I hadn’t realised that JENRICK had endorsed Trump. Dear me, what an absolute tool.
Indeed. And should rule him out of high office in this country for the rest of his career.
He is siding with this country's enemies.
The Conservative base and voter bloc is anti-Trump at the moment, unlike Reform. It’s also strongly pro-Ukraine and hawkish on Russia. But a Trump-positive Jenrick as leader, and especially a new Trump presidency, could well shift that particular Overton side-window. I really don’t want to see the party dragged into MAGA land. It’ll have us pining for the good old days of honourable, honest leaders like Boris Johnson.
It is hardly surprising some leadership candidates for the UK Conservative party back the US conservative party's presidential candidate. That does not mean they agree with everything he says on Ukraine, nor do even some Republicans backing Trump agree with him on Ukraine eg Haley
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
Been reading about Haitian vodou and I want to emigrate there and become a houngan.
It's interesting: animal sacrifice is afaics as normal and necessary a part of vodou as communion is of Christianity. Here's a guardian piece saying so
And vodou is as prevalent among Haitians as Christianity among Ohians. So that's one thing and it doesn't seem to matter too much what sort of animal it is. Separate point, it's entirely good sense to trap and eat standard food animals like geese and ducks (in this country swans and carp) and it's very credible that this has happened a non zero number of times. So trump is quite possibly conflating cat sacrifice and goose consumption.
Yes I’ve been reading about Haitian voodoo. They sacrifice animals and that definitely includes cats - cat bones and the like have special juju
So it is entirely plausible this really is happening (less likely but not impossible that they are eating them)
As I said at the start. This is a mad story for Dems to pursue because it could easily be true and even if not precisely true it’s not a great story for the pro-migration Left
Trump said enough truly insane and stupid things to demolish him forensically, day after day. Avoid this one, as it may not be insane
It's not the only case where people opposed to Trump have made fools of themselves by 'fact checking' him.
It was supposedly a lie that Kamala Harris supported state-funded gender surgery for detained migrants, but there's a video of her bragging about it. Some of it is outright gaslighting, like the Seattle Times trying to say that it was a lie that protesters took over part of Seattle in 2020.
Fact checking Trump is indeed a fool's errand. You never get the time back. With an habitual liar it's best to just assume they're lying.
That's a problem if you publicly accuse him of lying and it turns out that he wasn't wrong.
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
1) that video claims to be from Dayton, not Springfield
2) there are no people in the video, so no idea who did this
3) the article claims that it is Congolese migrants, not Hatians
4) the voice over is an American accent not one either from Haiti nor Congo.
This is just crap.
A person won't go far wrong if they assume all emissions from the MAGA drivelpipe are complete bollocks.
The MAGA drivelpipe known as Leon in particular.
He sure has a good blow on it from time to time. But even the most prodigious emitter is only a tiny fraction of the whole spewing unit. It's quite a thing to behold.
Million $$$ question. Is it strong enough to win a US presidential election for a senile pig-ignorant shambles of a woman-hating racist? No way!
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
Been reading about Haitian vodou and I want to emigrate there and become a houngan.
It's interesting: animal sacrifice is afaics as normal and necessary a part of vodou as communion is of Christianity. Here's a guardian piece saying so
And vodou is as prevalent among Haitians as Christianity among Ohians. So that's one thing and it doesn't seem to matter too much what sort of animal it is. Separate point, it's entirely good sense to trap and eat standard food animals like geese and ducks (in this country swans and carp) and it's very credible that this has happened a non zero number of times. So trump is quite possibly conflating cat sacrifice and goose consumption.
Yes I’ve been reading about Haitian voodoo. They sacrifice animals and that definitely includes cats - cat bones and the like have special juju
So it is entirely plausible this really is happening (less likely but not impossible that they are eating them)
As I said at the start. This is a mad story for Dems to pursue because it could easily be true and even if not precisely true it’s not a great story for the pro-migration Left
Trump said enough truly insane and stupid things to demolish him forensically, day after day. Avoid this one, as it may not be insane
It's not the only case where people opposed to Trump have made fools of themselves by 'fact checking' him.
It was supposedly a lie that Kamala Harris supported state-funded gender surgery for detained migrants, but there's a video of her bragging about it. Some of it is outright gaslighting, like the Seattle Times trying to say that it was a lie that protesters took over part of Seattle in 2020.
Fact checking Trump is indeed a fool's errand. You never get the time back. With an habitual liar it's best to just assume they're lying.
That's a problem if you publicly accuse him of lying and it turns out that he wasn't wrong.
How so?
Looks like they are indeed killing and possibly eating cats in Springfield, Ohio
I WARNED THEM ABOUT THIS. DON’T GO THERE, I SAID. REMEMBER THE SUN AND THE SWANS AND THE ASYLUM SEEKERS
No sooner has Parliament sat down after a long summer break and it all stops again for a month for Conference season. Why?
It really gives the impression of a political system that exists for itself, not the people.
I think Cammo reduced the summer recess so it no longer included the September fortnight. Not only did this prevent MPs having cheap holidays, it caused a ludicrous system whereby they returned for a fortnight then rose again. They’d be better finding the two weeks elsewhere in the year.
Or they could move the dates of the party conference season?
Once they become an MP that should be their job. If they want to spend a week chattering amongst like minded people it should be one of their 30-40 days or so holiday. Get rid of the whole pantomime.
Being an MP should not be a job: if it were then then they should be much harder to sack.
I hadn’t realised that JENRICK had endorsed Trump. Dear me, what an absolute tool.
Indeed. And should rule him out of high office in this country for the rest of his career.
He is siding with this country's enemies.
The Conservative base and voter bloc is anti-Trump at the moment, unlike Reform. It’s also strongly pro-Ukraine and hawkish on Russia. But a Trump-positive Jenrick as leader, and especially a new Trump presidency, could well shift that particular Overton side-window. I really don’t want to see the party dragged into MAGA land. It’ll have us pining for the good old days of honourable, honest leaders like Boris Johnson.
It is quite possible to be a Ukrainian Ultra and want to fuck Trump's 'Neck Pussy' as bro living in the Ballardesque nightmare of the Trucial States vividly demonstrates on the reg.
I feel like this is English, but I still can't decipher it.
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
Been reading about Haitian vodou and I want to emigrate there and become a houngan.
It's interesting: animal sacrifice is afaics as normal and necessary a part of vodou as communion is of Christianity. Here's a guardian piece saying so
And vodou is as prevalent among Haitians as Christianity among Ohians. So that's one thing and it doesn't seem to matter too much what sort of animal it is. Separate point, it's entirely good sense to trap and eat standard food animals like geese and ducks (in this country swans and carp) and it's very credible that this has happened a non zero number of times. So trump is quite possibly conflating cat sacrifice and goose consumption.
Yes I’ve been reading about Haitian voodoo. They sacrifice animals and that definitely includes cats - cat bones and the like have special juju
So it is entirely plausible this really is happening (less likely but not impossible that they are eating them)
As I said at the start. This is a mad story for Dems to pursue because it could easily be true and even if not precisely true it’s not a great story for the pro-migration Left
Trump said enough truly insane and stupid things to demolish him forensically, day after day. Avoid this one, as it may not be insane
It's not the only case where people opposed to Trump have made fools of themselves by 'fact checking' him.
It was supposedly a lie that Kamala Harris supported state-funded gender surgery for detained migrants, but there's a video of her bragging about it. Some of it is outright gaslighting, like the Seattle Times trying to say that it was a lie that protesters took over part of Seattle in 2020.
Fact checking Trump is indeed a fool's errand. You never get the time back. With an habitual liar it's best to just assume they're lying.
That's a problem if you publicly accuse him of lying and it turns out that he wasn't wrong.
How so?
Looks like they are indeed killing and possibly eating cats in Springfield, Ohio
I WARNED THEM ABOUT THIS. DON’T GO THERE, I SAID. REMEMBER THE SUN AND THE SWANS AND THE ASYLUM SEEKERS
Did they listen? Pah
You're right, they didn't listen, because it isn't happening. Linking to a Twitter account run by a not very intelligent far right conspiracy theorist which claims there is paedophilia in every school disguised as LGBTQ teaching rather than engaging with the town's mayor who has dismissed it as bullshit doesn't alter that.
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
Been reading about Haitian vodou and I want to emigrate there and become a houngan.
It's interesting: animal sacrifice is afaics as normal and necessary a part of vodou as communion is of Christianity. Here's a guardian piece saying so
And vodou is as prevalent among Haitians as Christianity among Ohians. So that's one thing and it doesn't seem to matter too much what sort of animal it is. Separate point, it's entirely good sense to trap and eat standard food animals like geese and ducks (in this country swans and carp) and it's very credible that this has happened a non zero number of times. So trump is quite possibly conflating cat sacrifice and goose consumption.
