1) Listen to yet another boring speech from Starmer/Sunak
2) Climb the Inaccessible Pinnacle with Ed Davey?
It's a brilliant media strategy
They have their po-faced brigade:
Given that we are now criticising the Tories for legalising littering perhaps when we do these stunts, we can stop spraying clouds of paper tickertape around. Even if someone tries to pick it up afterwards it does not look good on a short TV clip.
Also, before allowing Ed to ‘freewheel’ cycle down a hill on the pavement, someone might have checked Rule 64 of the Highway Code which is underpinned by highways legislation. Again, it doesn’t look good on a short TV clip, the editing of which we have no control. https://www.libdemvoice.org/30-may-2024-todays-press-releases-75325.html#comment-592549
Others are saying he’s purging minorities as that also includes Lloyd Russell Moyle.
I think it’ll harm him a bit. Not because he’s purging the left, but because Labour are all over the news looking disunited. There’s a risk it does the opposite of what’s intended: reminds voters that the loony left still exist in Labour. He needs the news cycle to move on (thank you DJT).
It's an unfortunate reminder that the left wing of the Labour Party does not have a monopoly on being unpleasant factionalist wankers. I think it's becoming very distasteful - Shaheen seems to me someone who would make a great MP and I find her treatment appalling. The fact that so many of the people getting purged are minorities is probably coincidental but the optics are awful.
It isn't 'factional wankerism' that I find nearly as troublesome as the kafkaesque investigations by shadowy figures we know nothing about. This from wikipedia:
"Shaheen was again selected by her local party in 2022 to stand for Chingford and Woodford Green, but was suddenly deselected on 29 May 2024 after a panel of the Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) questioned her about her likes of over a dozen social media posts over a ten year period, including one referencing the Israel lobby and forwarding a video of a sketch by American comedian Jon Stewart"
It sends a shiver through you. If this is the shape of the new Labour Party they need a rethink.
(I have to say I was less impressed with her than you having listened to her on Newsnight. If she dropped any more consonants she would have been incoherent)
Listening to Labour ruling out tax increases it is becoming very obvious that they are seeking the private sector to invest many billions in an attempt to increase growth to pay for all the goodies
This is straight out of the Gordon Brown playbook and disastrous PFI scandal or am I wrong ?
Nope but you can't really make the case that the Tories are any better either.
In *theory* small government investments in a project can be used to leverage many multiple of that from private sources.
I've mentioned before an idea of how get investment in clean vehicle technology* without spending any money before the next election. Offer a subsidy for each KWh of storage actually installed in a vehicle, in the UK. Subsidy is scaled according to the UK content of the storage - use a Chinese battery, get nothing.
*Notice I'm not saying battery - no picking winners. Even the winners whom seem to have won the race already.
But @Malmesbury subsidies are money. And we don't have any.
You are missing the point. The subsidy is future money. It takes years to build a factory. So Labour could enact the subsidy and it would probably be past the next election before much money would actually have to be spent.
1) Listen to yet another boring speech from Starmer/Sunak
2) Climb the Inaccessible Pinnacle with Ed Davey?
It's a brilliant media strategy
Tbh while I’m not sure it’s in brilliant territory, I tend to agree and it is a significantly different approach to everyone else. The risk is making him look silly/trivial but honestly I think it just improves his profile and the public generally like someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously.
At some point his party and donors are going to gently suggest he's not there to have a lovely old time.
Why? Do you think Lib Dem members and donors want him to have a miserable time? At the moment, the prevailing view among Lib Dems seems to be he's getting a bit of coverage and creating a contrast with a really dull pairing in Starmer/Sunak.
That view could be wrong and the views of people who already quite like the guy might not reflect that of the wider public. But you're very wrong if you think all that many Lib Dem members and donors are looking on aghast at it all.
Interesting suggestion that what wiped out the Neanderthals was a lack of immunity to infections brought by migrating Homo sapiens. (Probably not the herpes, though.)
I think they flatter themselves. The Neanderthals are still out there and some are quite prominent.
Why, only yesterday one of them was convicted of falsifying business records.
