As women's footie has been mentioned I heard vaguely on the wireless that attendance at some women's football match or other was over 60,000. That is pretty grown up.
No idea what the overall numbers look like outside (presumably) the top few clubs.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
One problem for protestors is that demonstrating outside Parliament has effectively been ruled out, although I would say that people's houses should be off-limits, and constituency offices too because protests might interfere with constituents seeking help.
Cynics might wonder that these threats have come to light in time for the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill going through Parliament (see my earlier post). Older PBers will remember Sir Humphrey conveniently finding Jim Hacker's name on a terrorist death list.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
A simple yes or no would do.
Is it ok to lay siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children.
An NHS trust has said that breast milk produced by trans women who were assigned male at birth is as good for babies as that produced by a mother who has given birth
Why wouldn't it be? Sexual dimorphism in humans isn't very pronounced (compared to many other animals). We know that cis men have the capability to lactate (although it is very rare), so it isn't like the body needs to grow the entire system from scratch, and cis women typically only lactate when they have had certain hormones in their system due to having been pregnant. If a trans woman has enough hormones that she produces breast milk, then why would one assume it would be an issue?
The notion that it is somehow amazing reminds me of the time of yore when men were used to watching male football but astounded to discover that women could also use their legs and feet to kick a ball and score goals.
I think it is amazing in a sense of wonder at biology, and it's something that would be surprising to many people in a way that your parallel to football really isn't.
It's a useful example of the fact that the different biologies of men and women arise from a divergence from a common pattern, and that divergence is triggered by hormones - with genes playing the role of selecting the hormone.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
A prize winning entry for disingenuousness. The idea that it is simple to distinguish between a peaceful howling mob of 10,000 and an intimidating howling mob of 10,000 outside your house is magnificent in its simplicity.
I suspect also that most supporters of the howling mob outside the houses of MPs and district councillors will want to distinguish between an extreme left wing and progressive peace loving howling mob and an extreme right wing peace loving howling mob.
The rest of us just want freedom of speech, the rule of law and the ballot box.
An NHS trust has said that breast milk produced by trans women who were assigned male at birth is as good for babies as that produced by a mother who has given birth
It’s $ so I can’t see if the statement is scientifically true or not. I assume the article is showing that it’s not?
Interesting topic though, to what extent hormones can induce production of something that can replicate breast milk.
It’s not something that can replicate breast milk. It is breast milk. You’re turning on the same genes, the body is making the same substance in the same way, even if it’s been triggered artificially by the administration of exogenous female hormones.
TLDR: University of Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust: trans breast milk good! Here are studies and WHO guidance. Anti-trans campaigners: trans breast milk bad! IT JUST IS, OK? Journalist. One of the drugs used to stimulate breastfeeding can cause side-effects.
I was impressed by Lottie Moore's (Policy Exchange) use of the phrase "the secretions produced by a male on hormones", which is a long way to spell "milk" and makes me think of alien acid eating thru the decks of the Nostromo.
My summary: This is all pretty new, but you give the right hormones, then someone born with a male body can express milk. The milk is pretty much identical to any other breast milk. The challenge is getting enough volume of milk.
"To our knowledge, this is only the second case in the literature to report on the macronutrients of induced milk9 and the first to present data on the HMO [human milk oligosaccharides] and hormone content from a nongestational parent also on gender affirming hormone treatment. As reported, the induced milk was as robust in protein, calories, fat, lactose, and HMOs as term milk from a gestational parent. The prior report also documented comparable levels of macronutrients in the induced milk of a transgender woman compared with those in standard term milk.9,14
"Although HMO profile varies from person to person, the overall HMO content of this induced milk is comparable with standard term human milk. These results show that induced milk from a TGD nongestational parent also produces adequate nutrients for a growing infant. LH and FSH levels were below detection range, suggesting very low, if any, levels of these hormones. This may be due to the hormone therapy suppressing LH and FSH production in transgender women.19"
[...]
"The amount of milk production by the patient in this report would not be enough to solely sustain an infant's nutritional needs. However, since the patient was cofeeding with the gestational parent, this amount aligned with her breastfeeding goals. For this patient, considerations may include reduced pumping sessions around delivery while in the hospital and time constraints with newborn's needs. The prior three published case reports discuss similar findings.7,9,10 Additional research is needed to highlight potential limitations specific to this population."
An NHS trust has said that breast milk produced by trans women who were assigned male at birth is as good for babies as that produced by a mother who has given birth
Why wouldn't it be? Sexual dimorphism in humans isn't very pronounced (compared to many other animals). We know that cis men have the capability to lactate (although it is very rare), so it isn't like the body needs to grow the entire system from scratch, and cis women typically only lactate when they have had certain hormones in their system due to having been pregnant. If a trans woman has enough hormones that she produces breast milk, then why would one assume it would be an issue?
The notion that it is somehow amazing reminds me of the time of yore when men were used to watching male football but astounded to discover that women could also use their legs and feet to kick a ball and score goals.
I think it is amazing in a sense of wonder at biology, and it's something that would be surprising to many people in a way that your parallel to football really isn't.
It's a useful example of the fact that the different biologies of men and women arise from a divergence from a common pattern, and that divergence is triggered by hormones - with genes playing the role of selecting the hormone.
I don't disagree! I was referring to the ignorance of that principle in favour of political dogma, and the resulting lower grade amazement!
As women's footie has been mentioned I heard vaguely on the wireless that attendance at some women's football match or other was over 60,000. That is pretty grown up.
No idea what the overall numbers look like outside (presumably) the top few clubs.
Pretty low attendances much of the time. I wonder if they have not missed a trick from rugby union and should make women's football a summer game.
My summary: This is all pretty new, but you give the right hormones, then someone born with a male body can express milk. The milk is pretty much identical to any other breast milk. The challenge is getting enough volume of milk.
"To our knowledge, this is only the second case in the literature to report on the macronutrients of induced milk9 and the first to present data on the HMO [human milk oligosaccharides] and hormone content from a nongestational parent also on gender affirming hormone treatment. As reported, the induced milk was as robust in protein, calories, fat, lactose, and HMOs as term milk from a gestational parent. The prior report also documented comparable levels of macronutrients in the induced milk of a transgender woman compared with those in standard term milk.9,14
"Although HMO profile varies from person to person, the overall HMO content of this induced milk is comparable with standard term human milk. These results show that induced milk from a TGD nongestational parent also produces adequate nutrients for a growing infant. LH and FSH levels were below detection range, suggesting very low, if any, levels of these hormones. This may be due to the hormone therapy suppressing LH and FSH production in transgender women.19"
[...]
"The amount of milk production by the patient in this report would not be enough to solely sustain an infant's nutritional needs. However, since the patient was cofeeding with the gestational parent, this amount aligned with her breastfeeding goals. For this patient, considerations may include reduced pumping sessions around delivery while in the hospital and time constraints with newborn's needs. The prior three published case reports discuss similar findings.7,9,10 Additional research is needed to highlight potential limitations specific to this population."
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
I suggest a wise guiding principle for life is thus: Chomsky is wrong about most things.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
A prize winning entry for disingenuousness. The idea that it is simple to distinguish between a peaceful howling mob of 10,000 and an intimidating howling mob of 10,000 outside your house is magnificent in its simplicity.
I suspect also that most supporters of the howling mob outside the houses of MPs and district councillors will want to distinguish between an extreme left wing and progressive peace loving howling mob and an extreme right wing peace loving howling mob.
The rest of us just want freedom of speech, the rule of law and the ballot box.
I found it amusing that when the first Countryside Marches occurred a couple of harden protest types I knew were outraged.
They felt intimidated, oppressed, threatened.
To them, that was something them did to other people - they were fine with “mask up and throw things at the police”. When they were doing it.
People marching *against* what they saw as their cause was - Not Right.
Hmm ... re header, Graun feed remarks of the infamous letter of appointment to Mr Staunton of the PO chairmanship that:
'Keegan [who did the morning interview etc] said the letter “basically says you’re to prioritise the sub-postmasters and their fair compensation”.
But in fact the letter, sent by Sarah Munby, who at the time was permanent secretary at the department, does not quite say that. It says “resolving historical litigation issues” should be a priority. But it also implies an even more important priority is effective financial management, including “effective management of legal costs”.
The letter does not disprove Staunton’s claim about being told to “stall” on compensation payments. Staunton told the Sunday Times this was just a money issue, and arguably it is consistent with what the letter says about cost management.'
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
A simple yes or no would do.
Is it ok to lay siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children.
Define lay siege.
Is it okay to protest his house when his kids are inside it? Of course. Should any protest target the children / impede their entrance or exit? No.
Again, I'm remind of SCOTUS here. 5 people said they planned to take away the guarantee that all women had a (flimsy) right to bodily autonomy and access to abortion. And when people protested their houses for saying they were going to do that, it was the protesters that were considered out of order.
Maybe it's the inherent distrust / lack of respect I have for representative democracy as a method for doing good things for the most people. But I just don't see why people who nominally have all the power of the state behind them shouldn't be protested by people if they use that in a way their constituents dislike. Surgeries are useless, going through the party apparatus is useless. Whips are allowed to blackmail MPs, sometimes withholding knowledge of literal crimes so they can leverage votes, but voters can't protest? Seems dumb.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
Surpassing disingenuousness. Of the hundreds of issues this raises, here is just one question. Planet earth is a long and large laboratory of political theory and practice. Which is the nation state of any substantial size (say over 2 million population) that best, even if imperfectly, exemplifies your version of non representative democracy?
An NHS trust has said that breast milk produced by trans women who were assigned male at birth is as good for babies as that produced by a mother who has given birth
It’s $ so I can’t see if the statement is scientifically true or not. I assume the article is showing that it’s not?
Interesting topic though, to what extent hormones can induce production of something that can replicate breast milk.
It probably is true. The article is a bit sniffy about the research but does not contradict it. The whole thing seems a bit pointless: why take hormones to produce chestmilk rather than nip down the baby food aisle at Boots or Tesco. It is not like breastfeeding is universal even among mums who are cis women.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
I suggest a wise guiding principle for life is thus: Chomsky is wrong about most things.
Well, he is quite accurate for pointing out totalitarian regimes who are anti-western.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
Surpassing disingenuousness. Of the hundreds of issues this raises, here is just one question. Planet earth is a long and large laboratory of political theory and practice. Which is the nation state of any substantial size (say over 2 million population) that best, even if imperfectly, exemplifies your version of non representative democracy?
Yeah I mean I was going to go back to him on this point. It's Winston Churchill all over again. What other system provides the rights that ours does.
@148grss makes the classic mistake of thinking that "the other side" isn't as hell bent on imposing their system on him as he is on imposing his system on them.
Democracy is the compromise whereby everyone agrees to go with a common system.
Edit: I mean that this needs saying on a politically-inclined website is quite disappointing.
On Badenoch, as I understand it her allegation that Staunton was lying in his newspaper article was made on a Twitter thread, a very public spat indeed. Regardless of the truth of the matter, is it appropriate for a Minister to resort to a social media thread to rebut such allegations rather than, for example, in Parliament, or even in an official letter that could be published? I don't think so - in fact I think it's wholly inappropriate. Badenoch has very poor judgement.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
A prize winning entry for disingenuousness. The idea that it is simple to distinguish between a peaceful howling mob of 10,000 and an intimidating howling mob of 10,000 outside your house is magnificent in its simplicity.
