Data centers do not create thousands of jobs - once built it’s now got to the point that you don’t need to touch them until you deprecate the whole Centre and replace everything 5 years later
Nonetheless, great spin from Taz.
Also: *where* are the jobs being quoted? If they are including the production of the grey boxes full of transistors and ICs then they could be made in Korea for all one knows. Won't do anything for the sweetie shop on the corner from the main road to the industrial estate.
Afternoon everyone. When this happened a week ago, along came two polls to mess it up but this time I think it will stand:
As of today 5 consecutive opinion polls have been published with Labour leads of 20%+ which is the first time this sequence has occurred since last September. The steady trend away from the Conservatives continues. For Rishi ‘things can only get worser’
This is silly. There's no huge change in the lead, and as soon as one of the pollsters who report a smaller lead than the other firms releases a new poll then your pattern will be broken.
If Opinium, or Savanta, release a poll with a >20% lead then that would be a change and would indicate a new pattern.
I made no great claims about it. I merely noted that it’s the first time since last September that 5 consecutive polls have given Labour a 20%+ lead.
So I don’t think it is “silly”. Sometimes when the pattern begins to form it takes a while for everyone to see it. Put more empirically, the Conservatives dropped another 2% in March. https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html
I would just comment that the polls seem remarkably steady with little overall change and Labour about 20% ahead
I see no reason for them to change before the election is called in the autumn
Hi Big G.
Based on recent polling, the continuing slide in their support, and the weakness of Sunak I think this Conservative slide is quite possibly going to continue.
There will be a floor of conservative support and the key, as it always has been, is the effect Reform will have on that support in a GE
I mean, Given that you would imagine that Sunak and his wife will vote for themselves, the floor is 2 votes nationally. At which point I’ll take the charge of being silly.
More sensibly, what if we are wrong about this and there is no floor to their slide this side of the election?
It did happen in Canada.
Make that 4 votes as my wife and I would vote for Sunak
Why?
Why not
Okay, but why? You spend much of your time on here saying we need a change of government. Yet you plan to vote for the government.
Odd.
Not really
I simply do not trust Starmer not to be taken left once in power, the Lib Dems are invisible, I do not support Plaid, so conservative is my natural home whilst they are led by Sunak
If Braverman, Johnson or Truss took over I would be politically homeless and would have to abstain
It is of no consequence anyway for GE24, as Labour will trounce the conservative in our constituency
Why do you assume Starmer will be taken left - he will have such a majority that his opposition will be within the Labour party and it will be coming from whatever direction he doesn't personally taks...
A loopy Liz comeback as LOTO really would take the Tories into the wilderness for a decade...
She's be William Hague and IDS combined
I think it’s almost a given that they will be in the political wilderness for a decade. I’m increasingly thinking it will be 20 years before anyone in this country dares trust them again with the keys to No. 10.
People will look back on these as the Horror Years. Short of WWIII, which may yet happen, almost everything that could go wrong, did.
I’m still not entirely convinced that “The Conservative and Unionist Party” brand is going to survive. When a right wing party takes office again I could very much see it being under a different badge.
Nah, they're like cockroaches. They'll survive and come back. They always do.
.
Possibly.
Though I’ve not seen a party destroy itself quite so convincingly as the Tories in the last 4 years.
I do think the brand is shot, and it’ll take more than Cameroony trees and huskies and mood music to alter that now.
I think many thought that about Labour when Corbyn was "leader". All forgotten now of course. Well, until they get into power then many will remember that though the Tories have been shit recently, Labour always manages to outperform in general in it's incredible inability to run the mythological whelk stall.
True, but Labour had an advantage in that there will always be a bedrock of die hard support on the left that identifies with the “brand” and “movement” to keep the Labour Party alive in some guise or other, even if in disagreement with the leadership or policies.
Just anecdotally, I admit, I think there’s a lot of people who would have identified as Tory who are politically homeless now and will take a lot of convincing to vote for them again. Entirely possible they might, in time and with new leadership, but the way western politics is going we are seeing a realignment on the right. And there are a lot of voters in the Red Wall etc who may be completely turned off by the Tory brand now but who could easily drift towards a new right wing alliance.
I used to be a Conservative activist of the very centrist variety. I stopped voting Tory when TMay started to pretend to be a hard Brexiter. I was even more repulsed by the joint comedy act of Johnson and Truss, both of whom should never have been allowed to get anywhere near high office. I will probably vote Tory at the next election because I fear the damage that Labour with a big majority will do.
As for the future, a lot will depend on how much of a pasting the Tories get. If the huge Labour majority fails to materialise and Mordaunt becomes leader (assuming she does not lose her seat) then she might reverse things. She would look pretty good to the public in contrast to boring old SKS if things get tough for him.
A week is a long time....etc.
One of the problems the Conservatives seem set to have is that right-of-centre Brits are divided into two groups. One group thinks 2010-15 was OK really, and everything since has been a downward slope followed by utter collapse. The other group hated the coalition years, didn't think much of TMexPM, and would like a repeat of the good bits of 2019-24, only this time with feeling. (I hope I'm being fair there- if someone wants to reframe the characterisation from the other side, be my guest.)
Unless someone can get both those groups back in the same tent, it's going to be hard to assemble an election-winning coalition. And right now, they don't understand each other and can't stand each other.
More likely than them coming together is we move even further away from left-right economic splits and you get a left-right authoritian/liberal split instead. Farage will be the leader of the right, and will get back to 30% fairly easily but reliant on cock ups from a Labour government to progress any further than that.
A loopy Liz comeback as LOTO really would take the Tories into the wilderness for a decade...
She's be William Hague and IDS combined
I think it’s almost a given that they will be in the political wilderness for a decade. I’m increasingly thinking it will be 20 years before anyone in this country dares trust them again with the keys to No. 10.
People will look back on these as the Horror Years. Short of WWIII, which may yet happen, almost everything that could go wrong, did.
I’m still not entirely convinced that “The Conservative and Unionist Party” brand is going to survive. When a right wing party takes office again I could very much see it being under a different badge.
Nah, they're like cockroaches. They'll survive and come back. They always do.
.
Possibly.
Though I’ve not seen a party destroy itself quite so convincingly as the Tories in the last 4 years.
I do think the brand is shot, and it’ll take more than Cameroony trees and huskies and mood music to alter that now.
I think many thought that about Labour when Corbyn was "leader". All forgotten now of course. Well, until they get into power then many will remember that though the Tories have been shit recently, Labour always manages to outperform in general in it's incredible inability to run the mythological whelk stall.
True, but Labour had an advantage in that there will always be a bedrock of die hard support on the left that identifies with the “brand” and “movement” to keep the Labour Party alive in some guise or other, even if in disagreement with the leadership or policies.
Just anecdotally, I admit, I think there’s a lot of people who would have identified as Tory who are politically homeless now and will take a lot of convincing to vote for them again. Entirely possible they might, in time and with new leadership, but the way western politics is going we are seeing a realignment on the right. And there are a lot of voters in the Red Wall etc who may be completely turned off by the Tory brand now but who could easily drift towards a new right wing alliance.
I used to be a Conservative activist of the very centrist variety. I stopped voting Tory when TMay started to pretend to be a hard Brexiter. I was even more repulsed by the joint comedy act of Johnson and Truss, both of whom should never have been allowed to get anywhere near high office. I will probably vote Tory at the next election because I fear the damage that Labour with a big majority will do.
As for the future, a lot will depend on how much of a pasting the Tories get. If the huge Labour majority fails to materialise and Mordaunt becomes leader (assuming she does not lose her seat) then she might reverse things. She would look pretty good to the public in contrast to boring old SKS if things get tough for him.
A week is a long time....etc.
One of the problems the Conservatives seem set to have is that right-of-centre Brits are divided into two groups. One group thinks 2010-15 was OK really, and everything since has been a downward slope followed by utter collapse. The other group hated the coalition years, didn't think much of TMexPM, and would like a repeat of the good bits of 2019-24, only this time with feeling. (I hope I'm being fair there- if someone wants to reframe the characterisation from the other side, be my guest.)
Unless someone can get both those groups back in the same tent, it's going to be hard to assemble an election-winning coalition. And right now, they don't understand each other and can't stand each other.
I'm at a loss as to how anyone thinks 2010-15 or 2019-24 were good periods. both have been periods of destruction of various parts of this country...
Heck the last decent period of Government was 1997 to 2008 where projects such as Sure Start ensured all children had a decent start. A recent report showed how badly that's been lost..
A loopy Liz comeback as LOTO really would take the Tories into the wilderness for a decade...
She's be William Hague and IDS combined
I think it’s almost a given that they will be in the political wilderness for a decade. I’m increasingly thinking it will be 20 years before anyone in this country dares trust them again with the keys to No. 10.
People will look back on these as the Horror Years. Short of WWIII, which may yet happen, almost everything that could go wrong, did.
I’m still not entirely convinced that “The Conservative and Unionist Party” brand is going to survive. When a right wing party takes office again I could very much see it being under a different badge.
Nah, they're like cockroaches. They'll survive and come back. They always do.
Much like the Labour Party, I guess.
The Labour Party have come close to two existential threats in my lifetime. The SDP (which turned into a false dawn) and Corbyn. The long-Corbyn threat was very real. Had Johnson not utterly soiled himself after the Hartlepool by election we could be looking at another landslide.
The cards were suggesting a mad- bastard takeover by the militant left as Starmer teetered on the brink.
A loopy Liz comeback as LOTO really would take the Tories into the wilderness for a decade...