Most Europeans are as Neanderthal as Donald Trump. Discuss.
Well d'uh. Why do you think we voted for Brexit?
People who voted for Brexit won't thank you for calling them Europeans.
Utter rubbish. What else would we be?
British/English - similar to Canadians not being American despite being in the relevant continent.
They are American. There are four continents. We're all part of one of them.
4?
They're not American, they're Canadian. We're not European, we're British/English/Scottish etc
Barty - go and read a history book. This country has always described itself as European. Despite cosplaying as a sovereign state we have always been beholden to the entity that controls the balance of power in Europe - even at the height of empire. That’s why our foreign policy was to avoid a country holding it. Thanks to your facile and ahistorical campaign we now are beholden to the EU and cannot influence it. You don’t understand what it is to be British as you clearly have no understanding whatsoever of the last 1000 years of our history beyond how it intersects with that of Australia.
We've moved on in the past thousand years.
Yes a hundred plus years ago there was a good reason to oppose European unification under German or French or Prussian or Austrian or any other leadership depending upon the era.
But we've moved on. If they want to unify peacefully, let them. Nowt to do with us anymore.
The world is much more interconnected now and it's attitudes like yours that are ossified in the past.
Vapid sound bites. How have we moved on? Have we drifted away from the other European territories? “We” didn’t even exist 250 years ago. But our position remains the same. How does the world being “more interconnected” make geography any less relevant. It didn’t move Ukraine from Russia. We are European. We are beholden to the EU, as we have found out, and I’ve are being pissed on outside he tent.
As someone else said, you bet against geography, you lost. Time for adults who understand our small stature in the world to cooperate with other territories of small stature in Europe for the common good. l'Europe est ton pays.
We're told that if Trump's crimes are ignored, he benefits electorally from showing he can get away with anything. We're told if he's prosecuted and it fails, he benefits electorally from being exonerated. We're told if he's prosecuted and it succeeds, he benefits electorally from claiming to be politically harassed.
But at the end of the day, if you can't do something beneficial to yourself, default to doing what is right.
This outcome was right.
The problem we have is that, in a political debate, the truth only wins if people place a value on the truth as a thing in itself, even when it tells them something they don't like to hear. Otherwise the lies will win because they can be tailored to be more attractive.
I'm the US the Democrats are somewhat more tethered to reality, and Trump continues to avoid the electoral oblivion he deserves because there are enough voters willing to believe lies. So it really didn't matter what happens, because the political message isn't tethered to reality, so it can adjust to any eventuality.
Britain is not so far gone, but you can see the same thing, with the almost universal belief that all the nice things can be paid for by other people/cutting waste.
As a follow-on to this, one of the ways in which we've ended up here is that people engaged in debate have presented opinion as truth in an attempt to win public debate by default, and this has devalued the concept of truth.
1) Listen to yet another boring speech from Starmer/Sunak
2) Climb the Inaccessible Pinnacle with Ed Davey?
It's a brilliant media strategy
Tbh while I’m not sure it’s in brilliant territory, I tend to agree and it is a significantly different approach to everyone else. The risk is making him look silly/trivial but honestly I think it just improves his profile and the public generally like someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously.
At some point his party and donors are going to gently suggest he's not there to have a lovely old time.
Why? Do you think Lib Dem members and donors want him to have a miserable time? At the moment, the prevailing view among Lib Dems seems to be he's getting a bit of coverage and creating a contrast with a really dull pairing in Starmer/Sunak.
That view could be wrong and the views of people who already quite like the guy might not reflect that of the wider public. But you're very wrong if you think all that many Lib Dem members and donors are looking on aghast at it all.
Poor old @wooliedyed takes this politics thing far too seriously.
What has Ed Davey got to lose by going out there and enjoying himself? Yes, I'm sure there are serious speeches given in key constituencies in among the knockabout but creating a national profile different from John Jackson and Jack Johnson is no bad thing. It's reminiscent (dare I say it) of Thorpe in 1974.
It enthuses the party workers and if it irritates those who are inimically opposed to him (at least a couple on here) so much the better.