Yes I’ve been reading about Haitian voodoo. They sacrifice animals and that definitely includes cats - cat bones and the like have special juju
So it is entirely plausible this really is happening (less likely but not impossible that they are eating them)
As I said at the start. This is a mad story for Dems to pursue because it could easily be true and even if not precisely true it’s not a great story for the pro-migration Left
Trump said enough truly insane and stupid things to demolish him forensically, day after day. Avoid this one, as it may not be insane
It's not the only case where people opposed to Trump have made fools of themselves by 'fact checking' him.
It was supposedly a lie that Kamala Harris supported state-funded gender surgery for detained migrants, but there's a video of her bragging about it. Some of it is outright gaslighting, like the Seattle Times trying to say that it was a lie that protesters took over part of Seattle in 2020.
Fact checking Trump is indeed a fool's errand. You never get the time back. With an habitual liar it's best to just assume they're lying.
That's a problem if you publicly accuse him of lying and it turns out that he wasn't wrong.
Just assume he's lying. There's no need to do an 'accuse'. That takes time too.
This is the cautionary tale of the ages. You think you are just shipping in free labour from West Africa but with it comes a cat eating tradition which will indirectly get your descendants a second term of President Trump.
The voters are electing Nazis to deal with mass immigration and Olaf Scholz’s reaction is to import, en masse, a quarter of a million Kenyans
That’s not just pouring fuel on the fire, that’s buying the entire global reserves of Exxon and dropping it in the erupting volcano
This surging crisis could easily lead to the end of the EU. The underlying illogic of the EU, the crucial flaw, is that each country purports to have its own migration policy but, perforce, you must accept the migration policy of your EU neighbour, because Free Movement
Once those Kenyans get residency in Germany they are free to move anywhere in the EU, even though other EU countries might not want them. In the end that cannot be sustained
"Once those Kenyans get residency in Germany they are free to move anywhere in the EU" well that is flat out wrong for a start. But congrats on maintaining your record of 100% of your posts that mention Germany containing ignorant bullshit.
They are free to move because there are no internal borders in Schenghen. lol. Are you disputing this?!
Obviously that is not what you meant. Because that would apply to anyone who happens to be in Germany whether they have German residency or not.
"Once those Kenyans get residency" is what you wrote. Why do they need to wait until they get residency if you are just talking about the lack of border controls within Schengen?
Also you wrote "anywhere in the EU". Why did you write the EU if you were talking about the lack of border controls in Schengen? Even you must know by now that Schengen and the EU aren't the same thing.
Just be honest for once and admit that you thought that getting German residency meant getting residency rights in the rest of the EU.
I meant what I said dumbkopf
Once they are residing in Germany they are immediately free to move around the EU, because Schenghen (are you really going to die on the hill that Schenghen =! EU?). Normal Kenyans have to get a Schenghen visa for this - not easy
As the years go by they will accrue further rights to work and claim benefits all over the EU
Moving on from your idiocy I don’t understand the political or economic logic of this move. I’ve nothing against Kenyans - often lovely people
But why Kenya? Coz they’re Christian and integrate better? Is that an admission that 1m Syrians was a bad idea? Why not just recruit from around the EU?? Germany is rich but unhappy about non-EU migration
Mad. Perhaps Scholz really is a Putin spy as has been alleged (like Merkel) and is trying to destroy Germany by boosting the AfD*
*this is a joke, in case stupid people like @kamski don’t get it. But the whole thing is still weird
On an unrelated matter I’ve just read a very good sub stack article about Elizabeth Bathory by Sean Thomas - if he was around here I would send my compliments.
I read that for a moment as an article on Sean Thomas by Elizabeth Bathory.
Which would certainly be an interesting read.
Tasting notes: alky nose, blokey aged aftertaste, definitely not a virgin.
LibDems made 64 gains in 2024 - 47 of them in the south of England, where they hold 52 seats now. A new "Yellow Wall" in the politics of southern England.
Am interested in hearing more about the LibDem/Conservative battle in those marginal seats - last time - and what it means in future
sundersays.bsky.social @sundersays.bsky.social · 1h Almost one in three seats across the south outside London will be LibDem/Conservative contests at the next General Election: whether the Yellow Wall holds will be a crucial part of the jigsaw of the next parliament
Christ, this wall stuff is now diluted to homeopathic levels.
Wall is supposed to mean seats which have consistenly been for one party for decades, whose loss would be politically seizmic.
Yes once the Conservatives get their mojo back (or, more likely, once Labour screw up enough), the Yellow Fungus spread across southern England will die off as quickly and decisively as it did in 2015.
But Conservative mojo restoration and Labour screwing up was the story of 2010, when the Lib Dems did fine.
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
1) that video claims to be from Dayton, not Springfield
2) there are no people in the video, so no idea who did this
3) the article claims that it is Congolese migrants, not Hatians
4) the voice over is an American accent not one either from Haiti nor Congo.
This is just crap.
It’s fascism 101. Make up a racist story that feeds on old myths. Repeat it over and over again. Distort or plain make up evidence. If people attempt to argue with you, say this just proves they’re not taking the situation seriously and can’t be trusted.
Please tell me we’re not going to have days of Leon’s mission to educate us on voodoo cat sacrifice !
Spelling convention is New Orleans voodoo, Haitian vodou, West African vodun. It's fascinating stuff, who doesn't love a religion which worships Blanc Dani, the Grand Zombi, and Papa Lébat?
Animal sacrifice is apparently common to all three versions of voodoo.
It is brilliant. I might actually join. Also it would help to save the British chaffinch
I might do my first voodoo cat sacrifice in Hampstead. Just need a plump sluggish victim, that can’t get away.
Well mine is speedy gonzalez. He can outrun almost anything. He's young, you see. We all remember that, I suppose? Youth, agility, speed.
I hadn’t realised that JENRICK had endorsed Trump. Dear me, what an absolute tool.
Indeed. And should rule him out of high office in this country for the rest of his career.
He is siding with this country's enemies.
The Conservative base and voter bloc is anti-Trump at the moment, unlike Reform. It’s also strongly pro-Ukraine and hawkish on Russia. But a Trump-positive Jenrick as leader, and especially a new Trump presidency, could well shift that particular Overton side-window. I really don’t want to see the party dragged into MAGA land. It’ll have us pining for the good old days of honourable, honest leaders like Boris Johnson.
It is hardly surprising some leadership candidates for the UK Conservative party back the US conservative party's presidential candidate. That does not mean they agree with everything he says on Ukraine, nor do even some Republicans backing Trump agree with him on Ukraine eg Haley
But Trump isn’t really a conservative and it’s questionable whether the Republican Party is even a Conservative Party any more. The UK Conservatives have a proud history of opposing fascism. Trump is closer to fascism than conservativism.
On topic, the first Party Conference after a General Election is or can be a non event. For the victors, it becomes a celebration, for the losers, a wake.
The LD Conference kicks off in Brighton today - it's good to see much more outside interest now the party has 72 MPs and is clear third largest in terms of seats. Yet the Party faces some tough questions and challenges and needs to set out the next stage of the journey. As is so often the case, its fate is not in its own hands - yesterday's More In Common suggests the Labour fragmentation is going to the LDs, Greens and Reform rather than the Conservatives as you might expect.
The LDs will, I suspect, focus on the next 50 targets and 38 of them are Conservative-held but of Reform's next 50 targets, 23 are also Conservative held so the potential pincer movement on the Tories is evident but how do the Conservatives simultaenously recapture votes lost to both the LDs and Reform as well as those who stayed at home in July?
As an aside, of the first 150 Conservative targets, only 27 are LD seats
In 2019, the Conservatives won 12,710,845 votes in England (47.2%) - in July they won 6,279.411 (25.9%). Basically, nearly 6.5 million people who voted Conservative in 2019 didn't in July.
Where did all the Tories go?
The Tories went to Labour, Reform and LD and stay at home. I doubt if many are quickly coming back.
The LD plan undoubtedly should be to become the second party, and the way to it is open.
(Speaking of English seats - the rest are too complicated) They are not in a direct contest with Labour, so crucially they need Labour to continue to do well. Have they worked this out? In Lab/Con contests the LDs are unengaged, but it is essential not to have the Tories taking seats off Labour - if they do the Tories continue to come second. So LD need Labour and Reform to continue to eat the Tory vote.
As long as, and only as long as, the Tories are doing relatively badly WRT everyone else, the LD plan works itself. Astonishingly the LDs only need: Labour to hold on in relation to the Tories and LDs to take further 25 Tory seats to become the official opposition.
This of course would suit Labour, as the LDs can come second, but can't come first, now or probably ever.
Simple.
Reform are far more likely to come second than the LDs, not least as they are polling 5%+ higher than the LDs now.
The LDs have probably maxed out their seat gains now, Reform however can gain lots of Labour white working class seats as well as a few more Tory ones
This is the cautionary tale of the ages. You think you are just shipping in free labour from West Africa but with it comes a cat eating tradition which will indirectly get your descendants a second term of President Trump.
