Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
If the marriage isn't registered then they're not married?
Yep, so a wife can’t leave her husband and get an actual divorce in an actual court, so they’re instead being forced to go to this local ‘arbitration’ service under Sharia.
Apparently Israel is going to supply early warning systems for detecting drone and missile attacks to Ukraine. A consequence for Russia siding with Hamas.
Russia is battering Ukraine at the moment anyway. Ukraine needs far more than that.
Ukraine certainly do need more support, but they did manage to shoot down a pair of Russian jets yesterday, so not everything is going Russia's way.
I've reported similar recently, but I fear some caution is required. There is very little evidence of these fighter-bombers being shot down; just claims. Unlike, say, the AWACS plane that Ukraine got last week. They may be hitting them over Russian territory (as expected from the way they're being used as missile platforms) and the Russians hiding videos of the shootdowns and/or wreckage, but it's happening too often, and as the AWACS plane showed; Russia is not good at withholding information on such things.
I really, really hope I'm wrong.
Many of these losses have been confirmed by Russian milibloggers.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
One thing that made me think that an arranged marriage was a good idea was that I could get divorced by just saying 'Talaq, talaq, talaq' to the wife, and I could do that via phone as well.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
If the marriage isn't registered then they're not married?
They’re not married in the eyes of the law. They are married in the eyes of their faith. They want to get divorced in the eyes of their faith.
Apparently Israel is going to supply early warning systems for detecting drone and missile attacks to Ukraine. A consequence for Russia siding with Hamas.
Russia is battering Ukraine at the moment anyway. Ukraine needs far more than that.
Ukraine certainly do need more support, but they did manage to shoot down a pair of Russian jets yesterday, so not everything is going Russia's way.
I've reported similar recently, but I fear some caution is required. There is very little evidence of these fighter-bombers being shot down; just claims. Unlike, say, the AWACS plane that Ukraine got last week. They may be hitting them over Russian territory (as expected from the way they're being used as missile platforms) and the Russians hiding videos of the shootdowns and/or wreckage, but it's happening too often, and as the AWACS plane showed; Russia is not good at withholding information on such things.
I really, really hope I'm wrong.
Many of these losses have been confirmed by Russian milibloggers.
That's true; but some of their 'confirmations' in the past have proved wrong. And some/many have not been conformed by them.
There's one that does an 'eternal flight' when he thinks one has gone down. I hope he does many more.
They are right though. It is quite absurd. Not just with respect to Scotland but other nations as well with Scotland being the worst bender of the residency rules. The "Scotland" rugby team only has 48% of its players born in Scotland. Without their players that have zero connection with Scotland other than living there for three years, they would be below Italy.
When you think that poor Graeme Hick had to wait seven years to qualify for England back in the day. I do wonder just how much passion for their adopted countries these players have. Or is it more just to be able to play at the highest level, irrespective of not being your 'true' nationality.
Now everyone is different and plenty of people have multiple identities, but I have only English and could never think to represent another country. Have these players taken UK citizenship? If not, how committed are they to the country?
I think it's an issue globally and for all sports, but England's in the glassiest of houses on this.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
If the marriage isn't registered then they're not married?
Yep, so a wife can’t leave her husband and get an actual divorce in an actual court, so they’re instead being forced to go to this local ‘arbitration’ service under Sharia.
It's also pretty bad for Jewish women.
Rifka Meyer was 32 when she entered into a religious marriage. Two-and-a-half years later, she became what is known among orthodox Jews as a "chained wife" - trapped in a religious marriage with a man who refused to let her have a divorce.
"You feel hopeless and you feel very alone," she tells BBC Newsnight. "You feel like you're screaming and not being heard."
It would take her nearly 10 years to get a religious divorce. But more than 100 women from the Charedi Jewish community remain trapped in religious marriages in the UK, according to Labour Peer Jonathan Mendelsohn, who is part of a cross-party parliamentary group that formed to help them.
"The thing that has shocked me [is] that I alone have been contacted by people since I raised this issue," he says. "Tens of cases, tens of cases, including a number of people in the Jewish community in which I live."
Under orthodox Jewish law, the husband must grant his wife a document called a "get" in Hebrew. Without this, worshippers believe she remains married to him even if they are legally divorced. The women stuck in these religious marriages are known as Agunot, or "chained wives".
Ms Meyer says it meant she was not permitted to have another partner.
"You're stuck. I can't even think of meeting anyone, or dating or moving my life forward because I am stuck in this corner without a view and I just can't go anywhere from there," she says.
"There's not enough communication and support to help you through it. You feel very desperate and very alone. It's a very lonely journey to go through."
Ms Meyer, who lives in London, finally received her get last year. She now runs a charity called GETT Out to help women who are in the same situation
After watching PMQs nobody is doing anything to enhance the reputation of the HOC and it is clear that this can only change, though I would not hold my breath, by an early GE
It seems the SNP led vonc on the Speaker, notwithstanding Plaid endorsing it, is fizzing out and time to move on on this
And on Angela Rayner I fail to understand what she is accused of
I think she is accused of being a raving hypocrite is she not? One could also accuse her of being a lightweight who would struggle to get a job in lower middle management in the real world, which would also be true, but the reality is that she is a left wing Labour politician so both are neither surprising or particularly unusual for her ilk.
In what way has she been hypocritical?
I am sure there are plenty of examples, but the most obvious is buying her council house and selling at a profit alongside her partner doing the same whilst criticising the policy that she did not need to take advantage of. Sounds rank hypocrisy to me that is pretty difficult to top.
Do people who want to vote in a load of hypocrites and lightweights care? Probably not.
She supports RTB and has said so on several occasions. Where is the hypocrisy exactly?
I guess she is annoyed that she and her partner/husband didn't get the 60% discount on their two council homes that they profiteered from. She has done a good spinning job since she was found out I must say. She is a hypocrite, but you don't want to see it I guess.
I have a bridge to sell, by the way, and I'll give you a discount similar to Ms. Lightweight got for her houses.
The bit about "Right to buy" I've never understood is the sale discount to market rate. The tenant should have the right to buy but at a market rate. With Jezza's new 1% mortgages this should be more than possible for many tenants, giving both the benefits of home ownership for the tenant and stopping the beggaring of councils.
The discount is a recognition of the rent paid over many years by the tenant. If councils had been able to use the proceeds to build replacement council housing then we wouldn't have the current housing crisis.
The building rate would still have been too low.
I think more than two million properties have been bought under right-to-buy. An extra two million properties constructed would have made a huge difference.
What would you say was the shortfall in number of housing units at present?
Someone here pointed out a few months ago that France - which is extremely close to use in terms of population, family structure, and economy - has around 8 million more dwellings than UK.
I do agree that council housebuilding capacity shouldn't have been destroyed by Thatcher - two million extra properties would be a great help with the current situation but would be unlikely to solve the problem by itself.
I think we've pushed the housing situation so close to the precipice that we can no longer afford to quibble about where exactly the new homes come from. Open every tap, pull every lever - get building, no matter what.
France of course had a much larger pre-industrial population than the UK and of course has roughly twice the surface area, so much of its housing stock is old, pretty, stone built. But in the wrong places. Hence large numbers of crumbling old wrecks that cost more to renovate than it would simply to buy an already refurbished property. As I know to my literal cost, being in the middle of a renovation of a rural property that will end up costing far more than it'll ever be worth.
There's a huge issue of rural depopulation in France but on the flip side it doesn't have the same urban housing affordability pressures, outside the inevitable hotspots in Paris itself and one or two sought after cities in the South.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
One thing that made me think that an arranged marriage was a good idea was that I could get divorced by just saying 'Talaq, talaq, talaq' to the wife, and I could do that via phone as well.
*Talaq means divorce.
As someone who got married in a Catholic church in a muslim country, actually registering the marriage with the local authorities was a total pain in the arse that took months.
But I suspect that the non-registration of marriages among certain communities in the UK is quite deliberate.
