Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
No group more likely to be a victim of crime than young black men.
IIRC correctly statistics are published to show the ethnicity of, for example, homicide victims, but are not available to show the ethnicity of homicide perpetrators.
The trouble with the Left is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it refuses to acknowledge and the trouble with the Right is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it does acknowledge.
Could this be a reason for why the overwhelming majority of people are centrists and that General Elections are won from the centre and lost from the edges?
There is far too much discussion and analysis of the nature, purpose and meaning of the extremes, and far too little of the centre - the group comprising the great majority of voters for all larger parties.
The Tories are taking the line that saying you hate a black woman is not racist.
As I’ve been saying for a long while, it is obvious the Tories have an issue with racism.
The Tory line to take on the morning round is that their £10m donor who said Diane Abbott made him want to hate all black women was not being racist and they’d like to keep the £10m
Will Labour return the whip to Diane Abbott, unjustly suspended.
Or is their anger about this confected and synthetic and they don't really give a damn about her ?
I don't think they have to give a damn about Diane Abbott to understand that a) what was reportedly said is absolutely inexcusable and b) it is somewhat wider in scope than that one individual.
The fact that the Tory spokespeople are out on the media milk round trying to defend it as basically "a confection that is now so old as to be irrelevant" suggests that they maybe haven't heard what everyone else has heard.
I think part of the issue is that the anti-Diane Abbott bile in the media was once very strong, and Tory MPs were part of that milleu where it was acceptable to say some very offensive things about her. A lot of that would have been the normal political knockabout directed at someone who made numerical mistakes in interviews, but it was particularly aggressive towards Abbott compared to other senior Corbynites, and it sometimes strayed over the line.
Bearing in mind that these comments were reportedly made in between the murders of Jo Cox MP and David Amess MP, and it becomes even more important that the Tories are willing to stand up and say that they won't have anything to do with the man who made them.
The main reason why Diane Abbott got more criticism than other Labour figures is that she regularly said racist stuff about white people and Labour never held her accountable.
The trouble with the Left is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it refuses to acknowledge and the trouble with the Right is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it does acknowledge.
On the contrary: there is another form of racism, thankfully rare, that *both* left and right ignore: anti-white racism.
In this country, white people traditionally have held more power. This means it is harder for racism to 'punch up', as it were. But on an individual basis, abuse of whites for being white can be just as nasty as any other form of racism.
Or, racism between ethnic minorities: "I'm black, therefore I cannot be racist if I call an Asian a P***. Or vice versa. Or towards 'white' Irish or Jewish people, Or travellers.
The *world* may be divided (and that's a very UK-centric view...), but on a personal basis, if I' stabbed by a black person because I'm white, it's still as racist as if it was the other way around.
The trouble with the Left is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it refuses to acknowledge and the trouble with the Right is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it does acknowledge.
Could this be a reason for why the overwhelming majority of people are centrists and that General Elections are won from the centre and lost from the edges?
There is far too much discussion and analysis of the nature, purpose and meaning of the extremes, and far too little of the centre - the group comprising the great majority of voters for all larger parties.
Plenty of people (most!) on the centre-right deplore racism; it's an unhelpful and divisive canard to mischaracterise the right as racist.
So the pathological liar who would have been suspended from parliament for 90 days is going to be their vote winner !
It will win back some votes in some places. Possibly even a net gain overall.
Though it could all just be a "don't follow Lee to Reform, Daddy still loves you and he is coming back" piece of waffle.
The nearest we have to confirmation is
A spokesman for Johnson said: “Boris Johnson’s focus at the moment is writing and speaking and he is very productively engaged on that. His position has been consistently in support of the Conservative Party for his entire political life and that will remain so.”
Which is only a bit of a fib.
Yesterday I had drinks/dinner with some pollsters and political strategists and this topic came up, in short whilst Johnson is more popular with 2019 Tories/Red Wallers than Sunak those ratings are still pretty shite, it is like being the prettiest horse at the glue factory.
On average he is hitting around 40% approval/support with 2019 Tories, by comparison at this point in late 2014 David Cameron was hitting 90% plus approval with 2010 Tories.
Whilst Johnson has a higher floor he also drives up ABC tactical voting in a way Sunak doesn't.
So under the vagaries of FPTP it is entirely possible that the Tories get a worse result with Johnson leading them to 31% of the vote than Sunak who leads them to 27% of the vote.
Imagine the majority they could’ve got with someone else leading the party in Dec19!
The trouble with the Left is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it refuses to acknowledge and the trouble with the Right is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it does acknowledge.
On the contrary: there is another form of racism, thankfully rare, that *both* left and right ignore: anti-white racism.
In this country, white people traditionally have held more power. This means it is harder for racism to 'punch up', as it were. But on an individual basis, abuse of whites for being white can be just as nasty as any other form of racism.
Or, racism between ethnic minorities: "I'm black, therefore I cannot be racist if I call an Asian a P***. Or vice versa. Or towards 'white' Irish or Jewish people, Or travellers.
The *world* may be divided (and that's a very UK-centric view...), but on a personal basis, if I' stabbed by a black person because I'm white, it's still as racist as if it was the other way around.
Not only is such racism allowed. The Guardian will write articles defending it.
The trouble with the Left is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it refuses to acknowledge and the trouble with the Right is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it does acknowledge.
Could this be a reason for why the overwhelming majority of people are centrists and that General Elections are won from the centre and lost from the edges?
There is far too much discussion and analysis of the nature, purpose and meaning of the extremes, and far too little of the centre - the group comprising the great majority of voters for all larger parties.
Plenty of people (most!) on the centre-right deplore racism; it's an unhelpful and divisive canard to mischaracterise the right as racist.
There are of course racists who are left, right and indeed the centre. That is sadly to be expected in any very large groups, the problems become more serious when the leaders fail to tackle it seriously.
The bigger problem here though is that one person is allowed to donate £10m, a third of Tory party income last year. Of course they will hate giving it back, but why does anyone think it is a good idea to give one person such influence?
I see Number 10 is going to do its usual routine of making as many ministers on the broadcast round defend the indefensible before it inevitably throws them under the bus.
I realise that ministers are meant to take collective responsibility but there ought to be a line where these spineless twerps say "no, I will not go on air and deny that the sky is blue". They look like utter idiots, and they insult the intelligence of the public when they make these ludicrous defences of behaviour that is plainly unacceptable.
Shhhhh we don’t want that kind of stuff discussed on here
I find it interesting that there's anecdotally a heck of a lot of anti-Syrian refugee 'racism' in Turkey at the moment. They've taken in millions, and I fear many Turks are starting to think they've outstayed their welcome.
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
No group more likely to be a victim of crime than young black men.
