If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
France has a Muslim population of about six million, just under 9% of the country
If 17% of them “hate Jews” that’s exactly one million Jew haters. In France. And these are the ones willing to admit it! And the younger are MORE likely to be radical and anti-Semitic
And nearly 3 million French Muslims want Israel completely destroyed
The centre cannot hold
The current Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, could well be the En Marche candidate against Le Pen. He has brought members of Les Republicians into the Government so arguably is a more conservative leaning centrist. I think he will be a difficult opponent for Le Pen but he will rely on the socialists and others preferring him to Le Pen in the second round as they did with Macron.
I sense the momentum is with Le Pen
She’s cleverly detoxed herself and now poses as the solidly patriotic right winger. She’s even dropped some of her Putin-love
If I was to make a bet today, I would bet on her winning
What's she going to do, though?
I sense she'll just use harder words. She can't actually do anything about it.
Peut etre. Perhaps there is nothing she can do. Maybe it is all too late and Houllebecq will, miserably, be proven correct
However if there is any country with a sufficient sense of itself and a willingness to fight for its identity, France is right up there in the list
Also, the crisis cannot be averted forever. In the end the collision between secular liberal democracy and conservative Islam will come. And only one will prevail as Islam does not accommodate and compromise
Here's the (rather nasty) solution that no-one ever talks about: deporting people by group at gunpoint. Herding them onto planes with a military escort, flying them to bases and airports in MENA, probably also secured by their troops or a close alliance with local ones, and then turfing them all off at the other end. Off you go. Bye bye.
Huge injustices would be done by this. But could we ever see a European country go this far, as opposed to just turnbacks on the way in?
It could be done but only by dismantling democracy and having a strong man dictator. The british arent ready for this yet. But years of more chaos and economic decline and who knows.
France has a Muslim population of about six million, just under 9% of the country
If 17% of them “hate Jews” that’s exactly one million Jew haters. In France. And these are the ones willing to admit it! And the younger are MORE likely to be radical and anti-Semitic
And nearly 3 million French Muslims want Israel completely destroyed
The centre cannot hold
The current Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, could well be the En Marche candidate against Le Pen. He has brought members of Les Republicians into the Government so arguably is a more conservative leaning centrist. I think he will be a difficult opponent for Le Pen but he will rely on the socialists and others preferring him to Le Pen in the second round as they did with Macron.
I sense the momentum is with Le Pen
She’s cleverly detoxed herself and now poses as the solidly patriotic right winger. She’s even dropped some of her Putin-love
If I was to make a bet today, I would bet on her winning
What's she going to do, though?
I sense she'll just use harder words. She can't actually do anything about it.
Peut etre. Perhaps there is nothing she can do. Maybe it is all too late and Houllebecq will, miserably, be proven correct
However if there is any country with a sufficient sense of itself and a willingness to fight for its identity, France is right up there in the list
Also, the crisis cannot be averted forever. In the end the collision between secular liberal democracy and conservative Islam will come. And only one will prevail as Islam does not accommodate and compromise
Here's the (rather nasty) solution that no-one ever talks about: deporting people by group at gunpoint. Herding them onto planes with a military escort, flying them to bases and airports in MENA, probably also secured by their troops or a close alliance with local ones, and then turfing them all off at the other end. Off you go. Bye bye.
Huge injustices would be done by this. But could we ever see a European country go this far, as opposed to just turnbacks on the way in?
Ok let’s play radical hypotheses!
With the major caveat that all of this might well - probably is - gonna be irrelevant due to AI…
Yes I think in the end there will be quite violent civil strife in one or more European countries and probably attempts at deportations. Because there will come a point when the Muslim populations of Europe get so large they threaten to change these nations entirely - introducing sharia law, making homosexuality illegal etc etc etc etc
This is not the “fault” of Muslims - it is just the nature of Islam. It doesn’t do compromise. It seeks to rule every nation - that’s in the DNA of the faith
And it a great and noble religion which gives profound purpose to the lives of billions of people, so it’s not gonna disappear either. Nor is it gonna secularise or have an enlightenment, these are forlorn daydreams from people who don’t want to face the uncomfortable facts
So I fear in the end it could easily get brutal, and monumentally cruel, in the manner you describe
Maybe it’s better if the AI takes over now
Not sure you can dodge that one just by saying "AI" mate.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
France has a Muslim population of about six million, just under 9% of the country
If 17% of them “hate Jews” that’s exactly one million Jew haters. In France. And these are the ones willing to admit it! And the younger are MORE likely to be radical and anti-Semitic
And nearly 3 million French Muslims want Israel completely destroyed
The centre cannot hold
The current Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, could well be the En Marche candidate against Le Pen. He has brought members of Les Republicians into the Government so arguably is a more conservative leaning centrist. I think he will be a difficult opponent for Le Pen but he will rely on the socialists and others preferring him to Le Pen in the second round as they did with Macron.
I sense the momentum is with Le Pen
She’s cleverly detoxed herself and now poses as the solidly patriotic right winger. She’s even dropped some of her Putin-love
If I was to make a bet today, I would bet on her winning
What's she going to do, though?
I sense she'll just use harder words. She can't actually do anything about it.
Peut etre. Perhaps there is nothing she can do. Maybe it is all too late and Houllebecq will, miserably, be proven correct
However if there is any country with a sufficient sense of itself and a willingness to fight for its identity, France is right up there in the list
Also, the crisis cannot be averted forever. In the end the collision between secular liberal democracy and conservative Islam will come. And only one will prevail as Islam does not accommodate and compromise
Here's the (rather nasty) solution that no-one ever talks about: deporting people by group at gunpoint. Herding them onto planes with a military escort, flying them to bases and airports in MENA, probably also secured by their troops or a close alliance with local ones, and then turfing them all off at the other end. Off you go. Bye bye.
Huge injustices would be done by this. But could we ever see a European country go this far, as opposed to just turnbacks on the way in?
Ok let’s play radical hypotheses!
With the major caveat that all of this might well - probably is - gonna be irrelevant due to AI…
Yes I think in the end there will be quite violent civil strife in one or more European countries and probably attempts at deportations. Because there will come a point when the Muslim populations of Europe get so large they threaten to change these nations entirely - introducing sharia law, making homosexuality illegal etc etc etc etc
This is not the “fault” of Muslims - it is just the nature of Islam. It doesn’t do compromise. It seeks to rule every nation - that’s in the DNA of the faith
And it a great and noble religion which gives profound purpose to the lives of billions of people, so it’s not gonna disappear either. Nor is it gonna secularise or have an enlightenment, these are forlorn daydreams from people who don’t want to face the uncomfortable facts
So I fear in the end it could easily get brutal, and monumentally cruel, in the manner you describe
Maybe it’s better if the AI takes over now
Not sure you can dodge that one just by saying "AI" mate.
Because I honestly think AI is going to transform humankind and human civilisation in the next 5-25 years, in a way which will make even the biggest problems (like this) dwindle away in significance (it might even solve them in ways we cannot foresee)
Feel free to mock my crazy beliefs. But that is my honest position
Meanwhile, in Graunland, the horrifying realisation that one Tory Government is simply going to be replaced by another is dawning...
The House of Commons levelling up, housing and communities select committee puts English councils’ current financial gap at about £4bn a year, which could have been filled more than twice over by the money Jeremy Hunt used for that almost meaningless cut in national insurance. He seems to still think that councils must sink or swim: even more depressingly, he and his allies in the rightwing press have reprised old and stupid rhetoric about millions supposedly being wasted on “consultants” and “diversity schemes”.
And Labour? Last weekend, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was repeatedly asked by the Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips if she would fix councils’ crises once Labour was in power. But she would only offer her usual words about the awful problems she would inherit, and vague claims that changes to the planning system and increased business investment may eventually feed through to money for local services. I admire the optimism of people who think she is secretly preparing some kind of national rescue package, but I cannot quite shake off that eternally insightful Maya Angelou quotation: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the differences between the Conservatives and Labour (and the Lib Dems) are wafer thin, and principally concern fringe culture wars issues. When it comes to everything that matters, all they're really interested in is the preservation and inflation of asset wealth (principally residential property,) and endlessly jacking up the state pension to appease the grey vote. Running down and winding up everything else in the process of shoring up those causes is wholly acceptable to them.
The parties are functionally identical, and that means we'll be in a far worse state in five years' time than we are now. Watch.
Harris has been saying simillar things for at least the last year. He seems to be the token commentator willing to talk about and to 'real people'. Although IMO he does lead the conversations towards gritty working class realism a little too much.
Imagine if you are French and Jewish, looking at those stats. 1m mainly young French Muslim people HATE you, just for being Jewish, and they are happy to admit it
3 million want to see your homeland - Israel - destroyed entirely
Meanwhile half of them want Islam to take over France and impose shariah law on all France
Would you, as a Jew, feel safe in France?
I would think that there would be good reason for most Jews not to feel safe in most places, and, similarly, if they're not actively thinking about those reasons then they might feel safe pretty much anywhere, unless they've had personal experience to make them feel otherwise.
Ironically, European Jews are now much much safer in EASTERN Europe (historically the cradle of anti-Semitism) - because Eastern Europe has tiny Muslim populations
Or south east Asia. No history of anti Semitism
If I was Jewish and rich I’d move to Singapore, if I was less rich I’d move to Cambodia or Thailand
Theres a lot of anti jewish graffiti in the Jewish areas of Krakow.
Imagine if you are French and Jewish, looking at those stats. 1m mainly young French Muslim people HATE you, just for being Jewish, and they are happy to admit it
3 million want to see your homeland - Israel - destroyed entirely
Meanwhile half of them want Islam to take over France and impose shariah law on all France
Would you, as a Jew, feel safe in France?
I would think that there would be good reason for most Jews not to feel safe in most places, and, similarly, if they're not actively thinking about those reasons then they might feel safe pretty much anywhere, unless they've had personal experience to make them feel otherwise.
Ironically, European Jews are now much much safer in EASTERN Europe (historically the cradle of anti-Semitism) - because Eastern Europe has tiny Muslim populations
Or south east Asia. No history of anti Semitism
If I was Jewish and rich I’d move to Singapore, if I was less rich I’d move to Cambodia or Thailand
In SE Asia maybe not but neither would they I think allows Jews into the media and govt in SE Asia.
Meanwhile, in Graunland, the horrifying realisation that one Tory Government is simply going to be replaced by another is dawning...
The House of Commons levelling up, housing and communities select committee puts English councils’ current financial gap at about £4bn a year, which could have been filled more than twice over by the money Jeremy Hunt used for that almost meaningless cut in national insurance. He seems to still think that councils must sink or swim: even more depressingly, he and his allies in the rightwing press have reprised old and stupid rhetoric about millions supposedly being wasted on “consultants” and “diversity schemes”.
And Labour? Last weekend, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was repeatedly asked by the Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips if she would fix councils’ crises once Labour was in power. But she would only offer her usual words about the awful problems she would inherit, and vague claims that changes to the planning system and increased business investment may eventually feed through to money for local services. I admire the optimism of people who think she is secretly preparing some kind of national rescue package, but I cannot quite shake off that eternally insightful Maya Angelou quotation: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the differences between the Conservatives and Labour (and the Lib Dems) are wafer thin, and principally concern fringe culture wars issues. When it comes to everything that matters, all they're really interested in is the preservation and inflation of asset wealth (principally residential property,) and endlessly jacking up the state pension to appease the grey vote. Running down and winding up everything else in the process of shoring up those causes is wholly acceptable to them.
The parties are functionally identical, and that means we'll be in a far worse state in five years' time than we are now. Watch.