Edit: I see your comment above about Jewish “courts”, which is the same issue I was also alluding to.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
Extraordinary. Next time you meet a Tory Party Member I'd suggest you give them a wide berth
Islam is absolutely a threat to our liberal, tolerant way of life
I know you are not the brightest penny in the purse (Millfield, advertising, stifled laughter, etc) but the sad fact is the lovely tolerant amusing Muslims you befriended in the Lebanon 30 years ago during your tampon advertising days are no longer representative of Islam as whole. I dearly wish they were. I loved that tolerant easygoing Islam. It was fabulous and I too experienced it
But the Islam being exported right now - from Saudi, Iran, etc - is intolerant, misogynistic, gloomy, oppressive and crude. It is more like Trump’s America than John F Kennedy’s America
REVISE YOUR PRIORS
No need for such advice to Roger. In the world of Bayesian analysis the adjective "preposterior" applies to such revision. Whose world view could be more preposterous than Roger's?
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
If the marriage isn't registered then they're not married?
They’re not married in the eyes of the law. They are married in the eyes of their faith. They want to get divorced in the eyes of their faith.
A friend got married in Malaysia. She then separated from her husband and returned to the UK. She met a new man and wanted to marry him. She sought a divorce in the UK, but the UK authorities said she couldn’t prove she was married, so she couldn’t get divorced. So, she thought, if I’m not married to the ex, I can just marry the new guy. No, the authorities said she couldn’t prove she wasn’t married.
This is tangential to the topic at hand. Merely an amusing story of bureaucracy. Someone relented and she was eventually allowed to divorce, and then re-marry.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
One thing that made me think that an arranged marriage was a good idea was that I could get divorced by just saying 'Talaq, talaq, talaq' to the wife, and I could do that via phone as well.
*Talaq means divorce.
As someone who got married in a Catholic church in a muslim country, actually registering the marriage with the local authorities was a total pain in the arse that took months.
But I suspect that the non-registration of marriages among certain communities in the UK is quite deliberate.
You suspect a lot of things. You are particularly suspicious about Muslims and immigrants.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
Perhaps the term 'no-go area' is being interpreted too literally and a better word to use would be ghetto.
But 'ghetto', used in the traditional pre-Nazi sense, means an area where immigrant communities are most able to settle. It's the opposite of a 'no-go area'.
Why use the words 'no-go area' to refer to places that are the opposite?
I'm not aware of any no-go areas in Bradford. Plenty of don't-want-to-go areas though.
It's often necessary to distinguish between 'wouldn't-be-seen-dead' and 'almost-certainly-would-be seen-dead'.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
If the marriage isn't registered then they're not married?
Yep, so a wife can’t leave her husband and get an actual divorce in an actual court, so they’re instead being forced to go to this local ‘arbitration’ service under Sharia.
It's also pretty bad for Jewish women.
Rifka Meyer was 32 when she entered into a religious marriage. Two-and-a-half years later, she became what is known among orthodox Jews as a "chained wife" - trapped in a religious marriage with a man who refused to let her have a divorce.
"You feel hopeless and you feel very alone," she tells BBC Newsnight. "You feel like you're screaming and not being heard."
It would take her nearly 10 years to get a religious divorce. But more than 100 women from the Charedi Jewish community remain trapped in religious marriages in the UK, according to Labour Peer Jonathan Mendelsohn, who is part of a cross-party parliamentary group that formed to help them.
"The thing that has shocked me [is] that I alone have been contacted by people since I raised this issue," he says. "Tens of cases, tens of cases, including a number of people in the Jewish community in which I live."
Under orthodox Jewish law, the husband must grant his wife a document called a "get" in Hebrew. Without this, worshippers believe she remains married to him even if they are legally divorced. The women stuck in these religious marriages are known as Agunot, or "chained wives".
Ms Meyer says it meant she was not permitted to have another partner.
"You're stuck. I can't even think of meeting anyone, or dating or moving my life forward because I am stuck in this corner without a view and I just can't go anywhere from there," she says.
"There's not enough communication and support to help you through it. You feel very desperate and very alone. It's a very lonely journey to go through."
Ms Meyer, who lives in London, finally received her get last year. She now runs a charity called GETT Out to help women who are in the same situation
Of course until 1995 even civil divorce was illegal in Ireland and the Roman Catholic church still does not recognise divorce unless an annulment is granted under certain narrow circumstance
There's a great part in Pratchett's Going Postal where a character describes the con the men who own the Grand Trunk are playing - I don't have the book in front of me, but it's along the lines of: you see an asset that could turn a profit that is currently owned by people who care about the asset as a system and not an asset and therefore do not have a head for business. As someone who wants to turn a profit, you approach these men with no heads for business and say you want to invest in that asset. They agree, always wanting money to spend tinkering in their sheds to improve the systems they care about, and sign your documents. Eventually, you run out of that first bit of money, so when they say they're happy to invest again you sign again without question. But this time you've sold more than a 50% share in the asset, so you no longer own it, and now people with heads for business are in charge and they don't care if the system works - they care that it makes money. So maintenance stops, because that's a cost that doesn't return short term profit, and the system is always pushed to breaking point to make the most money off of it. They bought it dirt cheap, they suck it dry whilst running it into the ground, and they'll also likely make a profit selling it off afterwards to another rube or to the state who need the system to exist for the functioning of society.
Anyway, I give this extremely long preface (apologies as always @TOPPING) to share this unrelated news:
It is not obvious to me that it's a good deal for the UK to force Thames customers effectively to bail out a commercial entity which has previously extracted massive dividends from the business, and which, without the deal which the owners are lobbying for, is effectively bankrupt.
We should put in into administration, and government should take control of the business. The shareholders and bondholders would take massive losses, but that would serve as a useful warning to the commercial owners of UK public service utilities (often overseas) who have been taking the piss for decades.
Government can probably borrow more cheaply anyway, and the necessary price rises for the needed infrastructure improvement would be significantly less. And any future profits would remain in the UK.
An alternative fair plan could be to treat the bill a bit like a share issue.
So let them increase it by the 40% they need but half the company goes to the customers who pay the bills and existing shareholders get diluted.
The problem with that idea is that many of the customers will immediately sell their shares to the existing shareholders, to make a quick buck.
As you can do with any shareholding that pays an ongoing dividend.
Not to me. It still involves either the billpayers - or the taxpayer - bailing out £14bn or so of majority foreign owned bad debt
In exchange for shares. It depends on the numbers I suppose, what would their shares be worth vs extra they pay, as long as that can be reasonably matched it seems fair.
Thames Water is effectively bust without a bailout, so 'shares' are currently worth nothing.
The numbers are that there is around £14bn of debt, much of which was incurred to pay past dividends on both shares and bonds. You're asking billpayers to pay for the debt.
Wiping out the bondholders by way of administration would be a salutary warning to others not to take the piss in the future.
Who owns Thames Water's debt?
Your pension fund.
About 20% of the equity is owned by the Universities pension fund; the majority if owned overseas. Not sure about the debt - which is of far more significance - but I think the majority is again held overseas.
The last year they reported the rates at which they can currently borrow (2022-23) the bond interest averaged 6.6%. That's a good 2.5% more than government debt - which would add up to over £300m pa.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
Perhaps the term 'no-go area' is being interpreted too literally and a better word to use would be ghetto.
But 'ghetto', used in the traditional pre-Nazi sense, means an area where immigrant communities are most able to settle. It's the opposite of a 'no-go area'.
Why use the words 'no-go area' to refer to places that are the opposite?
IIRC, "no-go area" was originally used to mean a part of the city or country where law enforcement would not go, for fear of their own safety.
There are places in this country I wouldn't walk around holding hands with another man, and Sparkhill is one of them, but that's a slightly different thing.
My wife has pointed out that I walk through areas that she wouldn't dream of going, after dark.
The local Free School meant quite a bit of interesting levels of mixing. One lad, from the local estate was popular and had his birthday at his home. So a convoy of middle class parents drove their cars, nervously, into one of the estate areas to drop off their children.
Apparently, the young man in question got some scared/admiring comments from neighbours on the estate - the local gangs are mostly bike riding, but his crew ride in 100K cars.