She's be William Hague and IDS combined
I think it’s almost a given that they will be in the political wilderness for a decade. I’m increasingly thinking it will be 20 years before anyone in this country dares trust them again with the keys to No. 10.
People will look back on these as the Horror Years. Short of WWIII, which may yet happen, almost everything that could go wrong, did.
I’m still not entirely convinced that “The Conservative and Unionist Party” brand is going to survive. When a right wing party takes office again I could very much see it being under a different badge.
Nah, they're like cockroaches. They'll survive and come back. They always do.
Much like the Labour Party, I guess.
The Labour Party have come close to two existential threats in my lifetime. The SDP (which turned into a false dawn) and Corbyn. The long-Corbyn threat was very real. Had Johnson not utterly soiled himself after the Hartlepool by election we could be looking at another landslide.
The cards were suggesting a mad- bastard takeover by the militant left as Starmer teetered on the brink.
Which Policies of the Corbyn era were "militant left"?
A loopy Liz comeback as LOTO really would take the Tories into the wilderness for a decade...
She's be William Hague and IDS combined
I think it’s almost a given that they will be in the political wilderness for a decade. I’m increasingly thinking it will be 20 years before anyone in this country dares trust them again with the keys to No. 10.
People will look back on these as the Horror Years. Short of WWIII, which may yet happen, almost everything that could go wrong, did.
I’m still not entirely convinced that “The Conservative and Unionist Party” brand is going to survive. When a right wing party takes office again I could very much see it being under a different badge.
Nah, they're like cockroaches. They'll survive and come back. They always do.
Much like the Labour Party, I guess.
The Labour Party have come close to two existential threats in my lifetime. The SDP (which turned into a false dawn) and Corbyn. The long-Corbyn threat was very real. Had Johnson not utterly soiled himself after the Hartlepool by election we could be looking at another landslide.
The cards were suggesting a mad- bastard takeover by the militant left as Starmer teetered on the brink.
Which Policies of the Corbyn era were "militant left"?
Brexit for one. Despite his Remain claim.
My point was when Starmer fell, your lot would have installed Long Bailey or Burgon. There are even madder ones out there that I have successfully forgotten. Oh no, I've just remembered one. Williamson.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
Foreign policy historians will judge the Biden Doctrine as having been quite extraordinary, in somehow having completely forgotten the hard fought lessons of the value of deterrence.
I read some here praising Cameron this morning but I consider his comments an embarrassment. Total dispensation of deterrence in favour of adopting a supposedly zero risk approach to escalation. Which of course over time ends up achieving the exact opposite.
Yes it’s a perilous moment. Because deterrence becomes more expensive (in all senses of the word) the later it’s left. I never dreamed I’d say it 20 years ago but John Bolton has been by far the most sensible commentator on this crisis.
Afternoon everyone. When this happened a week ago, along came two polls to mess it up but this time I think it will stand:
As of today 5 consecutive opinion polls have been published with Labour leads of 20%+ which is the first time this sequence has occurred since last September. The steady trend away from the Conservatives continues. For Rishi ‘things can only get worser’
This is silly. There's no huge change in the lead, and as soon as one of the pollsters who report a smaller lead than the other firms releases a new poll then your pattern will be broken.
If Opinium, or Savanta, release a poll with a >20% lead then that would be a change and would indicate a new pattern.
I made no great claims about it. I merely noted that it’s the first time since last September that 5 consecutive polls have given Labour a 20%+ lead.
So I don’t think it is “silly”. Sometimes when the pattern begins to form it takes a while for everyone to see it. Put more empirically, the Conservatives dropped another 2% in March. https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html
I would just comment that the polls seem remarkably steady with little overall change and Labour about 20% ahead
I see no reason for them to change before the election is called in the autumn
Hi Big G.
Based on recent polling, the continuing slide in their support, and the weakness of Sunak I think this Conservative slide is quite possibly going to continue.
There will be a floor of conservative support and the key, as it always has been, is the effect Reform will have on that support in a GE
I mean, Given that you would imagine that Sunak and his wife will vote for themselves, the floor is 2 votes nationally. At which point I’ll take the charge of being silly.
More sensibly, what if we are wrong about this and there is no floor to their slide this side of the election?
It did happen in Canada.
Make that 4 votes as my wife and I would vote for Sunak
Why?
Why not
Okay, but why? You spend much of your time on here saying we need a change of government. Yet you plan to vote for the government.
Odd.
Not really
I simply do not trust Starmer not to be taken left once in power, the Lib Dems are invisible, I do not support Plaid, so conservative is my natural home whilst they are led by Sunak
If Braverman, Johnson or Truss took over I would be politically homeless and would have to abstain
It is of no consequence anyway for GE24, as Labour will trounce the conservative in our constituency
And that is why the Conservatives will not do as badly as the polls suggest. There is always a surprisingly large group of people who, however much they loathe what it does in practice, and whatever they might tell pollsters, can never bring themselves to do anything but vote Conservative.
Afternoon everyone. When this happened a week ago, along came two polls to mess it up but this time I think it will stand:
As of today 5 consecutive opinion polls have been published with Labour leads of 20%+ which is the first time this sequence has occurred since last September. The steady trend away from the Conservatives continues. For Rishi ‘things can only get worser’
This is silly. There's no huge change in the lead, and as soon as one of the pollsters who report a smaller lead than the other firms releases a new poll then your pattern will be broken.
If Opinium, or Savanta, release a poll with a >20% lead then that would be a change and would indicate a new pattern.
I made no great claims about it. I merely noted that it’s the first time since last September that 5 consecutive polls have given Labour a 20%+ lead.
So I don’t think it is “silly”. Sometimes when the pattern begins to form it takes a while for everyone to see it. Put more empirically, the Conservatives dropped another 2% in March. https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html
I would just comment that the polls seem remarkably steady with little overall change and Labour about 20% ahead
I see no reason for them to change before the election is called in the autumn
Hi Big G.
Based on recent polling, the continuing slide in their support, and the weakness of Sunak I think this Conservative slide is quite possibly going to continue.
There will be a floor of conservative support and the key, as it always has been, is the effect Reform will have on that support in a GE
I mean, Given that you would imagine that Sunak and his wife will vote for themselves, the floor is 2 votes nationally. At which point I’ll take the charge of being silly.
More sensibly, what if we are wrong about this and there is no floor to their slide this side of the election?
It did happen in Canada.
Make that 4 votes as my wife and I would vote for Sunak
Why?
Why not
Okay, but why? You spend much of your time on here saying we need a change of government. Yet you plan to vote for the government.
Odd.
Not really
I simply do not trust Starmer not to be taken left once in power, the Lib Dems are invisible, I do not support Plaid, so conservative is my natural home whilst they are led by Sunak
If Braverman, Johnson or Truss took over I would be politically homeless and would have to abstain
It is of no consequence anyway for GE24, as Labour will trounce the conservative in our constituency
Why do you assume Starmer will be taken left - he will have such a majority that his opposition will be within the Labour party and it will be coming from whatever direction he doesn't personally taks...
Angela Rayner and the unions proposals are taking labour left and she has a big influence on policy
A loopy Liz comeback as LOTO really would take the Tories into the wilderness for a decade...
She's be William Hague and IDS combined
I think it’s almost a given that they will be in the political wilderness for a decade. I’m increasingly thinking it will be 20 years before anyone in this country dares trust them again with the keys to No. 10.
People will look back on these as the Horror Years. Short of WWIII, which may yet happen, almost everything that could go wrong, did.
I’m still not entirely convinced that “The Conservative and Unionist Party” brand is going to survive. When a right wing party takes office again I could very much see it being under a different badge.
Nah, they're like cockroaches. They'll survive and come back. They always do.
Much like the Labour Party, I guess.
The Labour Party have come close to two existential threats in my lifetime. The SDP (which turned into a false dawn) and Corbyn. The long-Corbyn threat was very real. Had Johnson not utterly soiled himself after the Hartlepool by election we could be looking at another landslide.
The cards were suggesting a mad- bastard takeover by the militant left as Starmer teetered on the brink.
Which Policies of the Corbyn era were "militant left"?
Brexit for one. Despite his Remain claim.
My point was when Starmer fell, your lot would have installed Long Bailey or Burgon. There are even madder ones out there that I have successfully forgotten. Oh no, I've just remembered one. Williamson.
If Starmer had gone I think though would have been fairly unlikely (though less impossible than now). It would've been Nandy or Rayner. The median Labour member went off Corbynism when it got hammered at the ballot box, while still holding reservations about the party's right.
So it would most likely have been someone from the soft left who knew how to tickle members' bellies while also holding some plausibility in talking to the country. I'm not sure RLB would've run again anyway, and Burgon is a laughing stock even among his own faction of the party.
Now, if they'd have lost a General Election after that, then all bets would be off.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
I greatly dislike Netanyahu and think he is disastrous for Israel, but on this narrow point the Israelis probably don't have much choice. They can't allow a big nasty country like Iran, on the threshold of nukes, to lob 300 missiles at them without any comeback, especially when they know Iran wants Israel destroyed. It means Iran could do more missile attacks every week, making life in Israel intolerable, destroying the economy, making everyone emigrate. Israel has to deter Tehran NOW
It's sod all to do with Bibi, this time
However the Israelis have to get it exactly right. Enough to give Tehran a telling slap, but not so much that it means Iran must strike back, because that is a certain route to a terrible war. I am not sure they can be that exact. Which is why this is so perilous
Victoria Atkins tearing into the extreme trans sex change for kids lobby in Commons at moment.
Indeed. You can see the way this is going. It's massive scandal and a matter of time until individuals sue the NHS over the treatment given the first place (hence a double whammy for taxpayers).