France has a Muslim population of about six million, just under 9% of the country
If 17% of them “hate Jews” that’s exactly one million Jew haters. In France. And these are the ones willing to admit it! And the younger are MORE likely to be radical and anti-Semitic
And nearly 3 million French Muslims want Israel completely destroyed
The centre cannot hold
The current Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, could well be the En Marche candidate against Le Pen. He has brought members of Les Republicians into the Government so arguably is a more conservative leaning centrist. I think he will be a difficult opponent for Le Pen but he will rely on the socialists and others preferring him to Le Pen in the second round as they did with Macron.
I sense the momentum is with Le Pen
She’s cleverly detoxed herself and now poses as the solidly patriotic right winger. She’s even dropped some of her Putin-love
If I was to make a bet today, I would bet on her winning
What's she going to do, though?
I sense she'll just use harder words. She can't actually do anything about it.
Peut etre. Perhaps there is nothing she can do. Maybe it is all too late and Houllebecq will, miserably, be proven correct
However if there is any country with a sufficient sense of itself and a willingness to fight for its identity, France is right up there in the list
Also, the crisis cannot be averted forever. In the end the collision between secular liberal democracy and conservative Islam will come. And only one will prevail as Islam does not accommodate and compromise
Here's the (rather nasty) solution that no-one ever talks about: deporting people by group at gunpoint. Herding them onto planes with a military escort, flying them to bases and airports in MENA, probably also secured by their troops or a close alliance with local ones, and then turfing them all off at the other end. Off you go. Bye bye.
Huge injustices would be done by this. But could we ever see a European country go this far, as opposed to just turnbacks on the way in?
Ok let’s play radical hypotheses!
With the major caveat that all of this might well - probably is - gonna be irrelevant due to AI…
Yes I think in the end there will be quite violent civil strife in one or more European countries and probably attempts at deportations. Because there will come a point when the Muslim populations of Europe get so large they threaten to change these nations entirely - introducing sharia law, making homosexuality illegal etc etc etc etc
This is not the “fault” of Muslims - it is just the nature of Islam. It doesn’t do compromise. It seeks to rule every nation - that’s in the DNA of the faith
And it a great and noble religion which gives profound purpose to the lives of billions of people, so it’s not gonna disappear either. Nor is it gonna secularise or have an enlightenment, these are forlorn daydreams from people who don’t want to face the uncomfortable facts
So I fear in the end it could easily get brutal, and monumentally cruel, in the manner you describe
Maybe it’s better if the AI takes over now
Not sure you can dodge that one just by saying "AI" mate.
Because I honestly think AI is going to transform humankind and human civilisation in the next 5-25 years, in a way which will make even the biggest problems (like this) dwindle away in significance (it might even solve them in ways we cannot foresee)
Feel free to mock my crazy beliefs. But that is my honest position
I won't mock. It'll be great if AI helps to expose 'Muslims are an existential threat to civilisation' as hyperbolic prejudicial nonsense.
France has a Muslim population of about six million, just under 9% of the country
If 17% of them “hate Jews” that’s exactly one million Jew haters. In France. And these are the ones willing to admit it! And the younger are MORE likely to be radical and anti-Semitic
And nearly 3 million French Muslims want Israel completely destroyed
The centre cannot hold
The current Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, could well be the En Marche candidate against Le Pen. He has brought members of Les Republicians into the Government so arguably is a more conservative leaning centrist. I think he will be a difficult opponent for Le Pen but he will rely on the socialists and others preferring him to Le Pen in the second round as they did with Macron.
I sense the momentum is with Le Pen
She’s cleverly detoxed herself and now poses as the solidly patriotic right winger. She’s even dropped some of her Putin-love
If I was to make a bet today, I would bet on her winning
What's she going to do, though?
I sense she'll just use harder words. She can't actually do anything about it.
Peut etre. Perhaps there is nothing she can do. Maybe it is all too late and Houllebecq will, miserably, be proven correct
However if there is any country with a sufficient sense of itself and a willingness to fight for its identity, France is right up there in the list
Also, the crisis cannot be averted forever. In the end the collision between secular liberal democracy and conservative Islam will come. And only one will prevail as Islam does not accommodate and compromise
Here's the (rather nasty) solution that no-one ever talks about: deporting people by group at gunpoint. Herding them onto planes with a military escort, flying them to bases and airports in MENA, probably also secured by their troops or a close alliance with local ones, and then turfing them all off at the other end. Off you go. Bye bye.
Huge injustices would be done by this. But could we ever see a European country go this far, as opposed to just turnbacks on the way in?
Ok let’s play radical hypotheses!
With the major caveat that all of this might well - probably is - gonna be irrelevant due to AI…
Yes I think in the end there will be quite violent civil strife in one or more European countries and probably attempts at deportations. Because there will come a point when the Muslim populations of Europe get so large they threaten to change these nations entirely - introducing sharia law, making homosexuality illegal etc etc etc etc
This is not the “fault” of Muslims - it is just the nature of Islam. It doesn’t do compromise. It seeks to rule every nation - that’s in the DNA of the faith
And it a great and noble religion which gives profound purpose to the lives of billions of people, so it’s not gonna disappear either. Nor is it gonna secularise or have an enlightenment, these are forlorn daydreams from people who don’t want to face the uncomfortable facts
So I fear in the end it could easily get brutal, and monumentally cruel, in the manner you describe
France has a Muslim population of about six million, just under 9% of the country
If 17% of them “hate Jews” that’s exactly one million Jew haters. In France. And these are the ones willing to admit it! And the younger are MORE likely to be radical and anti-Semitic
And nearly 3 million French Muslims want Israel completely destroyed
The centre cannot hold
The current Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, could well be the En Marche candidate against Le Pen. He has brought members of Les Republicians into the Government so arguably is a more conservative leaning centrist. I think he will be a difficult opponent for Le Pen but he will rely on the socialists and others preferring him to Le Pen in the second round as they did with Macron.
I sense the momentum is with Le Pen
She’s cleverly detoxed herself and now poses as the solidly patriotic right winger. She’s even dropped some of her Putin-love
If I was to make a bet today, I would bet on her winning
What's she going to do, though?
I sense she'll just use harder words. She can't actually do anything about it.
Peut etre. Perhaps there is nothing she can do. Maybe it is all too late and Houllebecq will, miserably, be proven correct
However if there is any country with a sufficient sense of itself and a willingness to fight for its identity, France is right up there in the list
Also, the crisis cannot be averted forever. In the end the collision between secular liberal democracy and conservative Islam will come. And only one will prevail as Islam does not accommodate and compromise
Here's the (rather nasty) solution that no-one ever talks about: deporting people by group at gunpoint. Herding them onto planes with a military escort, flying them to bases and airports in MENA, probably also secured by their troops or a close alliance with local ones, and then turfing them all off at the other end. Off you go. Bye bye.
Huge injustices would be done by this. But could we ever see a European country go this far, as opposed to just turnbacks on the way in?
Ok let’s play radical hypotheses!
With the major caveat that all of this might well - probably is - gonna be irrelevant due to AI…
Yes I think in the end there will be quite violent civil strife in one or more European countries and probably attempts at deportations. Because there will come a point when the Muslim populations of Europe get so large they threaten to change these nations entirely - introducing sharia law, making homosexuality illegal etc etc etc etc
This is not the “fault” of Muslims - it is just the nature of Islam. It doesn’t do compromise. It seeks to rule every nation - that’s in the DNA of the faith
And it a great and noble religion which gives profound purpose to the lives of billions of people, so it’s not gonna disappear either. Nor is it gonna secularise or have an enlightenment, these are forlorn daydreams from people who don’t want to face the uncomfortable facts
So I fear in the end it could easily get brutal, and monumentally cruel, in the manner you describe
Maybe it’s better if the AI takes over now
Not sure you can dodge that one just by saying "AI" mate.
Because I honestly think AI is going to transform humankind and human civilisation in the next 5-25 years, in a way which will make even the biggest problems (like this) dwindle away in significance (it might even solve them in ways we cannot foresee)
Feel free to mock my crazy beliefs. But that is my honest position
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
Meanwhile, in Graunland, the horrifying realisation that one Tory Government is simply going to be replaced by another is dawning...
The House of Commons levelling up, housing and communities select committee puts English councils’ current financial gap at about £4bn a year, which could have been filled more than twice over by the money Jeremy Hunt used for that almost meaningless cut in national insurance. He seems to still think that councils must sink or swim: even more depressingly, he and his allies in the rightwing press have reprised old and stupid rhetoric about millions supposedly being wasted on “consultants” and “diversity schemes”.
And Labour? Last weekend, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was repeatedly asked by the Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips if she would fix councils’ crises once Labour was in power. But she would only offer her usual words about the awful problems she would inherit, and vague claims that changes to the planning system and increased business investment may eventually feed through to money for local services. I admire the optimism of people who think she is secretly preparing some kind of national rescue package, but I cannot quite shake off that eternally insightful Maya Angelou quotation: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the differences between the Conservatives and Labour (and the Lib Dems) are wafer thin, and principally concern fringe culture wars issues. When it comes to everything that matters, all they're really interested in is the preservation and inflation of asset wealth (principally residential property,) and endlessly jacking up the state pension to appease the grey vote. Running down and winding up everything else in the process of shoring up those causes is wholly acceptable to them.
The parties are functionally identical, and that means we'll be in a far worse state in five years' time than we are now. Watch.
Why do you give no credence to the idea that Labour are simply taking no unnecessary risks with an election around the corner and a 20 point poll lead?
That is an equally good explanation for their caution as your thesis that they aren't planning to change anything.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
Imagine if you are French and Jewish, looking at those stats. 1m mainly young French Muslim people HATE you, just for being Jewish, and they are happy to admit it
3 million want to see your homeland - Israel - destroyed entirely
Meanwhile half of them want Islam to take over France and impose shariah law on all France
Would you, as a Jew, feel safe in France?
I would think that there would be good reason for most Jews not to feel safe in most places, and, similarly, if they're not actively thinking about those reasons then they might feel safe pretty much anywhere, unless they've had personal experience to make them feel otherwise.
Ironically, European Jews are now much much safer in EASTERN Europe (historically the cradle of anti-Semitism) - because Eastern Europe has tiny Muslim populations
Or south east Asia. No history of anti Semitism
If I was Jewish and rich I’d move to Singapore, if I was less rich I’d move to Cambodia or Thailand
But in the days after its opening, a number of Indonesian Muslim leaders, including several senior members of the influential Indonesian Council of Ulama (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, MUI) declared that the museum should be shut down, on the grounds that it could cause “communal tensions.” MUI Vice President Muhyidin Junaidi opined that “the presence of the museum is politically tendentious and a provocation to cause uproar among the people.”
I'd suggest the root cause here is certain "revealed by God" attitudes / values which are foundational in Islam. A tricky one to deal with in less than 500 years.
Send them all to this place, an hour’s drive from where I live, and tell them to get along.
It’s a Church, a Synagogue, and a Mosque, all on the same site, from where people can learn about other faiths and understand that their similarities are more than their differences.
Oh, and trade. People don’t go to war with places with whom they trade.
Fuck tons of trade between France and Germany just before 1870, WWI and WW2
Germany was so worried about trading links that the German railways made a special effort to get the final deliveries* of armour plate from the Skoda works in Czechoslovakia across Germany, for the U.K. in 1939.
*one of the long poles in rearmament was armour plate - especially the hardening equipment. This was recognised when British rearmament kicked off in 1932. So the British government placed orders to the limit in the U.K., specifically subsidised the building of more capacity and ordered abroad. To keep the advanced Vickers process for thick armour secret, this was for plates thinner than 6 inches.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
I think Colin Firth would make quite a good Starmer actually. Especially if he could get a couple of pints down first to master that slightly glazed look.
Firth was outstanding as Stuckhart in Conspiracy.
"I'll remember you," says the loathsome pig Klopfer, menacingly.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
Do you think my friends - and Giles Coren - are all lying when they say they feel unsafe and are considering leaving the UK?