I used to live in a dodgy estate in SE London. After a while I realised it was quite safe if you lived there because people knew you. My wife had no concerns coming home late at night because the stairwells were generally well populated with harmless stoned local teens. The middle classes are generally scared of the wrong things.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
One thing that made me think that an arranged marriage was a good idea was that I could get divorced by just saying 'Talaq, talaq, talaq' to the wife, and I could do that via phone as well.
"For talaq to take place, the husband needs to pronounce to his wife clearly that he is ending the marriage, and providing talaq. This is a unilateral repudiation of the marriage. It is not necessary for the talaq to be provided in writing, or to be witnessed. However, some Islamic scholars will say that the ideal talaq is pronounced clearly by the husband whilst the wife is not menstruating."
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
One thing that made me think that an arranged marriage was a good idea was that I could get divorced by just saying 'Talaq, talaq, talaq' to the wife, and I could do that via phone as well.
*Talaq means divorce.
As someone who got married in a Catholic church in a muslim country, actually registering the marriage with the local authorities was a total pain in the arse that took months.
But I suspect that the non-registration of marriages among certain communities in the UK is quite deliberate.
You suspect a lot of things. You are particularly suspicious about Muslims and immigrants.
I live in a Muslim country, and count dozens of Muslims as friends. I’m an immigrant myself.
My comments relate to marriages in the UK, in many immigrant communities, often arranged marriages where the wife is new to the country, where the marriage she thinks she has turns out to be not to be an actual legal marriage, meaning that the husband can dump her with no recourse and that she can’t go to an actual court to get an actual divorce - and that politicians and officials are often afraid to call out what’s basically servitude because of ‘cultural sensitivities’.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
If the marriage isn't registered then they're not married?
They’re not married in the eyes of the law. They are married in the eyes of their faith. They want to get divorced in the eyes of their faith.
A friend got married in Malaysia. She then separated from her husband and returned to the UK. She met a new man and wanted to marry him. She sought a divorce in the UK, but the UK authorities said she couldn’t prove she was married, so she couldn’t get divorced. So, she thought, if I’m not married to the ex, I can just marry the new guy. No, the authorities said she couldn’t prove she wasn’t married.
This is tangential to the topic at hand. Merely an amusing story of bureaucracy. Someone relented and she was eventually allowed to divorce, and then re-marry.
It isn't possible to prove that you are not married, for the same reason that it isn't possible to prove that there isn't life somewhere else in the universe.
After watching PMQs nobody is doing anything to enhance the reputation of the HOC and it is clear that this can only change, though I would not hold my breath, by an early GE
It seems the SNP led vonc on the Speaker, notwithstanding Plaid endorsing it, is fizzing out and time to move on on this
And on Angela Rayner I fail to understand what she is accused of
I think she is accused of being a raving hypocrite is she not? One could also accuse her of being a lightweight who would struggle to get a job in lower middle management in the real world, which would also be true, but the reality is that she is a left wing Labour politician so both are neither surprising or particularly unusual for her ilk.
In what way has she been hypocritical?
I am sure there are plenty of examples, but the most obvious is buying her council house and selling at a profit alongside her partner doing the same whilst criticising the policy that she did not need to take advantage of. Sounds rank hypocrisy to me that is pretty difficult to top.
Do people who want to vote in a load of hypocrites and lightweights care? Probably not.
She supports RTB and has said so on several occasions. Where is the hypocrisy exactly?
I guess she is annoyed that she and her partner/husband didn't get the 60% discount on their two council homes that they profiteered from. She has done a good spinning job since she was found out I must say. She is a hypocrite, but you don't want to see it I guess.
I have a bridge to sell, by the way, and I'll give you a discount similar to Ms. Lightweight got for her houses.
The bit about "Right to buy" I've never understood is the sale discount to market rate. The tenant should have the right to buy but at a market rate. With Jezza's new 1% mortgages this should be more than possible for many tenants, giving both the benefits of home ownership for the tenant and stopping the beggaring of councils.
The discount is a recognition of the rent paid over many years by the tenant. If councils had been able to use the proceeds to build replacement council housing then we wouldn't have the current housing crisis.
The building rate would still have been too low.
I think more than two million properties have been bought under right-to-buy. An extra two million properties constructed would have made a huge difference.
What would you say was the shortfall in number of housing units at present?
Someone here pointed out a few months ago that France - which is extremely close to use in terms of population, family structure, and economy - has around 8 million more dwellings than UK.
I do agree that council housebuilding capacity shouldn't have been destroyed by Thatcher - two million extra properties would be a great help with the current situation but would be unlikely to solve the problem by itself.
I think we've pushed the housing situation so close to the precipice that we can no longer afford to quibble about where exactly the new homes come from. Open every tap, pull every lever - get building, no matter what.
France has almost 3 times the land area of the UK and over 4 times the land area of England.
Of course sale profits from council homes can be reinvested in new housing, cutting immigration to reduce demand would also help
They are right though. It is quite absurd. Not just with respect to Scotland but other nations as well with Scotland being the worst bender of the residency rules. The "Scotland" rugby team only has 48% of its players born in Scotland. Without their players that have zero connection with Scotland other than living there for three years, they would be below Italy.
I'll add your dessicated little emission to the brimming cup.
I don't mind England losing to the Murrayfield Barbarian team, its nice they get to win something, bless, particularly after all the whinging and baby-crying about the disallowed try.
Looking forward to seeing Ireland take them apart.
When Scotland win a top level tournament or cup you can crow about it.
Morningside posh lads versus Home Counties posh lads.
Wouldn’t call Finn a posho. Dunno if Duhan went to the Saffer equivalent of Fettes..
After watching PMQs nobody is doing anything to enhance the reputation of the HOC and it is clear that this can only change, though I would not hold my breath, by an early GE
It seems the SNP led vonc on the Speaker, notwithstanding Plaid endorsing it, is fizzing out and time to move on on this
And on Angela Rayner I fail to understand what she is accused of
I think she is accused of being a raving hypocrite is she not? One could also accuse her of being a lightweight who would struggle to get a job in lower middle management in the real world, which would also be true, but the reality is that she is a left wing Labour politician so both are neither surprising or particularly unusual for her ilk.
In what way has she been hypocritical?
I am sure there are plenty of examples, but the most obvious is buying her council house and selling at a profit alongside her partner doing the same whilst criticising the policy that she did not need to take advantage of. Sounds rank hypocrisy to me that is pretty difficult to top.
Do people who want to vote in a load of hypocrites and lightweights care? Probably not.
She supports RTB and has said so on several occasions. Where is the hypocrisy exactly?
I guess she is annoyed that she and her partner/husband didn't get the 60% discount on their two council homes that they profiteered from. She has done a good spinning job since she was found out I must say. She is a hypocrite, but you don't want to see it I guess.
I have a bridge to sell, by the way, and I'll give you a discount similar to Ms. Lightweight got for her houses.
The bit about "Right to buy" I've never understood is the sale discount to market rate. The tenant should have the right to buy but at a market rate. With Jezza's new 1% mortgages this should be more than possible for many tenants, giving both the benefits of home ownership for the tenant and stopping the beggaring of councils.
I think the idea was to give someone who’s been renting from the council for 20 years, the same financial position as someone who’d been paying a mortgage for 20 years.
The basic problem remains that the population has increased more than the housing stock for several decades.
That would be all well and good if it weren’t for the fact that council housing rents tend to be significantly cheaper than the rental achievable on the open market. So a council house buyer benefits from a double subsidy: they get cheaper rents for decades & then they get to buy the property at huge discount to market value.
After watching PMQs nobody is doing anything to enhance the reputation of the HOC and it is clear that this can only change, though I would not hold my breath, by an early GE
It seems the SNP led vonc on the Speaker, notwithstanding Plaid endorsing it, is fizzing out and time to move on on this
And on Angela Rayner I fail to understand what she is accused of
I think she is accused of being a raving hypocrite is she not? One could also accuse her of being a lightweight who would struggle to get a job in lower middle management in the real world, which would also be true, but the reality is that she is a left wing Labour politician so both are neither surprising or particularly unusual for her ilk.