You have to remember in vast areas of the country, in hundreds of constituencies, there will be little or no LD activity. There seems a delusion every party should fight every seat as though it were a marginal by-election - no party can do that. Labour will, I guess, leave most (not all) of its safest constituencies and fight its most likely gains. The Conservatives will defend what they can - probably about 200 seats each. The LDs will fight 50 at most, the Greens 10 perhaps, Reform three or four.
In East Ham, a safe Labour seat, we'll probably get a Labour leaflet but with three local by elections in Newham on July 4th,. Labour will concentrate its efforts there. We'll see nothing from the other parties apart from the main election address - that will happen in a lot of places. No posters, no stakeboards, no canvassers, nothing.
Under analysis by Prof Curtice, the SNP would have 43 MSPs and Labour 41 MSPs if a Scottish Parliament election was held tomorrow. That signals a shift in support from Labour to the SNP, with the previous Savanta poll putting the SNP on just 35 Holyrood seats and Labour on 47.
Even if the SNP got 43 MSPs the only way they could stay in power at Holyrood would be confidence and supply from the Scottish Conservatives. That would require an end to any indyref2 talk but some Scottish Tory support for more Thatcherite economics from Swinney and Forbes
Firstly, I don't think the Conservatives would want to support an SNP government. Secondly, I don't think the SNP would want to have the support of the Conservatives. Lastly, it seems a bit weird that your description of an SNP minority government extends only to Conservative policies.
Fantasy politics from you.
They already have, the Conservatives propped up the minority 2007-2011 Salmond led SNP government which was more economically fiscal conservative than the Sturgeon and Yousaf administrations. If the SNP can't get the support of the Conservatives then on current Holyrood polls as SNP + Greens would be less than Labour + LDs at Holyrood, the Tories would abstain and Sarwar becomes FM
I have a lot of sympathy with the view that the Trump prosecution in this case was "political". The issue I have, though, is that the US legal system is setup to be political.
If you want to get elected District Attorney, you need to take on - and win - cases that your constituents care about.
In New York, that means taking on Trump.
Of course, this is all possible because the Former President has - let's be honest here - committed a litany of crimes. Is the documents case bullshit? Yes, but he did actually committed the crimes. He did falsify business records.
And I'm also deeply uncomfortable with the idea that Presidents should be immune from prosecution because... well... they were President. Nobody should be above the law.
Like @Leon, I believe this boosts Trump's chances of being reelected. I think the increase in turnout in Trump base will outweigh any (minimal) effects on independents.
Ultimately, Biden will (probably) lose for the same reason every incumbent is losing right now: wages have not risen as fast as prices. And they haven't risen as fast as prices because of the impact of the Ukraine war on global commodity prices.
Trump won't solve this. In fact, he'll probably make it worse by adding tariffs. And I suspect the Ukrainians will be forced to cede half their country by "realist" Trump, at least until the Putin regime collapses.
I'm pretty depressed, therefore, about the world. Four more years of Trump. Four more years of increasing political polarization. It's pretty shit.
I think that the underlying conclusion from the analysis above must be that the policy on Ukraine has been a failure. There has been a strategy to partially back a participant in an war - just not to the level in which it can win. But this is alongside the rhetoric and belief that the war in question is an existential struggle. This has had the consequence of global economic and political disruption which is now probably going to lead to the election of an adversary who will back down on the existential struggle causing massive humiliation and embarrassment. The situation has nonetheless had nightmarish and existential consequences in the evolution of warfare, in any event.
I don't think that the strategy in Ukraine has been to avoid a Ukrainian victory. I think the strategy has been to provide the minimum necessary support to Ukraine to convince Russia to call it quits, by imposing a heavy cost.
The strategy has failed because of a consistent underestimation of Russian resolve to keep fighting, despite heavy losses and minimal gains, and an underestimation of Russian ability to increase military production despite sanctions.
Russia has increased military production; but apparently not as much as you might think. A large amount of their capability is coming from Iran, North Korea and, in component form, other countries (and in dual-use form, even western countries...)
IMV the question is whether these supplies from Iran and NK are a stopgap temporary measure until Russian industry can build itself up; or whether they will become a permanent backbone of the Russian war effort. Either way, it's massively costly for the Russian economy in the short, medium and long terms.