No but I do not think they are typical, and doubt Giles Coren will be house-hunting in New Zealand anytime soon. There is an interesting philosophical question about fear which can be genuine even in the absence of real danger. Did you yourself not talk about fear when hitting turbulence recently? A chap was jailed for assaulting Professor Chris Whitty, even though it was probably intended as a drunken hug. Every woman and most men can tell of walking home after dark and hearing footsteps behind them, only to breathe a sigh of relief when the feared mugger or rapist walked past on his own way home.
France has a Muslim population of about six million, just under 9% of the country
If 17% of them “hate Jews” that’s exactly one million Jew haters. In France. And these are the ones willing to admit it! And the younger are MORE likely to be radical and anti-Semitic
And nearly 3 million French Muslims want Israel completely destroyed
The centre cannot hold
The current Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, could well be the En Marche candidate against Le Pen. He has brought members of Les Republicians into the Government so arguably is a more conservative leaning centrist. I think he will be a difficult opponent for Le Pen but he will rely on the socialists and others preferring him to Le Pen in the second round as they did with Macron.
I sense the momentum is with Le Pen
She’s cleverly detoxed herself and now poses as the solidly patriotic right winger. She’s even dropped some of her Putin-love
If I was to make a bet today, I would bet on her winning
What's she going to do, though?
I sense she'll just use harder words. She can't actually do anything about it.
Peut etre. Perhaps there is nothing she can do. Maybe it is all too late and Houllebecq will, miserably, be proven correct
However if there is any country with a sufficient sense of itself and a willingness to fight for its identity, France is right up there in the list
Also, the crisis cannot be averted forever. In the end the collision between secular liberal democracy and conservative Islam will come. And only one will prevail as Islam does not accommodate and compromise
Here's the (rather nasty) solution that no-one ever talks about: deporting people by group at gunpoint. Herding them onto planes with a military escort, flying them to bases and airports in MENA, probably also secured by their troops or a close alliance with local ones, and then turfing them all off at the other end. Off you go. Bye bye.
Huge injustices would be done by this. But could we ever see a European country go this far, as opposed to just turnbacks on the way in?
It could be done but only by dismantling democracy and having a strong man dictator. The british arent ready for this yet. But years of more chaos and economic decline and who knows.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
Do you think my friends - and Giles Coren - are all lying when they say they feel unsafe and are considering leaving the UK?
Imagine how unsafe the Palestinians in Gaza must be feeling.
Unsafe enough to round up Hamas and hand them over to the IDF yet?
Why don't you nip out, round up the local county lines drugs gang, and hand them over to the police? It should be easy. They won't have as many guns as Hamas, and there aren't as many of them.
OK I need help. I’m in Santa Marta and I’m bored of being in Santa Marta (lovely as my balcony by the sea might be)
I’ve got three days left in Colombia. I fly out of Bogotá at 4pm Wednesday
So I have to be in Bogotá by Wednesday, that’s certain
What do I do? Fly to bogota tomorrow morning a d spend 48 hours in the capital?
Trouble is bogota looks quite boring and the weather there is grey
Alternative: hire a car and race around this sunny and fascinating corner of Colombia - tayrona, Guajira, in a mad dash that stresses me out but I see lots of things and then fly to bogota Wednesday?
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
I'm sure that's true. I don't like any religions. Islam, I hope. is currently in a growing up phase.
If you're going to make your life around an irrational belief then I think you ought to give the rest of the world a good degree of space in terms of their beliefs. It doesn't turn out that way though.
OK I need help. I’m in Santa Marta and I’m bored of being in Santa Marta (lovely as my balcony by the sea might be)
I’ve got three days left in Colombia. I fly out of Bogotá at 4pm Wednesday
So I have to be in Bogotá by Wednesday, that’s certain
What do I do? Fly to bogota tomorrow morning a d spend 48 hours in the capital?
Trouble is bogota looks quite boring and the weather there is grey
Alternative: hire a car and race around this sunny and fascinating corner of Colombia - tayrona, Guajira, in a mad dash that stresses me out but I see lots of things and then fly to bogota Wednesday?
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
OK I need help. I’m in Santa Marta and I’m bored of being in Santa Marta (lovely as my balcony by the sea might be)
I’ve got three days left in Colombia. I fly out of Bogotá at 4pm Wednesday
So I have to be in Bogotá by Wednesday, that’s certain
What do I do? Fly to bogota tomorrow morning a d spend 48 hours in the capital?
Trouble is bogota looks quite boring and the weather there is grey
Alternative: hire a car and race around this sunny and fascinating corner of Colombia - tayrona, Guajira, in a mad dash that stresses me out but I see lots of things and then fly to bogota Wednesday?
OK I need help. I’m in Santa Marta and I’m bored of being in Santa Marta (lovely as my balcony by the sea might be)
I’ve got three days left in Colombia. I fly out of Bogotá at 4pm Wednesday
So I have to be in Bogotá by Wednesday, that’s certain
What do I do? Fly to bogota tomorrow morning a d spend 48 hours in the capital?
Trouble is bogota looks quite boring and the weather there is grey
Alternative: hire a car and race around this sunny and fascinating corner of Colombia - tayrona, Guajira, in a mad dash that stresses me out but I see lots of things and then fly to bogota Wednesday?
OK I need help. I’m in Santa Marta and I’m bored of being in Santa Marta (lovely as my balcony by the sea might be)
I’ve got three days left in Colombia. I fly out of Bogotá at 4pm Wednesday
So I have to be in Bogotá by Wednesday, that’s certain
What do I do? Fly to bogota tomorrow morning a d spend 48 hours in the capital?
Trouble is bogota looks quite boring and the weather there is grey
Alternative: hire a car and race around this sunny and fascinating corner of Colombia - tayrona, Guajira, in a mad dash that stresses me out but I see lots of things and then fly to bogota Wednesday?
What would you do?
Have you been to the San Andres & Providencia islands, they were ever so briefly inhabited by British privateers in the 17th cen, and descendants of the plantation workers they brought over still exist - the Raizals, who speak an English Creole.
OK I need help. I’m in Santa Marta and I’m bored of being in Santa Marta (lovely as my balcony by the sea might be)
I’ve got three days left in Colombia. I fly out of Bogotá at 4pm Wednesday
So I have to be in Bogotá by Wednesday, that’s certain
What do I do? Fly to bogota tomorrow morning a d spend 48 hours in the capital?
Trouble is bogota looks quite boring and the weather there is grey
Alternative: hire a car and race around this sunny and fascinating corner of Colombia - tayrona, Guajira, in a mad dash that stresses me out but I see lots of things and then fly to bogota Wednesday?
What would you do?
Have you been to the San Andres & Providencia islands, they were ever so briefly inhabited by British privateers in the 17th cen, and descendants of the plantation workers they brought over still exist - the Razals, who speak an English Creole.
FPT Leon said: » show previous quotes I was pointing more to the narrative than the facts (and I should have said that, apologies)
One reason Trump is doing well is the PERCEPTION the country is going to shit in multiple ways. Now from some angles it is true: Biden really has lost control of the border (with help from treacherous republicans)
In other ways it is not true at all. Biden’s economic record is excellent - and yet he doesn’t get credit for it
In other fields - law and order - the picture is mixed. Ditto foreign policy. Sure Biden is strong in Ukraine but the bald fact is: there weren’t any of these wars when Trump was in power
I said: I agree with the perception point. Trump, of course, does a lot to build these perceptions but they are false.
It was Biden that bit the bullet and got America out of there, not Trump. And the Ukraine war is expensive but it is not producing a lot of US body bags (there have been some due to volunteers, not regular army).
The border is a major problem for Biden, probably his biggest, but the sinking of a cross party bill on Trump's instructions has hopefully defused it somewhat.
The bolded passage is silly I'm afraid. Your version of events is no more an expression of faultless fact than that of the average American, and they certainly have more knowledge as to the day to day reality of what America is like than you do. Yet you assume the fact that they think differently to you on some things to be due to some sort of suggestibility on their part.
Regarding perception, your own biases are clearly in evidence, as you praise Biden for having "bit the bullet and got America out" of Afghanistan, but had Trump been responsible, I think we all know you would have roundly condemned the event as an abandonment of the Afghans and an operational shambles.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
Do you think my friends - and Giles Coren - are all lying when they say they feel unsafe and are considering leaving the UK?
No but I do not think they are typical, and doubt Giles Coren will be house-hunting in New Zealand anytime soon. There is an interesting philosophical question about fear which can be genuine even in the absence of real danger. Did you yourself not talk about fear when hitting turbulence recently? A chap was jailed for assaulting Professor Chris Whitty, even though it was probably intended as a drunken hug. Every woman and most men can tell of walking home after dark and hearing footsteps behind them, only to breathe a sigh of relief when the feared mugger or rapist walked past on his own way home.
On the last couple sentences, especially.
If you actually ask women, and listen to them, the *planning* that goes on to get to the safety of the train station etc.
There’s a reason that many women see a car as particularly liberating.
FPT Leon said: » show previous quotes I was pointing more to the narrative than the facts (and I should have said that, apologies)
One reason Trump is doing well is the PERCEPTION the country is going to shit in multiple ways. Now from some angles it is true: Biden really has lost control of the border (with help from treacherous republicans)
In other ways it is not true at all. Biden’s economic record is excellent - and yet he doesn’t get credit for it
In other fields - law and order - the picture is mixed. Ditto foreign policy. Sure Biden is strong in Ukraine but the bald fact is: there weren’t any of these wars when Trump was in power
I said: I agree with the perception point. Trump, of course, does a lot to build these perceptions but they are false.
It was Biden that bit the bullet and got America out of there, not Trump. And the Ukraine war is expensive but it is not producing a lot of US body bags (there have been some due to volunteers, not regular army).
The border is a major problem for Biden, probably his biggest, but the sinking of a cross party bill on Trump's instructions has hopefully defused it somewhat.
The bolded passage is silly I'm afraid. Your version of events is no more an expression of faultless fact than that of the average American, and they certainly have more knowledge as to the day to day reality of what America is like than you do. Yet you assume the fact that they think differently to you on some things to be due to some sort of suggestibility on their part.
Regarding perception, your own biases are clearly in evidence, as you praise Biden for having "bit the bullet and got America out" of Afghanistan, but had Trump been responsible, I think we all know you would have roundly condemned the event as an abandonment of the Afghans and an operational shambles.
OK I need help. I’m in Santa Marta and I’m bored of being in Santa Marta (lovely as my balcony by the sea might be)
I’ve got three days left in Colombia. I fly out of Bogotá at 4pm Wednesday
So I have to be in Bogotá by Wednesday, that’s certain
What do I do? Fly to bogota tomorrow morning a d spend 48 hours in the capital?
Trouble is bogota looks quite boring and the weather there is grey
Alternative: hire a car and race around this sunny and fascinating corner of Colombia - tayrona, Guajira, in a mad dash that stresses me out but I see lots of things and then fly to bogota Wednesday?
What would you do?
Have you been to the San Andres & Providencia islands, they were ever so briefly inhabited by British privateers in the 17th cen, and descendants of the plantation workers they brought over still exist - the Razals, who speak an English Creole.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
FPT Leon said: » show previous quotes I was pointing more to the narrative than the facts (and I should have said that, apologies)
One reason Trump is doing well is the PERCEPTION the country is going to shit in multiple ways. Now from some angles it is true: Biden really has lost control of the border (with help from treacherous republicans)
In other ways it is not true at all. Biden’s economic record is excellent - and yet he doesn’t get credit for it
In other fields - law and order - the picture is mixed. Ditto foreign policy. Sure Biden is strong in Ukraine but the bald fact is: there weren’t any of these wars when Trump was in power
I said: I agree with the perception point. Trump, of course, does a lot to build these perceptions but they are false.