IIRC correctly statistics are published to show the ethnicity of, for example, homicide victims, but are not available to show the ethnicity of homicide perpetrators.
The trouble with the Left is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it refuses to acknowledge and the trouble with the Right is that antisemitism is the only form of racism it does acknowledge.
Could this be a reason for why the overwhelming majority of people are centrists and that General Elections are won from the centre and lost from the edges?
There is far too much discussion and analysis of the nature, purpose and meaning of the extremes, and far too little of the centre - the group comprising the great majority of voters for all larger parties.
Plenty of people (most!) on the centre-right deplore racism; it's an unhelpful and divisive canard to mischaracterise the right as racist.
Yes. Generic terms like 'Left' and 'Right' are not, of themselves very illuminating. Centrists may be left or right leaning, mostly with reference to the party they mostly support. The real differences between them are not great and are about individual bits of policy rather than basic principle.
NHS, State pension, Defence, Welfare, Free education to 18 and loads of other big ticket items show only small differences. Which is why a fuss is made about small ones.
It's the sort of statistic Conservative MPs trot out as the ambulances queue up at the Royal Free.
The money's been provided and the workers employed.
Now unless you want some 'here this year, gone next year' health minister to micromanage everything then its the responsibility of the 'envy of the world' to use its resources effectively.
But the ministers appoint the trust boards* and senior managers. Who appoint the lower levels of management. Who should be given realistic targets to work to and held to account when they are not met. You know, things like 2-week waits for cancer follow-ups, 48 hour trolley waits, maximum times to be seen in A&E etc etc- we have a whole series of these though IIRC the Tories abolished some of them a few years ago. Why are those that remain not improving and what is the government doing about it? It's not about micromanagement it's about strategy and competence - you would not expect the directors of a PLC to respond to complaints about falling value for money with airy references to micromanagement. Ministers are the ultimate directors of the NHS - they need to get a grip.
* though maybe we don't have trusts anymore - I see that my GP practice apparently works for NHS South East London Integrated Care System, whatever that is, another Tory failure has been endless structural tinkering which has served only to make the system more byzantine and incomprehensible than it was before.
Shhhhh we don’t want that kind of stuff discussed on here
I find it interesting that there's anecdotally a heck of a lot of anti-Syrian refugee 'racism' in Turkey at the moment. They've taken in millions, and I fear many Turks are starting to think they've outstayed their welcome.
Many thought that a couple of years back and it’s getting far worse now it’s clear they’ve got nowhere to go back to
It’s quite something the way Boris Johnson wins all these elections, referendums, and mayoralty’s in real life, but is always such a drag with the voters in academic theory… and politico’s buy the theory
Shhhhh we don’t want that kind of stuff discussed on here
I find it interesting that there's anecdotally a heck of a lot of anti-Syrian refugee 'racism' in Turkey at the moment. They've taken in millions, and I fear many Turks are starting to think they've outstayed their welcome.
The story of the brothers in Newcastle is staggering. It ticks every box that centrists can’t bear
Immigrant/asylum seekers accused of rape BBC fawns over them, victim blames the girls whilst the mother says they’re good, humble lads Said asylum seekers turn out to be gang rapists of children
It’s quite something the way Boris Johnson wins all these elections, referendums, and mayoralty’s in real life, but is always such a drag with the voters in academic theory… and politico’s buy the theory
That was then . You need to view things as they are now . He will never be able to remove the fact that he was judged a liar and would have been suspended for 90 days if he hadn’t resigned as an MP .
Shhhhh we don’t want that kind of stuff discussed on here
I find it interesting that there's anecdotally a heck of a lot of anti-Syrian refugee 'racism' in Turkey at the moment. They've taken in millions, and I fear many Turks are starting to think they've outstayed their welcome.
Many thought that a couple of years back and it’s getting far worse now it’s clear they’ve got nowhere to go back to
It’s quite something the way Boris Johnson wins all these elections, referendums, and mayoralty’s in real life, but is always such a drag with the voters in academic theory… and politico’s buy the theory
That was then . You need to view things as they are now . He will never be able to remove the fact that he was judged a liar and would have been suspended for 90 days if he hadn’t resigned as an MP .
Yet the voters that matter still prefer him to any other Tory leader… unless PB has moved on from opinion polls now
Shhhhh we don’t want that kind of stuff discussed on here
I find it interesting that there's anecdotally a heck of a lot of anti-Syrian refugee 'racism' in Turkey at the moment. They've taken in millions, and I fear many Turks are starting to think they've outstayed their welcome.
The story of the brothers in Newcastle is staggering. It ticks every box that centrists can’t bear
Immigrant/asylum seekers accused of rape BBC fawns over them, victim blames the girls whilst the mother says they’re good, humble lads Said asylum seekers turn out to be gang rapists of children
What's really disgusting about the whole thing is how the BBC went into the mindset of blaming the white girls for racism, leading to a covering up of the actual horrific abuse - and this was just five years after the big public conversation about Rotherham and how awful this exact thing happened.
It can only be explained by institutional anti-white racism by the BBC.
It’s quite something the way Boris Johnson wins all these elections, referendums, and mayoralty’s in real life, but is always such a drag with the voters in academic theory… and politico’s buy the theory
That was then . You need to view things as they are now . He will never be able to remove the fact that he was judged a liar and would have been suspended for 90 days if he hadn’t resigned as an MP .
Is the 90-day suspension still "live" - so if the lying toad was re-elected to this, or the next, parliament he would immediately be faced with being kicked out again?
In their desperation to keep the Frank Hester money, the Tories are letting a lot of people off the hook. For example, if Hester cannot be a racist because he donates money to a party led by a Hindu of Indian origin, Jeremy Corbyn cannot be an anti-Semite because he appointed Jewish people to senior positions in his Labour leadership team.
No that’s just silly and illogical. It’s racism when Labour do it, and common sense when the Tories do it.
No question it was a racist remark. What happens next? Should the Tories give the money back? To avoid the taint of racism? Probably, but its a bit old chunk of money. More broadly what do we want for the funding for political parties? Many, I suspect, think large donations from individuals should not be allowed. What do they want in return? Arguably the same ought to apply to Unions funding Labour.
Seems fairly obvious and straightforward. Cap donations at 1k per person per year. Unions can co-ordinate collections but they would be using up the individuals donation limit if its done.
That seems weak.
How do you prevent a rich person, or a body with millions (eg a Union), giving huge amounts by totting up their numbers of members, and being driven by one individual?
I don't see how that would eg protect the Labour Party from manipulation by Len McCluskey of UNITE, or his replacement.
Prince William looks ancient in that photo on the front of The Times.
