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Starmer needs to go on a crusade – politicalbetting.com
Starmer needs to go on a crusade – politicalbetting.com
Few likewise see Rishi Sunak as doing well on Israel/Palestine, although 2019 Tory voters still tend to back himAll BritonsWell: 22% (-5 from Oct)Badly: 52% (+9)2019 Con votersWell: 40% (-9)Badly: 34% (+9)https://t.co/eH2tF6W0eT pic.twitter.com/rVqjncz05a
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The best answer, in my view, is that of David Cameron. If Hamas wants the fighting and bombing to end they should surrender and give up the remaining hostages. But they are still in the field and the fight goes on.
Starmer's determination to upset no-one might prove counter-productive.
1. Allowing the Americans access to our base in Cyprus to deliver weapons and support intelligence flights.
2. Flying our own surveillance flights to help the Israelis and providing exported arms.
3. There are chunks of the navy floating around the med for the benefit of Israel.
Things we are doing for Gaza:
1. Dropping a few tonnes of aid.
2. Abstaining or vetoing UN votes.
It might not be much but we are active in the razing of Gaza and thus complicit in potential war crimes. We could stop all active support and leave the fuckers to it. Yet, despite the polls it seems the leadership of both parties would rather we carried on. Galloway is what you get when you don't want to understand the public's mood.
Whatever ills Sunak has wrought, the repatriation of Cameron into the political fold is an unequivocally good decision.
Prime Minister: Theresa May
Chancellor: Gordon Brown
Foreign Secretary: David Cameron
Home Secretary: Tony Blair
1) Merging Inland Revenue with HM Customs
2) splitting the Bank of England into 2 with the FCA supervising things without knowing what was happening while the BoE knew but couldn't do anything up it
3) giving the Bank of England independence so that Chancellors had no say in interest rates
was the biggest mistake...
Also, the Tories are now polling as badly as under Truss.
Prime Minister: Theresa May. A red white and blue Brexit.
Chancellor: Gordon Brown. No more boom and bust
Foreign Secretary: David Cameron. Resigned at exactly the moment it was essential to stay
Home Secretary: Tony Blair. Iraq
Cruise Director-Johnson
Captain of the Titanic-Truss
Blair as home secretary and May as PM make a good deal of sense though.
Brown? Really?
Perhaps replace Brown with Mandelson, but I wanted to make it all ex-PMs who have some level of respect.
Edit: Or John Major would be better, but that would make it three Tories to one.
I think the reality is that you agree with Lee Anderson? You seem to be very carefully not saying what he said was completely wrong.
It as wrong as what Ali said so this is not me playing politics. Both deserve to be thrown out of their parties.
They’ve lied again & again, fabricating fake episodes to substantiate fake stories.
Meanwhile, Gaza continues to starve
😂
We'd never survive another spell with a Chancellor like Brown.
Happily Reeves seems to be far. far better.
But perhaps the worst thing he did was not to reform the planning system to build many more houses while the government let in huge numbers of migrants, so that a generation have been priced out of owning a decent sized house. Of course that was politically to his advantage, as the under-housed and renters are much more likely to vote Labour.
Starmer should go on a crusade to reassure the voters that he is on their side on this issue
Which side is that?
The Rubymar was struck by an anti-ballistic missile fired by the Iranian-backed Houthis on Feb. 18 and sank early Saturday after “slowly taking on water” since the attack, U.S. Central Command said on social media early Sunday local time."
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/03/rubymar-houthi-attack-red-sea/
Apparently there were no casualties, for which we may be grateful. The ship was "was heading to Belarus from the United Arab Emirates when it was targeted".
That much fertilizer could have helped feed hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions.
AIUI most of Major's PFI schemes were at the 'simpler' end of the scale. Brown's issue was in the massive expansion of PFI-style schemes to projects that did not suit them, with poorly-written contracts, all because he wanted to cook the books.
interestingly I note that the Government is talking about £1.8bn of efficiency savings without highlighting how they would occur and without providing the money now that would allow the automation required to make those savings plausible...