It was Biden that bit the bullet and got America out of there, not Trump. And the Ukraine war is expensive but it is not producing a lot of US body bags (there have been some due to volunteers, not regular army).
The border is a major problem for Biden, probably his biggest, but the sinking of a cross party bill on Trump's instructions has hopefully defused it somewhat.
The bolded passage is silly I'm afraid. Your version of events is no more an expression of faultless fact than that of the average American, and they certainly have more knowledge as to the day to day reality of what America is like than you do. Yet you assume the fact that they think differently to you on some things to be due to some sort of suggestibility on their part.
Regarding perception, your own biases are clearly in evidence, as you praise Biden for having "bit the bullet and got America out" of Afghanistan, but had Trump been responsible, I think we all know you would have roundly condemned the event as an abandonment of the Afghans and an operational shambles.
America is now a very expensive country. It didnt use to be. 20 to 25 years ago many consumer goods were significantly cheaper in the USA than here and hotel and drink prices were on a par with the uk. Now hotel prices and food and drink prices in the USA are astronomically expensive especially for a Brit visiting with our lower average incomes.
@Gardenwalker Giles Coren is the one writer I consistently look to ignore in The Times.
Every single thing he writes or says irritates me. He seems to be labouring under the impression he's a really insightful wag.
It's a mystery why they continue to employ him.
There's a reprehensible Jimmy Carr type joke somewhere in that 'Giles Coren / Jews fleeing Britain' space.
Interesting flavour of anti Semitism in your discourse. Unexpected. And, given that this is you, you are probably entirely unaware of it
Really? Your antisemitism detector has beeped, has it. That's a worry. I shall look closely on my next self-audit. Always done with bracing honesty and due by the end of the month.
FPT Leon said: » show previous quotes I was pointing more to the narrative than the facts (and I should have said that, apologies)
One reason Trump is doing well is the PERCEPTION the country is going to shit in multiple ways. Now from some angles it is true: Biden really has lost control of the border (with help from treacherous republicans)
In other ways it is not true at all. Biden’s economic record is excellent - and yet he doesn’t get credit for it
In other fields - law and order - the picture is mixed. Ditto foreign policy. Sure Biden is strong in Ukraine but the bald fact is: there weren’t any of these wars when Trump was in power
I said: I agree with the perception point. Trump, of course, does a lot to build these perceptions but they are false.
It was Biden that bit the bullet and got America out of there, not Trump. And the Ukraine war is expensive but it is not producing a lot of US body bags (there have been some due to volunteers, not regular army).
The border is a major problem for Biden, probably his biggest, but the sinking of a cross party bill on Trump's instructions has hopefully defused it somewhat.
The bolded passage is silly I'm afraid. Your version of events is no more an expression of faultless fact than that of the average American, and they certainly have more knowledge as to the day to day reality of what America is like than you do. Yet you assume the fact that they think differently to you on some things to be due to some sort of suggestibility on their part.
Regarding perception, your own biases are clearly in evidence, as you praise Biden for having "bit the bullet and got America out" of Afghanistan, but had Trump been responsible, I think we all know you would have roundly condemned the event as an abandonment of the Afghans and an operational shambles.
America is now a very expensive country. It didnt use to be. 20 to 25 years ago many consumer goods were significantly cheaper in the USA than here and hotel and drink prices were on a par with the uk. Now hotel prices and food and drink prices in the USA are astronomically expensive especially for a Brit visiting with our lower average incomes.
It’s pricey even for average Americans - especially hospitality
Covid fucked with the employment situation so everyone had to pay more to attract staff back and those bills are handed on to customers
A really average crappy motel room can now cost $250. See also restaurants and bars etc
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
Thats a poll though. Im not sure it would necessarily be answered honestly given my anecdotal evidence talking to muslims is that many can quickly become antisemitic. And im pretty sure Ive talked to more muslims than yourself.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
Thats a poll though. Im not sure it would necessarily be answered honestly given my anecdotal evidence talking to muslims is that many can quickly become antisemitic. And im pretty sure Ive talked to more muslims than yourself.
Interesting that you assume that. Since I live and work in central London…
@Gardenwalker Giles Coren is the one writer I consistently look to ignore in The Times.
Every single thing he writes or says irritates me. He seems to be labouring under the impression he's a really insightful wag.
It's a mystery why they continue to employ him.
There's a reprehensible Jimmy Carr type joke somewhere in that 'Giles Coren / Jews fleeing Britain' space.
Interesting flavour of anti Semitism in your discourse. Unexpected. And, given that this is you, you are probably entirely unaware of it
Really? Your antisemitism detector has beeped, has it. That's a worry. I shall look closely on my next self-audit. Always done with bracing honesty and due by the end of the month.
Living as you do in quite a jewish area I would have hoped someone like yourself would be more careful.
Meanwhile, in Graunland, the horrifying realisation that one Tory Government is simply going to be replaced by another is dawning...
The House of Commons levelling up, housing and communities select committee puts English councils’ current financial gap at about £4bn a year, which could have been filled more than twice over by the money Jeremy Hunt used for that almost meaningless cut in national insurance. He seems to still think that councils must sink or swim: even more depressingly, he and his allies in the rightwing press have reprised old and stupid rhetoric about millions supposedly being wasted on “consultants” and “diversity schemes”.
And Labour? Last weekend, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was repeatedly asked by the Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips if she would fix councils’ crises once Labour was in power. But she would only offer her usual words about the awful problems she would inherit, and vague claims that changes to the planning system and increased business investment may eventually feed through to money for local services. I admire the optimism of people who think she is secretly preparing some kind of national rescue package, but I cannot quite shake off that eternally insightful Maya Angelou quotation: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the differences between the Conservatives and Labour (and the Lib Dems) are wafer thin, and principally concern fringe culture wars issues. When it comes to everything that matters, all they're really interested in is the preservation and inflation of asset wealth (principally residential property,) and endlessly jacking up the state pension to appease the grey vote. Running down and winding up everything else in the process of shoring up those causes is wholly acceptable to them.
The parties are functionally identical, and that means we'll be in a far worse state in five years' time than we are now. Watch.
Why do you give no credence to the idea that Labour are simply taking no unnecessary risks with an election around the corner and a 20 point poll lead?
That is an equally good explanation for their caution as your thesis that they aren't planning to change anything.
Because it makes a great deal more sense than the notion that they are going to throw their manifesto into the recycling bin a week into their term and rediscover a taste for social democracy. If you can't argue the case for a meaningful programme of redistribution and investment when your opponents are as bad as this lot, then when can you?
The most likely scenario is that Labour means what it says and will play its term as a kind of mirror image of the Coalition Government: yet more austerity, though in this case practiced by Labour ministers whilst they pin the blame for the resultant suffering on the mistakes made by the previous Conservative administration.
The decay of the fabric of the state can only be repaired with truly heroic sums of money. Half the population (the poor, the young, working people on low to middle incomes) have already been bled white by a combination of inflation, taxation of their earnings, colossal rents/mortgages and austerity, and have little left to give. The other half (homeowners over the age of about 50, and the very wealthy) control the bulk of the nation's assets, but mostly believe that they have a God-given right not to be asked to pay for anything. The money can only come from the latter group but the politicians won't extract any loot from them, because (a) they are terrified of their power at the ballot box, and (b) they themselves mostly belong to this class, and the younger ones that aren't quite there yet are well-paid and have reasonable aspirations to join it.
The vague Huntreevesian guff about digging the country out of its malaise through "reform" and a magical return to rampant economic growth, if only we consent to put up with austerity for another thirty or forty years, disguises the bald truth: stagnation doesn't matter if the existing economic settlement acts as an engine for the redistribution of wealth upwards - through pensions, property price inflation and rents - and your people (the fellow members of your socio-economic class/favoured voter group) therefore continue to get richer, even as the rest of the country falls apart. Beneath all the high-blown rhetoric, this is the core prospectus that Government and Opposition will both be peddling come the election. It's nothing more than a contest to determine who can manage decline most efficiently, to the benefit of the already well-off.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
Thats a poll though. Im not sure it would necessarily be answered honestly given my anecdotal evidence talking to muslims is that many can quickly become antisemitic. And im pretty sure Ive talked to more muslims than yourself.
What!? You talk to Muslims and they say they're likely to swiftly be nasty people?
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
Thats a poll though. Im not sure it would necessarily be answered honestly given my anecdotal evidence talking to muslims is that many can quickly become antisemitic. And im pretty sure Ive talked to more muslims than yourself.
What!? You talk to Muslims and they say they're likely to swiftly be nasty people?
Ok take 911. A huge number of muslims think the jews did it for example. That has come up to me many times when i casually mention 911 with them.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
Thats a poll though. Im not sure it would necessarily be answered honestly given my anecdotal evidence talking to muslims is that many can quickly become antisemitic. And im pretty sure Ive talked to more muslims than yourself.
What!? You talk to Muslims and they say they're likely to swiftly be nasty people?
If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
Thats a poll though. Im not sure it would necessarily be answered honestly given my anecdotal evidence talking to muslims is that many can quickly become antisemitic. And im pretty sure Ive talked to more muslims than yourself.
What!? You talk to Muslims and they say they're likely to swiftly be nasty people?
I’ve encountered quite a lot of casual anti Semitism in Muslim countries. And often from perfectly pleasant people
I reckon it is so common they don’t perceive it as wrong, as everyone else feels the same way, if they ever think about it
Same way Britain was casually racist in the 50s-70s
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
Thats a poll though. Im not sure it would necessarily be answered honestly given my anecdotal evidence talking to muslims is that many can quickly become antisemitic. And im pretty sure Ive talked to more muslims than yourself.
Interesting that you assume that. Since I live and work in central London…
Exactly london. Go talk to muslims in Birmingham or Rochdale or Dewsbury.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
Thats a poll though. Im not sure it would necessarily be answered honestly given my anecdotal evidence talking to muslims is that many can quickly become antisemitic. And im pretty sure Ive talked to more muslims than yourself.
What!? You talk to Muslims and they say they're likely to swiftly be nasty people?
If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
Thats a poll though. Im not sure it would necessarily be answered honestly given my anecdotal evidence talking to muslims is that many can quickly become antisemitic. And im pretty sure Ive talked to more muslims than yourself.
What!? You talk to Muslims and they say they're likely to swiftly be nasty people?
I’ve encountered quite a lot of casual anti Semitism in Muslim countries. And often from perfectly pleasant people
I reckon it is so common they don’t perceive it as wrong, as everyone else feels the same way, if they ever think about it
Same way Britain was casually racist in the 50s-70s
In a number of countries it was preached by the state - as an excuse for repression etc.
“The Evul Jews/Israelis will steal the country and are only The Heroic Leader(s) holds them back.”
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
Thats a poll though. Im not sure it would necessarily be answered honestly given my anecdotal evidence talking to muslims is that many can quickly become antisemitic. And im pretty sure Ive talked to more muslims than yourself.
What!? You talk to Muslims and they say they're likely to swiftly be nasty people?
I’ve encountered quite a lot of casual anti Semitism in Muslim countries. And often from perfectly pleasant people
I reckon it is so common they don’t perceive it as wrong, as everyone else feels the same way, if they ever think about it
Same way Britain was casually racist in the 50s-70s
In a number of countries it was preached by the state - as an excuse for repression etc.
“The Evul Jews/Israelis will steal the country and are only The Heroic Leader(s) holds them back.”
And of course it is included in the Koran/hadith as well. Explicit Jew hatred
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
Thats a poll though. Im not sure it would necessarily be answered honestly given my anecdotal evidence talking to muslims is that many can quickly become antisemitic. And im pretty sure Ive talked to more muslims than yourself.
What!? You talk to Muslims and they say they're likely to swiftly be nasty people?