Joanna Cherry talking a lot of sense too ('NHS has be ideologically captured and it must never happen again').
Amount of unfunded tax cuts in Truss's minibudget: £45bn
Amount that the Treasury has spent so far paying the Bank of England's losses on its disastrous bond selloff: £50bn, could be further £40bn spent this year.
Amount of PBers furiously wanking themselves off about how disastrously awful Truss was and what personality disorders she must have not to realise it and go into permanent hiding: 534
Amount of PBers questioning the Bank's actions and the Treasury's bizarre policy of indemnifying them: 3
Number of contributors who really don't seem to follow how quantative tightening works: 1.
Let me try to explain (and anyone who thinks I have got this wrong, please chip in).
These gilts were magicked into existence with a coupon or right to obtain interest payments (which the government didn't pay because they were bought by the Bank). At the time this increased the money supply available to the government and in the economy and helped keep us out of recession by boosting demand. Now, we have the inflationary aspect of this to be dealt with so we are looking to have some quantitative tightening by bringing money into the Bank. So the Bank wants to take cash out of the system by selling these bonds into the market and soak up some of the cash (mainly from pension funds) _ that would otherwise be bouncing about in the economy.
Because interest rates have gone up since the bonds were issued their value has reduced below their nominal price. Basically a bond offering a return of 0.5% is worth less if the current bonds are offering 4% or so. How much less will depend upon how long the bond has until maturity when it is worth its nominal value. So if the Bank sells these off they make a "loss" but it is not a real loss because they never paid for them in the first place with real money.
The " loss" is made up of magic money. It doesn't use taxpayers money. It reflects the difference in value between the lower gilt on these bonds than on those currently being issued and it will gradually disappear as the bond goes to maturity. Comparing this with the fiscal shortfall that Truss created by reducing both the tax take and increasing public spending by writing blank cheques on gas prices is simply comparing apples and pears.
Victoria Atkins tearing into the extreme trans sex change for kids lobby in Commons at moment.
Indeed. You can see the way this is going. It's massive scandal and a matter of time until the NHS is sued over the treatment it gave in the first place (a double whammy for taxpayers).
Joanna Cherry talking a lot of sense too ('NHS has be ideologically captured and it must never happen again').
The Cass report is a game changer and I expect many parents will be taking on the NHS and education establishments over the treatment of their children without their consent
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
Foreign policy historians will judge the Biden Doctrine as having been quite extraordinary, in somehow having completely forgotten the hard fought lessons of the value of deterrence.
I read some here praising Cameron this morning but I consider his comments an embarrassment. Total dispensation of deterrence in favour of adopting a supposedly zero risk approach to escalation. Which of course over time ends up achieving the exact opposite.
Yes it’s a perilous moment. Because deterrence becomes more expensive (in all senses of the word) the later it’s left. I never dreamed I’d say it 20 years ago but John Bolton has been by far the most sensible commentator on this crisis.
I'd say the problem with this argument is if the Iranians are also practicing 'deterrence'. Israel blew up their embassy so to deter this happening again they launched missiles & drones.
If both parties are following this doctrine why does escalating deterrence not just lead to war?
For me Bolton is best ignored. The man has been wanting and advocating for a war with Iran for 30+ years.
Without trying to sound like Leon, Bibi is going to take out this nuclear installation isn't he? Double bubble for him, he reduces the threat of an Iranian nuclear attack and kills thousands of Arabs too. Which according to Max Hastings's book on Bibi's brother, is something that floats his boat.
A loopy Liz comeback as LOTO really would take the Tories into the wilderness for a decade...
She's be William Hague and IDS combined
I think it’s almost a given that they will be in the political wilderness for a decade. I’m increasingly thinking it will be 20 years before anyone in this country dares trust them again with the keys to No. 10.
People will look back on these as the Horror Years. Short of WWIII, which may yet happen, almost everything that could go wrong, did.
I’m still not entirely convinced that “The Conservative and Unionist Party” brand is going to survive. When a right wing party takes office again I could very much see it being under a different badge.
Nah, they're like cockroaches. They'll survive and come back. They always do.
Much like the Labour Party, I guess.
The Labour Party have come close to two existential threats in my lifetime. The SDP (which turned into a false dawn) and Corbyn. The long-Corbyn threat was very real. Had Johnson not utterly soiled himself after the Hartlepool by election we could be looking at another landslide.
The cards were suggesting a mad- bastard takeover by the militant left as Starmer teetered on the brink.
Which Policies of the Corbyn era were "militant left"?
Brexit for one. Despite his Remain claim.
My point was when Starmer fell, your lot would have installed Long Bailey or Burgon. There are even madder ones out there that I have successfully forgotten. Oh no, I've just remembered one. Williamson.
If Starmer had gone I think though would have been fairly unlikely (though less impossible than now). It would've been Nandy or Rayner. The median Labour member went off Corbynism when it got hammered at the ballot box, while still holding reservations about the party's right.
So it would most likely have been someone from the soft left who knew how to tickle members' bellies while also holding some plausibility in talking to the country. I'm not sure RLB would've run again anyway, and Burgon is a laughing stock even among his own faction of the party.
Now, if they'd have lost a General Election after that, then all bets would be off.
Yes, the soft left is where Labour is going next after Starmer and Reeves. 2 or 3 years in they'll start wanting a bigger say. Not some internal factional coup like the left left might attempt, but just a ramp up in internal pressure and a bit of briefing. The likes of Nandy, Miliband, Burnham.
I don't fear the soft left. They may come up with some policies that don't work or are inefficient but some of what they have to offer may very well be what this country needs.
Without trying to sound like Leon, Bibi is going to take out this nuclear installation isn't he? Double bubble for him, he reduces the threat of an Iranian nuclear attack and kills thousands of Arabs too. Which according to Max Hastings's book on Bibi's brother, is something that floats his boat.
They might attack the nuclear facilities, but they are a very difficult target. I am also sure they will TRY and minimise casualties, that does not mean they will succeed
I reckon the chances of an all out Israel-Iran war are now greater than 50%
Data centers do not create thousands of jobs - once built it’s now got to the point that you don’t need to touch them until you deprecate the whole Centre and replace everything 5 years later
My bad. Misquoted the article. Says hundreds.
Still, nice to see something potentially happening there.
For which read 200-300 jobs max - and its manual replace this machine with this replacement machine, connect a few cables and press a button work.
Which will be above minimum wage but won’t be massively paid
I will be curious to see if anyone takes it - the previous attempts up north have all failed for connectivity reasons, the cost is in the hardware so you may as well pay more in rents/ wages as in the scheme of things that’s inconsequential
Owned by U.S. venture cap. It does at least illustrate the benefit of access to a large energy supply with potential rapidly to expand. That's unusual in Europe at the moment.
Victoria Atkins tearing into the extreme trans sex change for kids lobby in Commons at moment.
Indeed. You can see the way this is going. It's massive scandal and a matter of time until the NHS is sued over the treatment it gave in the first place (a double whammy for taxpayers).
Joanna Cherry talking a lot of sense too ('NHS has be ideologically captured and it must never happen again').
The Cass report is a game changer and I expect many parents will be taking on the NHS and education establishments over the treatment of their children without their consent
How would you feel as a parent (or grandparent) about charities (with donations inflated by government Gift Aid) who send out breast-binders to children without the parents' knowledge?
Victoria Atkins tearing into the extreme trans sex change for kids lobby in Commons at moment.
Indeed. You can see the way this is going. It's massive scandal and a matter of time until the NHS is sued over the treatment it gave in the first place (a double whammy for taxpayers).
Joanna Cherry talking a lot of sense too ('NHS has be ideologically captured and it must never happen again').
The Cass report is a game changer and I expect many parents will be taking on the NHS and education establishments over the treatment of their children without their consent
Have you read the actual report? That's not what Cass said at all.
It is a far more interesting and nuanced report than is being suggested by the usual suspects.
"Trump appeared to be asleep. His head would fall down… He didn’t pay attention to a note his lawyer passed him. His jaw kept falling on his chest and his mouth kept going slack".
The chances of a Trump health issue are underappreciated.
Maybe the only way all-out Israeli-Iranian war can be stopped is if America threatens Iran with total nuclear annihilation unless they back down. America has the First Strike capability to do that. But jesus what a fucking moment
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
I greatly dislike Netanyahu and think he is disastrous for Israel, but on this narrow point the Israelis probably don't have much choice. They can't allow a big nasty country like Iran, on the threshold of nukes, to lob 300 missiles at them without any comeback, especially when they know Iran wants Israel destroyed. It means Iran could do more missile attacks every week, making life in Israel intolerable, destroying the economy, making everyone emigrate. Israel has to deter Tehran NOW
It's sod all to do with Bibi, this time
However the Israelis have to get it exactly right. Enough to give Tehran a telling slap, but not so much that it means Iran must strike back, because that is a certain route to a terrible war. I am not sure they can be that exact. Which is why this is so perilous
But surely the way this works is that however measured the retaliation, the other side will deem it necessary to strike back?
As if to prove my point, it would be hard to conceive a less effective retaliation than the one the Iranians launched on Saturday, yet the Israelis feel they must retaliate back.
Without trying to sound like Leon, Bibi is going to take out this nuclear installation isn't he? Double bubble for him, he reduces the threat of an Iranian nuclear attack and kills thousands of Arabs too. Which according to Max Hastings's book on Bibi's brother, is something that floats his boat.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
Foreign policy historians will judge the Biden Doctrine as having been quite extraordinary, in somehow having completely forgotten the hard fought lessons of the value of deterrence.