He could get out of it with a bold speech, as intimated in the header, but since that'd actually require strong leadership rather than tedious tactical triangulation it might be beyond him.
Collapsed retailer to shut 82 stores but documents show just eight of its 206 UK outlets were loss-making last year
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/body-shop-stores-close-despite-profitable-latest-t8vf0nf0k (£££)
Adam Smith, please explain.
This board has got to get beyond people trying to explain how some people might see a position/point of view being challenged as being identical to secretly sympathising with it.
Lady Henig wrote books on the League of Nations, the Weimar Republic and the origins of the world wars and captained the Lords bridge team
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ruth-henig-lancaster-university-historian-and-labour-politician-involved-with-policing-obituary/ar-BB1jfZt7
Bloody refugees, coming here, captaining our bridge teams...
Vaguely on topic, I'm not sure what a policy on Gaza which would satisfy most voters looks like.
We can but hope some kind of ceasefire will be initiated, respected and take hold but that's all we can do and to be honest I suspect a lot of the dissatisfaction comes from the sentiment "Britain must do something" when the truth is there's very little we can do.
Contrast with Ukraine where there was a strong, bold response from Boris Johnson (yes, we must give him credit for that). There was little or no potential ramification at home to such a policy - the pro-Russian lobby could grumble but not much else and for many historical reasons Ukraine enjoyed a lot of support.
Gaza is different - both the original atrocity and the Israeli response have been viewed as offensive and inflamatory by different sections of British society. Trying to thread the needle between them has proved impossible (as it often does). The problem comes when politicians, who are after all representatives, take a line which is not widely supported within their constituency. The risk is the electorate voice their dissatisfaction by voting against you at the next election.
That's easy for me to say sitting here in an area with a strong Muslim minority, some of whom are clearly incensed by events and may well have family in Gaza. When you have that kind of emotional capital invested, it's impossible not to get passionate about it.
More seriously, I think one other advantage of a ceasefire - albeit quite far down the list of priorities - is it will give those politicians who *are* suffering because they see nuance in this situation and aren't full bloodedly calling for the mass extermination of of Israelis some breathing space.
That's particularly important for Biden, as he both needs it to stop his base freaking out and re-electing the Orangutan and so he can start to glue the pieces back together by trying to restart* the peace process. But it would help Starmer too.
It also, of course removes the distraction from the war in Ukraine (which TBF is probably the reason Hamas attacked in the first place, given who their ultimate backer is) and allows for us to resume our focus there.
*Assuming it had ever started, of course.
(And even if I find time to write it, how many would have the time to read it?)
Tony Blair.
An example - very few if anyone objected to local Councils flying the Ukrainian flag in the immediate aftermath of the Russian attack. Was there an instruction given to fly the Israeli flag? If so, why was it withdrawn and when? What about the Palestinian flag?
I'm minded of the concept free speech means the right to offend and to be offended but it also means the right not to offend. The problem then becomes if you try to please everyone you end up pleasing no one as the thread poll suggests.
Crudely, Hamas is controlled by Iran, which is if not a client state in the classic sense certainly a close ally of Russia. They were in need of urgent distractions due to disasters elsewhere - both in Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Israel has the right and responsibility for self-defence from the monsters that are Hamas who must be destroyed, which is not yet accomplished. Israel needs to go into Rafah and anywhere else that Hamas might be hiding.
If Hamas want an end to the war, they can release all hostages, disband and relinquish their arms.
Starmer should currently back: An unconditional Hamas ceasefire (because they have lost the War of 2023-4), return of the hostages, an Israeli ceasefire and a multi agency permanent negotiation process backed by the UN, USA, EU, UK, Turkey, Saudi, Egypt, Gulf States and Jordan until a comprehensive settlement is agreed. (As this has been unresolved since 1948 it is not a problem if it takes 6 weeks or 15 years).
(And before you try and make out that I don't want to see Hamas removed as you did last time, the answer is still, they should be removed.)