I’ve encountered quite a lot of casual anti Semitism in Muslim countries. And often from perfectly pleasant people
I reckon it is so common they don’t perceive it as wrong, as everyone else feels the same way, if they ever think about it
Same way Britain was casually racist in the 50s-70s
Britain was innocently racist in the 50s-70s. A huge number of odd people turn up and we had no idea. (Obviously there was substantial racism, but for the majority my assertion is true)
The Muslim world has a really quite strong unity. I guess in the way the Christian world did once. Many (perhaps most) Muslims can be swayed by ideas circulating within their faith which they really wouldn't have anything to do with otherwise.
Meanwhile, in Graunland, the horrifying realisation that one Tory Government is simply going to be replaced by another is dawning...
The House of Commons levelling up, housing and communities select committee puts English councils’ current financial gap at about £4bn a year, which could have been filled more than twice over by the money Jeremy Hunt used for that almost meaningless cut in national insurance. He seems to still think that councils must sink or swim: even more depressingly, he and his allies in the rightwing press have reprised old and stupid rhetoric about millions supposedly being wasted on “consultants” and “diversity schemes”.
And Labour? Last weekend, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was repeatedly asked by the Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips if she would fix councils’ crises once Labour was in power. But she would only offer her usual words about the awful problems she would inherit, and vague claims that changes to the planning system and increased business investment may eventually feed through to money for local services. I admire the optimism of people who think she is secretly preparing some kind of national rescue package, but I cannot quite shake off that eternally insightful Maya Angelou quotation: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the differences between the Conservatives and Labour (and the Lib Dems) are wafer thin, and principally concern fringe culture wars issues. When it comes to everything that matters, all they're really interested in is the preservation and inflation of asset wealth (principally residential property,) and endlessly jacking up the state pension to appease the grey vote. Running down and winding up everything else in the process of shoring up those causes is wholly acceptable to them.
The parties are functionally identical, and that means we'll be in a far worse state in five years' time than we are now. Watch.
Why do you give no credence to the idea that Labour are simply taking no unnecessary risks with an election around the corner and a 20 point poll lead?
That is an equally good explanation for their caution as your thesis that they aren't planning to change anything.
Because it makes a great deal more sense than the notion that they are going to throw their manifesto into the recycling bin a week into their term and rediscover a taste for social democracy. If you can't argue the case for a meaningful programme of redistribution and investment when your opponents are as bad as this lot, then when can you?
The most likely scenario is that Labour means what it says and will play its term as a kind of mirror image of the Coalition Government: yet more austerity, though in this case practiced by Labour ministers whilst they pin the blame for the resultant suffering on the mistakes made by the previous Conservative administration.
The decay of the fabric of the state can only be repaired with truly heroic sums of money. Half the population (the poor, the young, working people on low to middle incomes) have already been bled white by a combination of inflation, taxation of their earnings, colossal rents/mortgages and austerity, and have little left to give. The other half (homeowners over the age of about 50, and the very wealthy) control the bulk of the nation's assets, but mostly believe that they have a God-given right not to be asked to pay for anything. The money can only come from the latter group but the politicians won't extract any loot from them, because (a) they are terrified of their power at the ballot box, and (b) they themselves mostly belong to this class, and the younger ones that aren't quite there yet are well-paid and have reasonable aspirations to join it.
The vague Huntreevesian guff about digging the country out of its malaise through "reform" and a magical return to rampant economic growth, if only we consent to put up with austerity for another thirty or forty years, disguises the bald truth: stagnation doesn't matter if the existing economic settlement acts as an engine for the redistribution of wealth upwards - through pensions, property price inflation and rents - and your people (the fellow members of your socio-economic class/favoured voter group) therefore continue to get richer, even as the rest of the country falls apart. Beneath all the high-blown rhetoric, this is the core prospectus that Government and Opposition will both be peddling come the election. It's nothing more than a contest to determine who can manage decline most efficiently, to the benefit of the already well-off.
There's nothing magical or mythical about a return to economic growth - it's just what happens when you don't tax, levy, and regulate it into extinction. The resentment against an age group that's managed to do slightly better out of the post 1997 economic shitshow (mainly due to investing in bricks and mortar, which hasn't declined in value the way everything else has) is daft. It's divide and rule.
Meanwhile, in Graunland, the horrifying realisation that one Tory Government is simply going to be replaced by another is dawning...
The House of Commons levelling up, housing and communities select committee puts English councils’ current financial gap at about £4bn a year, which could have been filled more than twice over by the money Jeremy Hunt used for that almost meaningless cut in national insurance. He seems to still think that councils must sink or swim: even more depressingly, he and his allies in the rightwing press have reprised old and stupid rhetoric about millions supposedly being wasted on “consultants” and “diversity schemes”.
And Labour? Last weekend, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was repeatedly asked by the Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips if she would fix councils’ crises once Labour was in power. But she would only offer her usual words about the awful problems she would inherit, and vague claims that changes to the planning system and increased business investment may eventually feed through to money for local services. I admire the optimism of people who think she is secretly preparing some kind of national rescue package, but I cannot quite shake off that eternally insightful Maya Angelou quotation: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the differences between the Conservatives and Labour (and the Lib Dems) are wafer thin, and principally concern fringe culture wars issues. When it comes to everything that matters, all they're really interested in is the preservation and inflation of asset wealth (principally residential property,) and endlessly jacking up the state pension to appease the grey vote. Running down and winding up everything else in the process of shoring up those causes is wholly acceptable to them.
The parties are functionally identical, and that means we'll be in a far worse state in five years' time than we are now. Watch.
Why do you give no credence to the idea that Labour are simply taking no unnecessary risks with an election around the corner and a 20 point poll lead?
That is an equally good explanation for their caution as your thesis that they aren't planning to change anything.
Because it makes a great deal more sense than the notion that they are going to throw their manifesto into the recycling bin a week into their term and rediscover a taste for social democracy. If you can't argue the case for a meaningful programme of redistribution and investment when your opponents are as bad as this lot, then when can you?
The most likely scenario is that Labour means what it says and will play its term as a kind of mirror image of the Coalition Government: yet more austerity, though in this case practiced by Labour ministers whilst they pin the blame for the resultant suffering on the mistakes made by the previous Conservative administration.
The decay of the fabric of the state can only be repaired with truly heroic sums of money. Half the population (the poor, the young, working people on low to middle incomes) have already been bled white by a combination of inflation, taxation of their earnings, colossal rents/mortgages and austerity, and have little left to give. The other half (homeowners over the age of about 50, and the very wealthy) control the bulk of the nation's assets, but mostly believe that they have a God-given right not to be asked to pay for anything. The money can only come from the latter group but the politicians won't extract any loot from them, because (a) they are terrified of their power at the ballot box, and (b) they themselves mostly belong to this class, and the younger ones that aren't quite there yet are well-paid and have reasonable aspirations to join it.
The vague Huntreevesian guff about digging the country out of its malaise through "reform" and a magical return to rampant economic growth, if only we consent to put up with austerity for another thirty or forty years, disguises the bald truth: stagnation doesn't matter if the existing economic settlement acts as an engine for the redistribution of wealth upwards - through pensions, property price inflation and rents - and your people (the fellow members of your socio-economic class/favoured voter group) therefore continue to get richer, even as the rest of the country falls apart. Beneath all the high-blown rhetoric, this is the core prospectus that Government and Opposition will both be peddling come the election. It's nothing more than a contest to determine who can manage decline most efficiently, to the benefit of the already well-off.
Meanwhile, in Graunland, the horrifying realisation that one Tory Government is simply going to be replaced by another is dawning...
The House of Commons levelling up, housing and communities select committee puts English councils’ current financial gap at about £4bn a year, which could have been filled more than twice over by the money Jeremy Hunt used for that almost meaningless cut in national insurance. He seems to still think that councils must sink or swim: even more depressingly, he and his allies in the rightwing press have reprised old and stupid rhetoric about millions supposedly being wasted on “consultants” and “diversity schemes”.
And Labour? Last weekend, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was repeatedly asked by the Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips if she would fix councils’ crises once Labour was in power. But she would only offer her usual words about the awful problems she would inherit, and vague claims that changes to the planning system and increased business investment may eventually feed through to money for local services. I admire the optimism of people who think she is secretly preparing some kind of national rescue package, but I cannot quite shake off that eternally insightful Maya Angelou quotation: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the differences between the Conservatives and Labour (and the Lib Dems) are wafer thin, and principally concern fringe culture wars issues. When it comes to everything that matters, all they're really interested in is the preservation and inflation of asset wealth (principally residential property,) and endlessly jacking up the state pension to appease the grey vote. Running down and winding up everything else in the process of shoring up those causes is wholly acceptable to them.
The parties are functionally identical, and that means we'll be in a far worse state in five years' time than we are now. Watch.
Your posts are tiresome. Maybe you and @bigjohnowls should get together and luxuriate in your misery.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
Thats a poll though. Im not sure it would necessarily be answered honestly given my anecdotal evidence talking to muslims is that many can quickly become antisemitic. And im pretty sure Ive talked to more muslims than yourself.
What!? You talk to Muslims and they say they're likely to swiftly be nasty people?
If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
Thats a poll though. Im not sure it would necessarily be answered honestly given my anecdotal evidence talking to muslims is that many can quickly become antisemitic. And im pretty sure Ive talked to more muslims than yourself.
What!? You talk to Muslims and they say they're likely to swiftly be nasty people?
I’ve encountered quite a lot of casual anti Semitism in Muslim countries. And often from perfectly pleasant people
I reckon it is so common they don’t perceive it as wrong, as everyone else feels the same way, if they ever think about it
Same way Britain was casually racist in the 50s-70s
In a number of countries it was preached by the state - as an excuse for repression etc.
“The Evul Jews/Israelis will steal the country and are only The Heroic Leader(s) holds them back.”
And of course it is included in the Koran/hadith as well. Explicit Jew hatred
Which is ignored/interpreted by most in a different way. Bit like how even the churches have retconned chunks of the Old Testament.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
I'm sure that's true. I don't like any religions. Islam, I hope. is currently in a growing up phase.
If you're going to make your life around an irrational belief then I think you ought to give the rest of the world a good degree of space in terms of their beliefs. It doesn't turn out that way though.
What evidence is there that Islam is currently growing up? Or is it one of those irrational things you are believing on faith?
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
I'm sure that's true. I don't like any religions. Islam, I hope. is currently in a growing up phase.
If you're going to make your life around an irrational belief then I think you ought to give the rest of the world a good degree of space in terms of their beliefs. It doesn't turn out that way though.
What evidence is there that Islam is currently growing up? Or is it one of those irrational things you are believing on faith?
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
Thats a poll though. Im not sure it would necessarily be answered honestly given my anecdotal evidence talking to muslims is that many can quickly become antisemitic. And im pretty sure Ive talked to more muslims than yourself.
What!? You talk to Muslims and they say they're likely to swiftly be nasty people?
I’ve encountered quite a lot of casual anti Semitism in Muslim countries. And often from perfectly pleasant people
I reckon it is so common they don’t perceive it as wrong, as everyone else feels the same way, if they ever think about it
Same way Britain was casually racist in the 50s-70s
In a number of countries it was preached by the state - as an excuse for repression etc.
“The Evul Jews/Israelis will steal the country and are only The Heroic Leader(s) holds them back.”
And of course it is included in the Koran/hadith as well. Explicit Jew hatred
Which is ignored/interpreted by most in a different way. Bit like how even the churches have retconned chunks of the Old Testament.
I often find a poignant dissonance in Islamic Jew-hatred, the jew is despised as weak and foolish yet at the same time he is feared for being devious, clever and rich
Adolf Hitler had the same conflicted feelings. Maybe it is a part of all anti Semitism
OK I need help. I’m in Santa Marta and I’m bored of being in Santa Marta (lovely as my balcony by the sea might be)
I’ve got three days left in Colombia. I fly out of Bogotá at 4pm Wednesday
So I have to be in Bogotá by Wednesday, that’s certain
What do I do? Fly to bogota tomorrow morning a d spend 48 hours in the capital?