In what way has she been hypocritical?
I am sure there are plenty of examples, but the most obvious is buying her council house and selling at a profit alongside her partner doing the same whilst criticising the policy that she did not need to take advantage of. Sounds rank hypocrisy to me that is pretty difficult to top.
Do people who want to vote in a load of hypocrites and lightweights care? Probably not.
She supports RTB and has said so on several occasions. Where is the hypocrisy exactly?
I guess she is annoyed that she and her partner/husband didn't get the 60% discount on their two council homes that they profiteered from. She has done a good spinning job since she was found out I must say. She is a hypocrite, but you don't want to see it I guess.
I have a bridge to sell, by the way, and I'll give you a discount similar to Ms. Lightweight got for her houses.
The bit about "Right to buy" I've never understood is the sale discount to market rate. The tenant should have the right to buy but at a market rate. With Jezza's new 1% mortgages this should be more than possible for many tenants, giving both the benefits of home ownership for the tenant and stopping the beggaring of councils.
The discount is a recognition of the rent paid over many years by the tenant. If councils had been able to use the proceeds to build replacement council housing then we wouldn't have the current housing crisis.
The building rate would still have been too low.
I think more than two million properties have been bought under right-to-buy. An extra two million properties constructed would have made a huge difference.
What would you say was the shortfall in number of housing units at present?
Someone here pointed out a few months ago that France - which is extremely close to use in terms of population, family structure, and economy - has around 8 million more dwellings than UK.
I do agree that council housebuilding capacity shouldn't have been destroyed by Thatcher - two million extra properties would be a great help with the current situation but would be unlikely to solve the problem by itself.
I think we've pushed the housing situation so close to the precipice that we can no longer afford to quibble about where exactly the new homes come from. Open every tap, pull every lever - get building, no matter what.
Does this mean France has roughly the same number of dwellings as the UK when you take the area of the country into account?
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
Perhaps the term 'no-go area' is being interpreted too literally and a better word to use would be ghetto.
But 'ghetto', used in the traditional pre-Nazi sense, means an area where immigrant communities are most able to settle. It's the opposite of a 'no-go area'.
Why use the words 'no-go area' to refer to places that are the opposite?
IIRC, "no-go area" was originally used to mean a part of the city or country where law enforcement would not go, for fear of their own safety.
There are places in this country I wouldn't walk around holding hands with another man, and Sparkhill is one of them, but that's a slightly different thing.
My wife has pointed out that I walk through areas that she wouldn't dream of going, after dark.
The local Free School meant quite a bit of interesting levels of mixing. One lad, from the local estate was popular and had his birthday at his home. So a convoy of middle class parents drove their cars, nervously, into one of the estate areas to drop off their children.
Apparently, the young man in question got some scared/admiring comments from neighbours on the estate - the local gangs are mostly bike riding, but his crew ride in 100K cars.
I used to live in a dodgy estate in SE London. After a while I realised it was quite safe if you lived there because people knew you. My wife had no concerns coming home late at night because the stairwells were generally well populated with harmless stoned local teens. The middle classes are generally scared of the wrong things.
I used to feel much more at risk as a young man than now - after the age of about 35 you become largely invisible. Plenty of children (mainly boys) at my son's secondary school get mugged for their phones whereas this doesn't seem to be an issue for middle aged people.
I think the experience is very different for women though, particularly in dark unlit areas. But that's as big an issue in suburban and small town settings as it is in inner cities.
None of this has anything in common with the claims this week by certain politicians about no-go areas based on community hostility. The only part of the country where that exists to the extent of creating real no-go areas is Northern Ireland.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
If the marriage isn't registered then they're not married?
Yep, so a wife can’t leave her husband and get an actual divorce in an actual court, so they’re instead being forced to go to this local ‘arbitration’ service under Sharia.
It's also pretty bad for Jewish women.
Rifka Meyer was 32 when she entered into a religious marriage. Two-and-a-half years later, she became what is known among orthodox Jews as a "chained wife" - trapped in a religious marriage with a man who refused to let her have a divorce.
"You feel hopeless and you feel very alone," she tells BBC Newsnight. "You feel like you're screaming and not being heard."
It would take her nearly 10 years to get a religious divorce. But more than 100 women from the Charedi Jewish community remain trapped in religious marriages in the UK, according to Labour Peer Jonathan Mendelsohn, who is part of a cross-party parliamentary group that formed to help them.
"The thing that has shocked me [is] that I alone have been contacted by people since I raised this issue," he says. "Tens of cases, tens of cases, including a number of people in the Jewish community in which I live."
Under orthodox Jewish law, the husband must grant his wife a document called a "get" in Hebrew. Without this, worshippers believe she remains married to him even if they are legally divorced. The women stuck in these religious marriages are known as Agunot, or "chained wives".
Ms Meyer says it meant she was not permitted to have another partner.
"You're stuck. I can't even think of meeting anyone, or dating or moving my life forward because I am stuck in this corner without a view and I just can't go anywhere from there," she says.
"There's not enough communication and support to help you through it. You feel very desperate and very alone. It's a very lonely journey to go through."
Ms Meyer, who lives in London, finally received her get last year. She now runs a charity called GETT Out to help women who are in the same situation
Of course until 1995 even civil divorce was illegal in Ireland and the Roman Catholic church still does not recognise divorce unless an annulment is granted under certain narrow circumstance
My Irish wife is under the impression that the law on divorce in Ireland is still very restrictive, requiring a minimum of seven years of separation. I probably shouldn't excitedly tell her that the period is only two years.
After watching PMQs nobody is doing anything to enhance the reputation of the HOC and it is clear that this can only change, though I would not hold my breath, by an early GE
It seems the SNP led vonc on the Speaker, notwithstanding Plaid endorsing it, is fizzing out and time to move on on this
And on Angela Rayner I fail to understand what she is accused of
I think she is accused of being a raving hypocrite is she not? One could also accuse her of being a lightweight who would struggle to get a job in lower middle management in the real world, which would also be true, but the reality is that she is a left wing Labour politician so both are neither surprising or particularly unusual for her ilk.
In what way has she been hypocritical?
I am sure there are plenty of examples, but the most obvious is buying her council house and selling at a profit alongside her partner doing the same whilst criticising the policy that she did not need to take advantage of. Sounds rank hypocrisy to me that is pretty difficult to top.
Do people who want to vote in a load of hypocrites and lightweights care? Probably not.
She supports RTB and has said so on several occasions. Where is the hypocrisy exactly?
I guess she is annoyed that she and her partner/husband didn't get the 60% discount on their two council homes that they profiteered from. She has done a good spinning job since she was found out I must say. She is a hypocrite, but you don't want to see it I guess.
I have a bridge to sell, by the way, and I'll give you a discount similar to Ms. Lightweight got for her houses.
The bit about "Right to buy" I've never understood is the sale discount to market rate. The tenant should have the right to buy but at a market rate. With Jezza's new 1% mortgages this should be more than possible for many tenants, giving both the benefits of home ownership for the tenant and stopping the beggaring of councils.
The discount is a recognition of the rent paid over many years by the tenant. If councils had been able to use the proceeds to build replacement council housing then we wouldn't have the current housing crisis.
Also becasue it is - or was - harder to sell a house with a sitting tenant. Some relatives of mine bought their house off a [edit] private landlord (a company) who was happy to sell, and they got a discount partly for that reason (also because no hassle and cost with marketing the house).
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
If the marriage isn't registered then they're not married?
Yep, so a wife can’t leave her husband and get an actual divorce in an actual court, so they’re instead being forced to go to this local ‘arbitration’ service under Sharia.
It's also pretty bad for Jewish women.
Rifka Meyer was 32 when she entered into a religious marriage. Two-and-a-half years later, she became what is known among orthodox Jews as a "chained wife" - trapped in a religious marriage with a man who refused to let her have a divorce.
"You feel hopeless and you feel very alone," she tells BBC Newsnight. "You feel like you're screaming and not being heard."