You do realise that Haiti is not in Africa, I hope.
Indeed it is the second oldest Republic and independent country in the Western Hemisphere, at least since the pre-Columbine nations.
With a fascinating history too, with that rarity, a successful slave revolt that fought off the strongest armies and navies of their day, including ours. After Haiti became independent the writing was on the wall for the colonial slave economy. Slaves in other areas knew it was possible.
Ronald Reagan would have despised Trump. He had his faults but he was totally devoted to the Constitution, in a fashion that Biden could quote without it sounding out of place.
There were two things Reagan and Trump have in common:
1) Both were former Democrats turned populist Republicans;
2) Both were far too old to be President and were clearly past it by the age of 78.
Reagan became President at 69 which was certainly not too old and after FDR was probably the greatest US President of the last 100 years
On topic, the first Party Conference after a General Election is or can be a non event. For the victors, it becomes a celebration, for the losers, a wake.
The LD Conference kicks off in Brighton today - it's good to see much more outside interest now the party has 72 MPs and is clear third largest in terms of seats. Yet the Party faces some tough questions and challenges and needs to set out the next stage of the journey. As is so often the case, its fate is not in its own hands - yesterday's More In Common suggests the Labour fragmentation is going to the LDs, Greens and Reform rather than the Conservatives as you might expect.
The LDs will, I suspect, focus on the next 50 targets and 38 of them are Conservative-held but of Reform's next 50 targets, 23 are also Conservative held so the potential pincer movement on the Tories is evident but how do the Conservatives simultaenously recapture votes lost to both the LDs and Reform as well as those who stayed at home in July?
As an aside, of the first 150 Conservative targets, only 27 are LD seats
In 2019, the Conservatives won 12,710,845 votes in England (47.2%) - in July they won 6,279.411 (25.9%). Basically, nearly 6.5 million people who voted Conservative in 2019 didn't in July.
Where did all the Tories go?
The Tories went to Labour, Reform and LD and stay at home. I doubt if many are quickly coming back.
The LD plan undoubtedly should be to become the second party, and the way to it is open.
(Speaking of English seats - the rest are too complicated) They are not in a direct contest with Labour, so crucially they need Labour to continue to do well. Have they worked this out? In Lab/Con contests the LDs are unengaged, but it is essential not to have the Tories taking seats off Labour - if they do the Tories continue to come second. So LD need Labour and Reform to continue to eat the Tory vote.
As long as, and only as long as, the Tories are doing relatively badly WRT everyone else, the LD plan works itself. Astonishingly the LDs only need: Labour to hold on in relation to the Tories and LDs to take further 25 Tory seats to become the official opposition.
This of course would suit Labour, as the LDs can come second, but can't come first, now or probably ever.
Simple.
Reform are far more likely to come second than the LDs, not least as they are polling 5%+ higher than the LDs now.
The LDs have probably maxed out their seat gains now, Reform however can gain lots of Labour white working class seats as well as a few more Tory ones
Shortly after the 2019 election, no-one would have predicted the 2024 result. I would be very cautious about predicting the 2029 result.
Ronald Reagan would have despised Trump. He had his faults but he was totally devoted to the Constitution, in a fashion that Biden could quote without it sounding out of place.
There were two things Reagan and Trump have in common:
1) Both were former Democrats turned populist Republicans;
2) Both were far too old to be President and were clearly past it by the age of 78.
Reagan became President at 69 which was certainly not too old and after FDR was probably the greatest US President of the last 100 years
He was 77 and serious thought had been given to invoking the 25th by the time he left office.
He really did have Alzheimer's, of course, although it wasn't diagnosed until later.
Edit - incidentally I think at 69 he was immediately either the oldest or second oldest president ever to hold office, next to Eisenhower. Biden has of course eclipsed his record.
Edit edit - apparently third behind Jackson as well.
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
Been reading about Haitian vodou and I want to emigrate there and become a houngan.
It's interesting: animal sacrifice is afaics as normal and necessary a part of vodou as communion is of Christianity. Here's a guardian piece saying so
And vodou is as prevalent among Haitians as Christianity among Ohians. So that's one thing and it doesn't seem to matter too much what sort of animal it is. Separate point, it's entirely good sense to trap and eat standard food animals like geese and ducks (in this country swans and carp) and it's very credible that this has happened a non zero number of times. So trump is quite possibly conflating cat sacrifice and goose consumption.
Yes I’ve been reading about Haitian voodoo. They sacrifice animals and that definitely includes cats - cat bones and the like have special juju
So it is entirely plausible this really is happening (less likely but not impossible that they are eating them)
As I said at the start. This is a mad story for Dems to pursue because it could easily be true and even if not precisely true it’s not a great story for the pro-migration Left
Trump said enough truly insane and stupid things to demolish him forensically, day after day. Avoid this one, as it may not be insane
It's not the only case where people opposed to Trump have made fools of themselves by 'fact checking' him.
It was supposedly a lie that Kamala Harris supported state-funded gender surgery for detained migrants, but there's a video of her bragging about it. Some of it is outright gaslighting, like the Seattle Times trying to say that it was a lie that protesters took over part of Seattle in 2020.
Fact checking Trump is indeed a fool's errand. You never get the time back. With an habitual liar it's best to just assume they're lying.
Same with factchecking Williamglenn
All the same, the Trumpers. 100% lies so just assume they're lying. It's a powerful and liberating technique. My life's been transformed by it.
I hadn’t realised that JENRICK had endorsed Trump. Dear me, what an absolute tool.
Indeed. And should rule him out of high office in this country for the rest of his career.
He is siding with this country's enemies.
The Conservative base and voter bloc is anti-Trump at the moment, unlike Reform. It’s also strongly pro-Ukraine and hawkish on Russia. But a Trump-positive Jenrick as leader, and especially a new Trump presidency, could well shift that particular Overton side-window. I really don’t want to see the party dragged into MAGA land. It’ll have us pining for the good old days of honourable, honest leaders like Boris Johnson.
It is quite possible to be a Ukrainian Ultra and want to fuck Trump's 'Neck Pussy' as bro living in the Ballardesque nightmare of the Trucial States vividly demonstrates on the reg.
I feel like this is English, but I still can't decipher it.
The government needs to make the means testing rigorous, right minded and focused on helping those most in need. Above all, stop paying it to the millions who very obviously do not need it, like me.
A reminder that despite the histrionics you might see in press and social media, not all pensioners are evil capital accumulators and not everyone thinks means testing WFP is a bad idea.
On this sporting theme, over to the horseracing and the final Classic race of the season, the St Leger will be run at Doncaster racecourse.
Even non-racing fans will know of the race from such aphorisms as Winter comes in on the tail of the last horse in the St Leger, or the stock market's Sell in May and go away; come back on St Leger day.
The St Leger is also the world's oldest Classic race. It was first run in 1776, an otherwise unremarkable year.
I regret to say that I have absolutely no interest in the Tory leadership election. None of the candidates has attracted my interest, let alone enthusiasm. Jenrick probably annoys me the most, both for his vile treatment of young, refugee children and his frankly appalling endorsement of Trump but I am not really persuaded that any of the others will be an improvement. In any event, the "winner" will struggle to hold their party together and then lose badly (if not quite as badly) in 2028 or 2029, at which point they will probably resign so who cares?
I cannot recall having this attitude to the leadership of either of the 2 main parties in my adult lifetime. The Conservatives have a hell of a long road back and their adventures down the road less travelled look likely to lose me altogether.
Right now I feel party less.
Two reasons it might, unfortunately, matter.
One is that another bad defeat in 2028 pushes the next Conservative government back to 2037 or so.
The other is how the Conservatives respond to a hypothetical (but plausible) defeat under Jenrick. Will it be taken as a sign for the party to move closer to the voters, or will he also be seen as Not Sufficiently Tory? God knows what they try in the second case.
Jenrick is a former Remainer, Cameroon Sunak backer just showing a bit of rightwing leg on immigration etc to get the ERG vote in the leadership election.
If he loses the Tories can certainly go further right as he will not have squeezed Reform enough from their perspective, if JRM was back in Parliament in 2028 (he could take Liam Fox's old seat which is much easier to gain than his old seat which neighbours it) then JRM would have an excellent chance of winning the Tory leadership.
Post Boris JRM is the real Tory Corbyn who excites the Right not Jenrick or even Badenoch and probably the only Tory who could really squeeze Reform
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
Been reading about Haitian vodou and I want to emigrate there and become a houngan.
It's interesting: animal sacrifice is afaics as normal and necessary a part of vodou as communion is of Christianity. Here's a guardian piece saying so
And vodou is as prevalent among Haitians as Christianity among Ohians. So that's one thing and it doesn't seem to matter too much what sort of animal it is. Separate point, it's entirely good sense to trap and eat standard food animals like geese and ducks (in this country swans and carp) and it's very credible that this has happened a non zero number of times. So trump is quite possibly conflating cat sacrifice and goose consumption.