Trouble is bogota looks quite boring and the weather there is grey
Alternative: hire a car and race around this sunny and fascinating corner of Colombia - tayrona, Guajira, in a mad dash that stresses me out but I see lots of things and then fly to bogota Wednesday?
What would you do?
Have you been to the San Andres & Providencia islands, they were ever so briefly inhabited by British privateers in the 17th cen, and descendants of the plantation workers they brought over still exist - the Razals, who speak an English Creole.
You can visit San Andres on Google Streetview. It's completely undeveloped as a tourist destination. There's a lot of coastline in the Caribbean and most of it is pretty basic. It needs a lot of investment to make it desirable. Sunshine is not sufficient.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
I'm sure that's true. I don't like any religions. Islam, I hope. is currently in a growing up phase.
If you're going to make your life around an irrational belief then I think you ought to give the rest of the world a good degree of space in terms of their beliefs. It doesn't turn out that way though.
What evidence is there that Islam is currently growing up? Or is it one of those irrational things you are believing on faith?
Quite so
There is zero evidence for this. Indeed looking at that depressing French poll the opposite is the case. The young are more radical, desire shariah law more, are more anti semitic than their parents. Etc
Meanwhile, in Graunland, the horrifying realisation that one Tory Government is simply going to be replaced by another is dawning...
The House of Commons levelling up, housing and communities select committee puts English councils’ current financial gap at about £4bn a year, which could have been filled more than twice over by the money Jeremy Hunt used for that almost meaningless cut in national insurance. He seems to still think that councils must sink or swim: even more depressingly, he and his allies in the rightwing press have reprised old and stupid rhetoric about millions supposedly being wasted on “consultants” and “diversity schemes”.
And Labour? Last weekend, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was repeatedly asked by the Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips if she would fix councils’ crises once Labour was in power. But she would only offer her usual words about the awful problems she would inherit, and vague claims that changes to the planning system and increased business investment may eventually feed through to money for local services. I admire the optimism of people who think she is secretly preparing some kind of national rescue package, but I cannot quite shake off that eternally insightful Maya Angelou quotation: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the differences between the Conservatives and Labour (and the Lib Dems) are wafer thin, and principally concern fringe culture wars issues. When it comes to everything that matters, all they're really interested in is the preservation and inflation of asset wealth (principally residential property,) and endlessly jacking up the state pension to appease the grey vote. Running down and winding up everything else in the process of shoring up those causes is wholly acceptable to them.
The parties are functionally identical, and that means we'll be in a far worse state in five years' time than we are now. Watch.
Why do you give no credence to the idea that Labour are simply taking no unnecessary risks with an election around the corner and a 20 point poll lead?
That is an equally good explanation for their caution as your thesis that they aren't planning to change anything.
Because he is a one-dimensional bore who has his hypothesis and shapes all the evidence to fit, before writing the same post on here repeatedly, just using a few synonyms and moving a few words around.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
I'm sure that's true. I don't like any religions. Islam, I hope. is currently in a growing up phase.
If you're going to make your life around an irrational belief then I think you ought to give the rest of the world a good degree of space in terms of their beliefs. It doesn't turn out that way though.
What evidence is there that Islam is currently growing up? Or is it one of those irrational things you are believing on faith?
Quite so
There is zero evidence for this. Indeed looking at that depressing French poll the opposite is the case. The young are more radical, desire shariah law more, are more anti semitic than their parents. Etc
Bleak
Yes . Im pretty sure Malmesbury for example hasnt talked to many young muslims in Birmingham or Rochdale.
OK I need help. I’m in Santa Marta and I’m bored of being in Santa Marta (lovely as my balcony by the sea might be)
I’ve got three days left in Colombia. I fly out of Bogotá at 4pm Wednesday
So I have to be in Bogotá by Wednesday, that’s certain
What do I do? Fly to bogota tomorrow morning a d spend 48 hours in the capital?
Trouble is bogota looks quite boring and the weather there is grey
Alternative: hire a car and race around this sunny and fascinating corner of Colombia - tayrona, Guajira, in a mad dash that stresses me out but I see lots of things and then fly to bogota Wednesday?
What would you do?
Have you been to the San Andres & Providencia islands, they were ever so briefly inhabited by British privateers in the 17th cen, and descendants of the plantation workers they brought over still exist - the Razals, who speak an English Creole.
You can visit San Andres on Google Streetview. It's completely undeveloped as a tourist destination. There's a lot of coastline in the Caribbean and most of it is pretty basic. It needs a lot of investment to make it desirable. Sunshine is not sufficient.
Which would surely add to its charm? Before it becomes a tourist trap?
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
I'm sure that's true. I don't like any religions. Islam, I hope. is currently in a growing up phase.
If you're going to make your life around an irrational belief then I think you ought to give the rest of the world a good degree of space in terms of their beliefs. It doesn't turn out that way though.
Indeed. I have often pondered the great paradox of religions - that their brand of belief is exactly right and all the others exactly wrong, when clearly they are all varying interpretations of the same wonder: why are we here? what is the meaning of life?
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
I'm sure that's true. I don't like any religions. Islam, I hope. is currently in a growing up phase.
If you're going to make your life around an irrational belief then I think you ought to give the rest of the world a good degree of space in terms of their beliefs. It doesn't turn out that way though.
What evidence is there that Islam is currently growing up? Or is it one of those irrational things you are believing on faith?
Quite so
There is zero evidence for this. Indeed looking at that depressing French poll the opposite is the case. The young are more radical, desire shariah law more, are more anti semitic than their parents. Etc
Bleak
Yes . Im pretty sure Malmesbury for example hasnt talked to many young muslims in Birmingham or Rochdale.
I remember one particular anti semite in Istanbul. He was a guide and a historian. Very genial, ate too much spicy cheese for breakfast, but an entertaining man
But when he got onto the Jews he became tediously obnoxious - anti semitic. He did this several times and was keen on his idea that the Jews are stupid - so in the end I’d had enough and I showed him the IQ data: ie Jews are much smarter than the average European or Turk - by about 15 IQ points
In the end he couldn’t deny the data and he got quite angry. Like this was yet another trick the Jews were playing on him. Being clever
Meanwhile, in Graunland, the horrifying realisation that one Tory Government is simply going to be replaced by another is dawning...
The House of Commons levelling up, housing and communities select committee puts English councils’ current financial gap at about £4bn a year, which could have been filled more than twice over by the money Jeremy Hunt used for that almost meaningless cut in national insurance. He seems to still think that councils must sink or swim: even more depressingly, he and his allies in the rightwing press have reprised old and stupid rhetoric about millions supposedly being wasted on “consultants” and “diversity schemes”.
And Labour? Last weekend, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was repeatedly asked by the Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips if she would fix councils’ crises once Labour was in power. But she would only offer her usual words about the awful problems she would inherit, and vague claims that changes to the planning system and increased business investment may eventually feed through to money for local services. I admire the optimism of people who think she is secretly preparing some kind of national rescue package, but I cannot quite shake off that eternally insightful Maya Angelou quotation: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the differences between the Conservatives and Labour (and the Lib Dems) are wafer thin, and principally concern fringe culture wars issues. When it comes to everything that matters, all they're really interested in is the preservation and inflation of asset wealth (principally residential property,) and endlessly jacking up the state pension to appease the grey vote. Running down and winding up everything else in the process of shoring up those causes is wholly acceptable to them.
The parties are functionally identical, and that means we'll be in a far worse state in five years' time than we are now. Watch.
Why do you give no credence to the idea that Labour are simply taking no unnecessary risks with an election around the corner and a 20 point poll lead?
That is an equally good explanation for their caution as your thesis that they aren't planning to change anything.
Because he is a one-dimensional bore who has his hypothesis and shapes all the evidence to fit, before writing the same post on here repeatedly, just using a few synonyms and moving a few words around.
Meanwhile, in Graunland, the horrifying realisation that one Tory Government is simply going to be replaced by another is dawning...
The House of Commons levelling up, housing and communities select committee puts English councils’ current financial gap at about £4bn a year, which could have been filled more than twice over by the money Jeremy Hunt used for that almost meaningless cut in national insurance. He seems to still think that councils must sink or swim: even more depressingly, he and his allies in the rightwing press have reprised old and stupid rhetoric about millions supposedly being wasted on “consultants” and “diversity schemes”.
And Labour? Last weekend, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was repeatedly asked by the Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips if she would fix councils’ crises once Labour was in power. But she would only offer her usual words about the awful problems she would inherit, and vague claims that changes to the planning system and increased business investment may eventually feed through to money for local services. I admire the optimism of people who think she is secretly preparing some kind of national rescue package, but I cannot quite shake off that eternally insightful Maya Angelou quotation: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the differences between the Conservatives and Labour (and the Lib Dems) are wafer thin, and principally concern fringe culture wars issues. When it comes to everything that matters, all they're really interested in is the preservation and inflation of asset wealth (principally residential property,) and endlessly jacking up the state pension to appease the grey vote. Running down and winding up everything else in the process of shoring up those causes is wholly acceptable to them.
The parties are functionally identical, and that means we'll be in a far worse state in five years' time than we are now. Watch.
Why do you give no credence to the idea that Labour are simply taking no unnecessary risks with an election around the corner and a 20 point poll lead?
That is an equally good explanation for their caution as your thesis that they aren't planning to change anything.
Because he is a one-dimensional bore who has his hypothesis and shapes all the evidence to fit, before writing the same post on here repeatedly, just using a few synonyms and moving a few words around.
Just because you don't like it, doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong. Anyway, since the likelihood of Sunak winning the next election is astronomically remote, we don't have too long to wait to discover the truth of it.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
I'm sure that's true. I don't like any religions. Islam, I hope. is currently in a growing up phase.
If you're going to make your life around an irrational belief then I think you ought to give the rest of the world a good degree of space in terms of their beliefs. It doesn't turn out that way though.
Indeed. I have often pondered the great paradox of religions - that their brand of belief is exactly right and all the others exactly wrong, when clearly they are all varying interpretations of the same wonder: why are we here? what is the meaning of life?
@Leon banging on about AI and the like nails this. The universe - WTF is going on? I guess we've become the Greeks mark 2.
Meanwhile, in Graunland, the horrifying realisation that one Tory Government is simply going to be replaced by another is dawning...
The House of Commons levelling up, housing and communities select committee puts English councils’ current financial gap at about £4bn a year, which could have been filled more than twice over by the money Jeremy Hunt used for that almost meaningless cut in national insurance. He seems to still think that councils must sink or swim: even more depressingly, he and his allies in the rightwing press have reprised old and stupid rhetoric about millions supposedly being wasted on “consultants” and “diversity schemes”.
And Labour? Last weekend, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was repeatedly asked by the Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips if she would fix councils’ crises once Labour was in power. But she would only offer her usual words about the awful problems she would inherit, and vague claims that changes to the planning system and increased business investment may eventually feed through to money for local services. I admire the optimism of people who think she is secretly preparing some kind of national rescue package, but I cannot quite shake off that eternally insightful Maya Angelou quotation: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the differences between the Conservatives and Labour (and the Lib Dems) are wafer thin, and principally concern fringe culture wars issues. When it comes to everything that matters, all they're really interested in is the preservation and inflation of asset wealth (principally residential property,) and endlessly jacking up the state pension to appease the grey vote. Running down and winding up everything else in the process of shoring up those causes is wholly acceptable to them.
The parties are functionally identical, and that means we'll be in a far worse state in five years' time than we are now. Watch.