Sometimes wars are worth fighting. Defeating the Nazis in WWII, defeating the Japanese in WWII, defeating the Russians in Ukraine and defeating Hamas in Gaza are all prime examples where evil authoritarians need to be defeated.
You claim to want them removed in theory but oppose any necessary action to remove them in practice.
I just don't believe that destroying Rafah and killing potentially thousands of women and children is a response that helps anyone. It's not like it's controversial to say that.
I put the proposal up to have an interesting debate (10 Minute Rule Bills rarely become law), and got a friend to oppose it so we could have a proper presentation of the arguments on both sides (the LibDem spokesman supported me, incidentally). The case against seems to come down to authoritarian misuse - essentially the argument that if the authorities don't know who you are, it's easier to avoid them mistreating you. I'm afraid that is an illusion - in practice, if the authorities want to identify you, they have numerous ways of doing it, and in addition everyone from supermarkets to political parties know far more about you than you might really want to disclose. The only person who really benefits from a simple way to prove identity is...you.
How else can Hamas be destroyed, in practice?
Not wishy washy intentions, practical alternative steps to vanquish them please.
The man was utterly inept
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/comment/article-13041677/HAMISH-MCRAE-Time-fix-Gordon-Browns-pension-errors.html#:~:text=The tax was Gordon Brown's,be some sort of rebate.
Have you spoken with the international community, including, erh, the US? You're on your own.
Ethnic cleansing is also on the agenda.
F**k the US if they disagree, they'd quite rightly do the same if they were faced with the same situation.
What's the purpose of all that's happened for the last few months if Hamas are allowed to retreat to Rafah and then get away without being destroyed?
If you're going to get rid of a cancer, you need to get all of it.
Hamas chose to attack Israel.
I fully support the victim of both attacks having the right of self-defence, absolutely.
No apologies for that. If Russia and Hamas didn't do the attacks, there'd be no war.
Can you justify long term why creating a new generation of radicalised killers and murdering thousands of children and mothers is going to help destroy Hamas?
If Hamas survive this and remain in charge of Gaza then Gaza will return to being an impoverished open air prison which has no chance whatsoever for development and will radicalise another generation come what may.
Unconditional defeat of evil regimes allows a better chance for a future free from them.
Defeating the Nazis allowed for a free Germany.
Defeating Imperial Japan allowed for a free Japan.
Defeat Hamas, no half measures, then hope for a free Palestine afterwards.
Nothing is going on. Life is just fine. I love this time of year.
Getting another ceasefire without destroying Hamas will just guarantee another war down the line. Do you want another war down the line? I don't.
Which they are not.
(*) Thankfully none in this case
If everything is fine I won’t mention it again.
I personally don’t like this time of year at all but the secret trick I have is Vitamin D which makes a massive difference.
Trump's US would be a relative outlier from us and the rest of the West ie more pro Netanyahu in the Middle East and even supporting his occupation of most of Palestine and less pro Zelensky and pushing for him to agree a deal with Putin
https://x.com/thisis_rigged/status/1764275010795979202?s=61
"The Ukraine War in 2024 - The Military and Economic Balance of the Long War", Perun, YouTube, 2024/03/03, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQLI8xnINqk
Stick and carrot. Its worked before and can work again.
Allow Hamas to survive this, have a meaningless "ceasefire" then have Gaza returned to being a blockaded hellhole that can't develop as Hamas are there and you just guarantee another generation of Hamas agents.
You're advocating the latter, whether you understand it or not. Give peace a chance, vanquish Hamas then develop Gaza without them.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/queen-victorias-bust-daubed-ct-32262741
This is Rigged are protesting against the SNP and rickets.
Russia is not an insurgent terrorist organisation, it’s a vast nation state that fancies having a bit of its neighbours. Ukraine is not a nuclear armed regional hegemon, with settlements encroaching on Russian land and an ultra-nationalist populist leader in power.
Israel has its justifications for retaliating after 7th October but the situation is much less black and white than Ukraine where there is a good guy and a bad guy and very little need for nuance.
Mark my words, destroying Rafah will set peace back. The US knows it. The UK knows it. Apparently you don’t.