I've heard that China are supplying Russia with the machine tools necessary for further expansion of Russian military production. I think the key point is that there's been an expectation that the Russian war effort will reach a point of collapse, because they will exhaust their ability to supply it. People have talked about a critical shortage of ball bearings, poor quality tyres, and numerous other points of failure. The appearance of antiquated Russian tanks, like the T-62*, on the front line, was taken as an indication that Russian military stockpiles were nearing exhaustion.
And yet, in the first half of this year, it was the Ukrainian war effort that nearly collapsed, because of a six-month gap in US supplies that the Europeans were not able to make good.
I believe that Ukraine can still win this war, but it's only going to be able to do so if the West provides it with the necessary finances, equipment and training, at a sufficient scale, to be able to destroy Russian supplies and equipment away from the front line. Progress is being made - we have the recent announcement that Ukraine can use US weapons to target Russian forces in Russia that are part of the Kharkiv offensive - but it's so frustratingly slow.
* I haven't seen one of these being destroyed for a long time now. Quite a few T-90s being lost, suggesting that their production still continues unhindered by sanctions.
Those are T-90s that were supposed to be exported.
Russia might be building up production, but it is to go to Ukraine - to be destroyed shortly thereafter. It's export business has collapsed - partly because delivery dates are uncertain and unmet, but also because their goods are shoddy.
Russia has now lost over 80% of its artillery capacity. It has lost 75% of its ability to move troop to battle in armour. Instead, it has been using unarmoured vehicles little better than golf buggies and quad bikes. With the obvious outcome, now that Ukraine again has adequate numbers of cluster munitions.
Russia has been suffering immense losses of men and material, to take what? Flattened villages of no economic value, heavily mined farmland, forest strips denuded of trees. In return for that thin strip of land, its oil facilities in Russia are burning, its markets abroad either gone or subject to vicious price gouging from those who will still trade. A "win" for Russia where Ukraine is no longer a functioning economic state is some way off, whilst the domestic Russian marquee brands are reporting massive losses now.
Russia cannot contemplate losing, so it pushes ahead with a military adventure that was doomed on day four of the three day timeline. Its opponents can use this bull-headed stupidity, knowing it will continue to use up its weaponry until it has only sticks, stones and nukes. Russia is demilitarising itself on the alter of Putin's hatred of Ukraine. And because anybody that stands up to him dies.
Yes, the war is a disaster for Russia.
But it could still end up being worse for Ukraine. It's future as an independent country is still on the line, and I have two major doubts about the future of the war.
One, I do not think that Europe can provide enough support to Ukraine to prevent their defeat without the US.
Two, I fear that Biden is heading for defeat and that Trump will abandon Ukraine.
I heard a slightly more rational analysis (of the republican position, not you) on the Briefing Room on R4 yesterday.
Some Republicans are concerned about the blank cheque problem. Are they committed to support Ukraine no matter how much?
More, however, and it was suggested that this included Trump, are concerned about the clear path to victory problem. What does victory look like? How can Ukraine, for all its bravery, defeat a country the size of Russia? It was being suggested by some Republicans that if Trump did see a way to victory he would be on board and want to claim that victory but he is not willing to invest open ended sums into a bloody stalemate.
I don't agree with this analysis but it does make more sense than the way the Republican position is all too often portrayed in this country (servants of Putin, corrupt etc).
For me, victory for Ukraine will be either from the collapse of the kleptocracy that controls Russia (like the end of Russia's engagement in WW1) or by driving Russian forces back out of Ukrainian territory. Both are difficult and have been made more so by the parsimonious response of European countries in particular in both the speed and scale of support. We really need to step up our game and stop moaning that the US is not doing enough when it is doing so much more than everyone else.
That ignores the Afghan and Vietnam lessons. The North Vietnamese did not drive the American forces out of Vietnam: instead, they made the war far too costly for it to be continued.
The same thing happened in the 1980s with Afghanistan. The Russians were not militarily defeated per se; but the occupation was made not worth the bother. And the same thing happened three decades later with the Americans in the same country.