Astonishingly, he's only in his mid 40s. Has he been ill too? Maybe he's just a really heavy smoker or he's allergic to suncream or moisturiser or something - but whatever it is, his skin is fucked.
In their desperation to keep the Frank Hester money, the Tories are letting a lot of people off the hook. For example, if Hester cannot be a racist because he donates money to a party led by a Hindu of Indian origin, Jeremy Corbyn cannot be an anti-Semite because he appointed Jewish people to senior positions in his Labour leadership team.
No that’s just silly and illogical. It’s racism when Labour do it, and common sense when the Tories do it.
No question it was a racist remark. What happens next? Should the Tories give the money back? To avoid the taint of racism? Probably, but its a bit old chunk of money. More broadly what do we want for the funding for political parties? Many, I suspect, think large donations from individuals should not be allowed. What do they want in return? Arguably the same ought to apply to Unions funding Labour.
If we want to stop money buying political outcomes, it needs to be tackled at both ends - restrictions on how much an individual, company or trade union, yes, but also restrictions on both national and local spending on advertising, leaflets, phone canvassing, etc., all the year round. In my constituency we're in a leaflet war with both Tories and LibDems, and all of us evidently have loads of money to throw at it. Is democracy thereby enhanced? Are voters better informed than if they had one leaflet from each of us? Probably not (though Royal Mail certainly is). But we can't afford not to compete, and that means diverting time to hunt down donors, which ultimately leads to the millionaires-only culture that we see in the USA.
Global sea surface temperatures, aside from being at a modern-era record high of 21.21°C for the third consecutive day, are also in crazy-town territory for the standard deviation, yesterday at 5.68σ above the 1982-2011 mean. That's 1-in-150 million for a normal distribution. https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1766886096577957960
I suppose that the crazy temperatures over the past year are being driven by the ENSO?
Perhaps the scariest effect of the current situation is that it sets a high water mark that won't be reached again until the next El Nino year - you can almost hear the denialists cueing up their "but sea surface temperatures are much cooler than they were during 2023-24! what are you worrying about?" tweets which they'll be bombarding us with for the rest of the decade...
In a fortnight the sea temperature will have been at a record for every day of the last year.
Reverting the ban on high sulfur fuel oils would probably help in the short term. Downside is the extra couple of 100k deaths from air pollution.
Pick your poison: SO2 or CO2.
A far more efficient way of utilising SO2 would be delivery to the stratosphere by balloon. You'd need around a twentieth of the amount to have the same effect as that from the banned sulphur in marine diesel. The costs would not be massive, either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection#Feasibility
There are significant uncertainties around the idea, of course.
Probably worth someone doing feasibility studies as a potential emergency stopgap.
It’s quite something the way Boris Johnson wins all these elections, referendums, and mayoralty’s in real life, but is always such a drag with the voters in academic theory… and politico’s buy the theory
That was then . You need to view things as they are now . He will never be able to remove the fact that he was judged a liar and would have been suspended for 90 days if he hadn’t resigned as an MP .
Is the 90-day suspension still "live" - so if the lying toad was re-elected to this, or the next, parliament he would immediately be faced with being kicked out again?
MPs didn’t vote on that because he had already resigned .
In their desperation to keep the Frank Hester money, the Tories are letting a lot of people off the hook. For example, if Hester cannot be a racist because he donates money to a party led by a Hindu of Indian origin, Jeremy Corbyn cannot be an anti-Semite because he appointed Jewish people to senior positions in his Labour leadership team.
No that’s just silly and illogical. It’s racism when Labour do it, and common sense when the Tories do it.
No question it was a racist remark. What happens next? Should the Tories give the money back? To avoid the taint of racism? Probably, but its a bit old chunk of money. More broadly what do we want for the funding for political parties? Many, I suspect, think large donations from individuals should not be allowed. What do they want in return? Arguably the same ought to apply to Unions funding Labour.
Seems fairly obvious and straightforward. Cap donations at 1k per person per year. Unions can co-ordinate collections but they would be using up the individuals donation limit if its done.
That seems weak.
How do you prevent a rich person, or a body with millions (eg a Union), giving huge amounts by totting up their numbers of members, and being driven by one individual?
I don't see how that would eg protect the Labour Party from manipulation by Len McCluskey of UNITE, or his replacement.
No, I don't have a complete answer.
To donate 10m under my system you would need to find 10,000 acquantences you trust to give £1,000 each to and that they would pass it on to the preferred party. If you contracted that they had to pass it on then that could be an offence. Not even well connected billionaires have such a network or the time to arrange this. If it really started to happen we could look at further ways to prevent it but it simply wont happen on that kind of scale.
As for unions all I am suggesting they can do is co-ordinate collections. So McCluskey can ask his members if they want to donate to Labour or whoever then press this button and donate up to £1,000 each. It would give him a lot less power over donations than he has now, and GB news or whoever could do the similar process for parties on the right.
Asked about suspicions that he had been paid off to change his view on TikTok after a meeting with a major TikTok investor, the billionaire Jeff Yass, Mr. Trump denied it. https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1767482715031433331
Shhhhh we don’t want that kind of stuff discussed on here
I find it interesting that there's anecdotally a heck of a lot of anti-Syrian refugee 'racism' in Turkey at the moment. They've taken in millions, and I fear many Turks are starting to think they've outstayed their welcome.
The story of the brothers in Newcastle is staggering. It ticks every box that centrists can’t bear
Immigrant/asylum seekers accused of rape BBC fawns over them, victim blames the girls whilst the mother says they’re good, humble lads Said asylum seekers turn out to be gang rapists of children
"centrists?"
Really?
I see myself as fairly centrist, and this sort of story really boils my piss.
It’s quite something the way Boris Johnson wins all these elections, referendums, and mayoralty’s in real life, but is always such a drag with the voters in academic theory… and politico’s buy the theory
That was then . You need to view things as they are now . He will never be able to remove the fact that he was judged a liar and would have been suspended for 90 days if he hadn’t resigned as an MP .
Is the 90-day suspension still "live" - so if the lying toad was re-elected to this, or the next, parliament he would immediately be faced with being kicked out again?
MPs didn’t vote on that because he had already resigned .
If he were elected again but MPs voted to suspend him, that would sure put an end to the ‘the public don’t like him, it’s not just the establishment’ line!
In their desperation to keep the Frank Hester money, the Tories are letting a lot of people off the hook. For example, if Hester cannot be a racist because he donates money to a party led by a Hindu of Indian origin, Jeremy Corbyn cannot be an anti-Semite because he appointed Jewish people to senior positions in his Labour leadership team.
No that’s just silly and illogical. It’s racism when Labour do it, and common sense when the Tories do it.