I suspect also that most supporters of the howling mob outside the houses of MPs and district councillors will want to distinguish between an extreme left wing and progressive peace loving howling mob and an extreme right wing peace loving howling mob.
The rest of us just want freedom of speech, the rule of law and the ballot box.
I found it amusing that when the first Countryside Marches occurred a couple of harden protest types I knew were outraged.
They felt intimidated, oppressed, threatened.
To them, that was something them did to other people - they were fine with “mask up and throw things at the police”. When they were doing it.
People marching *against* what they saw as their cause was - Not Right.
Again, I disagree. People marching for things and being involved in politics is good - as long as what they're marching for / how they're organising isn't violent. Which is why basically the only groups I don't think should be allowed to organised are street fascists - their political ideology is inherently violent, and typically even when they say they're going for a peaceful march they still get boozed up and like to throw punches at random people.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
I suggest a wise guiding principle for life is thus: Chomsky is wrong about most things.
An evening attending a talk by Chomsky on the eve of the Iraq war was one of those moments of epiphany for me. Not the sage old academic with a passion for social justice that I'd expected, but a reflexively anti-Western man obsessed with America's wronging of the poor Serbs and their blameless Russian masters. Iraq was just an excuse for him to bang on about how hard done by Serbia was.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
A simple yes or no would do.
Is it ok to lay siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children.
Define lay siege.
Is it okay to protest his house when his kids are inside it? Of course. Should any protest target the children / impede their entrance or exit? No.
Again, I'm remind of SCOTUS here. 5 people said they planned to take away the guarantee that all women had a (flimsy) right to bodily autonomy and access to abortion. And when people protested their houses for saying they were going to do that, it was the protesters that were considered out of order.
Maybe it's the inherent distrust / lack of respect I have for representative democracy as a method for doing good things for the most people. But I just don't see why people who nominally have all the power of the state behind them shouldn't be protested by people if they use that in a way their constituents dislike. Surgeries are useless, going through the party apparatus is useless. Whips are allowed to blackmail MPs, sometimes withholding knowledge of literal crimes so they can leverage votes, but voters can't protest? Seems dumb.
What if the children are inside, see the crowd outside, and are scared to go out. They are indeed impeded from going out.
As per my comment above. You fall for the fallacy of thinking that if only you could pursue your politically ideal system everything would be fine. But the democracy you dislike so much is the only thing keeping someone who disagrees with you from stoving your head in with a piece of lead piping.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
Would you defend the use of this approach by people who had diametrically opposite views about policy to you?
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
A simple yes or no would do.
Is it ok to lay siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children.
Define lay siege.
Is it okay to protest his house when his kids are inside it? Of course. Should any protest target the children / impede their entrance or exit? No.
Again, I'm remind of SCOTUS here. 5 people said they planned to take away the guarantee that all women had a (flimsy) right to bodily autonomy and access to abortion. And when people protested their houses for saying they were going to do that, it was the protesters that were considered out of order.
Maybe it's the inherent distrust / lack of respect I have for representative democracy as a method for doing good things for the most people. But I just don't see why people who nominally have all the power of the state behind them shouldn't be protested by people if they use that in a way their constituents dislike. Surgeries are useless, going through the party apparatus is useless. Whips are allowed to blackmail MPs, sometimes withholding knowledge of literal crimes so they can leverage votes, but voters can't protest? Seems dumb.
It is pretty obvious that you are, perhaps without meaning to, supporting the use of intimidation as a protest policy. Protest remains lawful in this country.
Incidentally, most arguments against representative democracy tend in the end to rely on the idea that voters and those they vote in, are held captive by false consciousness, from which the arguer himself is miraculously immune.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
Would you defend the use of this approach by people who had diametrically opposite views about policy to you?
And who think it's fine to invade your house and sit in your kitchen to make the point.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
A prize winning entry for disingenuousness. The idea that it is simple to distinguish between a peaceful howling mob of 10,000 and an intimidating howling mob of 10,000 outside your house is magnificent in its simplicity.
I suspect also that most supporters of the howling mob outside the houses of MPs and district councillors will want to distinguish between an extreme left wing and progressive peace loving howling mob and an extreme right wing peace loving howling mob.
The rest of us just want freedom of speech, the rule of law and the ballot box.
I found it amusing that when the first Countryside Marches occurred a couple of harden protest types I knew were outraged.
They felt intimidated, oppressed, threatened.
To them, that was something them did to other people - they were fine with “mask up and throw things at the police”. When they were doing it.
People marching *against* what they saw as their cause was - Not Right.
Again, I disagree. People marching for things and being involved in politics is good - as long as what they're marching for / how they're organising isn't violent. Which is why basically the only groups I don't think should be allowed to organised are street fascists - their political ideology is inherently violent, and typically even when they say they're going for a peaceful march they still get boozed up and like to throw punches at random people.
So, anarchists calling for violent revolution, should they be allowed?
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
Surpassing disingenuousness. Of the hundreds of issues this raises, here is just one question. Planet earth is a long and large laboratory of political theory and practice. Which is the nation state of any substantial size (say over 2 million population) that best, even if imperfectly, exemplifies your version of non representative democracy?
Yeah I mean I was going to go back to him on this point. It's Winston Churchill all over again. What other system provides the rights that ours does.
@148grss makes the classic mistake of thinking that "the other side" isn't as hell bent on imposing their system on him as he is on imposing his system on them.
Democracy is the compromise whereby everyone agrees to go with a common system.
Edit: I mean that this needs saying on a politically-inclined website is quite disappointing.
But there are other forms of democracy that is not about individuals forgoing their stake in society to a representative, who forgoes their individual morality to a party, who tend to give up their principles to organised capital (at least in our system).
As I have said before - direct democracy would be great, no problem with that. Even if we couldn't go over night into a direct democracy from what we currently have - we could make steps towards it - workers involved in democracy at work, tenants unions being more common, changing lower levels of government from representative systems to fully communally engaged systems. It would take effort, sure; but I think some things are worth it. And if you don't think that and you want a representative democracy, then at least allowing people to protest their representatives should be fair game?
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
I suggest a wise guiding principle for life is thus: Chomsky is wrong about most things.
An evening attending a talk by Chomsky on the eve of the Iraq war was one of those moments of epiphany for me. Not the sage old academic with a passion for social justice that I'd expected, but a reflexively anti-Western man obsessed with America's wronging of the poor Serbs and their blameless Russian masters. Iraq was just an excuse for him to bang on about how hard done by Serbia was.
He's wrong about international politics. Arguably worse, he's wrong about linguistics.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
"peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response."
Couldn't agree more as long as it is peaceful and not and the home of the MP. Sadly we have seen too many examples where this is not the case (murdered MPs, MP's homes targeted).
On Badenoch, as I understand it her allegation that Staunton was lying in his newspaper article were made on a Twitter thread, a very public spat indeed. Regardless of the truth of the matter, is it appropriate for a Minister to resort to a social media thread to rebut such allegations rather than, for example, in Parliament, or even in an official letter that could be published? I don't think so - in fact I think it's wholly inappropriate. Badenoch has very poor judgement.
Didn't Gove and Cummings have form for doing the same thing back when they were at Education?
One reason for thinking Staunton may have a point about this is generational- he comes from an age when people were more careful with how they walked the "truth but not the whole truth unless absolutely necessary" line.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response...
I'm not sure about that. Camping outside one's house is harassment, not protest and is wrong for two reasons: i) it inspires sympathy for the protestee and is therefore counter-productive, and ii) is IMHO immoral. You wouldn't like it and Golden Rule applies.
MPs hold views. They are people. It is in the interest of the democratic process that these be known so that they may be assessed. But the place for judgment is the ballot box. I would not consider "outside the person's house" to be a good place for protest.
[EDIT: Or, come to think of it, "workplace". Streets, Squares, Parks, fields etc should suffice]
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
Surpassing disingenuousness. Of the hundreds of issues this raises, here is just one question. Planet earth is a long and large laboratory of political theory and practice. Which is the nation state of any substantial size (say over 2 million population) that best, even if imperfectly, exemplifies your version of non representative democracy?
Yeah I mean I was going to go back to him on this point. It's Winston Churchill all over again. What other system provides the rights that ours does.
@148grss makes the classic mistake of thinking that "the other side" isn't as hell bent on imposing their system on him as he is on imposing his system on them.
Democracy is the compromise whereby everyone agrees to go with a common system.
Edit: I mean that this needs saying on a politically-inclined website is quite disappointing.
But there are other forms of democracy that is not about individuals forgoing their stake in society to a representative, who forgoes their individual morality to a party, who tend to give up their principles to organised capital (at least in our system).
As I have said before - direct democracy would be great, no problem with that. Even if we couldn't go over night into a direct democracy from what we currently have - we could make steps towards it - workers involved in democracy at work, tenants unions being more common, changing lower levels of government from representative systems to fully communally engaged systems. It would take effort, sure; but I think some things are worth it. And if you don't think that and you want a representative democracy, then at least allowing people to protest their representatives should be fair game?
But you reject the idea of direct democracy to decide immigration policy?
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
A prize winning entry for disingenuousness. The idea that it is simple to distinguish between a peaceful howling mob of 10,000 and an intimidating howling mob of 10,000 outside your house is magnificent in its simplicity.
I suspect also that most supporters of the howling mob outside the houses of MPs and district councillors will want to distinguish between an extreme left wing and progressive peace loving howling mob and an extreme right wing peace loving howling mob.
The rest of us just want freedom of speech, the rule of law and the ballot box.
I found it amusing that when the first Countryside Marches occurred a couple of harden protest types I knew were outraged.
They felt intimidated, oppressed, threatened.
To them, that was something them did to other people - they were fine with “mask up and throw things at the police”. When they were doing it.
People marching *against* what they saw as their cause was - Not Right.
Again, I disagree. People marching for things and being involved in politics is good - as long as what they're marching for / how they're organising isn't violent. Which is why basically the only groups I don't think should be allowed to organised are street fascists - their political ideology is inherently violent, and typically even when they say they're going for a peaceful march they still get boozed up and like to throw punches at random people.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
A prize winning entry for disingenuousness. The idea that it is simple to distinguish between a peaceful howling mob of 10,000 and an intimidating howling mob of 10,000 outside your house is magnificent in its simplicity.
I suspect also that most supporters of the howling mob outside the houses of MPs and district councillors will want to distinguish between an extreme left wing and progressive peace loving howling mob and an extreme right wing peace loving howling mob.
The rest of us just want freedom of speech, the rule of law and the ballot box.
I found it amusing that when the first Countryside Marches occurred a couple of harden protest types I knew were outraged.
They felt intimidated, oppressed, threatened.
To them, that was something them did to other people - they were fine with “mask up and throw things at the police”. When they were doing it.
People marching *against* what they saw as their cause was - Not Right.
Again, I disagree. People marching for things and being involved in politics is good - as long as what they're marching for / how they're organising isn't violent. Which is why basically the only groups I don't think should be allowed to organised are street fascists - their political ideology is inherently violent, and typically even when they say they're going for a peaceful march they still get boozed up and like to throw punches at random people.