It would take her nearly 10 years to get a religious divorce. But more than 100 women from the Charedi Jewish community remain trapped in religious marriages in the UK, according to Labour Peer Jonathan Mendelsohn, who is part of a cross-party parliamentary group that formed to help them.
"The thing that has shocked me [is] that I alone have been contacted by people since I raised this issue," he says. "Tens of cases, tens of cases, including a number of people in the Jewish community in which I live."
Under orthodox Jewish law, the husband must grant his wife a document called a "get" in Hebrew. Without this, worshippers believe she remains married to him even if they are legally divorced. The women stuck in these religious marriages are known as Agunot, or "chained wives".
Ms Meyer says it meant she was not permitted to have another partner.
"You're stuck. I can't even think of meeting anyone, or dating or moving my life forward because I am stuck in this corner without a view and I just can't go anywhere from there," she says.
"There's not enough communication and support to help you through it. You feel very desperate and very alone. It's a very lonely journey to go through."
Ms Meyer, who lives in London, finally received her get last year. She now runs a charity called GETT Out to help women who are in the same situation
Of course until 1995 even civil divorce was illegal in Ireland and the Roman Catholic church still does not recognise divorce unless an annulment is granted under certain narrow circumstance
My Irish wife is under the impression that the law on divorce in Ireland is still very restrictive, requiring a minimum of seven years of separation. I probably shouldn't excitedly tell her that the period is only two years.
Apparently Israel is going to supply early warning systems for detecting drone and missile attacks to Ukraine. A consequence for Russia siding with Hamas.
That will be a total head fuck, taking sides-wise, for just about everyone on PB.
Russia bad. Hamas bad. That's simple enough, isn't it?
I know Israel are now supporting Ukraine, but hey, we've dealt with such mindfucks as the French supporting Ukraine. We can handle this.
Russia bad. Hamas noble, oppressed, democratically-elected freedom fighters seems to be the norm for many if not most PB posters.
You tend to hear the strongest views on this from the shoutiest most opinionated posters. I would assume the majority view is Russia bad, Hamas bad, Israel (Netanyahu) bad, Ukraine good.
I work on the 'everyone bad' mindset. Brings a simply clarity to geopolitics. In any conflict, the bad fight the bad (as fighting is bad) and it's no surprise that the bad support the bad or - being bad - are bad friends and fail to support the bad or, indeed, turn round and support the other bad side
All as bad as each other is rather what Russia would like the world (particularly the West) to believe. It encourages leaders to abandon Ukraine.
Thus Puntinists such as Donald Trump directly pimping for Putin . . . and Putinists like Boris Johnson (and his PB peanut gallery) indirectly pimping by backing Trump.
The reality is that your compatriots are highly likely to elect Donald Trump. It's not in Ukraine's interests to frame the election as a referendum on support for Ukraine. You are being a useful idiot for Russia if you do so.
So, Donald Trump is anti-Ukraine, but we’re harming Ukraine if we point this out?
No, it's partisan propaganda that Trump is anti-Ukraine AND that partisan propaganda is what will force Trump to become anti-Ukraine if elected.
They are right though. It is quite absurd. Not just with respect to Scotland but other nations as well with Scotland being the worst bender of the residency rules. The "Scotland" rugby team only has 48% of its players born in Scotland. Without their players that have zero connection with Scotland other than living there for three years, they would be below Italy.
I'll add your dessicated little emission to the brimming cup.
I don't mind England losing to the Murrayfield Barbarian team, its nice they get to win something, bless, particularly after all the whinging and baby-crying about the disallowed try.
Looking forward to seeing Ireland take them apart.
When Scotland win a top level tournament or cup you can crow about it.
They are right though. It is quite absurd. Not just with respect to Scotland but other nations as well with Scotland being the worst bender of the residency rules. The "Scotland" rugby team only has 48% of its players born in Scotland. Without their players that have zero connection with Scotland other than living there for three years, they would be below Italy.
I'll add your dessicated little emission to the brimming cup.
I don't mind England losing to the Murrayfield Barbarian team, its nice they get to win something, bless, particularly after all the whinging and baby-crying about the disallowed try.
Looking forward to seeing Ireland take them apart.
When Scotland win a top level tournament or cup you can crow about it.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
If the marriage isn't registered then they're not married?
Yep, so a wife can’t leave her husband and get an actual divorce in an actual court, so they’re instead being forced to go to this local ‘arbitration’ service under Sharia.
Forced by whom? Either they're married legally or they're not. If they're legally married then a civil divorce will suffice, surely? If they're not married then that opens up a whole different can of worms but laws are already in place to deal with that.
If people want religious trappings and confirmations on top then that's their call but it shouldn't affect the basic legal coupling?
Apparently Israel is going to supply early warning systems for detecting drone and missile attacks to Ukraine. A consequence for Russia siding with Hamas.
That will be a total head fuck, taking sides-wise, for just about everyone on PB.
Russia bad. Hamas bad. That's simple enough, isn't it?
I know Israel are now supporting Ukraine, but hey, we've dealt with such mindfucks as the French supporting Ukraine. We can handle this.
Russia bad. Hamas noble, oppressed, democratically-elected freedom fighters seems to be the norm for many if not most PB posters.
You tend to hear the strongest views on this from the shoutiest most opinionated posters. I would assume the majority view is Russia bad, Hamas bad, Israel (Netanyahu) bad, Ukraine good.
I work on the 'everyone bad' mindset. Brings a simply clarity to geopolitics. In any conflict, the bad fight the bad (as fighting is bad) and it's no surprise that the bad support the bad or - being bad - are bad friends and fail to support the bad or, indeed, turn round and support the other bad side
I wonder if Terry Pratchett had a saying for such an occasion
‘if you want to understan’ an enemy, you gotta walk a mile in his shoes. Den, if he’s still you enemy, at least you’re a mile away and he’s got no shoes.’
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
Perhaps the term 'no-go area' is being interpreted too literally and a better word to use would be ghetto.
But 'ghetto', used in the traditional pre-Nazi sense, means an area where immigrant communities are most able to settle. It's the opposite of a 'no-go area'.
Why use the words 'no-go area' to refer to places that are the opposite?
IIRC, "no-go area" was originally used to mean a part of the city or country where law enforcement would not go, for fear of their own safety.
There are places in this country I wouldn't walk around holding hands with another man, and Sparkhill is one of them, but that's a slightly different thing.
My wife has pointed out that I walk through areas that she wouldn't dream of going, after dark.
The local Free School meant quite a bit of interesting levels of mixing. One lad, from the local estate was popular and had his birthday at his home. So a convoy of middle class parents drove their cars, nervously, into one of the estate areas to drop off their children.
Apparently, the young man in question got some scared/admiring comments from neighbours on the estate - the local gangs are mostly bike riding, but his crew ride in 100K cars.
I used to live in a dodgy estate in SE London. After a while I realised it was quite safe if you lived there because people knew you. My wife had no concerns coming home late at night because the stairwells were generally well populated with harmless stoned local teens. The middle classes are generally scared of the wrong things.
I used to feel much more at risk as a young man than now - after the age of about 35 you become largely invisible. Plenty of children (mainly boys) at my son's secondary school get mugged for their phones whereas this doesn't seem to be an issue for middle aged people.
I think the experience is very different for women though, particularly in dark unlit areas. But that's as big an issue in suburban and small town settings as it is in inner cities.
None of this has anything in common with the claims this week by certain politicians about no-go areas based on community hostility. The only part of the country where that exists to the extent of creating real no-go areas is Northern Ireland.
Agree on all this, feels like only a matter of time before my 14yo son gets mugged for his phone. My wife doesn't seem too concerned about things for herself but does worry about our 17yo daughter. Like you I feel invisible/invincible and will happily go anywhere anytime, being a middle aged man is like a superpower. And I'm white so London's biggest street gang aka the Met leave me alone too...
After watching PMQs nobody is doing anything to enhance the reputation of the HOC and it is clear that this can only change, though I would not hold my breath, by an early GE
It seems the SNP led vonc on the Speaker, notwithstanding Plaid endorsing it, is fizzing out and time to move on on this
And on Angela Rayner I fail to understand what she is accused of
I think she is accused of being a raving hypocrite is she not? One could also accuse her of being a lightweight who would struggle to get a job in lower middle management in the real world, which would also be true, but the reality is that she is a left wing Labour politician so both are neither surprising or particularly unusual for her ilk.