No question it was a racist remark. What happens next? Should the Tories give the money back? To avoid the taint of racism? Probably, but its a bit old chunk of money. More broadly what do we want for the funding for political parties? Many, I suspect, think large donations from individuals should not be allowed. What do they want in return? Arguably the same ought to apply to Unions funding Labour.
If we want to stop money buying political outcomes, it needs to be tackled at both ends - restrictions on how much an individual, company or trade union, yes, but also restrictions on both national and local spending on advertising, leaflets, phone canvassing, etc., all the year round. In my constituency we're in a leaflet war with both Tories and LibDems, and all of us evidently have loads of money to throw at it. Is democracy thereby enhanced? Are voters better informed than if they had one leaflet from each of us? Probably not (though Royal Mail certainly is). But we can't afford not to compete, and that means diverting time to hunt down donors, which ultimately leads to the millionaires-only culture that we see in the USA.
Leaflets are not necessarily expensive, if delivered by volunteers, which is a better route to go down than hunting rich donors to fund delivery.
But yes, there's a good argument for local and national spending limits outside of controlled election periods. That should be brought in alongside limits on donations from both individuals and organisations (whether lobby groups, businesses, unions or whatever), and state funding linked to a formula based on votes received.
I know state funding won't be popular but politics does have to be paid for and while the ideal is a large number of small donors, that simply isn't going to happen; we do, however, need to break from a small number of large donors who can effectively buy very significant influence in parties.
It’s quite something the way Boris Johnson wins all these elections, referendums, and mayoralty’s in real life, but is always such a drag with the voters in academic theory… and politico’s buy the theory
That was then . You need to view things as they are now . He will never be able to remove the fact that he was judged a liar and would have been suspended for 90 days if he hadn’t resigned as an MP .
Is the 90-day suspension still "live" - so if the lying toad was re-elected to this, or the next, parliament he would immediately be faced with being kicked out again?
MPs didn’t vote on that because he had already resigned .
No but if he was re-elected would/could it be put back on the agenda?
Starmer has already given her support with his comments this morning .
Why is she getting support after she has said far more racist statements in her history? This is such an obvious case of a double standard. The BBC's institutional racism agaisnt white people (as shown by the Newcastle documentary) means it lets the fact Diane Abbott is in good standing with the Labour Party go by unnotced. If it was a Tory MP who had said similar things about black people, it would mention it in every article about them.
Prince William looks ancient in that photo on the front of The Times.
Astonishingly, he's only in his mid 40s. Has he been ill too? Maybe he's just a really heavy smoker or he's allergic to suncream or moisturiser or something - but whatever it is, his skin is fucked.
It’s quite something the way Boris Johnson wins all these elections, referendums, and mayoralty’s in real life, but is always such a drag with the voters in academic theory… and politico’s buy the theory
That was then . You need to view things as they are now . He will never be able to remove the fact that he was judged a liar and would have been suspended for 90 days if he hadn’t resigned as an MP .
Is the 90-day suspension still "live" - so if the lying toad was re-elected to this, or the next, parliament he would immediately be faced with being kicked out again?
MPs didn’t vote on that because he had already resigned .
No but if he was re-elected would/could it be put back on the agenda?
I really don’t know. But will see if I can find out. It’s a good question .
The Energy Minister defended Hester saying "We can’t cancel anybody from participation in public life, or indeed donating to parties, because they said something intemperate and wrong in their past." Worth pointing out that Michael Gove made a speech a few days ago proposing precisely that.
Prince William looks ancient in that photo on the front of The Times.
Astonishingly, he's only in his mid 40s. Has he been ill too? Maybe he's just a really heavy smoker or he's allergic to suncream or moisturiser or something - but whatever it is, his skin is fucked.
Shhhhh we don’t want that kind of stuff discussed on here
I find it interesting that there's anecdotally a heck of a lot of anti-Syrian refugee 'racism' in Turkey at the moment. They've taken in millions, and I fear many Turks are starting to think they've outstayed their welcome.
The story of the brothers in Newcastle is staggering. It ticks every box that centrists can’t bear
Immigrant/asylum seekers accused of rape BBC fawns over them, victim blames the girls whilst the mother says they’re good, humble lads Said asylum seekers turn out to be gang rapists of children
What's really disgusting about the whole thing is how the BBC went into the mindset of blaming the white girls for racism, leading to a covering up of the actual horrific abuse - and this was just five years after the big public conversation about Rotherham and how awful this exact thing happened.
It can only be explained by institutional anti-white racism by the BBC.
Starmer has already given her support with his comments this morning .
Why is she getting support after she has said far more racist statements in her history? This is such an obvious case of a double standard. The BBC's institutional racism agaisnt white people (as shown by the Newcastle documentary) means it lets the fact Diane Abbott is in good standing with the Labour Party go by unnotced. If it was a Tory MP who had said similar things about black people, it would mention it in every article about them.
Has Diane Abbott said she hates all white people or said that a white MP needs to be killed? IIRC she was suspended as a Labour MP for saying white people don't face the same degree of constant racism that she does, which in light of these comments from the biggest political donor in Britain I have to say has a greater degree of plausibility.
It’s quite something the way Boris Johnson wins all these elections, referendums, and mayoralty’s in real life, but is always such a drag with the voters in academic theory… and politico’s buy the theory
That was then . You need to view things as they are now . He will never be able to remove the fact that he was judged a liar and would have been suspended for 90 days if he hadn’t resigned as an MP .
Is the 90-day suspension still "live" - so if the lying toad was re-elected to this, or the next, parliament he would immediately be faced with being kicked out again?
MPs didn’t vote on that because he had already resigned .
No but if he was re-elected would/could it be put back on the agenda?
The argument is that a new election resets the situation. If he is elected, voters have made a choice cognisant of his actions. Also, no Parliament can bind its successor: so this Parliament cannot impose a sanction applying in a later Parliament.
Prince William looks ancient in that photo on the front of The Times.
There was one in one of the many stories on this where he really looked like Prince Philip. Never picked up on it before, but the particular angle/set of the jaw/frown was really striking, to me.
In their desperation to keep the Frank Hester money, the Tories are letting a lot of people off the hook. For example, if Hester cannot be a racist because he donates money to a party led by a Hindu of Indian origin, Jeremy Corbyn cannot be an anti-Semite because he appointed Jewish people to senior positions in his Labour leadership team.
No that’s just silly and illogical. It’s racism when Labour do it, and common sense when the Tories do it.
No question it was a racist remark. What happens next? Should the Tories give the money back? To avoid the taint of racism? Probably, but its a bit old chunk of money. More broadly what do we want for the funding for political parties? Many, I suspect, think large donations from individuals should not be allowed. What do they want in return? Arguably the same ought to apply to Unions funding Labour.