Like you, I'm a huge fan of the right to peaceful protest. However, I fundamentally disagree with your view that it's okay to protest outside people's private residences. Corbyn had to endure this frequently, and it was an unacceptable intrusion into his private life. There's a whole host of fairly obvious reasons that this should be out of bounds. If I were considering standing for public office, the fear that I may be subject to protests outside my family house would be something of a deterrent.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
A simple yes or no would do.
Is it ok to lay siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children.
Define lay siege.
Is it okay to protest his house when his kids are inside it? Of course. Should any protest target the children / impede their entrance or exit? No.
Again, I'm remind of SCOTUS here. 5 people said they planned to take away the guarantee that all women had a (flimsy) right to bodily autonomy and access to abortion. And when people protested their houses for saying they were going to do that, it was the protesters that were considered out of order.
Maybe it's the inherent distrust / lack of respect I have for representative democracy as a method for doing good things for the most people. But I just don't see why people who nominally have all the power of the state behind them shouldn't be protested by people if they use that in a way their constituents dislike. Surgeries are useless, going through the party apparatus is useless. Whips are allowed to blackmail MPs, sometimes withholding knowledge of literal crimes so they can leverage votes, but voters can't protest? Seems dumb.
What if the children are inside, see the crowd outside, and are scared to go out. They are indeed impeded from going out.
As per my comment above. You fall for the fallacy of thinking that if only you could pursue your politically ideal system everything would be fine. But the democracy you dislike so much is the only thing keeping someone who disagrees with you from stoving your head in with a piece of lead piping.
I mean, if the guy stoving my head in has a police badge, it's fine. Because the democracy we live under is still underlined by the vicious use of violence - just violence in a uniform. Democracy isn't what keeps ideological fights from breaking out all the time - it's the thing that points to one group and just deems their ideology acceptable and allows them to beat up whoever they want.
What if the children see a person walking a dog, and are afraid of dogs, and they don't wish to go out - is that dog walker besieging the children? One would expect someone to go "they're peaceful protesters, in this country we protect peoples rights to do that, they aren't going to hurt you". And if they do, or threaten to, then that would indeed be a problem.
As women's footie has been mentioned I heard vaguely on the wireless that attendance at some women's football match or other was over 60,000. That is pretty grown up.
No idea what the overall numbers look like outside (presumably) the top few clubs.
Part of it is the price. You can get a good ticket to see a women's match at the Emirates for £15 - that's the adult price, and can be cheaper with an early deal. If you can get a ticket for a men's match at all, you won't get much change from £100. It's a good standard of football, and by no means cripplingly expensive as a family day out.
I think they are quite right to do that - it's going in the right direction, kids will grow up watching the game, and that will gradually filter down to the smaller clubs (and, frankly, allow them to charge less of a giveaway price at Arsenal).
But a bit of caution is needed on the economics of it and getting ahead of ourselves - the gate receipts are still on a different level, and Arsenal Women aren't at this stage playing all games as the Emirates. I'd guess that attendance would cover variable costs (not sure though) but it's got a way to develop yet before it's a business - although it's getting there.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response...
I'm not sure about that. Camping outside one's house is harassment, not protest and is wrong for two reasons: i) it inspires sympathy for the protestee and is therefore counter-productive, and ii) is IMHO immoral. You wouldn't like it and Golden Rule applies.
MPs hold views. They are people. It is in the interest of the democratic process that these be known so that they may be assessed. But the place for judgment is the ballot box. I would not consider "outside the person's house" to be a good place for protest.
[EDIT: Or, come to think of it, "workplace". Streets, Squares, Parks, fields etc should suffice]
Yes, we should separate the domestic and public spheres. Someone's house is a sanctuary. Protest outside their office by all means, or outside parliament. Unless the house is also a political centre like Number 10 or the White House it should be left alone.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
A simple yes or no would do.
Is it ok to lay siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children.
Define lay siege.
Is it okay to protest his house when his kids are inside it? Of course. Should any protest target the children / impede their entrance or exit? No.
Again, I'm remind of SCOTUS here. 5 people said they planned to take away the guarantee that all women had a (flimsy) right to bodily autonomy and access to abortion. And when people protested their houses for saying they were going to do that, it was the protesters that were considered out of order.
Maybe it's the inherent distrust / lack of respect I have for representative democracy as a method for doing good things for the most people. But I just don't see why people who nominally have all the power of the state behind them shouldn't be protested by people if they use that in a way their constituents dislike. Surgeries are useless, going through the party apparatus is useless. Whips are allowed to blackmail MPs, sometimes withholding knowledge of literal crimes so they can leverage votes, but voters can't protest? Seems dumb.
If this is deemed acceptable then I'm afraid I wouldn't become an MP for a million quid a year. The stress it would put on my family would be unbearable. I think normalisation of this stuff would put paid to huge swathes of the population not considering a career as an MP.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
A prize winning entry for disingenuousness. The idea that it is simple to distinguish between a peaceful howling mob of 10,000 and an intimidating howling mob of 10,000 outside your house is magnificent in its simplicity.
I suspect also that most supporters of the howling mob outside the houses of MPs and district councillors will want to distinguish between an extreme left wing and progressive peace loving howling mob and an extreme right wing peace loving howling mob.
The rest of us just want freedom of speech, the rule of law and the ballot box.
I found it amusing that when the first Countryside Marches occurred a couple of harden protest types I knew were outraged.
They felt intimidated, oppressed, threatened.
To them, that was something them did to other people - they were fine with “mask up and throw things at the police”. When they were doing it.
People marching *against* what they saw as their cause was - Not Right.
Again, I disagree. People marching for things and being involved in politics is good - as long as what they're marching for / how they're organising isn't violent. Which is why basically the only groups I don't think should be allowed to organised are street fascists - their political ideology is inherently violent, and typically even when they say they're going for a peaceful march they still get boozed up and like to throw punches at random people.
So, anarchists calling for violent revolution, should they be allowed?
I would personally argue that anarchism doesn't inherently require violence whereas fascism does - anarchist just want the collapse of unjust hierarchies and the people who benefit from such hierarchies could just abdicate their power. When they refuse to abdicate their illegitimate power and use force to keep hold of it, violence typically happens, but it isn't inherent. Fascism has out groups they specifically want to purge from society at large, a purge that cannot happen without violence.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
A prize winning entry for disingenuousness. The idea that it is simple to distinguish between a peaceful howling mob of 10,000 and an intimidating howling mob of 10,000 outside your house is magnificent in its simplicity.
I suspect also that most supporters of the howling mob outside the houses of MPs and district councillors will want to distinguish between an extreme left wing and progressive peace loving howling mob and an extreme right wing peace loving howling mob.
The rest of us just want freedom of speech, the rule of law and the ballot box.
I found it amusing that when the first Countryside Marches occurred a couple of harden protest types I knew were outraged.
They felt intimidated, oppressed, threatened.
To them, that was something them did to other people - they were fine with “mask up and throw things at the police”. When they were doing it.
People marching *against* what they saw as their cause was - Not Right.
Again, I disagree. People marching for things and being involved in politics is good - as long as what they're marching for / how they're organising isn't violent. Which is why basically the only groups I don't think should be allowed to organised are street fascists - their political ideology is inherently violent, and typically even when they say they're going for a peaceful march they still get boozed up and like to throw punches at random people.
So, anarchists calling for violent revolution, should they be allowed?
I would personally argue that anarchism doesn't inherently require violence whereas fascism does - anarchist just want the collapse of unjust hierarchies and the people who benefit from such hierarchies could just abdicate their power. When they refuse to abdicate their illegitimate power and use force to keep hold of it, violence typically happens, but it isn't inherent. Fascism has out groups they specifically want to purge from society at large, a purge that cannot happen without violence.
So for example if someone owned a big house in London and refused to give it up to the collective, it would be legitimate to use force against them?
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
A prize winning entry for disingenuousness. The idea that it is simple to distinguish between a peaceful howling mob of 10,000 and an intimidating howling mob of 10,000 outside your house is magnificent in its simplicity.
I suspect also that most supporters of the howling mob outside the houses of MPs and district councillors will want to distinguish between an extreme left wing and progressive peace loving howling mob and an extreme right wing peace loving howling mob.
The rest of us just want freedom of speech, the rule of law and the ballot box.
I found it amusing that when the first Countryside Marches occurred a couple of harden protest types I knew were outraged.
They felt intimidated, oppressed, threatened.
To them, that was something them did to other people - they were fine with “mask up and throw things at the police”. When they were doing it.
People marching *against* what they saw as their cause was - Not Right.
Again, I disagree. People marching for things and being involved in politics is good - as long as what they're marching for / how they're organising isn't violent. Which is why basically the only groups I don't think should be allowed to organised are street fascists - their political ideology is inherently violent, and typically even when they say they're going for a peaceful march they still get boozed up and like to throw punches at random people.
Wonderful. is this a spoof?
Street fascists are terrible. However their smaller furrier cousins the field fascist is a much less threatening chap, with his curly whiskers. The golf fascist adopts plumage to blend in with the greens. Most terrible of all is the tree fascist, which leaps down from above with spikes whilst screaming lines from Mein Kampf
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
A prize winning entry for disingenuousness. The idea that it is simple to distinguish between a peaceful howling mob of 10,000 and an intimidating howling mob of 10,000 outside your house is magnificent in its simplicity.
I suspect also that most supporters of the howling mob outside the houses of MPs and district councillors will want to distinguish between an extreme left wing and progressive peace loving howling mob and an extreme right wing peace loving howling mob.
The rest of us just want freedom of speech, the rule of law and the ballot box.
I found it amusing that when the first Countryside Marches occurred a couple of harden protest types I knew were outraged.
They felt intimidated, oppressed, threatened.
To them, that was something them did to other people - they were fine with “mask up and throw things at the police”. When they were doing it.
People marching *against* what they saw as their cause was - Not Right.
Again, I disagree. People marching for things and being involved in politics is good - as long as what they're marching for / how they're organising isn't violent. Which is why basically the only groups I don't think should be allowed to organised are street fascists - their political ideology is inherently violent, and typically even when they say they're going for a peaceful march they still get boozed up and like to throw punches at random people.
Like you, I'm a huge fan of the right to peaceful protest. However, I fundamentally disagree with your view that it's okay to protest outside people's private residences. Corbyn had to endure this frequently, and it was an unacceptable intrusion into his private life. There's a whole host of fairly obvious reasons that this should be out of bounds. If I were considering standing for public office, the fear that I may be subject to protests outside my family house would be something of a deterrent.
Perhaps protesting outside MPs' state funded 2nd or even 3rd homes (which are likely to be sans sprogs) might be a compromise?
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
A simple yes or no would do.
Is it ok to lay siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children.
Define lay siege.
Is it okay to protest his house when his kids are inside it? Of course. Should any protest target the children / impede their entrance or exit? No.
Again, I'm remind of SCOTUS here. 5 people said they planned to take away the guarantee that all women had a (flimsy) right to bodily autonomy and access to abortion. And when people protested their houses for saying they were going to do that, it was the protesters that were considered out of order.