The questions are if, and at what point, Russia decides the war is not worth the pain it is causing to itself (and that pain is, after only two years, far greater than any of the wars I mentioned above). This has been made more complex by the fact they've claimed large swathes of Ukraine as *their* territory - something that was never done in those other wars.
*If* Russia was to 'win', then I expect a massive depopulation of Ukrainians from Ukrainian territory, as Russia attempts to stop the population fighting them in an insurgency. That's something the appeasers (not you) never mention. It's not as if Russia is not already doing it in the areas they control...
The difference is that the US is subject to democratic pressures in a way that the Russian kleptocracy isn't. America lost the will to win in both Vietnam and Afghanistan. In both they could have persevered, they had the military capacity to do so, but the populace were no longer persuaded it was worth the cost. Who gives a toss about what the populace of Russia thinks? Certainly not Putin and his gang.
Apols for being late back to this, but surely the Russian experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s counteracts that? They were hardly subject to democratic pressures, but they still caved in.
In addition, IMV Putin's reluctance to openly go for full mobilisation, even after his 'election', indicates he is concerned about pressures from the people.
Comments
Given that we are now criticising the Tories for legalising littering perhaps when we do these stunts, we can stop spraying clouds of paper tickertape around. Even if someone tries to pick it up afterwards it does not look good on a short TV clip.
Also, before allowing Ed to ‘freewheel’ cycle down a hill on the pavement, someone might have checked Rule 64 of the Highway Code which is underpinned by highways legislation. Again, it doesn’t look good on a short TV clip, the editing of which we have no control.
https://www.libdemvoice.org/30-may-2024-todays-press-releases-75325.html#comment-592549
Technically he's right. Davey is lucky no one snapped him with the No Cycling sign.
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3443479,-3.050268,3a,75y,247.56h,77.29t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1slVO_TuunmjvNSh2j7gKXjQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205409&entry=ttu
"Shaheen was again selected by her local party in 2022 to stand for Chingford and Woodford Green, but was suddenly deselected on 29 May 2024 after a panel of the Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) questioned her about her likes of over a dozen social media posts over a ten year period, including one referencing the Israel lobby and forwarding a video of a sketch by American comedian Jon Stewart"
It sends a shiver through you. If this is the shape of the new Labour Party they need a rethink.
(I have to say I was less impressed with her than you having listened to her on Newsnight. If she dropped any more consonants she would have been incoherent)
The fastest anyone has built such a factory is probably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_Berlin-Brandenburg - which was 3+ years from ground breaking to initial production.
That view could be wrong and the views of people who already quite like the guy might not reflect that of the wider public. But you're very wrong if you think all that many Lib Dem members and donors are looking on aghast at it all.
As someone else said, you bet against geography, you lost. Time for adults who understand our small stature in the world to cooperate with other territories of small stature in Europe for the common good. l'Europe est ton pays.
What has Ed Davey got to lose by going out there and enjoying himself? Yes, I'm sure there are serious speeches given in key constituencies in among the knockabout but creating a national profile different from John Jackson and Jack Johnson is no bad thing. It's reminiscent (dare I say it) of Thorpe in 1974.
It enthuses the party workers and if it irritates those who are inimically opposed to him (at least a couple on here) so much the better.
You have to remember in vast areas of the country, in hundreds of constituencies, there will be little or no LD activity. There seems a delusion every party should fight every seat as though it were a marginal by-election - no party can do that. Labour will, I guess, leave most (not all) of its safest constituencies and fight its most likely gains. The Conservatives will defend what they can - probably about 200 seats each. The LDs will fight 50 at most, the Greens 10 perhaps, Reform three or four.
In East Ham, a safe Labour seat, we'll probably get a Labour leaflet but with three local by elections in Newham on July 4th,. Labour will concentrate its efforts there. We'll see nothing from the other parties apart from the main election address - that will happen in a lot of places. No posters, no stakeboards, no canvassers, nothing.
In addition, IMV Putin's reluctance to openly go for full mobilisation, even after his 'election', indicates he is concerned about pressures from the people.