Yes I’ve been reading about Haitian voodoo. They sacrifice animals and that definitely includes cats - cat bones and the like have special juju
So it is entirely plausible this really is happening (less likely but not impossible that they are eating them)
As I said at the start. This is a mad story for Dems to pursue because it could easily be true and even if not precisely true it’s not a great story for the pro-migration Left
Trump said enough truly insane and stupid things to demolish him forensically, day after day. Avoid this one, as it may not be insane
It's not the only case where people opposed to Trump have made fools of themselves by 'fact checking' him.
It was supposedly a lie that Kamala Harris supported state-funded gender surgery for detained migrants, but there's a video of her bragging about it. Some of it is outright gaslighting, like the Seattle Times trying to say that it was a lie that protesters took over part of Seattle in 2020.
Fact checking Trump is indeed a fool's errand. You never get the time back. With an habitual liar it's best to just assume they're lying.
That's a problem if you publicly accuse him of lying and it turns out that he wasn't wrong.
How so?
Looks like they are indeed killing and possibly eating cats in Springfield, Ohio
I WARNED THEM ABOUT THIS. DON’T GO THERE, I SAID. REMEMBER THE SUN AND THE SWANS AND THE ASYLUM SEEKERS
Did they listen? Pah
You're right, they didn't listen, because it isn't happening. Linking to a Twitter account run by a not very intelligent far right conspiracy theorist which claims there is paedophilia in every school disguised as LGBTQ teaching rather than engaging with the town's mayor who has dismissed it as bullshit doesn't alter that.
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
Been reading about Haitian vodou and I want to emigrate there and become a houngan.
It's interesting: animal sacrifice is afaics as normal and necessary a part of vodou as communion is of Christianity. Here's a guardian piece saying so
And vodou is as prevalent among Haitians as Christianity among Ohians. So that's one thing and it doesn't seem to matter too much what sort of animal it is. Separate point, it's entirely good sense to trap and eat standard food animals like geese and ducks (in this country swans and carp) and it's very credible that this has happened a non zero number of times. So trump is quite possibly conflating cat sacrifice and goose consumption.
Yes I’ve been reading about Haitian voodoo. They sacrifice animals and that definitely includes cats - cat bones and the like have special juju
So it is entirely plausible this really is happening (less likely but not impossible that they are eating them)
As I said at the start. This is a mad story for Dems to pursue because it could easily be true and even if not precisely true it’s not a great story for the pro-migration Left
Trump said enough truly insane and stupid things to demolish him forensically, day after day. Avoid this one, as it may not be insane
It's not the only case where people opposed to Trump have made fools of themselves by 'fact checking' him.
It was supposedly a lie that Kamala Harris supported state-funded gender surgery for detained migrants, but there's a video of her bragging about it. Some of it is outright gaslighting, like the Seattle Times trying to say that it was a lie that protesters took over part of Seattle in 2020.
Fact checking Trump is indeed a fool's errand. You never get the time back. With an habitual liar it's best to just assume they're lying.
That's a problem if you publicly accuse him of lying and it turns out that he wasn't wrong.
How so?
Looks like they are indeed killing and possibly eating cats in Springfield, Ohio
I WARNED THEM ABOUT THIS. DON’T GO THERE, I SAID. REMEMBER THE SUN AND THE SWANS AND THE ASYLUM SEEKERS
Did they listen? Pah
You're right, they didn't listen, because it isn't happening. Linking to a Twitter account run by a not very intelligent far right conspiracy theorist which claims there is paedophilia in every school disguised as LGBTQ teaching rather than engaging with the town's mayor who has dismissed it as bullshit doesn't alter that.
Is its truth the most important thing about it? The European Jewish blood libel obviously wasn't true, but that doesn't prevent it having rather far reaching consequences.
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
Been reading about Haitian vodou and I want to emigrate there and become a houngan.
It's interesting: animal sacrifice is afaics as normal and necessary a part of vodou as communion is of Christianity. Here's a guardian piece saying so
And vodou is as prevalent among Haitians as Christianity among Ohians. So that's one thing and it doesn't seem to matter too much what sort of animal it is. Separate point, it's entirely good sense to trap and eat standard food animals like geese and ducks (in this country swans and carp) and it's very credible that this has happened a non zero number of times. So trump is quite possibly conflating cat sacrifice and goose consumption.
Yes I’ve been reading about Haitian voodoo. They sacrifice animals and that definitely includes cats - cat bones and the like have special juju
So it is entirely plausible this really is happening (less likely but not impossible that they are eating them)
As I said at the start. This is a mad story for Dems to pursue because it could easily be true and even if not precisely true it’s not a great story for the pro-migration Left
Trump said enough truly insane and stupid things to demolish him forensically, day after day. Avoid this one, as it may not be insane
It's not the only case where people opposed to Trump have made fools of themselves by 'fact checking' him.
It was supposedly a lie that Kamala Harris supported state-funded gender surgery for detained migrants, but there's a video of her bragging about it. Some of it is outright gaslighting, like the Seattle Times trying to say that it was a lie that protesters took over part of Seattle in 2020.
Fact checking Trump is indeed a fool's errand. You never get the time back. With an habitual liar it's best to just assume they're lying.
That's a problem if you publicly accuse him of lying and it turns out that he wasn't wrong.
How so?
Looks like they are indeed killing and possibly eating cats in Springfield, Ohio
I WARNED THEM ABOUT THIS. DON’T GO THERE, I SAID. REMEMBER THE SUN AND THE SWANS AND THE ASYLUM SEEKERS
Did they listen? Pah
You're right, they didn't listen, because it isn't happening. Linking to a Twitter account run by a not very intelligent far right conspiracy theorist which claims there is paedophilia in every school disguised as LGBTQ teaching rather than engaging with the town's mayor who has dismissed it as bullshit doesn't alter that.
This is the cautionary tale of the ages. You think you are just shipping in free labour from West Africa but with it comes a cat eating tradition which will indirectly get your descendants a second term of President Trump.
You do realise that Haiti is not in Africa, I hope.
Indeed it is the second oldest Republic and independent country in the Western Hemisphere, at least since the pre-Columbine nations.
With a fascinating history too, with that rarity, a successful slave revolt that fought off the strongest armies and navies of their day, including ours. After Haiti became independent the writing was on the wall for the colonial slave economy. Slaves in other areas knew it was possible.
Makes the Republican hatred of Haitians much more understandable...
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
1) that video claims to be from Dayton, not Springfield
2) there are no people in the video, so no idea who did this
3) the article claims that it is Congolese migrants, not Hatians
4) the voice over is an American accent not one either from Haiti nor Congo.
This is just crap.
It’s fascism 101. Make up a racist story that feeds on old myths. Repeat it over and over again. Distort or plain make up evidence. If people attempt to argue with you, say this just proves they’re not taking the situation seriously and can’t be trusted.
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
Been reading about Haitian vodou and I want to emigrate there and become a houngan.
It's interesting: animal sacrifice is afaics as normal and necessary a part of vodou as communion is of Christianity. Here's a guardian piece saying so
And vodou is as prevalent among Haitians as Christianity among Ohians. So that's one thing and it doesn't seem to matter too much what sort of animal it is. Separate point, it's entirely good sense to trap and eat standard food animals like geese and ducks (in this country swans and carp) and it's very credible that this has happened a non zero number of times. So trump is quite possibly conflating cat sacrifice and goose consumption.
Yes I’ve been reading about Haitian voodoo. They sacrifice animals and that definitely includes cats - cat bones and the like have special juju
So it is entirely plausible this really is happening (less likely but not impossible that they are eating them)
As I said at the start. This is a mad story for Dems to pursue because it could easily be true and even if not precisely true it’s not a great story for the pro-migration Left
Trump said enough truly insane and stupid things to demolish him forensically, day after day. Avoid this one, as it may not be insane
It's not the only case where people opposed to Trump have made fools of themselves by 'fact checking' him.
It was supposedly a lie that Kamala Harris supported state-funded gender surgery for detained migrants, but there's a video of her bragging about it. Some of it is outright gaslighting, like the Seattle Times trying to say that it was a lie that protesters took over part of Seattle in 2020.
Fact checking Trump is indeed a fool's errand. You never get the time back. With an habitual liar it's best to just assume they're lying.
That's a problem if you publicly accuse him of lying and it turns out that he wasn't wrong.
How so?
Looks like they are indeed killing and possibly eating cats in Springfield, Ohio
I WARNED THEM ABOUT THIS. DON’T GO THERE, I SAID. REMEMBER THE SUN AND THE SWANS AND THE ASYLUM SEEKERS
Did they listen? Pah
You're right, they didn't listen, because it isn't happening. Linking to a Twitter account run by a not very intelligent far right conspiracy theorist which claims there is paedophilia in every school disguised as LGBTQ teaching rather than engaging with the town's mayor who has dismissed it as bullshit doesn't alter that.