I read some here praising Cameron this morning but I consider his comments an embarrassment. Total dispensation of deterrence in favour of adopting a supposedly zero risk approach to escalation. Which of course over time ends up achieving the exact opposite.
Yes it’s a perilous moment. Because deterrence becomes more expensive (in all senses of the word) the later it’s left. I never dreamed I’d say it 20 years ago but John Bolton has been by far the most sensible commentator on this crisis.
I'd say the problem with this argument is if the Iranians are also practicing 'deterrence'. Israel blew up their embassy so to deter this happening again they launched missiles & drones.
If both parties are following this doctrine why does escalating deterrence not just lead to war?
For me Bolton is best ignored. The man has been wanting and advocating for a war with Iran for 30+ years.
Since Biden assumed power, Iran has used its proxies to effectively close the Suez, has armed Russia’s genocide, has almost certainly sponsored a brutal and indiscriminate attack on civilians, moves closer to acquiring the Bomb in defiance on non proliferation obligations and now broken the sovereignty of its immediate neighbours’ airspace to launch hundreds of armaments at Israel. Not to mention it’s shenanigans impounding commercial ships.
It really shouldn’t be that difficult to see there’s a problem here and that Biden’s Non Escalation doctrine has been an abject failure.
Without trying to sound like Leon, Bibi is going to take out this nuclear installation isn't he? Double bubble for him, he reduces the threat of an Iranian nuclear attack and kills thousands of Arabs too. Which according to Max Hastings's book on Bibi's brother, is something that floats his boat.
They might attack the nuclear facilities, but they are a very difficult target. I am also sure they will TRY and minimise casualties, that does not mean they will succeed
I reckon the chances of an all out Israel-Iran war are now greater than 50%
If escalation keeps Bibi out of jail, it's a punt he will take.
Amount of unfunded tax cuts in Truss's minibudget: £45bn
Amount that the Treasury has spent so far paying the Bank of England's losses on its disastrous bond selloff: £50bn, could be further £40bn spent this year.
Amount of PBers furiously wanking themselves off about how disastrously awful Truss was and what personality disorders she must have not to realise it and go into permanent hiding: 534
Amount of PBers questioning the Bank's actions and the Treasury's bizarre policy of indemnifying them: 3
I have worked in banking/financial services for over a decade, during the Liz Truss premiership it is the closest we came to activating Project Dynamo which was anticipating the full scale disaster for the UK financially. The Bank of England intervention stopped disaster, we were perilously close to the pension funds collapsing.
Even Covid-19 didn't trigger that.
If Liz Truss was so awesome why did she panic, sack her Chancellor, and reversed her policies?
"Trump appeared to be asleep. His head would fall down… He didn’t pay attention to a note his lawyer passed him. His jaw kept falling on his chest and his mouth kept going slack".
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
I greatly dislike Netanyahu and think he is disastrous for Israel, but on this narrow point the Israelis probably don't have much choice. They can't allow a big nasty country like Iran, on the threshold of nukes, to lob 300 missiles at them without any comeback, especially when they know Iran wants Israel destroyed. It means Iran could do more missile attacks every week, making life in Israel intolerable, destroying the economy, making everyone emigrate. Israel has to deter Tehran NOW
It's sod all to do with Bibi, this time
However the Israelis have to get it exactly right. Enough to give Tehran a telling slap, but not so much that it means Iran must strike back, because that is a certain route to a terrible war. I am not sure they can be that exact. Which is why this is so perilous
But surely the way this works is that however measured the retaliation, the other side will deem it necessary to strike back?
As if to prove my point, it would be hard to conceive a less effective retaliation than the one the Iranians launched on Saturday, yet the Israelis feel they must retaliate back.
That's why I think an all-out war is now more likely than not, this is the logic of war once it gets going. The guns of August and all that
"Trump appeared to be asleep. His head would fall down… He didn’t pay attention to a note his lawyer passed him. His jaw kept falling on his chest and his mouth kept going slack".
The chances of a Trump health issue are underappreciated.
I'd appreciate Trump having a serious health issue tbh - it would make the world a slightly safer place.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
I greatly dislike Netanyahu and think he is disastrous for Israel, but on this narrow point the Israelis probably don't have much choice. They can't allow a big nasty country like Iran, on the threshold of nukes, to lob 300 missiles at them without any comeback, especially when they know Iran wants Israel destroyed. It means Iran could do more missile attacks every week, making life in Israel intolerable, destroying the economy, making everyone emigrate. Israel has to deter Tehran NOW
It's sod all to do with Bibi, this time
However the Israelis have to get it exactly right. Enough to give Tehran a telling slap, but not so much that it means Iran must strike back, because that is a certain route to a terrible war. I am not sure they can be that exact. Which is why this is so perilous
But surely the way this works is that however measured the retaliation, the other side will deem it necessary to strike back?
As if to prove my point, it would be hard to conceive a less effective retaliation than the one the Iranians launched on Saturday, yet the Israelis feel they must retaliate back.
That's why I think an all-out war is now more likely than not, this is the logic of war once it gets going. The guns of August and all that
Without trying to sound like Leon, Bibi is going to take out this nuclear installation isn't he? Double bubble for him, he reduces the threat of an Iranian nuclear attack and kills thousands of Arabs too. Which according to Max Hastings's book on Bibi's brother, is something that floats his boat.
Why would that kill thousands of Arabs?
Because a uranium enrichment facility like Natanz under attack is rather dangerous. Those living nearby are already moving out.
"Trump appeared to be asleep. His head would fall down… He didn’t pay attention to a note his lawyer passed him. His jaw kept falling on his chest and his mouth kept going slack".
The chances of a Trump health issue are underappreciated.
I'd appreciate Trump having a serious health issue tbh - it would make the world a slightly safer place.
Surely it depends on the health issue?, it could just make him more dangerous.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
Foreign policy historians will judge the Biden Doctrine as having been quite extraordinary, in somehow having completely forgotten the hard fought lessons of the value of deterrence.
I read some here praising Cameron this morning but I consider his comments an embarrassment. Total dispensation of deterrence in favour of adopting a supposedly zero risk approach to escalation. Which of course over time ends up achieving the exact opposite.
Yes it’s a perilous moment. Because deterrence becomes more expensive (in all senses of the word) the later it’s left. I never dreamed I’d say it 20 years ago but John Bolton has been by far the most sensible commentator on this crisis.
I'd say the problem with this argument is if the Iranians are also practicing 'deterrence'. Israel blew up their embassy so to deter this happening again they launched missiles & drones.
If both parties are following this doctrine why does escalating deterrence not just lead to war?
For me Bolton is best ignored. The man has been wanting and advocating for a war with Iran for 30+ years.
Since Biden assumed power, Iran has used its proxies to effectively close the Suez, has armed Russia’s genocide, has almost certainly sponsored a brutal and indiscriminate attack on civilians, moves closer to acquiring the Bomb in defiance on non proliferation obligations and now broken the sovereignty of its immediate neighbours’ airspace to launch hundreds of armaments at Israel. Not to mention it’s shenanigans impounding commercial ships.
It really shouldn’t be that difficult to see there’s a problem here and that Biden’s Non Escalation doctrine has been an abject failure.
I've not denied that Iran has been up to no good. Just curious what happens if both Iran and Israel are using the deterrence doctrine, why won't this lead to a hot war?
Without trying to sound like Leon, Bibi is going to take out this nuclear installation isn't he? Double bubble for him, he reduces the threat of an Iranian nuclear attack and kills thousands of Arabs too. Which according to Max Hastings's book on Bibi's brother, is something that floats his boat.
Why would that kill thousands of Arabs?
Because a uranium enrichment facility like Natanz under attack is rather dangerous. Those living nearby are already moving out.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
I greatly dislike Netanyahu and think he is disastrous for Israel, but on this narrow point the Israelis probably don't have much choice. They can't allow a big nasty country like Iran, on the threshold of nukes, to lob 300 missiles at them without any comeback, especially when they know Iran wants Israel destroyed. It means Iran could do more missile attacks every week, making life in Israel intolerable, destroying the economy, making everyone emigrate. Israel has to deter Tehran NOW
It's sod all to do with Bibi, this time
However the Israelis have to get it exactly right. Enough to give Tehran a telling slap, but not so much that it means Iran must strike back, because that is a certain route to a terrible war. I am not sure they can be that exact. Which is why this is so perilous
But surely the way this works is that however measured the retaliation, the other side will deem it necessary to strike back?
As if to prove my point, it would be hard to conceive a less effective retaliation than the one the Iranians launched on Saturday, yet the Israelis feel they must retaliate back.
That's why I think an all-out war is now more likely than not, this is the logic of war once it gets going. The guns of August and all that
Yes, you may be right.
I really really really hope I am wrong and this is worse than what3words
"Trump appeared to be asleep. His head would fall down… He didn’t pay attention to a note his lawyer passed him. His jaw kept falling on his chest and his mouth kept going slack".
The chances of a Trump health issue are underappreciated.
I'd appreciate Trump having a serious health issue tbh - it would make the world a slightly safer place.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
I greatly dislike Netanyahu and think he is disastrous for Israel, but on this narrow point the Israelis probably don't have much choice. They can't allow a big nasty country like Iran, on the threshold of nukes, to lob 300 missiles at them without any comeback, especially when they know Iran wants Israel destroyed. It means Iran could do more missile attacks every week, making life in Israel intolerable, destroying the economy, making everyone emigrate. Israel has to deter Tehran NOW
It's sod all to do with Bibi, this time
However the Israelis have to get it exactly right. Enough to give Tehran a telling slap, but not so much that it means Iran must strike back, because that is a certain route to a terrible war. I am not sure they can be that exact. Which is why this is so perilous
But surely the way this works is that however measured the retaliation, the other side will deem it necessary to strike back?