Why do you give no credence to the idea that Labour are simply taking no unnecessary risks with an election around the corner and a 20 point poll lead?
That is an equally good explanation for their caution as your thesis that they aren't planning to change anything.
I don't know you are right but suspect you are. If so it bodes well for a disciplined Government - at least for the first year or two and at least incomparison to the shower we curently have in power (which I admit might not be saying much).
It does however perhaps bode ill for the longer term if Labour are simply keeping their more radical plans well hidden away and intend to follow a very different set of policies once they are in power.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
I'm sure that's true. I don't like any religions. Islam, I hope. is currently in a growing up phase.
If you're going to make your life around an irrational belief then I think you ought to give the rest of the world a good degree of space in terms of their beliefs. It doesn't turn out that way though.
What evidence is there that Islam is currently growing up? Or is it one of those irrational things you are believing on faith?
Quite so
There is zero evidence for this. Indeed looking at that depressing French poll the opposite is the case. The young are more radical, desire shariah law more, are more anti semitic than their parents. Etc
Bleak
Yes . Im pretty sure Malmesbury for example hasnt talked to many young muslims in Birmingham or Rochdale.
I remember one particular anti semite in Istanbul. He was a guide and a historian. Very genial, ate too much spicy cheese for breakfast, but an entertaining man
But when he got onto the Jews he became tediously obnoxious - anti semitic. He did this several times and was keen on his idea that the Jews are stupid - so in the end I’d had enough and I showed him the IQ data: ie Jews are much smarter than the average European or Turk - by about 15 IQ points
In the end he couldn’t deny the data and he got quite angry. Like this was yet another trick the Jews were playing on him. Being clever
Lady Mosley was tricked into making anti-Semitic comments by a reporter who 'didn't look Jewish'. She bemoaned this to her sister, Nancy Mitford. "They're very clever people," Nancy commiserated, "and come in all shapes and sizes." High praise indeed.
Meanwhile, in Graunland, the horrifying realisation that one Tory Government is simply going to be replaced by another is dawning...
The House of Commons levelling up, housing and communities select committee puts English councils’ current financial gap at about £4bn a year, which could have been filled more than twice over by the money Jeremy Hunt used for that almost meaningless cut in national insurance. He seems to still think that councils must sink or swim: even more depressingly, he and his allies in the rightwing press have reprised old and stupid rhetoric about millions supposedly being wasted on “consultants” and “diversity schemes”.
And Labour? Last weekend, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was repeatedly asked by the Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips if she would fix councils’ crises once Labour was in power. But she would only offer her usual words about the awful problems she would inherit, and vague claims that changes to the planning system and increased business investment may eventually feed through to money for local services. I admire the optimism of people who think she is secretly preparing some kind of national rescue package, but I cannot quite shake off that eternally insightful Maya Angelou quotation: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the differences between the Conservatives and Labour (and the Lib Dems) are wafer thin, and principally concern fringe culture wars issues. When it comes to everything that matters, all they're really interested in is the preservation and inflation of asset wealth (principally residential property,) and endlessly jacking up the state pension to appease the grey vote. Running down and winding up everything else in the process of shoring up those causes is wholly acceptable to them.
The parties are functionally identical, and that means we'll be in a far worse state in five years' time than we are now. Watch.
Why do you give no credence to the idea that Labour are simply taking no unnecessary risks with an election around the corner and a 20 point poll lead?
That is an equally good explanation for their caution as your thesis that they aren't planning to change anything.
Because it makes a great deal more sense than the notion that they are going to throw their manifesto into the recycling bin a week into their term and rediscover a taste for social democracy. If you can't argue the case for a meaningful programme of redistribution and investment when your opponents are as bad as this lot, then when can you?
The most likely scenario is that Labour means what it says and will play its term as a kind of mirror image of the Coalition Government: yet more austerity, though in this case practiced by Labour ministers whilst they pin the blame for the resultant suffering on the mistakes made by the previous Conservative administration.
The decay of the fabric of the state can only be repaired with truly heroic sums of money. Half the population (the poor, the young, working people on low to middle incomes) have already been bled white by a combination of inflation, taxation of their earnings, colossal rents/mortgages and austerity, and have little left to give. The other half (homeowners over the age of about 50, and the very wealthy) control the bulk of the nation's assets, but mostly believe that they have a God-given right not to be asked to pay for anything. The money can only come from the latter group but the politicians won't extract any loot from them, because (a) they are terrified of their power at the ballot box, and (b) they themselves mostly belong to this class, and the younger ones that aren't quite there yet are well-paid and have reasonable aspirations to join it.
The vague Huntreevesian guff about digging the country out of its malaise through "reform" and a magical return to rampant economic growth, if only we consent to put up with austerity for another thirty or forty years, disguises the bald truth: stagnation doesn't matter if the existing economic settlement acts as an engine for the redistribution of wealth upwards - through pensions, property price inflation and rents - and your people (the fellow members of your socio-economic class/favoured voter group) therefore continue to get richer, even as the rest of the country falls apart. Beneath all the high-blown rhetoric, this is the core prospectus that Government and Opposition will both be peddling come the election. It's nothing more than a contest to determine who can manage decline most efficiently, to the benefit of the already well-off.
There's nothing magical or mythical about a return to economic growth - it's just what happens when you don't tax, levy, and regulate it into extinction. The resentment against an age group that's managed to do slightly better out of the post 1997 economic shitshow (mainly due to investing in bricks and mortar, which hasn't declined in value the way everything else has) is daft. It's divide and rule.
The money needed to deal with the tsunami of need from elderly people, sick people, poverty stricken people and a decaying public infrastructure is not going to come from a radical libertarian program of deregulation and tax cuts. You might wish it were so, but it's not.
As for divide and rule, what do you think the last decade and a half has been all about?
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
I'm sure that's true. I don't like any religions. Islam, I hope. is currently in a growing up phase.
If you're going to make your life around an irrational belief then I think you ought to give the rest of the world a good degree of space in terms of their beliefs. It doesn't turn out that way though.
What evidence is there that Islam is currently growing up? Or is it one of those irrational things you are believing on faith?
Quite so
There is zero evidence for this. Indeed looking at that depressing French poll the opposite is the case. The young are more radical, desire shariah law more, are more anti semitic than their parents. Etc
Bleak
Yes . Im pretty sure Malmesbury for example hasnt talked to many young muslims in Birmingham or Rochdale.
And you can do that as a robot?
Amazing how much AI is advancing.
Can you supply a list of names of the people you spoke to in Rochdale? Mr Khan of 43 Balmoral Avenue claims he never spoke to you.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
I'm sure that's true. I don't like any religions. Islam, I hope. is currently in a growing up phase.
If you're going to make your life around an irrational belief then I think you ought to give the rest of the world a good degree of space in terms of their beliefs. It doesn't turn out that way though.
What evidence is there that Islam is currently growing up? Or is it one of those irrational things you are believing on faith?
Quite so
There is zero evidence for this. Indeed looking at that depressing French poll the opposite is the case. The young are more radical, desire shariah law more, are more anti semitic than their parents. Etc
Bleak
Yes . Im pretty sure Malmesbury for example hasnt talked to many young muslims in Birmingham or Rochdale.
And you can do that as a robot?
Amazing how much AI is advancing.
Can you supply a list of names of the people you spoke to in Rochdale? Mr Khan of 43 Balmoral Avenue claims he never spoke to you.
Meanwhile, in Graunland, the horrifying realisation that one Tory Government is simply going to be replaced by another is dawning...
The House of Commons levelling up, housing and communities select committee puts English councils’ current financial gap at about £4bn a year, which could have been filled more than twice over by the money Jeremy Hunt used for that almost meaningless cut in national insurance. He seems to still think that councils must sink or swim: even more depressingly, he and his allies in the rightwing press have reprised old and stupid rhetoric about millions supposedly being wasted on “consultants” and “diversity schemes”.
And Labour? Last weekend, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was repeatedly asked by the Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips if she would fix councils’ crises once Labour was in power. But she would only offer her usual words about the awful problems she would inherit, and vague claims that changes to the planning system and increased business investment may eventually feed through to money for local services. I admire the optimism of people who think she is secretly preparing some kind of national rescue package, but I cannot quite shake off that eternally insightful Maya Angelou quotation: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the differences between the Conservatives and Labour (and the Lib Dems) are wafer thin, and principally concern fringe culture wars issues. When it comes to everything that matters, all they're really interested in is the preservation and inflation of asset wealth (principally residential property,) and endlessly jacking up the state pension to appease the grey vote. Running down and winding up everything else in the process of shoring up those causes is wholly acceptable to them.
The parties are functionally identical, and that means we'll be in a far worse state in five years' time than we are now. Watch.
Why do you give no credence to the idea that Labour are simply taking no unnecessary risks with an election around the corner and a 20 point poll lead?
That is an equally good explanation for their caution as your thesis that they aren't planning to change anything.
Because he is a one-dimensional bore who has his hypothesis and shapes all the evidence to fit, before writing the same post on here repeatedly, just using a few synonyms and moving a few words around.
Pigeon's motto is 'hope I die before I get old'.
Pete Townshend is 79.
Lord no, I'm happy to keep plodding along just as long as I'm in reasonable health and at least some of the people I care about are still in the land of the living. If I'm ever too ill or too lonely to enjoy life then that's the time to book the one way trip to Dignitas.
In broader societal terms, I don't feel particularly confident about the long term future because I have little faith left in the political system to effect meaningful and necessary change, but if I'm proven wrong I'll be delighted.
If I was a Jew I don’t think I’d feel safe in large parts of london - if I was wearing a skullcap or Star of David necklace, or walking into a synagogue or a Jewish school
Ditto Paris or any number of Western European cities
What a tragic thing we have done
First, most Jews in London do not wear identifying clothing or jewellery, and I doubt they see the inside of a synagogue between weddings and funerals (and bar/bat mitzvahs). Second, have Jewish schools reported an uptick in truancy as pupils cower under their kitchen tables? Have synagogue congregations fallen away? Or have you fallen for mischief-making again?
ETA Paris has been problematic for years, in a way London has not and is not.
I live about 200 yards from the Jewish museum in Camden (now sadly closed). I watched over the years as security there got tighter and more overt. By the end they sometimes had semi-permanent guards
As for london being safe for Jews you maybe missed this video
“A man just attacked Jewish people with a large knife in a Jewish neighbourhood of London. This is absolutely terrifying. Jews are under violent attack everywhere. What brave men holding him off and stopping him hurting anyone. @Shomrim”
i dont think things are that bad for jews here yet. talk about getting out is one thing actually doing it is another. I would say on antisemitism we are similar to germany in the 1920s. It is there percolating underground in private conversations and on social media but not yet at the stage where there is much overt discrimination or violence against Jews. However the Jews are right that antisemitism is much more rife now and I dont think that will change in the near future.
I really don't see much anti-semitism in London. Definitely not like 1920s Germany - I'm astonished you said that. There's obviously currently an upswing from the Muslims, but its just the nutters and the daft, and principally sparked by the current conflict. Some slight random crap from those that want to find an enemy and don't care who it is too.
Oh trust me if you talk to many muslims they soon become anti semtic not all but a very significant number.
PB is presuming that British Muslims are very unlike French Muslims
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
Thats a poll though. Im not sure it would necessarily be answered honestly given my anecdotal evidence talking to muslims is that many can quickly become antisemitic. And im pretty sure Ive talked to more muslims than yourself.
What!? You talk to Muslims and they say they're likely to swiftly be nasty people?
I’ve encountered quite a lot of casual anti Semitism in Muslim countries. And often from perfectly pleasant people
I reckon it is so common they don’t perceive it as wrong, as everyone else feels the same way, if they ever think about it
Same way Britain was casually racist in the 50s-70s
In a number of countries it was preached by the state - as an excuse for repression etc.