Maybe it's the inherent distrust / lack of respect I have for representative democracy as a method for doing good things for the most people. But I just don't see why people who nominally have all the power of the state behind them shouldn't be protested by people if they use that in a way their constituents dislike. Surgeries are useless, going through the party apparatus is useless. Whips are allowed to blackmail MPs, sometimes withholding knowledge of literal crimes so they can leverage votes, but voters can't protest? Seems dumb.
What if the children are inside, see the crowd outside, and are scared to go out. They are indeed impeded from going out.
As per my comment above. You fall for the fallacy of thinking that if only you could pursue your politically ideal system everything would be fine. But the democracy you dislike so much is the only thing keeping someone who disagrees with you from stoving your head in with a piece of lead piping.
I mean, if the guy stoving my head in has a police badge, it's fine. Because the democracy we live under is still underlined by the vicious use of violence - just violence in a uniform. Democracy isn't what keeps ideological fights from breaking out all the time - it's the thing that points to one group and just deems their ideology acceptable and allows them to beat up whoever they want.
What if the children see a person walking a dog, and are afraid of dogs, and they don't wish to go out - is that dog walker besieging the children? One would expect someone to go "they're peaceful protesters, in this country we protect peoples rights to do that, they aren't going to hurt you". And if they do, or threaten to, then that would indeed be a problem.
You again make the error of defining the world in your terms without accommodation of other peoples' views. I always called Boris a solipsistic twat. I don't think you are a twat but you sure as hell are solipsistic.
Other people have just as strong views as you do on their preferred political system and representative democracy is the compromise we have alighted upon so that no one dies horribly at the hands of their political opponents.
If you are allowed to act within your curious, and anomalous set of rules, then so are other people and they may decide, just as reasonably as you have laid out your political philosophy, that theirs is best achieved by stoving your head in with said lead piping, or making themselves at will a cup of tea in your kitchen.
It is representative democracy that prevents this. This is not a particularly sophisticated point that I am making.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
Surpassing disingenuousness. Of the hundreds of issues this raises, here is just one question. Planet earth is a long and large laboratory of political theory and practice. Which is the nation state of any substantial size (say over 2 million population) that best, even if imperfectly, exemplifies your version of non representative democracy?
Yeah I mean I was going to go back to him on this point. It's Winston Churchill all over again. What other system provides the rights that ours does.
@148grss makes the classic mistake of thinking that "the other side" isn't as hell bent on imposing their system on him as he is on imposing his system on them.
Democracy is the compromise whereby everyone agrees to go with a common system.
Edit: I mean that this needs saying on a politically-inclined website is quite disappointing.
But there are other forms of democracy that is not about individuals forgoing their stake in society to a representative, who forgoes their individual morality to a party, who tend to give up their principles to organised capital (at least in our system).
As I have said before - direct democracy would be great, no problem with that. Even if we couldn't go over night into a direct democracy from what we currently have - we could make steps towards it - workers involved in democracy at work, tenants unions being more common, changing lower levels of government from representative systems to fully communally engaged systems. It would take effort, sure; but I think some things are worth it. And if you don't think that and you want a representative democracy, then at least allowing people to protest their representatives should be fair game?
But you reject the idea of direct democracy to decide immigration policy?
We've had this conversation before. 1) I still think in direct democracy my policy position would prove to be the popular one. 2) A referendum, written before hand by political representatives with state power behind it, alongside a privately owned media apparatus that would feed into it is no my idea of direct democracy - especially when the outcome of such a referendum would still have to be enacted by representatives (in our system).
If we had, for example, community assemblies where everyone spent a lot of time discussing the issue together and came to a consensus - sure. But that isn't a possible reality at the moment.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm an optimist and a utopian and believe (incorrectly) in a general decency that all humans share because, typically, most people just want to get along, see their family and friends and have their material needs met.
An NHS trust has said that breast milk produced by trans women who were assigned male at birth is as good for babies as that produced by a mother who has given birth
It’s $ so I can’t see if the statement is scientifically true or not. I assume the article is showing that it’s not?
Interesting topic though, to what extent hormones can induce production of something that can replicate breast milk.
It’s not something that can replicate breast milk. It is breast milk. You’re turning on the same genes, the body is making the same substance in the same way, even if it’s been triggered artificially by the administration of exogenous female hormones.
TLDR: University of Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust: trans breast milk good! Here are studies and WHO guidance. Anti-trans campaigners: trans breast milk bad! IT JUST IS, OK? Journalist. One of the drugs used to stimulate breastfeeding can cause side-effects.
I was impressed by Lottie Moore's (Policy Exchange) use of the phrase "the secretions produced by a male on hormones", which is a long way to spell "milk" and makes me think of alien acid eating thru the decks of the Nostromo.
That is remarkably churlish language from Ms Moore. The anti trans crowd do come across quite badly sometimes.
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
Surpassing disingenuousness. Of the hundreds of issues this raises, here is just one question. Planet earth is a long and large laboratory of political theory and practice. Which is the nation state of any substantial size (say over 2 million population) that best, even if imperfectly, exemplifies your version of non representative democracy?
Yeah I mean I was going to go back to him on this point. It's Winston Churchill all over again. What other system provides the rights that ours does.
@148grss makes the classic mistake of thinking that "the other side" isn't as hell bent on imposing their system on him as he is on imposing his system on them.
Democracy is the compromise whereby everyone agrees to go with a common system.
Edit: I mean that this needs saying on a politically-inclined website is quite disappointing.
But there are other forms of democracy that is not about individuals forgoing their stake in society to a representative, who forgoes their individual morality to a party, who tend to give up their principles to organised capital (at least in our system).
As I have said before - direct democracy would be great, no problem with that. Even if we couldn't go over night into a direct democracy from what we currently have - we could make steps towards it - workers involved in democracy at work, tenants unions being more common, changing lower levels of government from representative systems to fully communally engaged systems. It would take effort, sure; but I think some things are worth it. And if you don't think that and you want a representative democracy, then at least allowing people to protest their representatives should be fair game?
The Peruvian government did a form of direct democracy as a response to the Shining Path.
When the soldiers were sent in to the hills, they were *subordinate* to the local Rondas (impromptu militia, aka armed mobs). So the local “council” decided who got The Good News. The army provided weapons, support and money.
So the locals were empowered to fight off the Shinies attacking their villages. Which they did with a gusto that Col. Kurtz would have admired.
For example, the mayor of a village was murdered. For being elected. As an extra FU, the SP blew up her body with dynamite to prevent a traditional, open casket funeral.
They caught one of the SPs who did this. And voted him off the island, in some style. Interestingly, it used a method described in an Edgar Wallace novel…
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
Surpassing disingenuousness. Of the hundreds of issues this raises, here is just one question. Planet earth is a long and large laboratory of political theory and practice. Which is the nation state of any substantial size (say over 2 million population) that best, even if imperfectly, exemplifies your version of non representative democracy?
Yeah I mean I was going to go back to him on this point. It's Winston Churchill all over again. What other system provides the rights that ours does.
@148grss makes the classic mistake of thinking that "the other side" isn't as hell bent on imposing their system on him as he is on imposing his system on them.
Democracy is the compromise whereby everyone agrees to go with a common system.
Edit: I mean that this needs saying on a politically-inclined website is quite disappointing.
But there are other forms of democracy that is not about individuals forgoing their stake in society to a representative, who forgoes their individual morality to a party, who tend to give up their principles to organised capital (at least in our system).
As I have said before - direct democracy would be great, no problem with that. Even if we couldn't go over night into a direct democracy from what we currently have - we could make steps towards it - workers involved in democracy at work, tenants unions being more common, changing lower levels of government from representative systems to fully communally engaged systems. It would take effort, sure; but I think some things are worth it. And if you don't think that and you want a representative democracy, then at least allowing people to protest their representatives should be fair game?
But you reject the idea of direct democracy to decide immigration policy?
We've had this conversation before. 1) I still think in direct democracy my policy position would prove to be the popular one. 2) A referendum, written before hand by political representatives with state power behind it, alongside a privately owned media apparatus that would feed into it is no my idea of direct democracy - especially when the outcome of such a referendum would still have to be enacted by representatives (in our system).
If we had, for example, community assemblies where everyone spent a lot of time discussing the issue together and came to a consensus - sure. But that isn't a possible reality at the moment.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm an optimist and a utopian and believe (incorrectly) in a general decency that all humans share because, typically, most people just want to get along, see their family and friends and have their material needs met.
How can *everyone* take part in an assembly? Are you not just reinventing representative democracy?
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
What’s that about?
Fascinating. I've just had a cup of coffee without incident.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
A prize winning entry for disingenuousness. The idea that it is simple to distinguish between a peaceful howling mob of 10,000 and an intimidating howling mob of 10,000 outside your house is magnificent in its simplicity.
I suspect also that most supporters of the howling mob outside the houses of MPs and district councillors will want to distinguish between an extreme left wing and progressive peace loving howling mob and an extreme right wing peace loving howling mob.
The rest of us just want freedom of speech, the rule of law and the ballot box.
I found it amusing that when the first Countryside Marches occurred a couple of harden protest types I knew were outraged.
They felt intimidated, oppressed, threatened.
To them, that was something them did to other people - they were fine with “mask up and throw things at the police”. When they were doing it.
People marching *against* what they saw as their cause was - Not Right.
Again, I disagree. People marching for things and being involved in politics is good - as long as what they're marching for / how they're organising isn't violent. Which is why basically the only groups I don't think should be allowed to organised are street fascists - their political ideology is inherently violent, and typically even when they say they're going for a peaceful march they still get boozed up and like to throw punches at random people.
Like you, I'm a huge fan of the right to peaceful protest. However, I fundamentally disagree with your view that it's okay to protest outside people's private residences. Corbyn had to endure this frequently, and it was an unacceptable intrusion into his private life. There's a whole host of fairly obvious reasons that this should be out of bounds. If I were considering standing for public office, the fear that I may be subject to protests outside my family house would be something of a deterrent.
If nothing else, such a protest automatically attacks everyone living/present in the house.
Wife, children, the lady who cleans on Thursday etc…
As women's footie has been mentioned I heard vaguely on the wireless that attendance at some women's football match or other was over 60,000. That is pretty grown up.
No idea what the overall numbers look like outside (presumably) the top few clubs.
Part of it is the price. You can get a good ticket to see a women's match at the Emirates for £15 - that's the adult price, and can be cheaper with an early deal. If you can get a ticket for a men's match at all, you won't get much change from £100. It's a good standard of football, and by no means cripplingly expensive as a family day out.
I think they are quite right to do that - it's going in the right direction, kids will grow up watching the game, and that will gradually filter down to the smaller clubs (and, frankly, allow them to charge less of a giveaway price at Arsenal).
But a bit of caution is needed on the economics of it and getting ahead of ourselves - the gate receipts are still on a different level, and Arsenal Women aren't at this stage playing all games as the Emirates. I'd guess that attendance would cover variable costs (not sure though) but it's got a way to develop yet before it's a business - although it's getting there.