The very first thing they should do is stop trying to deny it was a racist remark. It simply doesn't make sense without a presupposition that people are to be judged on their race.
It takes real chutzpah/stupidity to say that a comment about black woman Diane Abbott making him "want to hate all black women" "had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin".
In their desperation to keep the Frank Hester money, the Tories are letting a lot of people off the hook. For example, if Hester cannot be a racist because he donates money to a party led by a Hindu of Indian origin, Jeremy Corbyn cannot be an anti-Semite because he appointed Jewish people to senior positions in his Labour leadership team.
No that’s just silly and illogical. It’s racism when Labour do it, and common sense when the Tories do it.
No question it was a racist remark. What happens next? Should the Tories give the money back? To avoid the taint of racism? Probably, but its a bit old chunk of money. More broadly what do we want for the funding for political parties? Many, I suspect, think large donations from individuals should not be allowed. What do they want in return? Arguably the same ought to apply to Unions funding Labour.
The very first thing they should do is stop trying to deny it was a racist remark. It simply doesn't make sense without a presupposition that people are to be judged on their race.
They're still saying Lee Anderson's comments weren't racist.
It’s quite something the way Boris Johnson wins all these elections, referendums, and mayoralty’s in real life, but is always such a drag with the voters in academic theory… and politico’s buy the theory
That was then . You need to view things as they are now . He will never be able to remove the fact that he was judged a liar and would have been suspended for 90 days if he hadn’t resigned as an MP .
Is the 90-day suspension still "live" - so if the lying toad was re-elected to this, or the next, parliament he would immediately be faced with being kicked out again?
MPs didn’t vote on that because he had already resigned .
No but if he was re-elected would/could it be put back on the agenda?
The argument is that a new election resets the situation. If he is elected, voters have made a choice cognisant of his actions. Also, no Parliament can bind its successor: so this Parliament cannot impose a sanction applying in a later Parliament.
Yes that sounds right, thank you.
FWIW I think the chance of him ever re-entering the UK parliament in any capacity is pretty much zero.
Prince William looks ancient in that photo on the front of The Times.
Astonishingly, he's only in his mid 40s. Has he been ill too? Maybe he's just a really heavy smoker or he's allergic to suncream or moisturiser or something - but whatever it is, his skin is fucked.
And his hair? Where is his hair?
Can't criticise him for that - male pattern baldness clearly runs in his family. He needs to get rid of the rest of it, though, as the straggly remnants left up top are doing him no favours.
So it turns out there was no AI involved in Kate-Gate. Presumably the following happened. Someone told Kate and Wills that it might be a good idea to publish a family photograph, seeing that she hadn't been seen in public for a few months. Kate - thinking that a modern royal should be more 'hands on' and not just delegate to minions - decided to take charge of the whole process. However silly old Kate didn't a) realize that her amateur editing efforts would be picked up by the profession media organizations b) think it would make any difference if they were. Or am I being hopelessly naïve?
Prince William looks ancient in that photo on the front of The Times.
There was one in one of the many stories on this where he really looked like Prince Philip. Never picked up on it before, but the particular angle/set of the jaw/frown was really striking, to me.
Just need a few racist comments and the resemblance will be uncanny
So it turns out there was no AI involved in Kate-Gate. Presumably the following happened. Someone told Kate and Wills that it might be a good idea to publish a family photograph, seeing that she hadn't been seen in public for a few months. Kate - thinking that a modern royal should be more 'hands on' and not just delegate to minions - decided to take charge of the whole process. However silly old Kate didn't a) realize that her amateur editing efforts would be picked up by the profession media organizations b) think it would make any difference if they were. Or am I being hopelessly naïve?
I think Kate has a degree in art history, this makes her the creative powerhouse in chez Windsor.
So it turns out there was no AI involved in Kate-Gate. Presumably the following happened. Someone told Kate and Wills that it might be a good idea to publish a family photograph, seeing that she hadn't been seen in public for a few months. Kate - thinking that a modern royal should be more 'hands on' and not just delegate to minions - decided to take charge of the whole process. However silly old Kate didn't a) realize that her amateur editing efforts would be picked up by the profession media organizations b) think it would make any difference if they were. Or am I being hopelessly naïve?
So it turns out there was no AI involved in Kate-Gate. Presumably the following happened. Someone told Kate and Wills that it might be a good idea to publish a family photograph, seeing that she hadn't been seen in public for a few months. Kate - thinking that a modern royal should be more 'hands on' and not just delegate to minions - decided to take charge of the whole process. However silly old Kate didn't a) realize that her amateur editing efforts would be picked up by the profession media organizations b) think it would make any difference if they were. Or am I being hopelessly naïve?
Its hard to know what to think. I recall a police documentary many years ago about interrogations. The main take home was this - once a suspect starts to change the story, they will often change it again and again. In other words, don't believe the first admission - in this case the Kate cover story.
I do not believe that the photo was taken this last weekend. The foliage looks wrong, and frankly if she is looking that well, why is she still hiding away? She looks amazingly healthy in that shot. I think there is much more going on than is being admitted to,
And frankly I don't really care, except that they have done a classic Streisand effect,
So it turns out there was no AI involved in Kate-Gate. Presumably the following happened. Someone told Kate and Wills that it might be a good idea to publish a family photograph, seeing that she hadn't been seen in public for a few months. Kate - thinking that a modern royal should be more 'hands on' and not just delegate to minions - decided to take charge of the whole process. However silly old Kate didn't a) realize that her amateur editing efforts would be picked up by the profession media organizations b) think it would make any difference if they were. Or am I being hopelessly naïve?
I think Kate has a degree in art history, this makes her the creative powerhouse in chez Windsor.
Doesn't Will have one too? Same gap year, same uni, same course... they have a lot in common.
ETA: Ah, no, I'm wrong - he switched to geography.
So it turns out there was no AI involved in Kate-Gate. Presumably the following happened. Someone told Kate and Wills that it might be a good idea to publish a family photograph, seeing that she hadn't been seen in public for a few months. Kate - thinking that a modern royal should be more 'hands on' and not just delegate to minions - decided to take charge of the whole process. However silly old Kate didn't a) realize that her amateur editing efforts would be picked up by the profession media organizations b) think it would make any difference if they were. Or am I being hopelessly naïve?
The point is that no-one knows.
A fake photo was released, followed by a vague statement in which Kate apparently took the blame. But they've not told us how it was faked, or to what degree, or for what purpose. And they've refused to release the original source material.
It might be entirely innocent, it might be a minor fix-up or a bit of artistic licence, it might be a complete fake. We can't tell, and Kensington Palace aren't saying.