“The Evul Jews/Israelis will steal the country and are only The Heroic Leader(s) holds them back.”
And of course it is included in the Koran/hadith as well. Explicit Jew hatred
Which is ignored/interpreted by most in a different way. Bit like how even the churches have retconned chunks of the Old Testament.
I often find a poignant dissonance in Islamic Jew-hatred, the jew is despised as weak and foolish yet at the same time he is feared for being devious, clever and rich
Adolf Hitler had the same conflicted feelings. Maybe it is a part of all anti Semitism
Prejudice of all sorts have exactly the same conflicts.
Meanwhile, in Graunland, the horrifying realisation that one Tory Government is simply going to be replaced by another is dawning...
The House of Commons levelling up, housing and communities select committee puts English councils’ current financial gap at about £4bn a year, which could have been filled more than twice over by the money Jeremy Hunt used for that almost meaningless cut in national insurance. He seems to still think that councils must sink or swim: even more depressingly, he and his allies in the rightwing press have reprised old and stupid rhetoric about millions supposedly being wasted on “consultants” and “diversity schemes”.
And Labour? Last weekend, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was repeatedly asked by the Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips if she would fix councils’ crises once Labour was in power. But she would only offer her usual words about the awful problems she would inherit, and vague claims that changes to the planning system and increased business investment may eventually feed through to money for local services. I admire the optimism of people who think she is secretly preparing some kind of national rescue package, but I cannot quite shake off that eternally insightful Maya Angelou quotation: “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the differences between the Conservatives and Labour (and the Lib Dems) are wafer thin, and principally concern fringe culture wars issues. When it comes to everything that matters, all they're really interested in is the preservation and inflation of asset wealth (principally residential property,) and endlessly jacking up the state pension to appease the grey vote. Running down and winding up everything else in the process of shoring up those causes is wholly acceptable to them.
The parties are functionally identical, and that means we'll be in a far worse state in five years' time than we are now. Watch.
Why do you give no credence to the idea that Labour are simply taking no unnecessary risks with an election around the corner and a 20 point poll lead?
That is an equally good explanation for their caution as your thesis that they aren't planning to change anything.
Because it makes a great deal more sense than the notion that they are going to throw their manifesto into the recycling bin a week into their term and rediscover a taste for social democracy. If you can't argue the case for a meaningful programme of redistribution and investment when your opponents are as bad as this lot, then when can you?
The most likely scenario is that Labour means what it says and will play its term as a kind of mirror image of the Coalition Government: yet more austerity, though in this case practiced by Labour ministers whilst they pin the blame for the resultant suffering on the mistakes made by the previous Conservative administration.
The decay of the fabric of the state can only be repaired with truly heroic sums of money. Half the population (the poor, the young, working people on low to middle incomes) have already been bled white by a combination of inflation, taxation of their earnings, colossal rents/mortgages and austerity, and have little left to give. The other half (homeowners over the age of about 50, and the very wealthy) control the bulk of the nation's assets, but mostly believe that they have a God-given right not to be asked to pay for anything. The money can only come from the latter group but the politicians won't extract any loot from them, because (a) they are terrified of their power at the ballot box, and (b) they themselves mostly belong to this class, and the younger ones that aren't quite there yet are well-paid and have reasonable aspirations to join it.
The vague Huntreevesian guff about digging the country out of its malaise through "reform" and a magical return to rampant economic growth, if only we consent to put up with austerity for another thirty or forty years, disguises the bald truth: stagnation doesn't matter if the existing economic settlement acts as an engine for the redistribution of wealth upwards - through pensions, property price inflation and rents - and your people (the fellow members of your socio-economic class/favoured voter group) therefore continue to get richer, even as the rest of the country falls apart. Beneath all the high-blown rhetoric, this is the core prospectus that Government and Opposition will both be peddling come the election. It's nothing more than a contest to determine who can manage decline most efficiently, to the benefit of the already well-off.
There's nothing magical or mythical about a return to economic growth - it's just what happens when you don't tax, levy, and regulate it into extinction. The resentment against an age group that's managed to do slightly better out of the post 1997 economic shitshow (mainly due to investing in bricks and mortar, which hasn't declined in value the way everything else has) is daft. It's divide and rule.
The money needed to deal with the tsunami of need from elderly people, sick people, poverty stricken people and a decaying public infrastructure is not going to come from a radical libertarian program of deregulation and tax cuts. You might wish it were so, but it's not.
As for divide and rule, what do you think the last decade and a half has been all about?
Yes thats true. Especially with our poor productivity and demographics. Sadly there is a small group of people at the top with too much of the pie.
Comments
Palestinians killed by armed Israelis: 6,337
Israelis killed by armed Palestinians: 310 (three hundred and ten)
Every single thing he writes or says irritates me. He seems to be labouring under the impression he's a really insightful wag.
It's a mystery why they continue to employ him.
How many Americans had been killed in terrorist attacks between Jan 1990 and , oh I dunno, let’s go with a random date like Sep 10th 2001?
But when he really writes he really writes
That column on possible emigration is magnificently articulate, laced with a sharp and wistful Jewish wit
Read it!
Feel free to mock my crazy beliefs. But that is my honest position
Highlights
The main drivers of economic growth in the long run are working-age population growth and productivity growth
Both peaked in the ‘80s
The post-WWII demographics boom that led to strong labor force growth in the 60s-70s had exhausted its effects in the late 80s...
Alright, so long-run potential growth after the ‘80s started moving inexorably south.
So, how did we fix that ever since?
With debt, of course.
Healthy private sector balance sheets allowed for private sector debt expansion, and governments across the world started...
For the current system to thrive, incremental leverage must be accessible at ever lower real interest rates
Always
This ensures both the ‘‘affordability’’ of incrementally higher debt levels & the continuation of the wealth illusion paradigm
But inflation is now forcing Central Banks to keep rates higher for longer.
At 300-400% total debt/GDP, higher real yields are going to cause serious damage over time.
It seems we are pushing the limits, one way or another.
So, what's the end game?
https://x.com/MacroAlf/status/1769384398950973770?s=20
I just think he's a dick.
That is an equally good explanation for their caution as your thesis that they aren't planning to change anything.
Germany was so worried about trading links that the German railways made a special effort to get the final deliveries* of armour plate from the Skoda works in Czechoslovakia across Germany, for the U.K. in 1939.
*one of the long poles in rearmament was armour plate - especially the hardening equipment. This was recognised when British rearmament kicked off in 1932. So the British government placed orders to the limit in the U.K., specifically subsidised the building of more capacity and ordered abroad. To keep the advanced Vickers process for thick armour secret, this was for plates thinner than 6 inches.
"I'll remember you," says the loathsome pig Klopfer, menacingly.
"You should do. I'm well known."
I’ve got three days left in Colombia. I fly out of Bogotá at 4pm Wednesday
So I have to be in Bogotá by Wednesday, that’s certain
What do I do? Fly to bogota tomorrow morning a d spend 48 hours in the capital?
Trouble is bogota looks quite boring and the weather there is grey
Alternative: hire a car and race around this sunny and fascinating corner of Colombia - tayrona, Guajira, in a mad dash that stresses me out but I see lots of things and then fly to bogota Wednesday?
What would you do?
Apparently now it would have been off side .
If you're going to make your life around an irrational belief then I think you ought to give the rest of the world a good degree of space in terms of their beliefs. It doesn't turn out that way though.
Bogota has a rubbish climate.
As we know from the poll above, 17% of French Muslims admit they HATE Jews, about a third have a really bad view of Judaism, and almost half want to see the state of Israel eradicated
So almost half of French Muslims are seriously anti semitic in one way or another. Not great
Why is PB so sure that UK Muslims are completely different? I’d like to see some evidence
That is what I’m probably gonna do
Regarding perception, your own biases are clearly in evidence, as you praise Biden for having "bit the bullet and got America out" of Afghanistan, but had Trump been responsible, I think we all know you would have roundly condemned the event as an abandonment of the Afghans and an operational shambles.
If you actually ask women, and listen to them, the *planning* that goes on to get to the safety of the train station etc.
There’s a reason that many women see a car as particularly liberating.
January was flat but, in hindsight, I suspect we'll find out it wasn't as flat as it felt at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raizal
Covid fucked with the employment situation so everyone had to pay more to attract staff back and those bills are handed on to customers
A really average crappy motel room can now cost $250. See also restaurants and bars etc
The most likely scenario is that Labour means what it says and will play its term as a kind of mirror image of the Coalition Government: yet more austerity, though in this case practiced by Labour ministers whilst they pin the blame for the resultant suffering on the mistakes made by the previous Conservative administration.
The decay of the fabric of the state can only be repaired with truly heroic sums of money. Half the population (the poor, the young, working people on low to middle incomes) have already been bled white by a combination of inflation, taxation of their earnings, colossal rents/mortgages and austerity, and have little left to give. The other half (homeowners over the age of about 50, and the very wealthy) control the bulk of the nation's assets, but mostly believe that they have a God-given right not to be asked to pay for anything. The money can only come from the latter group but the politicians won't extract any loot from them, because (a) they are terrified of their power at the ballot box, and (b) they themselves mostly belong to this class, and the younger ones that aren't quite there yet are well-paid and have reasonable aspirations to join it.
The vague Huntreevesian guff about digging the country out of its malaise through "reform" and a magical return to rampant economic growth, if only we consent to put up with austerity for another thirty or forty years, disguises the bald truth: stagnation doesn't matter if the existing economic settlement acts as an engine for the redistribution of wealth upwards - through pensions, property price inflation and rents - and your people (the fellow members of your socio-economic class/favoured voter group) therefore continue to get richer, even as the rest of the country falls apart. Beneath all the high-blown rhetoric, this is the core prospectus that Government and Opposition will both be peddling come the election. It's nothing more than a contest to determine who can manage decline most efficiently, to the benefit of the already well-off.
If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.
I reckon it is so common they don’t perceive it as wrong, as everyone else feels the same way, if they ever think about it
Same way Britain was casually racist in the 50s-70s
“The Evul Jews/Israelis will steal the country and are only The Heroic Leader(s) holds them back.”
The Muslim world has a really quite strong unity. I guess in the way the Christian world did once. Many (perhaps most) Muslims can be swayed by ideas circulating within their faith which they really wouldn't have anything to do with otherwise.
Adolf Hitler had the same conflicted feelings. Maybe it is a part of all anti Semitism
There is zero evidence for this. Indeed looking at that depressing French poll the opposite is the case. The young are more radical, desire shariah law more, are more anti semitic than their parents. Etc
Bleak
life?
But when he got onto the Jews he became tediously obnoxious - anti semitic. He did this several times and was keen on his idea that the Jews are stupid - so in the end I’d had enough and I showed him the IQ data: ie Jews are much smarter than the average European or Turk - by about 15 IQ points
In the end he couldn’t deny the data and he got quite angry. Like this was yet another trick the Jews were playing on him. Being clever
Could have been released last week, of course.
Pete Townshend is 79.
1. Vladimir Putin wins with 87% of the votes
2. Nikolai Kharitonov (4.6%)
3. Vladislav Davankov (4.2%)
4. Leonid Slutsky (3.0%)
Quite a strong mandate there lol
https://x.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1769425312243167279?s=20
It does however perhaps bode ill for the longer term if Labour are simply keeping their more radical plans well hidden away and intend to follow a very different set of policies once they are in power.
#magicofthecup
As for divide and rule, what do you think the last decade and a half has been all about?
In broader societal terms, I don't feel particularly confident about the long term future because I have little faith left in the political system to effect meaningful and necessary change, but if I'm proven wrong I'll be delighted.
"Make Me Smile" is surely an immortal pop song but I always rather liked one of the more obscure singles, "Mr Raffles". Here it is played live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZN87RO1uiE&ab_channel=greyman45