Another issue is the number of games. There are still only 12 teams in each division, making habitual attendance somewhat difficult. Attendances tend to be high when played at the main club's stadium for the reasons you note. But most games are played many miles away at a shabbier non-league ground.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
On Badenoch, as I understand it her allegation that Staunton was lying in his newspaper article were made on a Twitter thread, a very public spat indeed. Regardless of the truth of the matter, is it appropriate for a Minister to resort to a social media thread to rebut such allegations rather than, for example, in Parliament, or even in an official letter that could be published? I don't think so - in fact I think it's wholly inappropriate. Badenoch has very poor judgement.
Didn't Gove and Cummings have form for doing the same thing back when they were at Education?
One reason for thinking Staunton may have a point about this is generational- he comes from an age when people were more careful with how they walked the "truth but not the whole truth unless absolutely necessary" line.
I suspect carefully wording comes from age and experience - there are times when I know I need to phrase very carefully because things have become political
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
What’s that about?
Sounds like you woke up too soon.
You’ll be pleased to know that pb got a glancing reference in the dream
While all the weird skirt shenanigans were going on I had to keep replying to some special group call and response chant someone had devised for everyobe staying in the hotel (it was a dream, bear with me) and lots of the responders were - I sensed, pb-ers
I wonder if the message of this dream is ITS TIME TO GO HOME YOU ARE NOW GOING MAD
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
A simple yes or no would do.
Is it ok to lay siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children.
Define lay siege.
Is it okay to protest his house when his kids are inside it? Of course. Should any protest target the children / impede their entrance or exit? No.
Again, I'm remind of SCOTUS here. 5 people said they planned to take away the guarantee that all women had a (flimsy) right to bodily autonomy and access to abortion. And when people protested their houses for saying they were going to do that, it was the protesters that were considered out of order.
Maybe it's the inherent distrust / lack of respect I have for representative democracy as a method for doing good things for the most people. But I just don't see why people who nominally have all the power of the state behind them shouldn't be protested by people if they use that in a way their constituents dislike. Surgeries are useless, going through the party apparatus is useless. Whips are allowed to blackmail MPs, sometimes withholding knowledge of literal crimes so they can leverage votes, but voters can't protest? Seems dumb.
If this is deemed acceptable then I'm afraid I wouldn't become an MP for a million quid a year. The stress it would put on my family would be unbearable. I think normalisation of this stuff would put paid to huge swathes of the population not considering a career as an MP.
It's absurd to argue that such behaviour be normalised.
I would guess only a very small percentage of the electorate would support it. It would be interesting to see polling on the topic.
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
What’s that about?
Face facts, you’re an old git now, the only young girls visiting your bedroom will be the ones delivering your meals on wheels.
Best start looking now for a comfortable sweater and slippers.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
A simple yes or no would do.
Is it ok to lay siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children.
Define lay siege.
Is it okay to protest his house when his kids are inside it? Of course. Should any protest target the children / impede their entrance or exit? No.
Again, I'm remind of SCOTUS here. 5 people said they planned to take away the guarantee that all women had a (flimsy) right to bodily autonomy and access to abortion. And when people protested their houses for saying they were going to do that, it was the protesters that were considered out of order.
Maybe it's the inherent distrust / lack of respect I have for representative democracy as a method for doing good things for the most people. But I just don't see why people who nominally have all the power of the state behind them shouldn't be protested by people if they use that in a way their constituents dislike. Surgeries are useless, going through the party apparatus is useless. Whips are allowed to blackmail MPs, sometimes withholding knowledge of literal crimes so they can leverage votes, but voters can't protest? Seems dumb.
What if the children are inside, see the crowd outside, and are scared to go out. They are indeed impeded from going out.
As per my comment above. You fall for the fallacy of thinking that if only you could pursue your politically ideal system everything would be fine. But the democracy you dislike so much is the only thing keeping someone who disagrees with you from stoving your head in with a piece of lead piping.
I mean, if the guy stoving my head in has a police badge, it's fine. Because the democracy we live under is still underlined by the vicious use of violence - just violence in a uniform. Democracy isn't what keeps ideological fights from breaking out all the time - it's the thing that points to one group and just deems their ideology acceptable and allows them to beat up whoever they want.
What if the children see a person walking a dog, and are afraid of dogs, and they don't wish to go out - is that dog walker besieging the children? One would expect someone to go "they're peaceful protesters, in this country we protect peoples rights to do that, they aren't going to hurt you". And if they do, or threaten to, then that would indeed be a problem.
You again make the error of defining the world in your terms without accommodation of other peoples' views. I always called Boris a solipsistic twat. I don't think you are a twat but you sure as hell are solipsistic.
Other people have just as strong views as you do on their preferred political system and representative democracy is the compromise we have alighted upon so that no one dies horribly at the hands of their political opponents.
If you are allowed to act within your curious, and anomalous set of rules, then so are other people and they may decide, just as reasonably as you have laid out your political philosophy, that theirs is best achieved by stoving your head in with said lead piping, or making themselves at will a cup of tea in your kitchen.
It is representative democracy that prevents this. This is not a particularly sophisticated point that I am making.
It is not representative democracy that prevents this; we have examples of representative democracies where these things clearly do happen and people do do such things, and we have examples of systems that are not representative democracies where such things do not happen. I understand that different people want different systems and would use violence to enact them, but the idea that representative democracy is some sort of compromise rather than just another one of those systems that used violence to be enacted and is not reproduced by continued threat and use of violence is nonsense.
We had a "representative democracy" that disallowed women to vote, and met with state violence when they demanded it; and resorted to violence to secure it. We had a "representative democracy" that only represented the will of aristocrats, and peasants and workers were killed or beaten until they organised and it was clear there were enough of them together they couldn't be stopped; the state didn't accede to their calls without first using violence and violence occurring in kind.
Every "state" or mass organisation of people will eventually ask the question "who has the right to commit violence and when" - and in the state we have that has been accrued by the police and politicians; politicians define the when and the police are the who (when the issue is an international one replace police with army). In an anarchist society, for example, the answer might be "everyone, when we agree" - not to mean that anyone at any time has the right to use violence, but that the community as a whole may come to an agreement that violence is necessary at a specific time for a specific reason. Or it could be that their are preagreed times when it is reasonable for force to be used, and anyone has the right to do that in those times, and everyone will be the judge of whether that was a reasonable time to use it.
Again - I'm not claiming this could happen over night, I'm not even claiming it would be easy to do, but I think that system would be better than what we currently have.
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
What’s that about?
Face facts, you’re an old git now, the only young girls visiting your bedroom will be the ones delivering your meals on wheels.
Best start looking now for a comfortable sweaters and slippers.
This interpretation did occur to me, but I rejected it on the grounds I dislike slippers
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
Surpassing disingenuousness. Of the hundreds of issues this raises, here is just one question. Planet earth is a long and large laboratory of political theory and practice. Which is the nation state of any substantial size (say over 2 million population) that best, even if imperfectly, exemplifies your version of non representative democracy?
Yeah I mean I was going to go back to him on this point. It's Winston Churchill all over again. What other system provides the rights that ours does.
@148grss makes the classic mistake of thinking that "the other side" isn't as hell bent on imposing their system on him as he is on imposing his system on them.
Democracy is the compromise whereby everyone agrees to go with a common system.
Edit: I mean that this needs saying on a politically-inclined website is quite disappointing.
But there are other forms of democracy that is not about individuals forgoing their stake in society to a representative, who forgoes their individual morality to a party, who tend to give up their principles to organised capital (at least in our system).
As I have said before - direct democracy would be great, no problem with that. Even if we couldn't go over night into a direct democracy from what we currently have - we could make steps towards it - workers involved in democracy at work, tenants unions being more common, changing lower levels of government from representative systems to fully communally engaged systems. It would take effort, sure; but I think some things are worth it. And if you don't think that and you want a representative democracy, then at least allowing people to protest their representatives should be fair game?
But you reject the idea of direct democracy to decide immigration policy?
We've had this conversation before. 1) I still think in direct democracy my policy position would prove to be the popular one. 2) A referendum, written before hand by political representatives with state power behind it, alongside a privately owned media apparatus that would feed into it is no my idea of direct democracy - especially when the outcome of such a referendum would still have to be enacted by representatives (in our system).
If we had, for example, community assemblies where everyone spent a lot of time discussing the issue together and came to a consensus - sure. But that isn't a possible reality at the moment.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm an optimist and a utopian and believe (incorrectly) in a general decency that all humans share because, typically, most people just want to get along, see their family and friends and have their material needs met.
How can *everyone* take part in an assembly? Are you not just reinventing representative democracy?
No - everyone means everyone. Again, I'd point to Rojava where they literally knocked on peoples' doors and said their is an assembly, come along - yes that means your wife too, she is a person as well - etc etc. I understand these things are difficult to imagine with the confines of the system we live in that alienates us from our neighbours and our communities, where neighbours are strangers and the people you work with are dispersed across miles and miles because everyone can commute and therefore your work links are not your social links and so on. But it can happen.
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
What’s that about?
You've accidentally posted your SORA video AI prompt to pb.
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
What’s that about?
Face facts, you’re an old git now, the only young girls visiting your bedroom will be the ones delivering your meals on wheels.
Best start looking now for a comfortable sweaters and slippers.
This interpretation did occur to me, but I rejected it on the grounds I dislike slippers
Growing old isn’t fun.
I realised I could retire quite comfortably next year at the age of 46 and that has filled me with dread.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
As women's footie has been mentioned I heard vaguely on the wireless that attendance at some women's football match or other was over 60,000. That is pretty grown up.
No idea what the overall numbers look like outside (presumably) the top few clubs.
Part of it is the price. You can get a good ticket to see a women's match at the Emirates for £15 - that's the adult price, and can be cheaper with an early deal. If you can get a ticket for a men's match at all, you won't get much change from £100. It's a good standard of football, and by no means cripplingly expensive as a family day out.
I think they are quite right to do that - it's going in the right direction, kids will grow up watching the game, and that will gradually filter down to the smaller clubs (and, frankly, allow them to charge less of a giveaway price at Arsenal).
But a bit of caution is needed on the economics of it and getting ahead of ourselves - the gate receipts are still on a different level, and Arsenal Women aren't at this stage playing all games as the Emirates. I'd guess that attendance would cover variable costs (not sure though) but it's got a way to develop yet before it's a business - although it's getting there.
Another issue is the number of games. There are still only 12 teams in each division, making habitual attendance somewhat difficult. Attendances tend to be high when played at the main club's stadium for the reasons you note. But most games are played many miles away at a shabbier non-league ground.
I agree, although in a sense "habitual attendance" is somewhat easier if the number of games is somewhat limited - both in terms of time and cost. You can promise to take the kids to see every [insert nearest WSL team here] home match this season, and it's not a rash commitment to make.
I think we agree, though, that people shouldn't let some eye-catching attendance numbers make them think there aren't quite a few steps from here to the women's game being in a strong financial position.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
A simple yes or no would do.
Is it ok to lay siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children.
Define lay siege.
Is it okay to protest his house when his kids are inside it? Of course. Should any protest target the children / impede their entrance or exit? No.
Again, I'm remind of SCOTUS here. 5 people said they planned to take away the guarantee that all women had a (flimsy) right to bodily autonomy and access to abortion. And when people protested their houses for saying they were going to do that, it was the protesters that were considered out of order.