The press agencies have guidelines about the sort of image manipulation that's acceptable, and they suspect that this picture breaks them strongly enough that they issued kill notices. They now find themselves in a very difficult position - if it had been from any other source, they would now be refusing to accept further pictures without verification. But are they really going to refuse images from Kensington Palace?
The Tories are taking the line that saying you hate a black woman is not racist.
As I’ve been saying for a long while, it is obvious the Tories have an issue with racism.
The Tory line to take on the morning round is that their £10m donor who said Diane Abbott made him want to hate all black women was not being racist and they’d like to keep the £10m
Will Labour return the whip to Diane Abbott, unjustly suspended.
Or is their anger about this confected and synthetic and they don't really give a damn about her ?
I don't think they have to give a damn about Diane Abbott to understand that a) what was reportedly said is absolutely inexcusable and b) it is somewhat wider in scope than that one individual.
The fact that the Tory spokespeople are out on the media milk round trying to defend it as basically "a confection that is now so old as to be irrelevant" suggests that they maybe haven't heard what everyone else has heard.
I think part of the issue is that the anti-Diane Abbott bile in the media was once very strong, and Tory MPs were part of that milleu where it was acceptable to say some very offensive things about her. A lot of that would have been the normal political knockabout directed at someone who made numerical mistakes in interviews, but it was particularly aggressive towards Abbott compared to other senior Corbynites, and it sometimes strayed over the line.
Bearing in mind that these comments were reportedly made in between the murders of Jo Cox MP and David Amess MP, and it becomes even more important that the Tories are willing to stand up and say that they won't have anything to do with the man who made them.
We need context here.
We need to remember that claims about Abbott being "most abused", "most hated" etc are in large part convenient media narratives / creations. I have yet to see real, extensive data justifying such victim-claiming by Abbott and her allies. "Most-abused amongst those who are not in leadership roles" is more accurate imo.
Has Abbott been abused? Yes. More than average for a Parliamentarian? Yes. More than anyone else? No. Party Leaders (eg May, Corbyn, Johnson, Swinson) and the likes of Sadiq Khan have tended to be targeted more. It also varies with circumstances - eg for Jeremy Hunt on the 2017 graph I'd suggest it is because of his time as Health Secretary.
I think a comparison with abuse received by Lee Anderson would be interesting at the moment; as my MP I sometimes check his twitter feed.
This is a one month period of abusive tweets on Twitter in the run up to the 2017 Election, taking replies to the politicians own tweets as a sample I think:
In their desperation to keep the Frank Hester money, the Tories are letting a lot of people off the hook. For example, if Hester cannot be a racist because he donates money to a party led by a Hindu of Indian origin, Jeremy Corbyn cannot be an anti-Semite because he appointed Jewish people to senior positions in his Labour leadership team.
No that’s just silly and illogical. It’s racism when Labour do it, and common sense when the Tories do it.
No question it was a racist remark. What happens next? Should the Tories give the money back? To avoid the taint of racism? Probably, but its a bit old chunk of money. More broadly what do we want for the funding for political parties? Many, I suspect, think large donations from individuals should not be allowed. What do they want in return? Arguably the same ought to apply to Unions funding Labour.
The very first thing they should do is stop trying to deny it was a racist remark. It simply doesn't make sense without a presupposition that people are to be judged on their race.
They're still saying Lee Anderson's comments weren't racist.
I'd say that was more a case of anti-Muslim prejudice, but of course that is commonly used as a less unacceptable proxy for racism.
So it turns out there was no AI involved in Kate-Gate. Presumably the following happened. Someone told Kate and Wills that it might be a good idea to publish a family photograph, seeing that she hadn't been seen in public for a few months. Kate - thinking that a modern royal should be more 'hands on' and not just delegate to minions - decided to take charge of the whole process. However silly old Kate didn't a) realize that her amateur editing efforts would be picked up by the profession media organizations b) think it would make any difference if they were. Or am I being hopelessly naïve?
Its hard to know what to think. I recall a police documentary many years ago about interrogations. The main take home was this - once a suspect starts to change the story, they will often change it again and again. In other words, don't believe the first admission - in this case the Kate cover story.
I do not believe that the photo was taken this last weekend. The foliage looks wrong, and frankly if she is looking that well, why is she still hiding away? She looks amazingly healthy in that shot. I think there is much more going on than is being admitted to,
And frankly I don't really care, except that they have done a classic Streisand effect,
That's true on the Police but it works both ways. Sometimes people change their story under pressure of interrogation even when the original story was the truth, and then it can end up becoming something the Police want said rather than what's actually the case.
Saw a documentary recently about spates of women in America who have been raped or sensually abused, who reported the rape or abuse to the Police, then the Police say that there's no evidence (often without looking) or even lie and say they have evidence it didn't happen at which point the victim recants. Then the recantation is used to charge the victim with filing a false report and they're pressured to accept a plea bargain.
Then the Police can close the case saying "arrest made" without having to find the perp who did it or any evidence.
In their desperation to keep the Frank Hester money, the Tories are letting a lot of people off the hook. For example, if Hester cannot be a racist because he donates money to a party led by a Hindu of Indian origin, Jeremy Corbyn cannot be an anti-Semite because he appointed Jewish people to senior positions in his Labour leadership team.
No that’s just silly and illogical. It’s racism when Labour do it, and common sense when the Tories do it.
No question it was a racist remark. What happens next? Should the Tories give the money back? To avoid the taint of racism? Probably, but its a bit old chunk of money. More broadly what do we want for the funding for political parties? Many, I suspect, think large donations from individuals should not be allowed. What do they want in return? Arguably the same ought to apply to Unions funding Labour.
Seems fairly obvious and straightforward. Cap donations at 1k per person per year. Unions can co-ordinate collections but they would be using up the individuals donation limit if its done.
That seems weak.
How do you prevent a rich person, or a body with millions (eg a Union), giving huge amounts by totting up their numbers of members, and being driven by one individual?
I don't see how that would eg protect the Labour Party from manipulation by Len McCluskey of UNITE, or his replacement.
No, I don't have a complete answer.
The only answer is the long hard road back to mass individual membership of political parties. This would involve a social change of mega proportions, the effects of which would be beneficial.
Apparently Hester can’t be a racist because he’s done business in Jamaica . That’s according to some Tory Lord .
He also quite likes Bob Marley's music, so he can't possibly be racist.
You also can’t be anti-Semitic if you shop at M and S !
O/T I have just read Cold Comfort Farm again (for book club). Written in 1932 apparently, it contains a number of clearly anti-semitic slurs - made worse if anything by the casual way they are slipped in, adding nothing to the narrative.
Sunak is calling an election today at 1032, Moon told us so
What you are doing is rather close to bullying.