Is its truth the most important thing about it? The European Jewish blood libel obviously wasn't true, but that doesn't prevent it having rather far reaching consequences.
What it says about Trump's mental state and ideas for America is by far the most important thing about it.
On topic, the first Party Conference after a General Election is or can be a non event. For the victors, it becomes a celebration, for the losers, a wake.
The LD Conference kicks off in Brighton today - it's good to see much more outside interest now the party has 72 MPs and is clear third largest in terms of seats. Yet the Party faces some tough questions and challenges and needs to set out the next stage of the journey. As is so often the case, its fate is not in its own hands - yesterday's More In Common suggests the Labour fragmentation is going to the LDs, Greens and Reform rather than the Conservatives as you might expect.
The LDs will, I suspect, focus on the next 50 targets and 38 of them are Conservative-held but of Reform's next 50 targets, 23 are also Conservative held so the potential pincer movement on the Tories is evident but how do the Conservatives simultaenously recapture votes lost to both the LDs and Reform as well as those who stayed at home in July?
As an aside, of the first 150 Conservative targets, only 27 are LD seats
In 2019, the Conservatives won 12,710,845 votes in England (47.2%) - in July they won 6,279.411 (25.9%). Basically, nearly 6.5 million people who voted Conservative in 2019 didn't in July.
Where did all the Tories go?
The Tories went to Labour, Reform and LD and stay at home. I doubt if many are quickly coming back.
The LD plan undoubtedly should be to become the second party, and the way to it is open.
(Speaking of English seats - the rest are too complicated) They are not in a direct contest with Labour, so crucially they need Labour to continue to do well. Have they worked this out? In Lab/Con contests the LDs are unengaged, but it is essential not to have the Tories taking seats off Labour - if they do the Tories continue to come second. So LD need Labour and Reform to continue to eat the Tory vote.
As long as, and only as long as, the Tories are doing relatively badly WRT everyone else, the LD plan works itself. Astonishingly the LDs only need: Labour to hold on in relation to the Tories and LDs to take further 25 Tory seats to become the official opposition.
This of course would suit Labour, as the LDs can come second, but can't come first, now or probably ever.
Simple.
Reform are far more likely to come second than the LDs, not least as they are polling 5%+ higher than the LDs now.
The LDs have probably maxed out their seat gains now, Reform however can gain lots of Labour white working class seats as well as a few more Tory ones
Only if Reform get a lot better at playing the FPTP ground game.
Whereas the Lib Dems, cheeky sausages that they are, know exactly which seats to go for. Leafy places where they are second behind the Conservatives with a squeezable Labour a decent third.
Do you mean you are drunk because your trip to brewery or do you mean you are “so drunk” like shitfaced?
Sober enough to catch a train. Not sober enough to know where I will land up.
Marvellous. When I was at university I got on the circle line very pissed and fell asleep and was woken by the staff about two hours later at Notting Hill one stop on from where I had got on at High Street Ken. Do let us know where you end up.
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
1) that video claims to be from Dayton, not Springfield
2) there are no people in the video, so no idea who did this
3) the article claims that it is Congolese migrants, not Hatians
4) the voice over is an American accent not one either from Haiti nor Congo.
This is just crap.
It’s fascism 101. Make up a racist story that feeds on old myths. Repeat it over and over again. Distort or plain make up evidence. If people attempt to argue with you, say this just proves they’re not taking the situation seriously and can’t be trusted.
The cat thing is just Trump spouting his random shit to try and distract from his abysmal record, and lack of policies. He has no idea whether or not there’s any substance to it, nor does he care.
That Vance was among those who started (and is continuing) to push it as deliberate race baiting means it’s not entirely easy to ignore.
This is the cautionary tale of the ages. You think you are just shipping in free labour from West Africa but with it comes a cat eating tradition which will indirectly get your descendants a second term of President Trump.
It will be HILARIOUS if a weird tiny cat-eating Haitian non-hoax ends up getting Trump re-elected and destroys NATO leading to a Russo-Chinese world takeover
Do you mean you are drunk because your trip to brewery or do you mean you are “so drunk” like shitfaced?
Sober enough to catch a train. Not sober enough to know where I will land up.
Marvellous. When I was at university I got on the circle line very pissed and fell asleep and was woken by the staff about two hours later at Notting Hill one stop on from where I had got on at High Street Ken. Do let us know where you end up.
Managed to make the first change successfully. The next is problematic. Lots of opportunities to get it wrong. Have a compatriot to help or send me the wrong way. He has had the same amount of free beer as me.
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
Been reading about Haitian vodou and I want to emigrate there and become a houngan.
It's interesting: animal sacrifice is afaics as normal and necessary a part of vodou as communion is of Christianity. Here's a guardian piece saying so
And vodou is as prevalent among Haitians as Christianity among Ohians. So that's one thing and it doesn't seem to matter too much what sort of animal it is. Separate point, it's entirely good sense to trap and eat standard food animals like geese and ducks (in this country swans and carp) and it's very credible that this has happened a non zero number of times. So trump is quite possibly conflating cat sacrifice and goose consumption.
Yes I’ve been reading about Haitian voodoo. They sacrifice animals and that definitely includes cats - cat bones and the like have special juju
So it is entirely plausible this really is happening (less likely but not impossible that they are eating them)
As I said at the start. This is a mad story for Dems to pursue because it could easily be true and even if not precisely true it’s not a great story for the pro-migration Left
Trump said enough truly insane and stupid things to demolish him forensically, day after day. Avoid this one, as it may not be insane
It's not the only case where people opposed to Trump have made fools of themselves by 'fact checking' him.
It was supposedly a lie that Kamala Harris supported state-funded gender surgery for detained migrants, but there's a video of her bragging about it. Some of it is outright gaslighting, like the Seattle Times trying to say that it was a lie that protesters took over part of Seattle in 2020.
Fact checking Trump is indeed a fool's errand. You never get the time back. With an habitual liar it's best to just assume they're lying.
That's a problem if you publicly accuse him of lying and it turns out that he wasn't wrong.
How so?
Looks like they are indeed killing and possibly eating cats in Springfield, Ohio
I WARNED THEM ABOUT THIS. DON’T GO THERE, I SAID. REMEMBER THE SUN AND THE SWANS AND THE ASYLUM SEEKERS
Did they listen? Pah
You're right, they didn't listen, because it isn't happening. Linking to a Twitter account run by a not very intelligent far right conspiracy theorist which claims there is paedophilia in every school disguised as LGBTQ teaching rather than engaging with the town's mayor who has dismissed it as bullshit doesn't alter that.
This is the cautionary tale of the ages. You think you are just shipping in free labour from West Africa but with it comes a cat eating tradition which will indirectly get your descendants a second term of President Trump.
You do realise that Haiti is not in Africa, I hope.
Indeed it is the second oldest Republic and independent country in the Western Hemisphere, at least since the pre-Columbine nations.
With a fascinating history too, with that rarity, a successful slave revolt that fought off the strongest armies and navies of their day, including ours. After Haiti became independent the writing was on the wall for the colonial slave economy. Slaves in other areas knew it was possible.
Makes the Republican hatred of Haitians much more understandable...
Not really. The slave revolt led to the French abandoning their American ambitions, and so to the Louisiana sale/purchase.
This is the cautionary tale of the ages. You think you are just shipping in free labour from West Africa but with it comes a cat eating tradition which will indirectly get your descendants a second term of President Trump.
You do realise that Haiti is not in Africa, I hope.
Indeed it is the second oldest Republic and independent country in the Western Hemisphere, at least since the pre-Columbine nations.
With a fascinating history too, with that rarity, a successful slave revolt that fought off the strongest armies and navies of their day, including ours. After Haiti became independent the writing was on the wall for the colonial slave economy. Slaves in other areas knew it was possible.
No, I had it firmly pegged next to Sierra Leone, silly me.
Strange question. Do you dispute that vodou got to Haiti from West Africa via the Atlantic slave trade?
Do you mean you are drunk because your trip to brewery or do you mean you are “so drunk” like shitfaced?
Sober enough to catch a train. Not sober enough to know where I will land up.
Marvellous. When I was at university I got on the circle line very pissed and fell asleep and was woken by the staff about two hours later at Notting Hill one stop on from where I had got on at High Street Ken. Do let us know where you end up.
Forgot to thank you for the cats-as-bait lobster fishing anecdote. Superb
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
Been reading about Haitian vodou and I want to emigrate there and become a houngan.
It's interesting: animal sacrifice is afaics as normal and necessary a part of vodou as communion is of Christianity. Here's a guardian piece saying so
And vodou is as prevalent among Haitians as Christianity among Ohians. So that's one thing and it doesn't seem to matter too much what sort of animal it is. Separate point, it's entirely good sense to trap and eat standard food animals like geese and ducks (in this country swans and carp) and it's very credible that this has happened a non zero number of times. So trump is quite possibly conflating cat sacrifice and goose consumption.