Maybe it's the inherent distrust / lack of respect I have for representative democracy as a method for doing good things for the most people. But I just don't see why people who nominally have all the power of the state behind them shouldn't be protested by people if they use that in a way their constituents dislike. Surgeries are useless, going through the party apparatus is useless. Whips are allowed to blackmail MPs, sometimes withholding knowledge of literal crimes so they can leverage votes, but voters can't protest? Seems dumb.
If this is deemed acceptable then I'm afraid I wouldn't become an MP for a million quid a year. The stress it would put on my family would be unbearable. I think normalisation of this stuff would put paid to huge swathes of the population not considering a career as an MP.
It's absurd to argue that such behaviour be normalised.
I would guess only a very small percentage of the electorate would support it. It would be interesting to see polling on the topic.
I expect most people who want to become MPs have the hides of rhinos themselves, it's the intrusion on family that's the obviously unacceptable part.
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
What’s that about?
Face facts, you’re an old git now, the only young girls visiting your bedroom will be the ones delivering your meals on wheels.
Best start looking now for a comfortable sweaters and slippers.
This interpretation did occur to me, but I rejected it on the grounds I dislike slippers
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
What’s that about?
Face facts, you’re an old git now, the only young girls visiting your bedroom will be the ones delivering your meals on wheels.
Best start looking now for a comfortable sweaters and slippers.
This interpretation did occur to me, but I rejected it on the grounds I dislike slippers
Growing old isn’t fun.
I realised I could retire quite comfortably next year at the age of 46 and that has filled me with dread.
Don't retire early - serious advice
Unless you have some hugely absorbing pastime or some other passionate but iggnored vocation, or a new family you want to spend all your time with then don't retire early. I have a few friends that did, and most got bored quickly, one got V V depressed. Especially at 46. Ridiculously young
Hmm ... re header, Graun feed remarks of the infamous letter of appointment to Mr Staunton of the PO chairmanship that:
'Keegan [who did the morning interview etc] said the letter “basically says you’re to prioritise the sub-postmasters and their fair compensation”.
But in fact the letter, sent by Sarah Munby, who at the time was permanent secretary at the department, does not quite say that. It says “resolving historical litigation issues” should be a priority. But it also implies an even more important priority is effective financial management, including “effective management of legal costs”.
The letter does not disprove Staunton’s claim about being told to “stall” on compensation payments. Staunton told the Sunday Times this was just a money issue, and arguably it is consistent with what the letter says about cost management.'
Indeed. Being tasked to settle with the postmasters to make the problem go away is entirely consistent with being told to slow down the payments so the costs are incurred later, which is what Staunton claimed. Nothing so far has contradicted Staunton's claims. Badenoch needs those claims to be disproved, otherwise she's in trouble.
She also needs to prove Staunton was found to be guilty of misconduct, or she is equally in trouble.
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
What’s that about?
Face facts, you’re an old git now, the only young girls visiting your bedroom will be the ones delivering your meals on wheels.
Best start looking now for a comfortable sweaters and slippers.
This interpretation did occur to me, but I rejected it on the grounds I dislike slippers
These might work in an Uncle Monty kinda way?
I have reached the age where the "slip on shoe" has an added appeal, I confess
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
I very much fear that the PO scandal is receding in the public's limited scope of attention.
Yes. One, maybe one-and-a-half things at a time only.
The government in Ireland is very fortunate that the national broadcaster, RTÉ, have managed to sustain a scandal for more than six months, diverting attention from the ongoing failures in housing, healthcare, etc.
If Sunak even noticed I am sure he would be incredibly envious.
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
What’s that about?
Face facts, you’re an old git now, the only young girls visiting your bedroom will be the ones delivering your meals on wheels.
Best start looking now for a comfortable sweaters and slippers.
This interpretation did occur to me, but I rejected it on the grounds I dislike slippers
Growing old isn’t fun.
I realised I could retire quite comfortably next year at the age of 46 and that has filled me with dread.
Don't retire early - serious advice
Unless you have some hugely absorbing pastime or some other passionate but iggnored vocation, or a new family you want to spend all your time with then don't retire early. I have a few friends that did, and most got bored quickly, one got V V depressed. Especially at 46. Ridiculously young
I know, I put a lot of work in my early career so I could retire 50 to 55.
I’m getting remarried this year and spend time with the family but I like earning money.
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
What’s that about?
Face facts, you’re an old git now, the only young girls visiting your bedroom will be the ones delivering your meals on wheels.
Best start looking now for a comfortable sweaters and slippers.
This interpretation did occur to me, but I rejected it on the grounds I dislike slippers
Growing old isn’t fun.
I realised I could retire quite comfortably next year at the age of 46 and that has filled me with dread.
Don't retire early - serious advice
Unless you have some hugely absorbing pastime or some other passionate but iggnored vocation, or a new family you want to spend all your time with then don't retire early. I have a few friends that did, and most got bored quickly, one got V V depressed. Especially at 46. Ridiculously young
I know, I put a lot of work in my early career so I could retire 50 to 55.
I’m getting remarried this year and spend time with the family but I like earning money.
A man needs a purpose. Switch things up a bit, but don't retire entirely? How much golf can one play?
The PO saga looks set to drag on into the next Parliament and Govt, hopefully a new PM (hopefully) will just shake the magic money tree (its a little bare) and move on, I sense that it might just rear its head in the run up to a GE. lessons do need to be learnt but foot dragging over the compo helps no-one.
Lessons do not need to be learnt. That is admin speak for “write an unreadable report and hold no-one to account for their actions.”
Instead, actual people, who fucked up, need to lose their jobs for gross incompetence.
Many moons ago, after another scandal, I proposed a system that could be implemented after important reports. The report would come up with a list of issues, and even propose solutions.
The government would then have to respond within a period - say, a couple of months - to say what their response is to each issue and proposal. For ones they accept, they would have to give an implementation timetable. The original inquiry team would be responsible for checking on the progress towards implementation.
It creates extra bureaucracy, but would help prevent reports being kicked into the long grass and forgotten.
Good morning everyone.
That system sounds as though it could help as a sort of "expected normal routine" bolted onto the Inquiries Act 2005. It wouldn't succeed 100%, but I think it would help.
A nice sunny day in Notts. It's not *that* hot - I haven't yet had to run the hear pump in backwards mode.
But it is time to start thinking about clearing out some bits of garden, and which beg to grow this "first year back" for me.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
A simple yes or no would do.
Is it ok to lay siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children.
Define lay siege.
Is it okay to protest his house when his kids are inside it? Of course. Should any protest target the children / impede their entrance or exit? No.
Again, I'm remind of SCOTUS here. 5 people said they planned to take away the guarantee that all women had a (flimsy) right to bodily autonomy and access to abortion. And when people protested their houses for saying they were going to do that, it was the protesters that were considered out of order.
Maybe it's the inherent distrust / lack of respect I have for representative democracy as a method for doing good things for the most people. But I just don't see why people who nominally have all the power of the state behind them shouldn't be protested by people if they use that in a way their constituents dislike. Surgeries are useless, going through the party apparatus is useless. Whips are allowed to blackmail MPs, sometimes withholding knowledge of literal crimes so they can leverage votes, but voters can't protest? Seems dumb.
If this is deemed acceptable then I'm afraid I wouldn't become an MP for a million quid a year. The stress it would put on my family would be unbearable. I think normalisation of this stuff would put paid to huge swathes of the population not considering a career as an MP.
It's absurd to argue that such behaviour be normalised.
I would guess only a very small percentage of the electorate would support it. It would be interesting to see polling on the topic.
I expect most people who want to become MPs have the hides of rhinos themselves, it's the intrusion on family that's the obviously unacceptable part.
I'm sorry, but that should be considered part of the price of power - and MPs do have a lot of power. What are the means of recourse otherwise? A letter to your MPs office they can ignore, or send a rote response to? Voting them out in a couple of years time? Again, if it isn't violence or the threat of violence - if it's people outside with placards saying "it was bad you voted x" - what's the issue?
I think this also comes from a general belief that all protesters or methods of protest are the most radical forms - lock ons or shouting or whatever. Like I said, I'd be happy for specific rules for protesting outside of MPs houses - distance limits like there are / should be at abortion services, probably no loud hailers / speakers, and a clear distinction between what is legitimate protest and what is harassment (no verbal abuse, there being a clear political purpose, etc.). These things would require nuance and understanding (something I know police aren't great at), but most protests are typically like this - people waving placards about and milling around for a bit.
Again, I disagree. People marching for things and being involved in politics is good - as long as what they're marching for / how they're organising isn't violent. Which is why basically the only groups I don't think should be allowed to organised are street fascists - their political ideology is inherently violent, and typically even when they say they're going for a peaceful march they still get boozed up and like to throw punches at random people.
Like you, I'm a huge fan of the right to peaceful protest. However, I fundamentally disagree with your view that it's okay to protest outside people's private residences. Corbyn had to endure this frequently, and it was an unacceptable intrusion into his private life. There's a whole host of fairly obvious reasons that this should be out of bounds. If I were considering standing for public office, the fear that I may be subject to protests outside my family house would be something of a deterrent.
When I annoyed the Mail on Sunday about something they waylaid my wife outside her house and asked her questions obviously designed to provoke something quotable - "This is a small house, I bet you've got a nice villa tucked away somewhere?" and that sort of thing. She had no idea what the issue was about (I'd confirmed that a Tory MP had told a racist joke, and was criticised for disclosing something from a private dinner by a Danish company), so was furious not just with them but with me for exposing her to the ambush. That sort of thing definitely does put people off from any public role.
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
Well I had a dream last night that my duvet was unusually heavy because it had just had a fresh dump of snow and I was skiing off piste (I have never actually skied off piste).
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
A simple yes or no would do.
Is it ok to lay siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children.
Define lay siege.
Is it okay to protest his house when his kids are inside it? Of course. Should any protest target the children / impede their entrance or exit? No.
Again, I'm remind of SCOTUS here. 5 people said they planned to take away the guarantee that all women had a (flimsy) right to bodily autonomy and access to abortion. And when people protested their houses for saying they were going to do that, it was the protesters that were considered out of order.
Maybe it's the inherent distrust / lack of respect I have for representative democracy as a method for doing good things for the most people. But I just don't see why people who nominally have all the power of the state behind them shouldn't be protested by people if they use that in a way their constituents dislike. Surgeries are useless, going through the party apparatus is useless. Whips are allowed to blackmail MPs, sometimes withholding knowledge of literal crimes so they can leverage votes, but voters can't protest? Seems dumb.
If this is deemed acceptable then I'm afraid I wouldn't become an MP for a million quid a year. The stress it would put on my family would be unbearable. I think normalisation of this stuff would put paid to huge swathes of the population not considering a career as an MP.
It's absurd to argue that such behaviour be normalised.
I would guess only a very small percentage of the electorate would support it. It would be interesting to see polling on the topic.
I expect most people who want to become MPs have the hides of rhinos themselves, it's the intrusion on family that's the obviously unacceptable part.
I'm sorry, but that should be considered part of the price of power - and MPs do have a lot of power. What are the means of recourse otherwise? A letter to your MPs office they can ignore, or send a rote response to? Voting them out in a couple of years time? Again, if it isn't violence or the threat of violence - if it's people outside with placards saying "it was bad you voted x" - what's the issue?