Stop it.
It adds nothing to the site.
We all make wrong calls from time to time. She backed up her judgement with analysis.
Maybe it adds nothing to the site, but it's about as close to "bullying" as your own post telling ninja to stop.
Or indeed Rabbit's own "analysis" telling us why it had to be May 2nd, and anyone who disagreed either knew nothing, or were somehow dishonestly trying to worsen the conservatives chances
Ukraine lost a fighter ?yesterday?, and the Russians allegedly lost another SU-27 where Russian Freedom Legion have gone into Belgorod. It is also rumoured that an attack last week on an airbase damaged a couple of 'spares' Russian A-50 airframes.
Is Ukraine putting such pressure on Russia days before Putin's election enthronement wise?
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
Cyclefree, much as I love her input to this forum, goes big on the number of women killed by men each year, but fails to mention the fair higher number of men killed by men.
Sunak is calling an election today at 1032, Moon told us so
What you are doing is rather close to bullying.
Stop it.
It adds nothing to the site.
We all make wrong calls from time to time. She backed up her judgement with analysis.
Maybe it adds nothing to the site, but it's about as close to "bullying" as your own post telling ninja to stop.
Or indeed Rabbit's own "analysis" telling us why it had to be May 2nd, and anyone who disagreed either knew nothing, or were somehow dishonestly trying to worsen the conservatives chances
Yes snowflakery from StillWaters. Bullying is a hugely overused term.
I recall being accused of "cyberbullying" on here for having the temerity to ask @williamglenn whether he would vote for Trump, given the chance.
I should add that William himself seemed fine with my question!
So it turns out there was no AI involved in Kate-Gate. Presumably the following happened. Someone told Kate and Wills that it might be a good idea to publish a family photograph, seeing that she hadn't been seen in public for a few months. Kate - thinking that a modern royal should be more 'hands on' and not just delegate to minions - decided to take charge of the whole process. However silly old Kate didn't a) realize that her amateur editing efforts would be picked up by the profession media organizations b) think it would make any difference if they were. Or am I being hopelessly naïve?
Its hard to know what to think. I recall a police documentary many years ago about interrogations. The main take home was this - once a suspect starts to change the story, they will often change it again and again. In other words, don't believe the first admission - in this case the Kate cover story.
I do not believe that the photo was taken this last weekend. The foliage looks wrong, and frankly if she is looking that well, why is she still hiding away? She looks amazingly healthy in that shot. I think there is much more going on than is being admitted to,
And frankly I don't really care, except that they have done a classic Streisand effect,
That's true on the Police but it works both ways. Sometimes people change their story under pressure of interrogation even when the original story was the truth, and then it can end up becoming something the Police want said rather than what's actually the case.
Saw a documentary recently about spates of women in America who have been raped or sensually abused, who reported the rape or abuse to the Police, then the Police say that there's no evidence (often without looking) or even lie and say they have evidence it didn't happen at which point the victim recants. Then the recantation is used to charge the victim with filing a false report and they're pressured to accept a plea bargain.
Then the Police can close the case saying "arrest made" without having to find the perp who did it or any evidence.
There was a Netflix dramatisation of such a case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbelievable_(miniseries) which was compelling and heartbreaking, but you could also see how the police - with a bit of bias/lack of understanding - could doubt the victim.
Ukraine lost a fighter ?yesterday?, and the Russians allegedly lost another SU-27 where Russian Freedom Legion have gone into Belgorod. It is also rumoured that an attack last week on an airbase damaged a couple of 'spares' Russian A-50 airframes.
Is Ukraine putting such pressure on Russia days before Putin's election enthronement wise?
There was talk yesterday of Russia having lost another AWACS-ski, damaged on the ground - probably the same report JJ mentions.
I have yet to see enough followup stories to clinch the account.
Mr. Tres, three-quarters of suicides in this country are by men. It's no bad thing to point out that thinking of men in a sympathetic way is not a bad thing, and that portraying them simply as either aggressors or potential aggressors is as wrong as it is simplistic.
The only predictions that count are those attached to betting odds. I will heap praise on OGH for his Obama bet, and on Bart for the near-miss on Sunak, but anyone looking for credit for predictions not attached to a betting slip are being a bit lame.
Mr. Jessop, quite agree. It's similar to the way the media reporting implies violence against women is higher than violence against men, when the reverse is true. Or the report, some time ago now, into groping and the like against MPs' staff was worse against male employees.
Cyclefree, much as I love her input to this forum, goes big on the number of women killed by men each year, but fails to mention the fair higher number of men killed by men.
won't someone think about the men, sad tear emoji
Feel free to mock. This isn't supposed to be a 'well when is International Men's Day' type post. But if you shed a tear for every woman killed by a man, think about the men killed by men too. Equally sad.
Comments
There is far too much discussion and analysis of the nature, purpose and meaning of the extremes, and far too little of the centre - the group comprising the great majority of voters for all larger parties.
In this country, white people traditionally have held more power. This means it is harder for racism to 'punch up', as it were. But on an individual basis, abuse of whites for being white can be just as nasty as any other form of racism.
Or, racism between ethnic minorities: "I'm black, therefore I cannot be racist if I call an Asian a P***. Or vice versa. Or towards 'white' Irish or Jewish people, Or travellers.
The Guardian, as ever, has a take that I disagree with:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/08/accusing-people-like-sam-kerr-of-anti-white-racism-belies-a-lack-of-understanding-of-a-world-still-divided-by-colour
The *world* may be divided (and that's a very UK-centric view...), but on a personal basis, if I' stabbed by a black person because I'm white, it's still as racist as if it was the other way around.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/06/diane-abbott-tweet-anti-white-racism
The bigger problem here though is that one person is allowed to donate £10m, a third of Tory party income last year. Of course they will hate giving it back, but why does anyone think it is a good idea to give one person such influence?
NHS, State pension, Defence, Welfare, Free education to 18 and loads of other big ticket items show only small differences. Which is why a fuss is made about small ones.
* though maybe we don't have trusts anymore - I see that my GP practice apparently works for NHS South East London Integrated Care System, whatever that is, another Tory failure has been endless structural tinkering which has served only to make the system more byzantine and incomprehensible than it was before.
Yes I’ve dealt with trademark lawyers in the past
Immigrant/asylum seekers accused of rape
BBC fawns over them, victim blames the girls whilst the mother says they’re good, humble lads
Said asylum seekers turn out to be gang rapists of children
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTREyHF2suc
Damascus 2024:
https://twitter.com/FARED_ALHOR/status/1765866469785555205
Equivalent to a person who can make They Work For You dance.
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2024/0312/1437344-tents-dublin/
It can only be explained by institutional anti-white racism by the BBC.