Yes I’ve been reading about Haitian voodoo. They sacrifice animals and that definitely includes cats - cat bones and the like have special juju
So it is entirely plausible this really is happening (less likely but not impossible that they are eating them)
As I said at the start. This is a mad story for Dems to pursue because it could easily be true and even if not precisely true it’s not a great story for the pro-migration Left
Trump said enough truly insane and stupid things to demolish him forensically, day after day. Avoid this one, as it may not be insane
It's not the only case where people opposed to Trump have made fools of themselves by 'fact checking' him.
It was supposedly a lie that Kamala Harris supported state-funded gender surgery for detained migrants, but there's a video of her bragging about it. Some of it is outright gaslighting, like the Seattle Times trying to say that it was a lie that protesters took over part of Seattle in 2020.
Fact checking Trump is indeed a fool's errand. You never get the time back. With an habitual liar it's best to just assume they're lying.
That's a problem if you publicly accuse him of lying and it turns out that he wasn't wrong.
How so?
Looks like they are indeed killing and possibly eating cats in Springfield, Ohio
I WARNED THEM ABOUT THIS. DON’T GO THERE, I SAID. REMEMBER THE SUN AND THE SWANS AND THE ASYLUM SEEKERS
Did they listen? Pah
You're right, they didn't listen, because it isn't happening. Linking to a Twitter account run by a not very intelligent far right conspiracy theorist which claims there is paedophilia in every school disguised as LGBTQ teaching rather than engaging with the town's mayor who has dismissed it as bullshit doesn't alter that.
"A pianist poured bleach over her partner and almost severed his penis when he refused to have sex with her, a court heard.
Marlena Meczynska-Shiibashi, 38, waited until her boyfriend, 50, had fallen asleep and then poured bleach on his face.
As he was confused and fumbling for his clothes in the dark, she stabbed him in the groin, narrowly missing his penis.
The music teacher later said in court: “I wanted to harm his penis but because he moved I got his thigh instead.”
On Friday, she was sentenced to seven years in prison at Lewes Crown Court after she pleaded guilty to wounding her boyfriend with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
The court heard that the couple had been in an on-again off-again relationship since 2011.
On the day of the attack in April last year, Maczynska-Shiibashi had tried to initiate sex with her partner at her home in Hastings, East Sussex, but he refused, saying: “Please don’t.”"
Has everything else apart from the pet eating been memory-holed from the debate already?
Exactly what Trump wanted.
He laid his own trap for the Dems.
Yes. It could be seen as a piece of genius
The whole debate is now on his territory. Are 20,000 immigrant Haitians in Springfield, who arrived under Harris, eating loads of cats and dogs or is it just the odd duck?
However I don’t think it’s genius, more like desperation - Trump threw it out at random. But it has worked
I think the Tory conference will attract a lot of attention with the beauty parade featuring the final four leadership contenders.
We've been starved of decent horror movies since Hammer went belly up.
I still can't muster up any enthusiasm about it.
None.
Nor me
I’m quite intrigued myself. I’m going this year as I’m on a panel in a fringe event. First time I’ve been to a Tory conference. I’m expecting it to be very different from the Labour one last year which was heaving with lobbyists.
Which one, if you don't mind me asking?
“Going for growth: a conservative vision for economic prosperity”
A party which deliberately increased friction in international trade by refusing a "soft" Brexit , and cancelled the Northern part of HS2, cannot really be taken seriously when talking about growth.
Has everything else apart from the pet eating been memory-holed from the debate already?
Exactly what Trump wanted.
He laid his own trap for the Dems.
Yes. It could be seen as a piece of genius
The whole debate is now on his territory. Are 20,000 immigrant Haitians in Springfield, who arrived under Harris, eating loads of cats and dogs or is it just the odd duck?
However I don’t think it’s genius, more like desperation - Trump threw it out at random. But it has worked
Vance has realised this and stokes the fire
He has a visceral cunning that is frightening frankly. Somehow he can magic up this shit and melt the Internet.
Question is: are any indie swing voters focusing in on this deluge of debate about whether cats are not safe in one small town?
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
Been reading about Haitian vodou and I want to emigrate there and become a houngan.
It's interesting: animal sacrifice is afaics as normal and necessary a part of vodou as communion is of Christianity. Here's a guardian piece saying so
And vodou is as prevalent among Haitians as Christianity among Ohians. So that's one thing and it doesn't seem to matter too much what sort of animal it is. Separate point, it's entirely good sense to trap and eat standard food animals like geese and ducks (in this country swans and carp) and it's very credible that this has happened a non zero number of times. So trump is quite possibly conflating cat sacrifice and goose consumption.
Yes I’ve been reading about Haitian voodoo. They sacrifice animals and that definitely includes cats - cat bones and the like have special juju
So it is entirely plausible this really is happening (less likely but not impossible that they are eating them)
As I said at the start. This is a mad story for Dems to pursue because it could easily be true and even if not precisely true it’s not a great story for the pro-migration Left
Trump said enough truly insane and stupid things to demolish him forensically, day after day. Avoid this one, as it may not be insane
It's not the only case where people opposed to Trump have made fools of themselves by 'fact checking' him.
It was supposedly a lie that Kamala Harris supported state-funded gender surgery for detained migrants, but there's a video of her bragging about it. Some of it is outright gaslighting, like the Seattle Times trying to say that it was a lie that protesters took over part of Seattle in 2020.
Fact checking Trump is indeed a fool's errand. You never get the time back. With an habitual liar it's best to just assume they're lying.
That's a problem if you publicly accuse him of lying and it turns out that he wasn't wrong.
How so?
Looks like they are indeed killing and possibly eating cats in Springfield, Ohio
I WARNED THEM ABOUT THIS. DON’T GO THERE, I SAID. REMEMBER THE SUN AND THE SWANS AND THE ASYLUM SEEKERS
Did they listen? Pah
You're right, they didn't listen, because it isn't happening. Linking to a Twitter account run by a not very intelligent far right conspiracy theorist which claims there is paedophilia in every school disguised as LGBTQ teaching rather than engaging with the town's mayor who has dismissed it as bullshit doesn't alter that.
Unfortunately any evidence of cat/dog eating, however tenuous or pathetic, will ultimately disprove the suggestion this is all a 'conspiracy theory'.
This is a propoganda war, and the liberals are losing. They keep appealing to the notion that they are the guardians of truth and reason, but only they believe this.
I was sitting in the airport watching CNN yesterday night, the ticker just kept blasting out pro Harris propoganda... 'TRUMP REPEATING CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT PET EATING!!!'
All this circus really does is draw attention to the problems about immigration, which is one of Trump's stronger policy areas.
Please tell me we’re not going to have days of Leon’s mission to educate us on voodoo cat sacrifice !
Spelling convention is New Orleans voodoo, Haitian vodou, West African vodun. It's fascinating stuff, who doesn't love a religion which worships Blanc Dani, the Grand Zombi, and Papa Lébat?
Animal sacrifice is apparently common to all three versions of voodoo.
It is brilliant. I might actually join. Also it would help to save the British chaffinch
I might do my first voodoo cat sacrifice in Hampstead. Just need a plump sluggish victim, that can’t get away.
You could, though in the UK you would be arrested for animal cruelty if caught
Has everything else apart from the pet eating been memory-holed from the debate already?
Exactly what Trump wanted.
He laid his own trap for the Dems.
Yes. It could be seen as a piece of genius
The whole debate is now on his territory. Are 20,000 immigrant Haitians in Springfield, who arrived under Harris, eating loads of cats and dogs or is it just the odd duck?
However I don’t think it’s genius, more like desperation - Trump threw it out at random. But it has worked
Vance has realised this and stokes the fire
It is the NHS bus
What I don't understand is the insistence on here that it is/is not true. That's so far from relevance that if you tethered the James Webb telescope to relevance it would not be able to resolve the question. As a matter of fact I have a large amount of sympathy with starving people helping themselves to ducks and with the religious performing the rituals taught to them by their parents (subject to no human beings being harmed or eaten). But from historical, current affairs and betting perspectives it DOES NOT MATTER whether it is true or not, nor whether gentlemen in England now abed and without US citizenship and US votes think it is true or think Trump is a fibbing liar who smells of ploppy poo. Just NOT THE POINT.
I hadn’t realised that JENRICK had endorsed Trump. Dear me, what an absolute tool.
Indeed. And should rule him out of high office in this country for the rest of his career.
He is siding with this country's enemies.
The Conservative base and voter bloc is anti-Trump at the moment, unlike Reform. It’s also strongly pro-Ukraine and hawkish on Russia. But a Trump-positive Jenrick as leader, and especially a new Trump presidency, could well shift that particular Overton side-window. I really don’t want to see the party dragged into MAGA land. It’ll have us pining for the good old days of honourable, honest leaders like Boris Johnson.