I think this also comes from a general belief that all protesters or methods of protest are the most radical forms - lock ons or shouting or whatever. Like I said, I'd be happy for specific rules for protesting outside of MPs houses - distance limits like there are / should be at abortion services, probably no loud hailers / speakers, and a clear distinction between what is legitimate protest and what is harassment (no verbal abuse, there being a clear political purpose, etc.). These things would require nuance and understanding (something I know police aren't great at), but most protests are typically like this - people waving placards about and milling around for a bit.
Or lets go back to the Roman system - if we aren't allowed to have protests. Just employ a different member of the constituency for a week or so to just whisper in each MPs ear that they're mortal and going to die one day. It can be like jury duty.
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
What’s that about?
Sounds like you woke up too soon.
You’ll be pleased to know that pb got a glancing reference in the dream
While all the weird skirt shenanigans were going on I had to keep replying to some special group call and response chant someone had devised for everyobe staying in the hotel (it was a dream, bear with me) and lots of the responders were - I sensed, pb-ers
I wonder if the message of this dream is ITS TIME TO GO HOME YOU ARE NOW GOING MAD
The first rule of all social interactions is nobody wants to hear about your dreams.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
I listened to some of it - I think it's likely going to be 9-0, maybe 8-1 with a Sotomayor dissent. I think SCOTUS will argue that an individual state cannot just decide that someone is an insurrectionist, and that the only method for doing that is the federal court system / a declaration from the federal government. Thomas and Alito might prefer the latter to the former - I think the Whiskey Rebellion would be something that happened prior to the ratification of the 14th Amendment that they could point to as something recognised by the federal government as insurrection that didn't go through the courts (although members of that received pardons, so likely wouldn't have fallen afoul of the 14th). Sotomayor may just make an argument that, in this specific case, it doesn't matter if a state can or can't decide who is an insurrectionist when Trump is so clearly one. But I doubt it.
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
What’s that about?
Face facts, you’re an old git now, the only young girls visiting your bedroom will be the ones delivering your meals on wheels.
Best start looking now for a comfortable sweaters and slippers.
This interpretation did occur to me, but I rejected it on the grounds I dislike slippers
Growing old isn’t fun.
I realised I could retire quite comfortably next year at the age of 46 and that has filled me with dread.
Don't retire early - serious advice
Unless you have some hugely absorbing pastime or some other passionate but iggnored vocation, or a new family you want to spend all your time with then don't retire early. I have a few friends that did, and most got bored quickly, one got V V depressed. Especially at 46. Ridiculously young
I know, I put a lot of work in my early career so I could retire 50 to 55.
I’m getting remarried this year and spend time with the family but I like earning money.
A man needs a purpose. Switch things up a bit, but don't retire entirely? How much golf can one play?
(congratulations, btw)
I was given some sage advise by an old(ish) academic a few years ago. He drew a graph with one line curving downwards and one upwards, intersecting around the age of 60. The message was that you need to start building your second career(s) / pastime(s) from at least your 40s so that these can increasingly take over from the mid 50s onwards while your primary career goes into a slow but gentle glide path. That you should avoid a cliff edge retirement at all costs.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Whilst I think any threats of violence are unacceptable - I also think it is completely fine to protest someone who was a soldier in another army (or, indeed, our army) based on the acts of that army / state. If anything I think more people should be protesting their MPs at their surgeries or houses for their beliefs and votes - they are supposed to represent us and when they don't, peaceful protest is a pretty reasonable response. This being the husband of an MP is a bit of a grey area - the MP is the public figure here, not his husband - but in principle, again, I'm not against it.
This kind of feels like SCOTUS post Dobbs when people turned up to protest at their houses and they started getting their knickers in a twist. Peaceful protesters (and I do want to highlight peaceful here before people claim I am defending death threats or whatever) protesting your actions when you have significant power over others is fair.
How about laying siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children. All good?
Being a politician is a choice. Outside of one vote every 4-5 years, your representative has no recourse to you as a voter (barring a recall petition). I think, if you want a liberal democracy, protesting your elected officials should be the norm. We can argue about how far away (I'd be happy with, say, the other side of the road rather than outside the front door, for example) or what kinds of protest and when - but in general turning up with a few placards or banners, or even shouting slogans, is not the end of the world when you have the power to vote on things that are literally life and death for people.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
Surpassing disingenuousness. Of the hundreds of issues this raises, here is just one question. Planet earth is a long and large laboratory of political theory and practice. Which is the nation state of any substantial size (say over 2 million population) that best, even if imperfectly, exemplifies your version of non representative democracy?
Yeah I mean I was going to go back to him on this point. It's Winston Churchill all over again. What other system provides the rights that ours does.
@148grss makes the classic mistake of thinking that "the other side" isn't as hell bent on imposing their system on him as he is on imposing his system on them.
Democracy is the compromise whereby everyone agrees to go with a common system.
Edit: I mean that this needs saying on a politically-inclined website is quite disappointing.
But there are other forms of democracy that is not about individuals forgoing their stake in society to a representative, who forgoes their individual morality to a party, who tend to give up their principles to organised capital (at least in our system).
As I have said before - direct democracy would be great, no problem with that. Even if we couldn't go over night into a direct democracy from what we currently have - we could make steps towards it - workers involved in democracy at work, tenants unions being more common, changing lower levels of government from representative systems to fully communally engaged systems. It would take effort, sure; but I think some things are worth it. And if you don't think that and you want a representative democracy, then at least allowing people to protest their representatives should be fair game?
But you reject the idea of direct democracy to decide immigration policy?
We've had this conversation before. 1) I still think in direct democracy my policy position would prove to be the popular one. 2) A referendum, written before hand by political representatives with state power behind it, alongside a privately owned media apparatus that would feed into it is no my idea of direct democracy - especially when the outcome of such a referendum would still have to be enacted by representatives (in our system).
If we had, for example, community assemblies where everyone spent a lot of time discussing the issue together and came to a consensus - sure. But that isn't a possible reality at the moment.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm an optimist and a utopian and believe (incorrectly) in a general decency that all humans share because, typically, most people just want to get along, see their family and friends and have their material needs met.
How can *everyone* take part in an assembly? Are you not just reinventing representative democracy?
No - everyone means everyone. Again, I'd point to Rojava where they literally knocked on peoples' doors and said their is an assembly, come along - yes that means your wife too, she is a person as well - etc etc. I understand these things are difficult to imagine with the confines of the system we live in that alienates us from our neighbours and our communities, where neighbours are strangers and the people you work with are dispersed across miles and miles because everyone can commute and therefore your work links are not your social links and so on. But it can happen.
The system where I can elect someone who is broadly aligned aligned with my views to a properly constituted assembly to deliberate and make decisions while I'm at the pub isn't a bad one.
Your alternative sounds like forcing reasonably sensible, often busy people to spend hour after hour listening to genuinely dull but committed extremists, just in order to stop them doing something utterly stupid. It would exclude those with families, or busy jobs, those who can't make it due to age and infirmity etc.
I agree "it can happen". I just don't want it to as it sounds horrific.
I think higher courts quickly rule out of scope stuff that people in general and lower courts might have spent plenty of time arguing over. The key take I think is that the SC has decided events of Jan 6th specifically are broadly irrelevant to barring Trump.
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
What’s that about?
Fascinating. I've just had a cup of coffee without incident.
I smashed our cafetiere on Sunday (wife's fault - I was washing it up and she asked me a question, I turned to look at her and smacked it into the tap - she should know by now that men can't multi-task!) so coffee is lacking today.
We did load up the small cafetiere and try the americano approach this morning - super strong which we diluted in the cup with hot water. Wasn't too bad.
The PO saga looks set to drag on into the next Parliament and Govt, hopefully a new PM (hopefully) will just shake the magic money tree (its a little bare) and move on, I sense that it might just rear its head in the run up to a GE. lessons do need to be learnt but foot dragging over the compo helps no-one.
Lessons do not need to be learnt. That is admin speak for “write an unreadable report and hold no-one to account for their actions.”
Instead, actual people, who fucked up, need to lose their jobs for gross incompetence.
Many moons ago, after another scandal, I proposed a system that could be implemented after important reports. The report would come up with a list of issues, and even propose solutions.
The government would then have to respond within a period - say, a couple of months - to say what their response is to each issue and proposal. For ones they accept, they would have to give an implementation timetable. The original inquiry team would be responsible for checking on the progress towards implementation.
It creates extra bureaucracy, but would help prevent reports being kicked into the long grass and forgotten.
Good morning everyone.
That system sounds as though it could help as a sort of "expected normal routine" bolted onto the Inquiries Act 2005. It wouldn't succeed 100%, but I think it would help.
A nice sunny day in Notts. It's not *that* hot - I haven't yet had to run the hear pump in backwards mode.
But it is time to start thinking about clearing out some bits of garden, and which beg to grow this "first year back" for me.
It’s really quite warm up here in Durham too. I did the clearing last week. Need to wait til April for the garden waste collection now.
Comments
No idea what the overall numbers look like outside (presumably) the top few clubs.
But then I'm not a particular fan of representative democracy. I can't remember who said it (maybe Chomsky, maybe Varoufakis), but liberal representative democracy is a smoke and mirrors show to give the appearance of representation of the people. It's a steam valve that is allowed to open up every 4-5 years to release the pressure caused by material political conditions, but the system basically demands that you only release that pressure at times when they say it is okay. This is the gloved iron fist - a pretence at democracy that comes down hard if you dare try to do democracy outside its remit via protest or mass movement and organising.
Cynics might wonder that these threats have come to light in time for the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill going through Parliament (see my earlier post). Older PBers will remember Sir Humphrey conveniently finding Jim Hacker's name on a terrorist death list.
Is it ok to lay siege to Jacob Rees-Mogg's children.
It's a useful example of the fact that the different biologies of men and women arise from a divergence from a common pattern, and that divergence is triggered by hormones - with genes playing the role of selecting the hormone.
I suspect also that most supporters of the howling mob outside the houses of MPs and district councillors will want to distinguish between an extreme left wing and progressive peace loving howling mob and an extreme right wing peace loving howling mob.
The rest of us just want freedom of speech, the rule of law and the ballot box.
- Archive link: https://archive.is/E6VPt
- TLDR: University of Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust: trans breast milk good! Here are studies and WHO guidance. Anti-trans campaigners: trans breast milk bad! IT JUST IS, OK? Journalist. One of the drugs used to stimulate breastfeeding can cause side-effects.
I was impressed by Lottie Moore's (Policy Exchange) use of the phrase "the secretions produced by a male on hormones", which is a long way to spell "milk" and makes me think of alien acid eating thru the decks of the Nostromo.My summary: This is all pretty new, but you give the right hormones, then someone born with a male body can express milk. The milk is pretty much identical to any other breast milk. The challenge is getting enough volume of milk.