As if to prove my point, it would be hard to conceive a less effective retaliation than the one the Iranians launched on Saturday, yet the Israelis feel they must retaliate back.
That's why I think an all-out war is now more likely than not, this is the logic of war once it gets going. The guns of August and all that
Yes, you may be right.
I really really really hope I am wrong and this is worse than what3words
You were massively wrong in the autumn of 2022 when you were convinced Putin was going to use nukes ASAP.
"Trump appeared to be asleep. His head would fall down… He didn’t pay attention to a note his lawyer passed him. His jaw kept falling on his chest and his mouth kept going slack".
The chances of a Trump health issue are underappreciated.
I'd appreciate Trump having a serious health issue tbh - it would make the world a slightly safer place.
Surely it depends on the health issue?, it could just make him more dangerous.
There would be carnivals and mass celebrations in most of the world if to be blunt he just dropped dead .
Without trying to sound like Leon, Bibi is going to take out this nuclear installation isn't he? Double bubble for him, he reduces the threat of an Iranian nuclear attack and kills thousands of Arabs too. Which according to Max Hastings's book on Bibi's brother, is something that floats his boat.
They might attack the nuclear facilities, but they are a very difficult target. I am also sure they will TRY and minimise casualties, that does not mean they will succeed
I reckon the chances of an all out Israel-Iran war are now greater than 50%
I think that they are less because the US has drawn lines in the sand about the extent to which they will help Israel. They have made it clear that they will not support offensive action and the risk from Israel's point of view is that the guarantee to protect defensive action will be undermined too. The Israelis performed well but I think that the reason that the defence worked incredibly well was because it was hand coordinated by the US with most of the drones shot down long before they got anywhere near Israeli airspace, often by US planes (and the odd British plane too).
The US cannot stop Israel entirely but they do hold the whip hand. And they, Bolton apart, do not want a war.
The risk is not negligible, let alone non existent, but I think that the US will keep this within bounds.
Actually this is just semantics, anyway. Given that Iran has already attacked Israel twice, once via Hamas (killing 1000) and now via a huge rain of direct missiles, and given that Israel is now - it seems - about to attack Iran directly, then we are probably already in an Israeli-Iranian war. What else do they have to do?
During lunch, Trump again toed the line of his gag order, posting a video of his ally Laura Loomer that includes her making references to Justice Merchan's wife and Michael Cohen.
Without trying to sound like Leon, Bibi is going to take out this nuclear installation isn't he? Double bubble for him, he reduces the threat of an Iranian nuclear attack and kills thousands of Arabs too. Which according to Max Hastings's book on Bibi's brother, is something that floats his boat.
Why would that kill thousands of Arabs?
Because a uranium enrichment facility like Natanz under attack is rather dangerous. Those living nearby are already moving out.
Victoria Atkins tearing into the extreme trans sex change for kids lobby in Commons at moment.
Indeed. You can see the way this is going. It's massive scandal and a matter of time until the NHS is sued over the treatment it gave in the first place (a double whammy for taxpayers).
Joanna Cherry talking a lot of sense too ('NHS has be ideologically captured and it must never happen again').
The Cass report is a game changer and I expect many parents will be taking on the NHS and education establishments over the treatment of their children without their consent
How would you feel as a parent (or grandparent) about charities (with donations inflated by government Gift Aid) who send out breast-binders to children without the parents' knowledge?
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
Foreign policy historians will judge the Biden Doctrine as having been quite extraordinary, in somehow having completely forgotten the hard fought lessons of the value of deterrence.
I read some here praising Cameron this morning but I consider his comments an embarrassment. Total dispensation of deterrence in favour of adopting a supposedly zero risk approach to escalation. Which of course over time ends up achieving the exact opposite.
Yes it’s a perilous moment. Because deterrence becomes more expensive (in all senses of the word) the later it’s left. I never dreamed I’d say it 20 years ago but John Bolton has been by far the most sensible commentator on this crisis.
I'd say the problem with this argument is if the Iranians are also practicing 'deterrence'. Israel blew up their embassy so to deter this happening again they launched missiles & drones.
If both parties are following this doctrine why does escalating deterrence not just lead to war?
For me Bolton is best ignored. The man has been wanting and advocating for a war with Iran for 30+ years.
Since Biden assumed power, Iran has used its proxies to effectively close the Suez, has armed Russia’s genocide, has almost certainly sponsored a brutal and indiscriminate attack on civilians, moves closer to acquiring the Bomb in defiance on non proliferation obligations and now broken the sovereignty of its immediate neighbours’ airspace to launch hundreds of armaments at Israel. Not to mention it’s shenanigans impounding commercial ships.
It really shouldn’t be that difficult to see there’s a problem here and that Biden’s Non Escalation doctrine has been an abject failure.
The bomb thing started under Trump, but otherwise that's pretty much exactly right.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
It's totally fair. Israel doing another strike against Iran in response to the one against them which was in response to theirs against the Iranian consulate in Syria would have nothing to do with deterrence. It would be an escalation calculated to shore up the position of Netanyahu inside Israel.
Victoria Atkins tearing into the extreme trans sex change for kids lobby in Commons at moment.
Indeed. You can see the way this is going. It's massive scandal and a matter of time until the NHS is sued over the treatment it gave in the first place (a double whammy for taxpayers).
Joanna Cherry talking a lot of sense too ('NHS has be ideologically captured and it must never happen again').
The Cass report is a game changer and I expect many parents will be taking on the NHS and education establishments over the treatment of their children without their consent
How would you feel as a parent (or grandparent) about charities (with donations inflated by government Gift Aid) who send out breast-binders to children without the parents' knowledge?
Without trying to sound like Leon, Bibi is going to take out this nuclear installation isn't he? Double bubble for him, he reduces the threat of an Iranian nuclear attack and kills thousands of Arabs too. Which according to Max Hastings's book on Bibi's brother, is something that floats his boat.
Why would that kill thousands of Arabs?
Because a uranium enrichment facility like Natanz under attack is rather dangerous. Those living nearby are already moving out.
Iranians are not Arabs.
That was where I was confused! I thought perhaps the nuclear plant was somewhere surprising. I see the point now.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
I greatly dislike Netanyahu and think he is disastrous for Israel, but on this narrow point the Israelis probably don't have much choice. They can't allow a big nasty country like Iran, on the threshold of nukes, to lob 300 missiles at them without any comeback, especially when they know Iran wants Israel destroyed. It means Iran could do more missile attacks every week, making life in Israel intolerable, destroying the economy, making everyone emigrate. Israel has to deter Tehran NOW
It's sod all to do with Bibi, this time
However the Israelis have to get it exactly right. Enough to give Tehran a telling slap, but not so much that it means Iran must strike back, because that is a certain route to a terrible war. I am not sure they can be that exact. Which is why this is so perilous
But surely the way this works is that however measured the retaliation, the other side will deem it necessary to strike back?
As if to prove my point, it would be hard to conceive a less effective retaliation than the one the Iranians launched on Saturday, yet the Israelis feel they must retaliate back.
That's why I think an all-out war is now more likely than not, this is the logic of war once it gets going. The guns of August and all that
Yes, you may be right.
I really really really hope I am wrong and this is worse than what3words
You were massively wrong in the autumn of 2022 when you were convinced Putin was going to use nukes ASAP.
No. I feared it was highly possible and as we now know from pentagon leaks and White House insiders - the Americans thought exactly the same
"Trump appeared to be asleep. His head would fall down… He didn’t pay attention to a note his lawyer passed him. His jaw kept falling on his chest and his mouth kept going slack".
The chances of a Trump health issue are underappreciated.
Correlates very strongly with a jail term one might suspect....one that would make it inhumane for him to go to an actual prison and instead be under an Escobar style house arrest.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
I greatly dislike Netanyahu and think he is disastrous for Israel, but on this narrow point the Israelis probably don't have much choice. They can't allow a big nasty country like Iran, on the threshold of nukes, to lob 300 missiles at them without any comeback, especially when they know Iran wants Israel destroyed. It means Iran could do more missile attacks every week, making life in Israel intolerable, destroying the economy, making everyone emigrate. Israel has to deter Tehran NOW
It's sod all to do with Bibi, this time
However the Israelis have to get it exactly right. Enough to give Tehran a telling slap, but not so much that it means Iran must strike back, because that is a certain route to a terrible war. I am not sure they can be that exact. Which is why this is so perilous
But surely the way this works is that however measured the retaliation, the other side will deem it necessary to strike back?
As if to prove my point, it would be hard to conceive a less effective retaliation than the one the Iranians launched on Saturday, yet the Israelis feel they must retaliate back.
That's why I think an all-out war is now more likely than not, this is the logic of war once it gets going. The guns of August and all that
Yes, you may be right.
I really really really hope I am wrong and this is worse than what3words
You were massively wrong in the autumn of 2022 when you were convinced Putin was going to use nukes ASAP.
No. I feared it was highly possible and as we now know from pentagon leaks and White House insiders - the Americans thought exactly the same
Go watch Threads again, World War III starts with a conflict in Iran.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
I greatly dislike Netanyahu and think he is disastrous for Israel, but on this narrow point the Israelis probably don't have much choice. They can't allow a big nasty country like Iran, on the threshold of nukes, to lob 300 missiles at them without any comeback, especially when they know Iran wants Israel destroyed. It means Iran could do more missile attacks every week, making life in Israel intolerable, destroying the economy, making everyone emigrate. Israel has to deter Tehran NOW
It's sod all to do with Bibi, this time
However the Israelis have to get it exactly right. Enough to give Tehran a telling slap, but not so much that it means Iran must strike back, because that is a certain route to a terrible war. I am not sure they can be that exact. Which is why this is so perilous
But surely the way this works is that however measured the retaliation, the other side will deem it necessary to strike back?