In what way has she been hypocritical?
I am sure there are plenty of examples, but the most obvious is buying her council house and selling at a profit alongside her partner doing the same whilst criticising the policy that she did not need to take advantage of. Sounds rank hypocrisy to me that is pretty difficult to top.
Do people who want to vote in a load of hypocrites and lightweights care? Probably not.
She supports RTB and has said so on several occasions. Where is the hypocrisy exactly?
I guess she is annoyed that she and her partner/husband didn't get the 60% discount on their two council homes that they profiteered from. She has done a good spinning job since she was found out I must say. She is a hypocrite, but you don't want to see it I guess.
I have a bridge to sell, by the way, and I'll give you a discount similar to Ms. Lightweight got for her houses.
The bit about "Right to buy" I've never understood is the sale discount to market rate. The tenant should have the right to buy but at a market rate. With Jezza's new 1% mortgages this should be more than possible for many tenants, giving both the benefits of home ownership for the tenant and stopping the beggaring of councils.
The discount is a recognition of the rent paid over many years by the tenant. If councils had been able to use the proceeds to build replacement council housing then we wouldn't have the current housing crisis.
The building rate would still have been too low.
I think more than two million properties have been bought under right-to-buy. An extra two million properties constructed would have made a huge difference.
What would you say was the shortfall in number of housing units at present?
Someone here pointed out a few months ago that France - which is extremely close to use in terms of population, family structure, and economy - has around 8 million more dwellings than UK.
I do agree that council housebuilding capacity shouldn't have been destroyed by Thatcher - two million extra properties would be a great help with the current situation but would be unlikely to solve the problem by itself.
I think we've pushed the housing situation so close to the precipice that we can no longer afford to quibble about where exactly the new homes come from. Open every tap, pull every lever - get building, no matter what.
Does this mean France has roughly the same number of dwellings as the UK when you take the area of the country into account?
No. Similar populations, but...
France has a quarter more dwellings but 2.6 times the area of the UK. So their dwelling density is approximately half ours.
After watching PMQs nobody is doing anything to enhance the reputation of the HOC and it is clear that this can only change, though I would not hold my breath, by an early GE
It seems the SNP led vonc on the Speaker, notwithstanding Plaid endorsing it, is fizzing out and time to move on on this
And on Angela Rayner I fail to understand what she is accused of
I think she is accused of being a raving hypocrite is she not? One could also accuse her of being a lightweight who would struggle to get a job in lower middle management in the real world, which would also be true, but the reality is that she is a left wing Labour politician so both are neither surprising or particularly unusual for her ilk.
In what way has she been hypocritical?
I am sure there are plenty of examples, but the most obvious is buying her council house and selling at a profit alongside her partner doing the same whilst criticising the policy that she did not need to take advantage of. Sounds rank hypocrisy to me that is pretty difficult to top.
Do people who want to vote in a load of hypocrites and lightweights care? Probably not.
She supports RTB and has said so on several occasions. Where is the hypocrisy exactly?
I guess she is annoyed that she and her partner/husband didn't get the 60% discount on their two council homes that they profiteered from. She has done a good spinning job since she was found out I must say. She is a hypocrite, but you don't want to see it I guess.
I have a bridge to sell, by the way, and I'll give you a discount similar to Ms. Lightweight got for her houses.
The bit about "Right to buy" I've never understood is the sale discount to market rate. The tenant should have the right to buy but at a market rate. With Jezza's new 1% mortgages this should be more than possible for many tenants, giving both the benefits of home ownership for the tenant and stopping the beggaring of councils.
The discount is a recognition of the rent paid over many years by the tenant. If councils had been able to use the proceeds to build replacement council housing then we wouldn't have the current housing crisis.
The building rate would still have been too low.
I think more than two million properties have been bought under right-to-buy. An extra two million properties constructed would have made a huge difference.
What would you say was the shortfall in number of housing units at present?
Someone here pointed out a few months ago that France - which is extremely close to use in terms of population, family structure, and economy - has around 8 million more dwellings than UK.
I do agree that council housebuilding capacity shouldn't have been destroyed by Thatcher - two million extra properties would be a great help with the current situation but would be unlikely to solve the problem by itself.
I think we've pushed the housing situation so close to the precipice that we can no longer afford to quibble about where exactly the new homes come from. Open every tap, pull every lever - get building, no matter what.
Does this mean France has roughly the same number of dwellings as the UK when you take the area of the country into account?
France has very large areas of next to no inhabitants.
Actual housing density in the inhabited areas would be interesting.
It should be enforced though, disgraceful pair of £ grabbing charlatans that were responsible.
Do you think they have to build it with all the crooked bits? or is that against H&S?
I believe using what was knocked down. The original bricks and various bits were stored
To my knowledge, that's not quite the full story with these sorts of rebuilds. Bricks get damaged during machine demolition (it's hard enough if you dismantle a building to move it...), and non-engineering bricks, particularly old bricks, don't cope well with heat. I reckon they'll be needing to raid a fair few savage yards if they ever actually rebuild it.
The building's suffered a serious fire and a machine demolition. Some bits will be salvageable, but it won't be as it was.
Given that, there's a question: how much can you alter the building (e.g. include insulation and modern regulations) as long as you keep the 'character' of the original.
There's a very thin line between rebuilding, altering, and creating a crummy pastiche.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
Perhaps the term 'no-go area' is being interpreted too literally and a better word to use would be ghetto.
But 'ghetto', used in the traditional pre-Nazi sense, means an area where immigrant communities are most able to settle. It's the opposite of a 'no-go area'.
Why use the words 'no-go area' to refer to places that are the opposite?
IIRC, "no-go area" was originally used to mean a part of the city or country where law enforcement would not go, for fear of their own safety.
There are places in this country I wouldn't walk around holding hands with another man, and Sparkhill is one of them, but that's a slightly different thing.
My wife has pointed out that I walk through areas that she wouldn't dream of going, after dark.
The local Free School meant quite a bit of interesting levels of mixing. One lad, from the local estate was popular and had his birthday at his home. So a convoy of middle class parents drove their cars, nervously, into one of the estate areas to drop off their children.
Apparently, the young man in question got some scared/admiring comments from neighbours on the estate - the local gangs are mostly bike riding, but his crew ride in 100K cars.
I used to live in a dodgy estate in SE London. After a while I realised it was quite safe if you lived there because people knew you. My wife had no concerns coming home late at night because the stairwells were generally well populated with harmless stoned local teens. The middle classes are generally scared of the wrong things.
I used to feel much more at risk as a young man than now - after the age of about 35 you become largely invisible. Plenty of children (mainly boys) at my son's secondary school get mugged for their phones whereas this doesn't seem to be an issue for middle aged people.
I think the experience is very different for women though, particularly in dark unlit areas. But that's as big an issue in suburban and small town settings as it is in inner cities.
None of this has anything in common with the claims this week by certain politicians about no-go areas based on community hostility. The only part of the country where that exists to the extent of creating real no-go areas is Northern Ireland.
Until a couple of weeks ago I'd never felt unsafe anywhere, but I was robbed after getting off a night bus in Rome on I think 16th Feb, which has changed things slightly.
After watching PMQs nobody is doing anything to enhance the reputation of the HOC and it is clear that this can only change, though I would not hold my breath, by an early GE
It seems the SNP led vonc on the Speaker, notwithstanding Plaid endorsing it, is fizzing out and time to move on on this
And on Angela Rayner I fail to understand what she is accused of
I think she is accused of being a raving hypocrite is she not? One could also accuse her of being a lightweight who would struggle to get a job in lower middle management in the real world, which would also be true, but the reality is that she is a left wing Labour politician so both are neither surprising or particularly unusual for her ilk.
In what way has she been hypocritical?
I am sure there are plenty of examples, but the most obvious is buying her council house and selling at a profit alongside her partner doing the same whilst criticising the policy that she did not need to take advantage of. Sounds rank hypocrisy to me that is pretty difficult to top.