It is hardly surprising some leadership candidates for the UK Conservative party back the US conservative party's presidential candidate. That does not mean they agree with everything he says on Ukraine, nor do even some Republicans backing Trump agree with him on Ukraine eg Haley
But Trump isn’t really a conservative and it’s questionable whether the Republican Party is even a Conservative Party any more. The UK Conservatives have a proud history of opposing fascism. Trump is closer to fascism than conservativism.
And Harris and Walz are Marxists according to Trump
On topic, the first Party Conference after a General Election is or can be a non event. For the victors, it becomes a celebration, for the losers, a wake.
The LD Conference kicks off in Brighton today - it's good to see much more outside interest now the party has 72 MPs and is clear third largest in terms of seats. Yet the Party faces some tough questions and challenges and needs to set out the next stage of the journey. As is so often the case, its fate is not in its own hands - yesterday's More In Common suggests the Labour fragmentation is going to the LDs, Greens and Reform rather than the Conservatives as you might expect.
The LDs will, I suspect, focus on the next 50 targets and 38 of them are Conservative-held but of Reform's next 50 targets, 23 are also Conservative held so the potential pincer movement on the Tories is evident but how do the Conservatives simultaenously recapture votes lost to both the LDs and Reform as well as those who stayed at home in July?
As an aside, of the first 150 Conservative targets, only 27 are LD seats
In 2019, the Conservatives won 12,710,845 votes in England (47.2%) - in July they won 6,279.411 (25.9%). Basically, nearly 6.5 million people who voted Conservative in 2019 didn't in July.
Where did all the Tories go?
The Tories went to Labour, Reform and LD and stay at home. I doubt if many are quickly coming back.
The LD plan undoubtedly should be to become the second party, and the way to it is open.
(Speaking of English seats - the rest are too complicated) They are not in a direct contest with Labour, so crucially they need Labour to continue to do well. Have they worked this out? In Lab/Con contests the LDs are unengaged, but it is essential not to have the Tories taking seats off Labour - if they do the Tories continue to come second. So LD need Labour and Reform to continue to eat the Tory vote.
As long as, and only as long as, the Tories are doing relatively badly WRT everyone else, the LD plan works itself. Astonishingly the LDs only need: Labour to hold on in relation to the Tories and LDs to take further 25 Tory seats to become the official opposition.
This of course would suit Labour, as the LDs can come second, but can't come first, now or probably ever.
Simple.
Reform are far more likely to come second than the LDs, not least as they are polling 5%+ higher than the LDs now.
The LDs have probably maxed out their seat gains now, Reform however can gain lots of Labour white working class seats as well as a few more Tory ones
A swing of 3% takes out 46 Conservative seats (all down to Reigate). The nearest Conservative target for the LDs is Godalming & Ash which is the ninth most marginal of the 121 Conservative seats - the other eight include one where Reform are the main challengers and seven where the main challenger is Labour.
I think the Tory conference will attract a lot of attention with the beauty parade featuring the final four leadership contenders.
We've been starved of decent horror movies since Hammer went belly up.
I still can't muster up any enthusiasm about it.
None.
Nor me
I’m quite intrigued myself. I’m going this year as I’m on a panel in a fringe event. First time I’ve been to a Tory conference. I’m expecting it to be very different from the Labour one last year which was heaving with lobbyists.
Which one, if you don't mind me asking?
“Going for growth: a conservative vision for economic prosperity”
A party which deliberately increased friction in international trade by refusing a "soft" Brexit , and cancelled the Northern part of HS2, cannot really be taken seriously when talking about growth.
On topic, the first Party Conference after a General Election is or can be a non event. For the victors, it becomes a celebration, for the losers, a wake.
The LD Conference kicks off in Brighton today - it's good to see much more outside interest now the party has 72 MPs and is clear third largest in terms of seats. Yet the Party faces some tough questions and challenges and needs to set out the next stage of the journey. As is so often the case, its fate is not in its own hands - yesterday's More In Common suggests the Labour fragmentation is going to the LDs, Greens and Reform rather than the Conservatives as you might expect.
The LDs will, I suspect, focus on the next 50 targets and 38 of them are Conservative-held but of Reform's next 50 targets, 23 are also Conservative held so the potential pincer movement on the Tories is evident but how do the Conservatives simultaenously recapture votes lost to both the LDs and Reform as well as those who stayed at home in July?
As an aside, of the first 150 Conservative targets, only 27 are LD seats
In 2019, the Conservatives won 12,710,845 votes in England (47.2%) - in July they won 6,279.411 (25.9%). Basically, nearly 6.5 million people who voted Conservative in 2019 didn't in July.
Where did all the Tories go?
The Tories went to Labour, Reform and LD and stay at home. I doubt if many are quickly coming back.
The LD plan undoubtedly should be to become the second party, and the way to it is open.
(Speaking of English seats - the rest are too complicated) They are not in a direct contest with Labour, so crucially they need Labour to continue to do well. Have they worked this out? In Lab/Con contests the LDs are unengaged, but it is essential not to have the Tories taking seats off Labour - if they do the Tories continue to come second. So LD need Labour and Reform to continue to eat the Tory vote.
As long as, and only as long as, the Tories are doing relatively badly WRT everyone else, the LD plan works itself. Astonishingly the LDs only need: Labour to hold on in relation to the Tories and LDs to take further 25 Tory seats to become the official opposition.
This of course would suit Labour, as the LDs can come second, but can't come first, now or probably ever.
Simple.
Reform are far more likely to come second than the LDs, not least as they are polling 5%+ higher than the LDs now.
The LDs have probably maxed out their seat gains now, Reform however can gain lots of Labour white working class seats as well as a few more Tory ones
Only if Reform get a lot better at playing the FPTP ground game.
Whereas the Lib Dems, cheeky sausages that they are, know exactly which seats to go for. Leafy places where they are second behind the Conservatives with a squeezable Labour a decent third.
Plenty of those left.
The Tories can also squeeze the Reform vote in those seats too of course (which in most was bigger than the Labour vote) and Reform can squeeze the Tory vote in seats where Reform were second the Labour
Has everything else apart from the pet eating been memory-holed from the debate already?
Exactly what Trump wanted.
He laid his own trap for the Dems.
Or he's just yelling at his base. After all, the ones most excited about it here are the Trump curious.
They’re really not. I follow a lot of American lefties on TwiX and they are attacking this story with great vigour and a hint of panic. Its like watching people run towards flames
Even if it is entirely disproved that Haitians in Springfield ate and killed cats, dogs and ducks and so on (and I suspect it is likely true in part, but maybe more for voodoo than food) the focus is on immigration in a bad way
Trump has managed to snatch A victory from the clear defeat of the debate
But the news carnival marches on. Could all be forgotten tomorrow
Has everything else apart from the pet eating been memory-holed from the debate already?
Exactly what Trump wanted.
He laid his own trap for the Dems.
Yes. It could be seen as a piece of genius
The whole debate is now on his territory. Are 20,000 immigrant Haitians in Springfield, who arrived under Harris, eating loads of cats and dogs or is it just the odd duck?
However I don’t think it’s genius, more like desperation - Trump threw it out at random. But it has worked
Vance has realised this and stokes the fire
He has a visceral cunning that is frightening frankly. Somehow he can magic up this shit and melt the Internet.
Question is: are any indie swing voters focusing in on this deluge of debate about whether cats are not safe in one small town?
I hope not.
The problem for the Dems is that any focus on immigration is good for Trump - discussing the number of Mexicans crossing the Arizona border will hurt the Dems as well as arguing about what Haitians are doing in Ohio.
Likewise any focus on the economy.
The Dems need the focus to be on Trump the individual - a senile, self-obsessed felon.
Which is perhaps why Trump will get Vance and Junior to lead on the issues.
Has everything else apart from the pet eating been memory-holed from the debate already?
Exactly what Trump wanted.
He laid his own trap for the Dems.
Or he's just yelling at his base. After all, the ones most excited about it here are the Trump curious.
The unexpected side effect, that’s less good for Trump, is the civil war between Loomer on one side and MTG/Graham on the other. That also brings focus on Loomer’s relationship with Trump, with more of the media now talking about an affair.
Loomer is a hardcore racist and is tweeting that the White House will smell of curry if Harris wins. Vance, meanwhile, proves to be another in a long line of Republican cowards by avoiding commenting on that slur, throwing his Indian-American wife under the bus.
On topic, the first Party Conference after a General Election is or can be a non event. For the victors, it becomes a celebration, for the losers, a wake.
The LD Conference kicks off in Brighton today - it's good to see much more outside interest now the party has 72 MPs and is clear third largest in terms of seats. Yet the Party faces some tough questions and challenges and needs to set out the next stage of the journey. As is so often the case, its fate is not in its own hands - yesterday's More In Common suggests the Labour fragmentation is going to the LDs, Greens and Reform rather than the Conservatives as you might expect.
The LDs will, I suspect, focus on the next 50 targets and 38 of them are Conservative-held but of Reform's next 50 targets, 23 are also Conservative held so the potential pincer movement on the Tories is evident but how do the Conservatives simultaenously recapture votes lost to both the LDs and Reform as well as those who stayed at home in July?