As if to prove my point, it would be hard to conceive a less effective retaliation than the one the Iranians launched on Saturday, yet the Israelis feel they must retaliate back.
That's why I think an all-out war is now more likely than not, this is the logic of war once it gets going. The guns of August and all that
Yes, you may be right.
I really really really hope I am wrong and this is worse than what3words
You were massively wrong in the autumn of 2022 when you were convinced Putin was going to use nukes ASAP.
No. I feared it was highly possible and as we now know from pentagon leaks and White House insiders - the Americans thought exactly the same
Biden should make me his National Security Adviser, I would have given him better advice.
Actually this is just semantics, anyway. Given that Iran has already attacked Israel twice, once via Hamas (killing 1000) and now via a huge rain of direct missiles, and given that Israel is now - it seems - about to attack Iran directly, then we are probably already in an Israeli-Iranian war. What else do they have to do?
"Now you're talking semantics. What if I told you insane was working a 50-hour week for 50 years, at the end of which they tell you to piss off. Ending up in some retirement village, hoping to die rather than suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time. Wouldn't you consider that to be insane?"
Afternoon everyone. When this happened a week ago, along came two polls to mess it up but this time I think it will stand:
As of today 5 consecutive opinion polls have been published with Labour leads of 20%+ which is the first time this sequence has occurred since last September. The steady trend away from the Conservatives continues. For Rishi ‘things can only get worser’
This is silly. There's no huge change in the lead, and as soon as one of the pollsters who report a smaller lead than the other firms releases a new poll then your pattern will be broken.
If Opinium, or Savanta, release a poll with a >20% lead then that would be a change and would indicate a new pattern.
I made no great claims about it. I merely noted that it’s the first time since last September that 5 consecutive polls have given Labour a 20%+ lead.
So I don’t think it is “silly”. Sometimes when the pattern begins to form it takes a while for everyone to see it. Put more empirically, the Conservatives dropped another 2% in March. https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html
I would just comment that the polls seem remarkably steady with little overall change and Labour about 20% ahead
I see no reason for them to change before the election is called in the autumn
Hi Big G.
Based on recent polling, the continuing slide in their support, and the weakness of Sunak I think this Conservative slide is quite possibly going to continue.
There will be a floor of conservative support and the key, as it always has been, is the effect Reform will have on that support in a GE
I mean, Given that you would imagine that Sunak and his wife will vote for themselves, the floor is 2 votes nationally. At which point I’ll take the charge of being silly.
More sensibly, what if we are wrong about this and there is no floor to their slide this side of the election?
It did happen in Canada.
Make that 4 votes as my wife and I would vote for Sunak
"Trump appeared to be asleep. His head would fall down… He didn’t pay attention to a note his lawyer passed him. His jaw kept falling on his chest and his mouth kept going slack".
The chances of a Trump health issue are underappreciated.
I'd appreciate Trump having a serious health issue tbh - it would make the world a slightly safer place.
Surely it depends on the health issue?, it could just make him more dangerous.
The kind of health issue I have in mind would make him unable to run for President.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
I greatly dislike Netanyahu and think he is disastrous for Israel, but on this narrow point the Israelis probably don't have much choice. They can't allow a big nasty country like Iran, on the threshold of nukes, to lob 300 missiles at them without any comeback, especially when they know Iran wants Israel destroyed. It means Iran could do more missile attacks every week, making life in Israel intolerable, destroying the economy, making everyone emigrate. Israel has to deter Tehran NOW
It's sod all to do with Bibi, this time
However the Israelis have to get it exactly right. Enough to give Tehran a telling slap, but not so much that it means Iran must strike back, because that is a certain route to a terrible war. I am not sure they can be that exact. Which is why this is so perilous
But surely the way this works is that however measured the retaliation, the other side will deem it necessary to strike back?
As if to prove my point, it would be hard to conceive a less effective retaliation than the one the Iranians launched on Saturday, yet the Israelis feel they must retaliate back.
That's why I think an all-out war is now more likely than not, this is the logic of war once it gets going. The guns of August and all that
Yes, you may be right.
I really really really hope I am wrong and this is worse than what3words
You were massively wrong in the autumn of 2022 when you were convinced Putin was going to use nukes ASAP.
No. I feared it was highly possible and as we now know from pentagon leaks and White House insiders - the Americans thought exactly the same
Biden should make me his National Security Adviser, I would have given him better advice.
What would your advice have been? To hire David Cameron as Secretary of State?
"Trump appeared to be asleep. His head would fall down… He didn’t pay attention to a note his lawyer passed him. His jaw kept falling on his chest and his mouth kept going slack".
Obstructive Sleep Anpeoa?
One of my best pals lost his driving licence with that. He needs to wear a mask that gives him an oxygen enriched airflow at night. He's not exactly a fan of this but needs must. Bit younger than Trump too.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
I greatly dislike Netanyahu and think he is disastrous for Israel, but on this narrow point the Israelis probably don't have much choice. They can't allow a big nasty country like Iran, on the threshold of nukes, to lob 300 missiles at them without any comeback, especially when they know Iran wants Israel destroyed. It means Iran could do more missile attacks every week, making life in Israel intolerable, destroying the economy, making everyone emigrate. Israel has to deter Tehran NOW
It's sod all to do with Bibi, this time
However the Israelis have to get it exactly right. Enough to give Tehran a telling slap, but not so much that it means Iran must strike back, because that is a certain route to a terrible war. I am not sure they can be that exact. Which is why this is so perilous
But surely the way this works is that however measured the retaliation, the other side will deem it necessary to strike back?
As if to prove my point, it would be hard to conceive a less effective retaliation than the one the Iranians launched on Saturday, yet the Israelis feel they must retaliate back.
That's why I think an all-out war is now more likely than not, this is the logic of war once it gets going. The guns of August and all that
Yes, you may be right.
I really really really hope I am wrong and this is worse than what3words
You were massively wrong in the autumn of 2022 when you were convinced Putin was going to use nukes ASAP.
No. I feared it was highly possible and as we now know from pentagon leaks and White House insiders - the Americans thought exactly the same
Biden should make me his National Security Adviser, I would have given him better advice.
What would your advice have been? To hire David Cameron as Secretary of State?
No.
I would have advised him to nuke France, which is the same reason Lord Cameron didn’t appoint me his SPAD because my solution to every foreign policy crisis would have been to suggest we invaded/nuked France.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
I greatly dislike Netanyahu and think he is disastrous for Israel, but on this narrow point the Israelis probably don't have much choice. They can't allow a big nasty country like Iran, on the threshold of nukes, to lob 300 missiles at them without any comeback, especially when they know Iran wants Israel destroyed. It means Iran could do more missile attacks every week, making life in Israel intolerable, destroying the economy, making everyone emigrate. Israel has to deter Tehran NOW
It's sod all to do with Bibi, this time
However the Israelis have to get it exactly right. Enough to give Tehran a telling slap, but not so much that it means Iran must strike back, because that is a certain route to a terrible war. I am not sure they can be that exact. Which is why this is so perilous
It wouldn't mean Iran could or would do missile attacks every week. This one was a response to the Consulate and was calibrated to be the end of it. To respond again would be an escalation done principally for domestic reasons.
Adam Bienkov @AdamBienkov · 3h "When I meet people, quite often canvassing, or out on the street, people say 'you did the right thing'", claims Liz Truss...
There’s gotta be a decent chance the Paris Olympics get cancelled
Israel/Palestine protests?
Macron is apparently open to altering, or even moving, the opening ceremony. Which would be a shame, as it sounds like it'll be incredibly spectacular or incredibly naff. Or even both. At least they're trying something different (a flotilla down the Seine, with each team in a different boat).
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
It's totally fair. Israel doing another strike against Iran in response to the one against them which was in response to theirs against the Iranian consulate in Syria would have nothing to do with deterrence. It would be an escalation calculated to shore up the position of Netanyahu inside Israel.
To be clear, I don't want Israel to strike back. I want everyone to calm down and back off. But I think it would take heroic restraint for Israel to do so, and I don't see strategically why it would. And just because such a move might be electorally popular doesn't make it wrong.
Israel knows now it is in an existential struggle and that Iran, and others, are out to destroy it. It seems very hard to me to make a case for inaction. If they do nothing, they know the bomb which will destroy them is coming soon anyway.
Adam Bienkov @AdamBienkov · 3h "When I meet people, quite often canvassing, or out on the street, people say 'you did the right thing'", claims Liz Truss...
Adam Bienkov @AdamBienkov · 3h "When I meet people, quite often canvassing, or out on the street, people say 'you did the right thing'", claims Liz Truss...
Adam Bienkov @AdamBienkov · 3h "When I meet people, quite often canvassing, or out on the street, people say 'you did the right thing'", claims Liz Truss...
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
It's totally fair. Israel doing another strike against Iran in response to the one against them which was in response to theirs against the Iranian consulate in Syria would have nothing to do with deterrence. It would be an escalation calculated to shore up the position of Netanyahu inside Israel.
To be clear, I don't want Israel to strike back. I want everyone to calm down and back off. But I think it would take heroic restraint for Israel to do so, and I don't see strategically why it would. And just because such a move might be electorally popular doesn't make it wrong.