Do people who want to vote in a load of hypocrites and lightweights care? Probably not.
She supports RTB and has said so on several occasions. Where is the hypocrisy exactly?
I guess she is annoyed that she and her partner/husband didn't get the 60% discount on their two council homes that they profiteered from. She has done a good spinning job since she was found out I must say. She is a hypocrite, but you don't want to see it I guess.
I have a bridge to sell, by the way, and I'll give you a discount similar to Ms. Lightweight got for her houses.
In what sense has she been hypocritical?
I ask again – simple question.
I answered it, but you don't want to see it. It is quite sad the tribalism of our politics when hypocrisy is something that is only ever done by "the other side."
If you don't think that when a senior (lol) Labour politician profits immensely from not one but two council house sales, a policy that they have routinely attacked for many years, is being a fecking big hypocrite then I am not surprised that you clearly have a great deal of difficulty understanding what hypocrisy is.
The closest similarity would be a Brexiteer Tory taking up Irish nationality to get round the stupidity of Brexit.
I am sure you would see the hypocrisy of that position.
Can you show me where she has attacked the RTB as a policy?
N.B. The policy – not the 60% discount – which she didn't benefit from in any case. She got it at the old discount of 25%.
Again, I ask you: where has she been hypocritical? A simple citation of her hypocrisy will do.
(Put up or shut up, to use the vernacular)
Sorry, I don't have the time or ability to persuade you because you clearly are a tribalist simpleton who wouldn't call her out if she was found out secretly sent her children to Eton and was caught jumping up and down shouting "fuck you lot of plebs, I am going to be deputy Prime minister".
No. I'm not talking about her attitudes towards private school but to her attitudes towards RTB.
Can you show me where she has attacked RTB as a policy?
If you cannot, I will assume, that you are talking utter garbage.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
If the marriage isn't registered then they're not married?
Yep, so a wife can’t leave her husband and get an actual divorce in an actual court, so they’re instead being forced to go to this local ‘arbitration’ service under Sharia.
Forced by whom? Either they're married legally or they're not. If they're legally married then a civil divorce will suffice, surely? If they're not married then that opens up a whole different can of worms but laws are already in place to deal with that.
If people want religious trappings and confirmations on top then that's their call but it shouldn't affect the basic legal coupling?
It’s an intersection between UK law and cultural expections. In UK law, you don’t need to be legally married to have a spousal visa, so many of these women think they’re married having been through a religious ceremony, but find out they’re not legally married several years later when they come to divorce.
If you get married in a church, that’s all you need to do. Many mosques and synagogues aren’t licenced for weddings.
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
One thing that made me think that an arranged marriage was a good idea was that I could get divorced by just saying 'Talaq, talaq, talaq' to the wife, and I could do that via phone as well.
*Talaq means divorce.
As someone who got married in a Catholic church in a muslim country, actually registering the marriage with the local authorities was a total pain in the arse that took months.
But I suspect that the non-registration of marriages among certain communities in the UK is quite deliberate.
You suspect a lot of things. You are particularly suspicious about Muslims and immigrants.
I live in a Muslim country, and count dozens of Muslims as friends. I’m an immigrant myself.
My comments relate to marriages in the UK, in many immigrant communities, often arranged marriages where the wife is new to the country, where the marriage she thinks she has turns out to be not to be an actual legal marriage, meaning that the husband can dump her with no recourse and that she can’t go to an actual court to get an actual divorce - and that politicians and officials are often afraid to call out what’s basically servitude because of ‘cultural sensitivities’.
I’m all for women’s rights in divorce, are you?
I apologise for my words to you.
I’m all for women’s rights in divorce. Did you read the report from the Govt on this topic that I linked to?
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
One thing that made me think that an arranged marriage was a good idea was that I could get divorced by just saying 'Talaq, talaq, talaq' to the wife, and I could do that via phone as well.
*Talaq means divorce.
As I've said before, my definition of religious tolerance is that the parents let me have sex with their daughter*
(*Obviously, I'd first agree this with the daughter and sometimes one begets the other)
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
That’s a terrifying poll, with MAGA levels of delusion among Conservative Party members, believing conspiracy theory nonsense about parts of cities being under Sharia law. Levels of such beliefs are lower in the country as a whole, but there were still 30% endorsing this view.
Reality matters. How do we build a political culture based on reality, not conspiracy? It would be good if Sunak tackled this head on. Explicitly say there aren’t no-go areas or areas ruled by Sharia law, that the Conservative Party embraces its Muslim candidates, that Islam is part of the rich fabric of British life along with his own Hinduism, Suella Braverman’s Buddhism, James Cleverly’s atheism, Kate Forbes’ Calvinism, etc.
Although the worst part of the poll isn’t about Islam, it’s the anti-Roma prejudice!
GB News, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian were reporting on illegal Sharia courts in the UK 14 years ago.
“A key finding was that a significant number of Muslim couples fail to civilly register their religious marriages and therefore some Muslim women have no option of obtaining a civil divorce.”
before the actual problem at hand made sense to me.
If the marriage isn't registered then they're not married?
Yep, so a wife can’t leave her husband and get an actual divorce in an actual court, so they’re instead being forced to go to this local ‘arbitration’ service under Sharia.
It's also pretty bad for Jewish women.
Rifka Meyer was 32 when she entered into a religious marriage. Two-and-a-half years later, she became what is known among orthodox Jews as a "chained wife" - trapped in a religious marriage with a man who refused to let her have a divorce.
"You feel hopeless and you feel very alone," she tells BBC Newsnight. "You feel like you're screaming and not being heard."
It would take her nearly 10 years to get a religious divorce. But more than 100 women from the Charedi Jewish community remain trapped in religious marriages in the UK, according to Labour Peer Jonathan Mendelsohn, who is part of a cross-party parliamentary group that formed to help them.
"The thing that has shocked me [is] that I alone have been contacted by people since I raised this issue," he says. "Tens of cases, tens of cases, including a number of people in the Jewish community in which I live."
Under orthodox Jewish law, the husband must grant his wife a document called a "get" in Hebrew. Without this, worshippers believe she remains married to him even if they are legally divorced. The women stuck in these religious marriages are known as Agunot, or "chained wives".
Ms Meyer says it meant she was not permitted to have another partner.
"You're stuck. I can't even think of meeting anyone, or dating or moving my life forward because I am stuck in this corner without a view and I just can't go anywhere from there," she says.
"There's not enough communication and support to help you through it. You feel very desperate and very alone. It's a very lonely journey to go through."
Ms Meyer, who lives in London, finally received her get last year. She now runs a charity called GETT Out to help women who are in the same situation
Of course until 1995 even civil divorce was illegal in Ireland and the Roman Catholic church still does not recognise divorce unless an annulment is granted under certain narrow circumstance
Thankfully, Henry VIII sorted that one out for us 👍
Quite a revealing poll on the depth of anti-muslim opinions and other eyebrow raising views among Tory members. Scary to think that this extremist group put some of the last few prime ministers in office with no input from the wider electorate.
Extraordinary. Next time you meet a Tory Party Member I'd suggest you give them a wide berth
Islam is absolutely a threat to our liberal, tolerant way of life
I know you are not the brightest penny in the purse (Millfield, advertising, stifled laughter, etc) but the sad fact is the lovely tolerant amusing Muslims you befriended in the Lebanon 30 years ago during your tampon advertising days are no longer representative of Islam as whole. I dearly wish they were. I loved that tolerant easygoing Islam. It was fabulous and I too experienced it
But the Islam being exported right now - from Saudi, Iran, etc - is intolerant, misogynistic, gloomy, oppressive and crude. It is more like Trump’s America than John F Kennedy’s America
REVISE YOUR PRIORS
I don't believe you. Forget Lebanon think Soho. I got my flat there in '85. My office was on Rathbone Place. It was full of gays lesbians trans and every single colour under the sun.
More eccentrics than most people meet in a lifetime. I imagine you and I would have gone to many of the same bars clubs bars and restaurants and even known some of the same people.