"To our knowledge, this is only the second case in the literature to report on the macronutrients of induced milk9 and the first to present data on the HMO [human milk oligosaccharides] and hormone content from a nongestational parent also on gender affirming hormone treatment. As reported, the induced milk was as robust in protein, calories, fat, lactose, and HMOs as term milk from a gestational parent. The prior report also documented comparable levels of macronutrients in the induced milk of a transgender woman compared with those in standard term milk.9,14
"Although HMO profile varies from person to person, the overall HMO content of this induced milk is comparable with standard term human milk. These results show that induced milk from a TGD nongestational parent also produces adequate nutrients for a growing infant. LH and FSH levels were below detection range, suggesting very low, if any, levels of these hormones. This may be due to the hormone therapy suppressing LH and FSH production in transgender women.19"
[...]
"The amount of milk production by the patient in this report would not be enough to solely sustain an infant's nutritional needs. However, since the patient was cofeeding with the gestational parent, this amount aligned with her breastfeeding goals. For this patient, considerations may include reduced pumping sessions around delivery while in the hospital and time constraints with newborn's needs. The prior three published case reports discuss similar findings.7,9,10 Additional research is needed to highlight potential limitations specific to this population."
They felt intimidated, oppressed, threatened.
To them, that was something them did to other people - they were fine with “mask up and throw things at the police”. When they were doing it.
People marching *against* what they saw as their cause was - Not Right.
'Keegan [who did the morning interview etc] said the letter “basically says you’re to prioritise the sub-postmasters and their fair compensation”.
But in fact the letter, sent by Sarah Munby, who at the time was permanent secretary at the department, does not quite say that. It says “resolving historical litigation issues” should be a priority. But it also implies an even more important priority is effective financial management, including “effective management of legal costs”.
The letter does not disprove Staunton’s claim about being told to “stall” on compensation payments. Staunton told the Sunday Times this was just a money issue, and arguably it is consistent with what the letter says about cost management.'
Is it okay to protest his house when his kids are inside it? Of course. Should any protest target the children / impede their entrance or exit? No.
Again, I'm remind of SCOTUS here. 5 people said they planned to take away the guarantee that all women had a (flimsy) right to bodily autonomy and access to abortion. And when people protested their houses for saying they were going to do that, it was the protesters that were considered out of order.
Maybe it's the inherent distrust / lack of respect I have for representative democracy as a method for doing good things for the most people. But I just don't see why people who nominally have all the power of the state behind them shouldn't be protested by people if they use that in a way their constituents dislike. Surgeries are useless, going through the party apparatus is useless. Whips are allowed to blackmail MPs, sometimes withholding knowledge of literal crimes so they can leverage votes, but voters can't protest? Seems dumb.
Just list who he supports.
@148grss makes the classic mistake of thinking that "the other side" isn't as hell bent on imposing their system on him as he is on imposing his system on them.
Democracy is the compromise whereby everyone agrees to go with a common system.
Edit: I mean that this needs saying on a politically-inclined website is quite disappointing.
Badenoch has very poor judgement.
As per my comment above. You fall for the fallacy of thinking that if only you could pursue your politically ideal system everything would be fine. But the democracy you dislike so much is the only thing keeping someone who disagrees with you from stoving your head in with a piece of lead piping.
Incidentally, most arguments against representative democracy tend in the end to rely on the idea that voters and those they vote in, are held captive by false consciousness, from which the arguer himself is miraculously immune.
As I have said before - direct democracy would be great, no problem with that. Even if we couldn't go over night into a direct democracy from what we currently have - we could make steps towards it - workers involved in democracy at work, tenants unions being more common, changing lower levels of government from representative systems to fully communally engaged systems. It would take effort, sure; but I think some things are worth it. And if you don't think that and you want a representative democracy, then at least allowing people to protest their representatives should be fair game?
Couldn't agree more as long as it is peaceful and not and the home of the MP. Sadly we have seen too many examples where this is not the case (murdered MPs, MP's homes targeted).
One reason for thinking Staunton may have a point about this is generational- he comes from an age when people were more careful with how they walked the "truth but not the whole truth unless absolutely necessary" line.
MPs hold views. They are people. It is in the interest of the democratic process that these be known so that they may be assessed. But the place for judgment is the ballot box. I would not consider "outside the person's house" to be a good place for protest.
[EDIT: Or, come to think of it, "workplace". Streets, Squares, Parks, fields etc should suffice]
What if the children see a person walking a dog, and are afraid of dogs, and they don't wish to go out - is that dog walker besieging the children? One would expect someone to go "they're peaceful protesters, in this country we protect peoples rights to do that, they aren't going to hurt you". And if they do, or threaten to, then that would indeed be a problem.
I think they are quite right to do that - it's going in the right direction, kids will grow up watching the game, and that will gradually filter down to the smaller clubs (and, frankly, allow them to charge less of a giveaway price at Arsenal).
But a bit of caution is needed on the economics of it and getting ahead of ourselves - the gate receipts are still on a different level, and Arsenal Women aren't at this stage playing all games as the Emirates. I'd guess that attendance would cover variable costs (not sure though) but it's got a way to develop yet before it's a business - although it's getting there.
I think normalisation of this stuff would put paid to huge swathes of the population not considering a career as an MP.
Other people have just as strong views as you do on their preferred political system and representative democracy is the compromise we have alighted upon so that no one dies horribly at the hands of their political opponents.
If you are allowed to act within your curious, and anomalous set of rules, then so are other people and they may decide, just as reasonably as you have laid out your political philosophy, that theirs is best achieved by stoving your head in with said lead piping, or making themselves at will a cup of tea in your kitchen.
It is representative democracy that prevents this. This is not a particularly sophisticated point that I am making.
If we had, for example, community assemblies where everyone spent a lot of time discussing the issue together and came to a consensus - sure. But that isn't a possible reality at the moment.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm an optimist and a utopian and believe (incorrectly) in a general decency that all humans share because, typically, most people just want to get along, see their family and friends and have their material needs met.
I woke up feeling refreshed at 10am (dry day before). Did four hours solid work. Picked up Laundry and had a delicious Chinese dumpling lunch (+2 beers)
Came back and was gonna sun bathe but then fell asleep instead for half an hour (not unknown - I like a nap). So I got up refreshed but then almost immediately went back to sleep again and had a dream where my ex girlfriend Sarah xxxx (now an esteemed civil engineer) was now complexly employed by some Indian steel magnate and returned to the age of 19 and she was charging £20 to look up her skirt on the promise she wasn’t wearing any underwear and I agreed the price as it seemed fair and then I woke up
What’s that about?
When the soldiers were sent in to the hills, they were *subordinate* to the local Rondas (impromptu militia, aka armed mobs). So the local “council” decided who got The Good News. The army provided weapons, support and money.
So the locals were empowered to fight off the Shinies attacking their villages. Which they did with a gusto that Col. Kurtz would have admired.
For example, the mayor of a village was murdered. For being elected. As an extra FU, the SP blew up her body with dynamite to prevent a traditional, open casket funeral.
They caught one of the SPs who did this. And voted him off the island, in some style. Interestingly, it used a method described in an Edgar Wallace novel…
I've just had a cup of coffee without incident.
Wife, children, the lady who cleans on Thursday etc…
But most games are played many miles away at a shabbier non-league ground.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
Isn't there a website for this kind of thing, something like Nitter? Natter? Twatter? Xatter? Something like that
While all the weird skirt shenanigans were going on I had to keep replying to some special group call and response chant someone had devised for everyobe staying in the hotel (it was a dream, bear with me) and lots of the responders were - I sensed, pb-ers
I wonder if the message of this dream is ITS TIME TO GO HOME YOU ARE NOW GOING MAD
I would guess only a very small percentage of the electorate would support it. It would be interesting to see polling on the topic.
Best start looking now for a comfortable sweater and slippers.
Oops
We had a "representative democracy" that disallowed women to vote, and met with state violence when they demanded it; and resorted to violence to secure it. We had a "representative democracy" that only represented the will of aristocrats, and peasants and workers were killed or beaten until they organised and it was clear there were enough of them together they couldn't be stopped; the state didn't accede to their calls without first using violence and violence occurring in kind.
Every "state" or mass organisation of people will eventually ask the question "who has the right to commit violence and when" - and in the state we have that has been accrued by the police and politicians; politicians define the when and the police are the who (when the issue is an international one replace police with army). In an anarchist society, for example, the answer might be "everyone, when we agree" - not to mean that anyone at any time has the right to use violence, but that the community as a whole may come to an agreement that violence is necessary at a specific time for a specific reason. Or it could be that their are preagreed times when it is reasonable for force to be used, and anyone has the right to do that in those times, and everyone will be the judge of whether that was a reasonable time to use it.
Again - I'm not claiming this could happen over night, I'm not even claiming it would be easy to do, but I think that system would be better than what we currently have.
I realised I could retire quite comfortably next year at the age of 46 and that has filled me with dread.
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I think we agree, though, that people shouldn't let some eye-catching attendance numbers make them think there aren't quite a few steps from here to the women's game being in a strong financial position.
Unless you have some hugely absorbing pastime or some other passionate but iggnored vocation, or a new family you want to spend all your time with then don't retire early. I have a few friends that did, and most got bored quickly, one got V V depressed. Especially at 46. Ridiculously young
You sound like a woman complaining being beautiful means she gets too much attention. It's way better than being ugly 99% of the time.
She also needs to prove Staunton was found to be guilty of misconduct, or she is equally in trouble.
But I am determined to resist
The government in Ireland is very fortunate that the national broadcaster, RTÉ, have managed to sustain a scandal for more than six months, diverting attention from the ongoing failures in housing, healthcare, etc.
If Sunak even noticed I am sure he would be incredibly envious.
I’m getting remarried this year and spend time with the family but I like earning money.
(congratulations, btw)
That system sounds as though it could help as a sort of "expected normal routine" bolted onto the Inquiries Act 2005. It wouldn't succeed 100%, but I think it would help.
A nice sunny day in Notts. It's not *that* hot - I haven't yet had to run the hear pump in backwards mode.
But it is time to start thinking about clearing out some bits of garden, and which beg to grow this "first year back" for me.
I think this also comes from a general belief that all protesters or methods of protest are the most radical forms - lock ons or shouting or whatever. Like I said, I'd be happy for specific rules for protesting outside of MPs houses - distance limits like there are / should be at abortion services, probably no loud hailers / speakers, and a clear distinction between what is legitimate protest and what is harassment (no verbal abuse, there being a clear political purpose, etc.). These things would require nuance and understanding (something I know police aren't great at), but most protests are typically like this - people waving placards about and milling around for a bit.
Labours star performer changes tone, as does the party from its previous unwavering support for Israel
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/19/israel-has-gone-beyond-self-defence-in-gaza-says-labour-shadow-minister
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
In today's completely unsurprising news the Lib Dems have been attending bar chart design classes: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/liberal-democrats/2024/02/inside-liberal-democrats-plan-labour
A festival of semantics, but that is how the SC gets to a viable (or loopy) interpretation.
It surprises me how short these sessions are - the CBS recorded live stream for this is under 3 hours, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLUprDFesrE
Your alternative sounds like forcing reasonably sensible, often busy people to spend hour after hour listening to genuinely dull but committed extremists, just in order to stop them doing something utterly stupid. It would exclude those with families, or busy jobs, those who can't make it due to age and infirmity etc.
I agree "it can happen". I just don't want it to as it sounds horrific.
We did load up the small cafetiere and try the americano approach this morning - super strong which we diluted in the cup with hot water. Wasn't too bad.
#parlebeverages.com