Israel knows now it is in an existential struggle and that Iran, and others, are out to destroy it. It seems very hard to me to make a case for inaction. If they do nothing, they know the bomb which will destroy them is coming soon anyway.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
It's totally fair. Israel doing another strike against Iran in response to the one against them which was in response to theirs against the Iranian consulate in Syria would have nothing to do with deterrence. It would be an escalation calculated to shore up the position of Netanyahu inside Israel.
To be clear, I don't want Israel to strike back. I want everyone to calm down and back off. But I think it would take heroic restraint for Israel to do so, and I don't see strategically why it would. And just because such a move might be electorally popular doesn't make it wrong.
Israel knows now it is in an existential struggle and that Iran, and others, are out to destroy it. It seems very hard to me to make a case for inaction. If they do nothing, they know the bomb which will destroy them is coming soon anyway.
“Israel knows now it is in an existential struggle…”
That could have been written anytime within the last 77 years. Many can make a case for inaction but such arguments would be moot because they’ve decided to act.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
I greatly dislike Netanyahu and think he is disastrous for Israel, but on this narrow point the Israelis probably don't have much choice. They can't allow a big nasty country like Iran, on the threshold of nukes, to lob 300 missiles at them without any comeback, especially when they know Iran wants Israel destroyed. It means Iran could do more missile attacks every week, making life in Israel intolerable, destroying the economy, making everyone emigrate. Israel has to deter Tehran NOW
It's sod all to do with Bibi, this time
However the Israelis have to get it exactly right. Enough to give Tehran a telling slap, but not so much that it means Iran must strike back, because that is a certain route to a terrible war. I am not sure they can be that exact. Which is why this is so perilous
It wouldn't mean Iran could or would do missile attacks every week. This one was a response to the Consulate and was calibrated to be the end of it. To respond again would be an escalation done principally for domestic reasons.
"calibrated"
lol
You're a fricking idiot. Iran sent 300 drones/missiles with no idea how many would get through, if half of them had got through thousands might have died. Spectacular stupidity
There’s gotta be a decent chance the Paris Olympics get cancelled
They might change the location of the Opening Ceremony because of security concerns but I don’t see them being cancelled .
If there are two big wars raging they will be cancelled
Not if they are regional rather than global wars. Look at 1968 or 1980.
I just think there will be so many countries that can't come and so many athletes too scared to fly, and all the rest of it, that cancellation will end up as the easier option IF there are two big wars raging at once. Putin is apparently readying his men for the spring offensive..
There’s gotta be a decent chance the Paris Olympics get cancelled
The Paris Olympics will not be cancelled over bugs in the Seine or nebulous security worries. Remember even in 2012 we had armed coppers around London.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
It's totally fair. Israel doing another strike against Iran in response to the one against them which was in response to theirs against the Iranian consulate in Syria would have nothing to do with deterrence. It would be an escalation calculated to shore up the position of Netanyahu inside Israel.
To be clear, I don't want Israel to strike back. I want everyone to calm down and back off. But I think it would take heroic restraint for Israel to do so, and I don't see strategically why it would. And just because such a move might be electorally popular doesn't make it wrong.
Israel knows now it is in an existential struggle and that Iran, and others, are out to destroy it. It seems very hard to me to make a case for inaction. If they do nothing, they know the bomb which will destroy them is coming soon anyway.
You don't think MAD will work in the Middle East?
No, because the cold war was essentially defensive. Neither side really wanted to wipe the other off the map; they just feared the other wiping them off the map. The only reason for striking first was to make yourself safer - and as cold war tech developed, that seemed unlikely to be the case. Whereas Iran actively wants to wipe Israel off the map. If it can do so and largely survive itself, even better. And because Israel knows this, it knows there's no real point appealing to these people's better nature.
The best hope for the world is that the war can be largely confined to the Middle East.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
It's totally fair. Israel doing another strike against Iran in response to the one against them which was in response to theirs against the Iranian consulate in Syria would have nothing to do with deterrence. It would be an escalation calculated to shore up the position of Netanyahu inside Israel.
To be clear, I don't want Israel to strike back. I want everyone to calm down and back off. But I think it would take heroic restraint for Israel to do so, and I don't see strategically why it would. And just because such a move might be electorally popular doesn't make it wrong.
Israel knows now it is in an existential struggle and that Iran, and others, are out to destroy it. It seems very hard to me to make a case for inaction. If they do nothing, they know the bomb which will destroy them is coming soon anyway.
You don't think MAD will work in the Middle East?
No, because the cold war was essentially defensive. Neither side really wanted to wipe the other off the map; they just feared the other wiping them off the map. The only reason for striking first was to make yourself safer - and as cold war tech developed, that seemed unlikely to be the case. Whereas Iran actively wants to wipe Israel off the map. If it can do so and largely survive itself, even better. And because Israel knows this, it knows there's no real point appealing to these people's better nature.
The best hope for the world is that the war can be largely confined to the Middle East.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
It's totally fair. Israel doing another strike against Iran in response to the one against them which was in response to theirs against the Iranian consulate in Syria would have nothing to do with deterrence. It would be an escalation calculated to shore up the position of Netanyahu inside Israel.
To be clear, I don't want Israel to strike back. I want everyone to calm down and back off. But I think it would take heroic restraint for Israel to do so, and I don't see strategically why it would. And just because such a move might be electorally popular doesn't make it wrong.
Israel knows now it is in an existential struggle and that Iran, and others, are out to destroy it. It seems very hard to me to make a case for inaction. If they do nothing, they know the bomb which will destroy them is coming soon anyway.
I don't think I really understand this logic.
As I understand it, the strike was in response to a bombing of an Iranian consulate in Damascus, which any diplomat would recognise as an attack on sovereign Iranian territory. AIUI this attack was relatively unprovoked.
If my understanding is correct, then putting everything else aside (not least what a brutally evil regime holds sway in Tehran) Iran's response seems quite well calibrated. Fire large numbers of missiles and drones to show your displeasure, but do very little actual damage.
If Israel shows restraint now, it has scored a strategic victory in my view as, publicly at least, they have directly attacked Iran with relatively little comeback. Whereas if it strikes back it gets into a shooting war with one of the few near neighbours with both the firepower and the craziness to mean it really is in an existential struggle.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
It's totally fair. Israel doing another strike against Iran in response to the one against them which was in response to theirs against the Iranian consulate in Syria would have nothing to do with deterrence. It would be an escalation calculated to shore up the position of Netanyahu inside Israel.
To be clear, I don't want Israel to strike back. I want everyone to calm down and back off. But I think it would take heroic restraint for Israel to do so, and I don't see strategically why it would. And just because such a move might be electorally popular doesn't make it wrong.
Israel knows now it is in an existential struggle and that Iran, and others, are out to destroy it. It seems very hard to me to make a case for inaction. If they do nothing, they know the bomb which will destroy them is coming soon anyway.
You don't think MAD will work in the Middle East?
Trouble is there are people on all sides (not just two sides) who really do believe that God is on their side, and that they will go to heaven when it all kicks off in the Middle East.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
It's totally fair. Israel doing another strike against Iran in response to the one against them which was in response to theirs against the Iranian consulate in Syria would have nothing to do with deterrence. It would be an escalation calculated to shore up the position of Netanyahu inside Israel.
To be clear, I don't want Israel to strike back. I want everyone to calm down and back off. But I think it would take heroic restraint for Israel to do so, and I don't see strategically why it would. And just because such a move might be electorally popular doesn't make it wrong.
Israel knows now it is in an existential struggle and that Iran, and others, are out to destroy it. It seems very hard to me to make a case for inaction. If they do nothing, they know the bomb which will destroy them is coming soon anyway.
I don't think I really understand this logic.
As I understand it, the strike was in response to a bombing of an Iranian consulate in Damascus, which any diplomat would recognise as an attack on sovereign Iranian territory. AIUI this attack was relatively unprovoked.
If my understanding is correct, then putting everything else aside (not least what a brutally evil regime holds sway in Tehran) Iran's response seems quite well calibrated. Fire large numbers of missiles and drones to show your displeasure, but do very little actual damage.
If Israel shows restraint now, it has scored a strategic victory in my view as, publicly at least, they have directly attacked Iran with relatively little comeback. Whereas if it strikes back it gets into a shooting war with one of the few near neighbours with both the firepower and the craziness to mean it really is in an existential struggle.
The issue is if each side feels the need to retaliate at every moment.
And Iran - let's not forget - sent a storm of missiles into Israel targeting civilians.
If someone sent a storm of missiles at the UK, would you not feel a teensy weensy bit of a desire to show your determination to resist such attacks? Of course, the goal is to avoid escalating. But who doesn't want the last word?
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
It's totally fair. Israel doing another strike against Iran in response to the one against them which was in response to theirs against the Iranian consulate in Syria would have nothing to do with deterrence. It would be an escalation calculated to shore up the position of Netanyahu inside Israel.
To be clear, I don't want Israel to strike back. I want everyone to calm down and back off. But I think it would take heroic restraint for Israel to do so, and I don't see strategically why it would. And just because such a move might be electorally popular doesn't make it wrong.
Israel knows now it is in an existential struggle and that Iran, and others, are out to destroy it. It seems very hard to me to make a case for inaction. If they do nothing, they know the bomb which will destroy them is coming soon anyway.
You don't think MAD will work in the Middle East?
No, because the cold war was essentially defensive. Neither side really wanted to wipe the other off the map; they just feared the other wiping them off the map. The only reason for striking first was to make yourself safer - and as cold war tech developed, that seemed unlikely to be the case. Whereas Iran actively wants to wipe Israel off the map. If it can do so and largely survive itself, even better. And because Israel knows this, it knows there's no real point appealing to these people's better nature.
