of housing as people would just build houses whenever they were needed and land was only about 2% of the cost of housing at the time. Now land is about a third of the value of the house.
Bring land back down to 2% of the value of the house, and housing costs would plummet and people would be far, far better off.
As well as the points needed above is, crucially, a toleration of violence against those the system deems to be social outsiders. See the South, blacks and the Klan for an example. Or Russia, now.
How do you turn any country into a dictatorship while preserving a figleaf of democracy and the rule of law in the constitution? Intimidation. You have to prove that there is a price to be paid for going against the regime, and that the system of law will act on the side of the regime, not on the letter of the law. And you have to create the expectation that there *will* be a price to be paid.
I think that every election with a large swing generates a few unexpected MPs, many of whom weren’t very well vetted. We saw it in 2010, 2017, and 2019, and will likely see it again in 2024. I still have to laugh when it comes out that some new MP said something horrifically racist on Twitter a decade ago - the parties are all terrible at vetting their candidates, and the candidates themselves are terrible at deleting stuff they don’t want to be public, before announcing their candidacy.
The US system has thrown up Trump/Clinton, Trump/Biden and looks set to put Trump/Biden on the menu again next time. Meanwhile, the UK system has delivered May/Corbyn, Johnson/Corbyn and seems set on Sunak/Starmer.
Something has gone wrong with the pipeline.
That spending her life helping the constituents of wherever it was with their casework and assiduously scrutinising new legislation just possibly wasn’t why she was standing for Parliament should surely have occurred to you?
Address this long-term deficit.
I think reading to children has some effect, anecdotally. I used to read my eldest Mrs Tiggywinkle a lot and I once found her holding the book, turning the pages and "reading" it (ie reciting long chunks of it from memory) aged 2. She is still an avid reader!
The role parents play though is in sparking that love of reading.
Kids who are read to regularly and enjoy the experience transition to reading themselves at a far higher rate than kids who do not.
For my eldest it was Monkey Puzzle that she did that with, reciting chunks of it from memory while "reading", she loved that book. Kids transition from reading by repetition, to actually reading though, and now she'll read novels for pleasure which is so important.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/29/jacques-delors-convinced-me-to-campaign-for-brexit/
“My journey into the European Parliament did not succeed until 1999. Whilst I did spend many enjoyable days doing battle with Commission Presidents Barroso, Junker and others, I have to admit that I think my job would have been far more exciting had it been Delors sitting in the seat next to me just across the aisle.
“There is no doubt that this was the man that drove the European project forward. He was an immense, towering figure – though just not one politically to my taste.”