My overseas clients all wanted an excuse to do the post production in Soho so they could visit the places they didn't have at home. Ronnie Scotts Raymonds Madame Jojo's Soho House grouchos etc. There were well known faces in every place we went
My Italian girl friend at the time called it 'The Zoo'. I really can't believe it all passed you by and left you this small minded bigot you parade yourself as being on here.
Apparently Israel is going to supply early warning systems for detecting drone and missile attacks to Ukraine. A consequence for Russia siding with Hamas.
That will be a total head fuck, taking sides-wise, for just about everyone on PB.
Russia bad. Hamas bad. That's simple enough, isn't it?
I know Israel are now supporting Ukraine, but hey, we've dealt with such mindfucks as the French supporting Ukraine. We can handle this.
Russia bad. Hamas noble, oppressed, democratically-elected freedom fighters seems to be the norm for many if not most PB posters.
You tend to hear the strongest views on this from the shoutiest most opinionated posters. I would assume the majority view is Russia bad, Hamas bad, Israel (Netanyahu) bad, Ukraine good.
I work on the 'everyone bad' mindset. Brings a simply clarity to geopolitics. In any conflict, the bad fight the bad (as fighting is bad) and it's no surprise that the bad support the bad or - being bad - are bad friends and fail to support the bad or, indeed, turn round and support the other bad side
All as bad as each other is rather what Russia would like the world (particularly the West) to believe. It encourages leaders to abandon Ukraine.
Thus Puntinists such as Donald Trump directly pimping for Putin . . . and Putinists like Boris Johnson (and his PB peanut gallery) indirectly pimping by backing Trump.
The reality is that your compatriots are highly likely to elect Donald Trump. It's not in Ukraine's interests to frame the election as a referendum on support for Ukraine. You are being a useful idiot for Russia if you do so.
So, Donald Trump is anti-Ukraine, but we’re harming Ukraine if we point this out?
No, it's partisan propaganda that Trump is anti-Ukraine AND that partisan propaganda is what will force Trump to become anti-Ukraine if elected.
Think that covers it.
Despite the fact he got impeached for trying to blackmail Ukraine.
Long gone are the days when London was a swing region as it was until the 1990s. Indeed in 2019 it saw Labour's highest vote share in the UK and is now overall safe Labour at general elections.
Having said that the Tories do need to win some marginal seats, especially in Outer London if they expect to win nationally. At the moment they look likely to be pushed out right to the Essex and Kent borders and wiped out in inner London. Though they might scrape home in Chelsea and Fulham due to an opposition vote split between Labour and the LDs
C&F is going to be one of those seats where reliable information from the ground v. fluctuating odds based on the mood music could provide a good betting opportunity (if it appears in an individual seat market somewhere).
Indeed, it would almost certainly have gone Labour had Truss stayed PM but I think the Tories might narrowly hold it with Rishi.
C & F indeed might well be a narrow hold, I'd also suggest Ruislip, Bromley and Bexley. The rest look doomed; including Uxbridge. I'd hazard as an educated guess the Cons will hang on in 4-6 seats in Greater London. Although if the decline is not arrested it could well be less.
Hmmmmmm, so various Tory attack dogs have a go re the supposed Rayner issue, whilst heavily watering down the rental bill... Not a smokescreen at all, oh no. . .
Comments
*Talaq means divorce.
There's one that does an 'eternal flight' when he thinks one has gone down. I hope he does many more.
Rifka Meyer was 32 when she entered into a religious marriage. Two-and-a-half years later, she became what is known among orthodox Jews as a "chained wife" - trapped in a religious marriage with a man who refused to let her have a divorce.
"You feel hopeless and you feel very alone," she tells BBC Newsnight. "You feel like you're screaming and not being heard."
It would take her nearly 10 years to get a religious divorce. But more than 100 women from the Charedi Jewish community remain trapped in religious marriages in the UK, according to Labour Peer Jonathan Mendelsohn, who is part of a cross-party parliamentary group that formed to help them.
"The thing that has shocked me [is] that I alone have been contacted by people since I raised this issue," he says. "Tens of cases, tens of cases, including a number of people in the Jewish community in which I live."
Under orthodox Jewish law, the husband must grant his wife a document called a "get" in Hebrew. Without this, worshippers believe she remains married to him even if they are legally divorced. The women stuck in these religious marriages are known as Agunot, or "chained wives".
Ms Meyer says it meant she was not permitted to have another partner.
"You're stuck. I can't even think of meeting anyone, or dating or moving my life forward because I am stuck in this corner without a view and I just can't go anywhere from there," she says.
"There's not enough communication and support to help you through it. You feel very desperate and very alone. It's a very lonely journey to go through."
Ms Meyer, who lives in London, finally received her get last year. She now runs a charity called GETT Out to help women who are in the same situation
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58334745
There's a huge issue of rural depopulation in France but on the flip side it doesn't have the same urban housing affordability pressures, outside the inevitable hotspots in Paris itself and one or two sought after cities in the South.
But I suspect that the non-registration of marriages among certain communities in the UK is quite deliberate.
Edit: I see your comment above about Jewish “courts”, which is the same issue I was also alluding to.
This is tangential to the topic at hand. Merely an amusing story of bureaucracy. Someone relented and she was eventually allowed to divorce, and then re-marry.
The last year they reported the rates at which they can currently borrow (2022-23) the bond interest averaged 6.6%. That's a good 2.5% more than government debt - which would add up to over £300m pa.
https://www.irwinmitchell.com/news-and-insights/expert-comment/post/102iu1r/sharia-series-talaq-talaq-talaq-a-triple-threat-a-look-at-the-validation-of
My word:
"For talaq to take place, the husband needs to pronounce to his wife clearly that he is ending the marriage, and providing talaq. This is a unilateral repudiation of the marriage. It is not necessary for the talaq to be provided in writing, or to be witnessed. However, some Islamic scholars will say that the ideal talaq is pronounced clearly by the husband whilst the wife is not menstruating."
My comments relate to marriages in the UK, in many immigrant communities, often arranged marriages where the wife is new to the country, where the marriage she thinks she has turns out to be not to be an actual legal marriage, meaning that the husband can dump her with no recourse and that she can’t go to an actual court to get an actual divorce - and that politicians and officials are often afraid to call out what’s basically servitude because of ‘cultural sensitivities’.
I’m all for women’s rights in divorce, are you?
Of course sale profits from council homes can be reinvested in new housing, cutting immigration to reduce demand would also help
I think the experience is very different for women though, particularly in dark unlit areas. But that's as big an issue in suburban and small town settings as it is in inner cities.
None of this has anything in common with the claims this week by certain politicians about no-go areas based on community hostility. The only part of the country where that exists to the extent of creating real no-go areas is Northern Ireland.
https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/birth-family-relationships/separation-and-divorce/divorce-decrees/#fbec71
Think that covers it.
If people want religious trappings and confirmations on top then that's their call but it shouldn't affect the basic legal coupling?
NEW THREAD
France has a quarter more dwellings but 2.6 times the area of the UK. So their dwelling density is approximately half ours.
Actual housing density in the inhabited areas would be interesting.
https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/buildings/a-world-away-house-no-7-by-denizen-works
Can you show me where she has attacked RTB as a policy?
If you cannot, I will assume, that you are talking utter garbage.
If you get married in a church, that’s all you need to do. Many mosques and synagogues aren’t licenced for weddings.
I’m all for women’s rights in divorce. Did you read the report from the Govt on this topic that I linked to?
(*Obviously, I'd first agree this with the daughter and sometimes one begets the other)
More eccentrics than most people meet in a lifetime. I imagine you and I would have gone to many of the same bars clubs bars and restaurants and even known some of the same people.
My overseas clients all wanted an excuse to do the post production in Soho so they could visit the places they didn't have at home. Ronnie Scotts Raymonds Madame Jojo's Soho House grouchos etc. There were well known faces in every place we went
My Italian girl friend at the time called it 'The Zoo'. I really can't believe it all passed you by and left you this small minded bigot you parade yourself as being on here.