The best hope for the world is that the war can be largely confined to the Middle East.
I would say that The Iranian Regime wants to wipe Israel off the map. But as far as Maslow's hierarchy of needs goes, most Iranians don't give a shit.
The BBC Makes me feel sick. Nick Robinson claims he should have been clearer when accusing Israel of murdering Palestinians.... but you would never have heard him accuse Hamas of killing Jews.. oh no.. double standards. The BBC stinks in its appalling bias against Israel.
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Pentagon: No choice but to retaliate against Iran
That's the logic I worked through this morning, They have to attack Iran to deter further Iranian assaults
Fucking perilous moment. Probably happen tonight? Let's hope it is just that "surgical" strike and not some disastrous carpet bombing by mistake
It would be to help Netanyahu not deter Iran.
I don't think that's fair. If there is electoral advantage to doing so, it's because the Israeli electorate recognise the threat of Iran. I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
I greatly dislike Netanyahu and think he is disastrous for Israel, but on this narrow point the Israelis probably don't have much choice. They can't allow a big nasty country like Iran, on the threshold of nukes, to lob 300 missiles at them without any comeback, especially when they know Iran wants Israel destroyed. It means Iran could do more missile attacks every week, making life in Israel intolerable, destroying the economy, making everyone emigrate. Israel has to deter Tehran NOW
It's sod all to do with Bibi, this time
However the Israelis have to get it exactly right. Enough to give Tehran a telling slap, but not so much that it means Iran must strike back, because that is a certain route to a terrible war. I am not sure they can be that exact. Which is why this is so perilous
It wouldn't mean Iran could or would do missile attacks every week. This one was a response to the Consulate and was calibrated to be the end of it. To respond again would be an escalation done principally for domestic reasons.
"calibrated"
lol
You're a fricking idiot. Iran sent 300 drones/missiles with no idea how many would get through, if half of them had got through thousands might have died. Spectacular stupidity
*calibrated*
Spectacularly stupid no doubt but if we assume the government in Iran has access to a functioning television set, the Iron Dome missile defence system will not have been a surprise.
Comments
Heck the last decent period of Government was 1997 to 2008 where projects such as Sure Start ensured all children had a decent start. A recent report showed how badly that's been lost..
The cards were suggesting a mad- bastard takeover by the militant left as Starmer teetered on the brink.
My point was when Starmer fell, your lot would have installed Long Bailey or Burgon. There are even madder ones out there that I have successfully forgotten. Oh no, I've just remembered one. Williamson.
I was going to contrast the democratically constrained Netanyahu with the unanswerable leaders of Iran, but as we are led to understand that much of the Iranian population would be quite happy to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth I'm not sure it makes much difference in this case.
I read some here praising Cameron this morning but I consider his comments an embarrassment. Total dispensation of deterrence in favour of adopting a supposedly zero risk approach to escalation. Which of course over time ends up achieving the exact opposite.
Yes it’s a perilous moment. Because deterrence becomes more expensive (in all senses of the word) the later it’s left. I never dreamed I’d say it 20 years ago but John Bolton has been by far the most sensible commentator on this crisis.
A lot more will be needed to change the 'change' election narrative
So it would most likely have been someone from the soft left who knew how to tickle members' bellies while also holding some plausibility in talking to the country. I'm not sure RLB would've run again anyway, and Burgon is a laughing stock even among his own faction of the party.
Now, if they'd have lost a General Election after that, then all bets would be off.
I greatly dislike Netanyahu and think he is disastrous for Israel, but on this narrow point the Israelis probably don't have much choice. They can't allow a big nasty country like Iran, on the threshold of nukes, to lob 300 missiles at them without any comeback, especially when they know Iran wants Israel destroyed. It means Iran could do more missile attacks every week, making life in Israel intolerable, destroying the economy, making everyone emigrate. Israel has to deter Tehran NOW
It's sod all to do with Bibi, this time
However the Israelis have to get it exactly right. Enough to give Tehran a telling slap, but not so much that it means Iran must strike back, because that is a certain route to a terrible war. I am not sure they can be that exact. Which is why this is so perilous
"Israel Says Readying 'Imminent' Attack On Iran As Airlines Cancel Flights To Region"
https://x.com/zerohedge/status/1779925202408808648
Joanna Cherry talking a lot of sense too ('NHS has be ideologically captured and it must never happen again').
Let me try to explain (and anyone who thinks I have got this wrong, please chip in).
These gilts were magicked into existence with a coupon or right to obtain interest payments (which the government didn't pay because they were bought by the Bank). At the time this increased the money supply available to the government and in the economy and helped keep us out of recession by boosting demand. Now, we have the inflationary aspect of this to be dealt with so we are looking to have some quantitative tightening by bringing money into the Bank. So the Bank wants to take cash out of the system by selling these bonds into the market and soak up some of the cash (mainly from pension funds) _ that would otherwise be bouncing about in the economy.
Because interest rates have gone up since the bonds were issued their value has reduced below their nominal price. Basically a bond offering a return of 0.5% is worth less if the current bonds are offering 4% or so. How much less will depend upon how long the bond has until maturity when it is worth its nominal value. So if the Bank sells these off they make a "loss" but it is not a real loss because they never paid for them in the first place with real money.
The " loss" is made up of magic money. It doesn't use taxpayers money. It reflects the difference in value between the lower gilt on these bonds than on those currently being issued and it will gradually disappear as the bond goes to maturity. Comparing this with the fiscal shortfall that Truss created by reducing both the tax take and increasing public spending by writing blank cheques on gas prices is simply comparing apples and pears.
If both parties are following this doctrine why does escalating deterrence not just lead to war?
For me Bolton is best ignored. The man has been wanting and advocating for a war with Iran for 30+ years.
I don't fear the soft left. They may come up with some policies that don't work or are inefficient but some of what they have to offer may very well be what this country needs.
I reckon the chances of an all out Israel-Iran war are now greater than 50%
It does at least illustrate the benefit of access to a large energy supply with potential rapidly to expand.
That's unusual in Europe at the moment.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/sep/30/transgender-charity-mermaids-investigated-breast-binders-given-to-children
It is a far more interesting and nuanced report than is being suggested by the usual suspects.
And still Ukraine burns. Fun times
As if to prove my point, it would be hard to conceive a less effective retaliation than the one the Iranians launched on Saturday, yet the Israelis feel they must retaliate back.
It really shouldn’t be that difficult to see there’s a problem here and that Biden’s Non Escalation doctrine has been an abject failure.
Even Covid-19 didn't trigger that.
If Liz Truss was so awesome why did she panic, sack her Chancellor, and reversed her policies?
Will the money come from the foreign aid budget?
It would be crazy for Israel to fracture the alliance that defended it two days ago .
The US cannot stop Israel entirely but they do hold the whip hand. And they, Bolton apart, do not want a war.
The risk is not negligible, let alone non existent, but I think that the US will keep this within bounds.
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1779930011635433529
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1779931035926487142/photo/1
No. I feared it was highly possible and as we now know from pentagon leaks and White House insiders - the Americans thought exactly the same
Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.
I would have advised him to nuke France, which is the same reason Lord Cameron didn’t appoint me his SPAD because my solution to every foreign policy crisis would have been to suggest we invaded/nuked France.
Can we save WW3 for when they’ve all finished !
@AdamBienkov
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3h
"When I meet people, quite often canvassing, or out on the street, people say 'you did the right thing'", claims Liz Truss...
https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1779875754882273355
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/apr/15/paris-olympics-opening-ceremony-could-move-if-threat-detected-says-macron
Israel knows now it is in an existential struggle and that Iran, and others, are out to destroy it. It seems very hard to me to make a case for inaction. If they do nothing, they know the bomb which will destroy them is coming soon anyway.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68818113
Perhaps they should have kept them to attach Cybertruck accelerators properly...
https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/tesla-puts-the-brakes-on-cybertruck-sales-for-an-accelerator-pedal/
That could have been written anytime within the last 77 years. Many can make a case for inaction but such arguments would be moot because they’ve decided to act.
lol
You're a fricking idiot. Iran sent 300 drones/missiles with no idea how many would get through, if half of them had got through thousands might have died. Spectacular stupidity
*calibrated*
Let's hope we only have Ukraine to deal with
Whereas Iran actively wants to wipe Israel off the map. If it can do so and largely survive itself, even better.
And because Israel knows this, it knows there's no real point appealing to these people's better nature.
The best hope for the world is that the war can be largely confined to the Middle East.
As I understand it, the strike was in response to a bombing of an Iranian consulate in Damascus, which any diplomat would recognise as an attack on sovereign Iranian territory. AIUI this attack was relatively unprovoked.
If my understanding is correct, then putting everything else aside (not least what a brutally evil regime holds sway in Tehran) Iran's response seems quite well calibrated. Fire large numbers of missiles and drones to show your displeasure, but do very little actual damage.
If Israel shows restraint now, it has scored a strategic victory in my view as, publicly at least, they have directly attacked Iran with relatively little comeback. Whereas if it strikes back it gets into a shooting war with one of the few near neighbours with both the firepower and the craziness to mean it really is in an existential struggle.
And Iran - let's not forget - sent a storm of missiles into Israel targeting civilians.
If someone sent a storm of missiles at the UK, would you not feel a teensy weensy bit of a desire to show your determination to resist such attacks? Of course, the goal is to avoid escalating. But who doesn't want the last word?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13310509/BBCs-Nick-Robinson-admits-clearer-amid-Tory-outrage-shocking-bias-said-Israel-attacks-murders-tens-thousands-innocent-Palestinians-quizzing-David-Cameron-Radio-4-interview.html