How do you prevent a rich person, or a body with millions (eg a Union), giving huge amounts by totting up their numbers of members, and being driven by one individual?
I don't see how that would eg protect the Labour Party from manipulation by Len McCluskey of UNITE, or his replacement.
No, I don't have a complete answer.
The Labour leader told ITV’s Lorraine on Tuesday:
"The comments about Diane Abbott are just abhorrent.
And Diane has been a trailblazer, she has paved the way for others, she’s probably faced more abuse than any other politician over the years on a sustained basis.
And I’m sorry, this apology this morning that is pretending that what was said wasn’t racist or anything to do with the fact she’s a woman, I don’t buy that I’m afraid, and I think that it’s time the Tory Party called it out and returned the money."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/mar/12/minister-calls-tory-donor-frank-hesters-diane-abbott-comments-completely-unacceptable-but-refuses-to-go-further-uk-politics-live?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with:block-65f029a28f084dce74d3703c#block-65f029a28f084dce74d3703c
The costs would not be massive, either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection#Feasibility
There are significant uncertainties around the idea, of course.
Probably worth someone doing feasibility studies as a potential emergency stopgap.
As for unions all I am suggesting they can do is co-ordinate collections. So McCluskey can ask his members if they want to donate to Labour or whoever then press this button and donate up to £1,000 each. It would give him a lot less power over donations than he has now, and GB news or whoever could do the similar process for parties on the right.
Asked about suspicions that he had been paid off to change his view on TikTok after a meeting with a major TikTok investor, the billionaire Jeff Yass, Mr. Trump denied it.
https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1767482715031433331
Really?
I see myself as fairly centrist, and this sort of story really boils my piss.
The solutions, however, are less obvious.
But yes, there's a good argument for local and national spending limits outside of controlled election periods. That should be brought in alongside limits on donations from both individuals and organisations (whether lobby groups, businesses, unions or whatever), and state funding linked to a formula based on votes received.
I know state funding won't be popular but politics does have to be paid for and while the ideal is a large number of small donors, that simply isn't going to happen; we do, however, need to break from a small number of large donors who can effectively buy very significant influence in parties.
Worth pointing out that Michael Gove made a speech a few days ago proposing precisely that.
I’ll have to watch that BBC doc later, this clip is almost beyond parody really
https://x.com/justice_forum/status/1765133938404606403?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/12/eric-carmen-death-age-74-cause-the-raspberries-hungry-eyes-all-by-myself
IIRC she was suspended as a Labour MP for saying white people don't face the same degree of constant racism that she does, which in light of these comments from the biggest political donor in Britain I have to say has a greater degree of plausibility.
In addition, it has been reported that there have been several smoking-related incidents at refineries and oil depots.
Stop it.
It adds nothing to the site.
We all make wrong calls from time to time. She backed up her judgement with analysis.
FWIW I think the chance of him ever re-entering the UK parliament in any capacity is pretty much zero.
Twenty years on and Roger is reminded about his call on Obama.
I do not believe that the photo was taken this last weekend. The foliage looks wrong, and frankly if she is looking that well, why is she still hiding away? She looks amazingly healthy in that shot. I think there is much more going on than is being admitted to,
And frankly I don't really care, except that they have done a classic Streisand effect,
ETA: Ah, no, I'm wrong - he switched to geography.
A fake photo was released, followed by a vague statement in which Kate apparently took the blame. But they've not told us how it was faked, or to what degree, or for what purpose. And they've refused to release the original source material.
It might be entirely innocent, it might be a minor fix-up or a bit of artistic licence, it might be a complete fake. We can't tell, and Kensington Palace aren't saying.
The press agencies have guidelines about the sort of image manipulation that's acceptable, and they suspect that this picture breaks them strongly enough that they issued kill notices. They now find themselves in a very difficult position - if it had been from any other source, they would now be refusing to accept further pictures without verification. But are they really going to refuse images from Kensington Palace?
We need to remember that claims about Abbott being "most abused", "most hated" etc are in large part convenient media narratives / creations. I have yet to see real, extensive data justifying such victim-claiming by Abbott and her allies. "Most-abused amongst those who are not in leadership roles" is more accurate imo.
Has Abbott been abused? Yes. More than average for a Parliamentarian? Yes. More than anyone else? No. Party Leaders (eg May, Corbyn, Johnson, Swinson) and the likes of Sadiq Khan have tended to be targeted more. It also varies with circumstances - eg for Jeremy Hunt on the 2017 graph I'd suggest it is because of his time as Health Secretary.
Here is, for example, is a piece by Buzzfeed concerning abuse around Theresa May's snap election in 2017, based on research by Sheffield University academics. This is worth a read, and is good on the types of abuse received by eg women without a need to dive into the literature.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomphillips/twitter-abuse-of-mps-during-the-election-doubled-after-the
And here is a further publication by Sheffield University researchers around the 2019 election.
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/288432398.pdf
I think a comparison with abuse received by Lee Anderson would be interesting at the moment; as my MP I sometimes check his twitter feed.
This is a one month period of abusive tweets on Twitter in the run up to the 2017 Election, taking replies to the politicians own tweets as a sample I think:
Saw a documentary recently about spates of women in America who have been raped or sensually abused, who reported the rape or abuse to the Police, then the Police say that there's no evidence (often without looking) or even lie and say they have evidence it didn't happen at which point the victim recants. Then the recantation is used to charge the victim with filing a false report and they're pressured to accept a plea bargain.
Then the Police can close the case saying "arrest made" without having to find the perp who did it or any evidence.
Or indeed Rabbit's own "analysis" telling us why it had to be May 2nd, and anyone who disagreed either knew nothing, or were somehow dishonestly trying to worsen the conservatives chances
My free tips. 🐎
Cheltenham 1.30 - Mystical Power
Cheltenham 2.10 - Il Etait Temps
Cheltenham 2.50 - Chianti Classico
Cheltenham 3:30 - State Man
Cheltenham 4:10 - Lossiemouth
Cheltenham 4:50 - Liari
Cheltenham 5.30 - Apple Away
Are these the only tips posted? I was looking for the mini thread.
https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1767496284062023893
Ukraine lost a fighter ?yesterday?, and the Russians allegedly lost another SU-27 where Russian Freedom Legion have gone into Belgorod. It is also rumoured that an attack last week on an airbase damaged a couple of 'spares' Russian A-50 airframes.
Is Ukraine putting such pressure on Russia days before Putin's election enthronement wise?
I recall being accused of "cyberbullying" on here for having the temerity to ask @williamglenn whether he would vote for Trump, given the chance.
I should add that William himself seemed fine with my question!
I have yet to see enough followup stories to clinch the account.