As an aside, of the first 150 Conservative targets, only 27 are LD seats
In 2019, the Conservatives won 12,710,845 votes in England (47.2%) - in July they won 6,279.411 (25.9%). Basically, nearly 6.5 million people who voted Conservative in 2019 didn't in July.
Where did all the Tories go?
The Tories went to Labour, Reform and LD and stay at home. I doubt if many are quickly coming back.
The LD plan undoubtedly should be to become the second party, and the way to it is open.
(Speaking of English seats - the rest are too complicated) They are not in a direct contest with Labour, so crucially they need Labour to continue to do well. Have they worked this out? In Lab/Con contests the LDs are unengaged, but it is essential not to have the Tories taking seats off Labour - if they do the Tories continue to come second. So LD need Labour and Reform to continue to eat the Tory vote.
As long as, and only as long as, the Tories are doing relatively badly WRT everyone else, the LD plan works itself. Astonishingly the LDs only need: Labour to hold on in relation to the Tories and LDs to take further 25 Tory seats to become the official opposition.
This of course would suit Labour, as the LDs can come second, but can't come first, now or probably ever.
Simple.
Reform are far more likely to come second than the LDs, not least as they are polling 5%+ higher than the LDs now.
The LDs have probably maxed out their seat gains now, Reform however can gain lots of Labour white working class seats as well as a few more Tory ones
Only if Reform get a lot better at playing the FPTP ground game.
Whereas the Lib Dems, cheeky sausages that they are, know exactly which seats to go for. Leafy places where they are second behind the Conservatives with a squeezable Labour a decent third.
Plenty of those left.
The Lib Dems did well in terms of number of seats but not particularly in share of the vote. They should be careful not get over excited - 2024 was the perfect storm for the Tories and there is no guarantee that 2029 will be the same
I hadn’t realised that JENRICK had endorsed Trump. Dear me, what an absolute tool.
Indeed. And should rule him out of high office in this country for the rest of his career.
He is siding with this country's enemies.
The Conservative base and voter bloc is anti-Trump at the moment, unlike Reform. It’s also strongly pro-Ukraine and hawkish on Russia. But a Trump-positive Jenrick as leader, and especially a new Trump presidency, could well shift that particular Overton side-window. I really don’t want to see the party dragged into MAGA land. It’ll have us pining for the good old days of honourable, honest leaders like Boris Johnson.
It is hardly surprising some leadership candidates for the UK Conservative party back the US conservative party's presidential candidate. That does not mean they agree with everything he says on Ukraine, nor do even some Republicans backing Trump agree with him on Ukraine eg Haley
But Trump isn’t really a conservative and it’s questionable whether the Republican Party is even a Conservative Party any more. The UK Conservatives have a proud history of opposing fascism. Trump is closer to fascism than conservativism.
And Harris and Walz are Marxists according to Trump
On topic, the first Party Conference after a General Election is or can be a non event. For the victors, it becomes a celebration, for the losers, a wake.
The LD Conference kicks off in Brighton today - it's good to see much more outside interest now the party has 72 MPs and is clear third largest in terms of seats. Yet the Party faces some tough questions and challenges and needs to set out the next stage of the journey. As is so often the case, its fate is not in its own hands - yesterday's More In Common suggests the Labour fragmentation is going to the LDs, Greens and Reform rather than the Conservatives as you might expect.
The LDs will, I suspect, focus on the next 50 targets and 38 of them are Conservative-held but of Reform's next 50 targets, 23 are also Conservative held so the potential pincer movement on the Tories is evident but how do the Conservatives simultaenously recapture votes lost to both the LDs and Reform as well as those who stayed at home in July?
As an aside, of the first 150 Conservative targets, only 27 are LD seats
In 2019, the Conservatives won 12,710,845 votes in England (47.2%) - in July they won 6,279.411 (25.9%). Basically, nearly 6.5 million people who voted Conservative in 2019 didn't in July.
Where did all the Tories go?
The Tories went to Labour, Reform and LD and stay at home. I doubt if many are quickly coming back.
The LD plan undoubtedly should be to become the second party, and the way to it is open.
(Speaking of English seats - the rest are too complicated) They are not in a direct contest with Labour, so crucially they need Labour to continue to do well. Have they worked this out? In Lab/Con contests the LDs are unengaged, but it is essential not to have the Tories taking seats off Labour - if they do the Tories continue to come second. So LD need Labour and Reform to continue to eat the Tory vote.
As long as, and only as long as, the Tories are doing relatively badly WRT everyone else, the LD plan works itself. Astonishingly the LDs only need: Labour to hold on in relation to the Tories and LDs to take further 25 Tory seats to become the official opposition.
This of course would suit Labour, as the LDs can come second, but can't come first, now or probably ever.
Simple.
Reform are far more likely to come second than the LDs, not least as they are polling 5%+ higher than the LDs now.
The LDs have probably maxed out their seat gains now, Reform however can gain lots of Labour white working class seats as well as a few more Tory ones
A swing of 3% takes out 46 Conservative seats (all down to Reigate). The nearest Conservative target for the LDs is Godalming & Ash which is the ninth most marginal of the 121 Conservative seats - the other eight include one where Reform are the main challengers and seven where the main challenger is Labour.
Has everything else apart from the pet eating been memory-holed from the debate already?
Exactly what Trump wanted.
He laid his own trap for the Dems.
Yes. It could be seen as a piece of genius
The whole debate is now on his territory. Are 20,000 immigrant Haitians in Springfield, who arrived under Harris, eating loads of cats and dogs or is it just the odd duck?
However I don’t think it’s genius, more like desperation - Trump threw it out at random. But it has worked
Vance has realised this and stokes the fire
It is the NHS bus
What I don't understand is the insistence on here that it is/is not true. That's so far from relevance that if you tethered the James Webb telescope to relevance it would not be able to resolve the question. As a matter of fact I have a large amount of sympathy with starving people helping themselves to ducks and with the religious performing the rituals taught to them by their parents (subject to no human beings being harmed or eaten). But from historical, current affairs and betting perspectives it DOES NOT MATTER whether it is true or not, nor whether gentlemen in England now abed and without US citizenship and US votes think it is true or think Trump is a fibbing liar who smells of ploppy poo. Just NOT THE POINT.
Yes exactly. I too have sympathy for - say - starving homeless people eating ducks in parks. You’re bloody starving and there are these fat pampered bread-fed ducks over there in a pond for purely ornamental purposes? I’d eat one if I was that hungry
And the stupid polarisation is inane. And self defeating. If Trump claims something - anything - then the left sets out to prove it is 100% wrong, no ifs no buts, a complete lie, he’s crazy etc. And they do this even if there is obviously doubt. A chance he might well be right. This then opens them up to ridicule when it turns out Trump was even partly right
(We saw this with lab leak, calamitously)
Trump and his team know this and use it to their advantage. The dems need to relearn the Art of Nuance
I hadn’t realised that JENRICK had endorsed Trump. Dear me, what an absolute tool.
Indeed. And should rule him out of high office in this country for the rest of his career.
He is siding with this country's enemies.
The Conservative base and voter bloc is anti-Trump at the moment, unlike Reform. It’s also strongly pro-Ukraine and hawkish on Russia. But a Trump-positive Jenrick as leader, and especially a new Trump presidency, could well shift that particular Overton side-window. I really don’t want to see the party dragged into MAGA land. It’ll have us pining for the good old days of honourable, honest leaders like Boris Johnson.
It is hardly surprising some leadership candidates for the UK Conservative party back the US conservative party's presidential candidate. That does not mean they agree with everything he says on Ukraine, nor do even some Republicans backing Trump agree with him on Ukraine eg Haley
But Trump isn’t really a conservative and it’s questionable whether the Republican Party is even a Conservative Party any more. The UK Conservatives have a proud history of opposing fascism. Trump is closer to fascism than conservativism.
And Harris and Walz are Marxists according to Trump
Haitian immigrants are eating dogs in Ohio according to Trump. He won the election in 2020 according to Trump. He won the popular vote in 2016 according to Trump. You know and I know that “according to Trump” generally means “not true”.
I hadn’t realised that JENRICK had endorsed Trump. Dear me, what an absolute tool.
Indeed. And should rule him out of high office in this country for the rest of his career.
He is siding with this country's enemies.
The Conservative base and voter bloc is anti-Trump at the moment, unlike Reform. It’s also strongly pro-Ukraine and hawkish on Russia. But a Trump-positive Jenrick as leader, and especially a new Trump presidency, could well shift that particular Overton side-window. I really don’t want to see the party dragged into MAGA land. It’ll have us pining for the good old days of honourable, honest leaders like Boris Johnson.
It is hardly surprising some leadership candidates for the UK Conservative party back the US conservative party's presidential candidate. That does not mean they agree with everything he says on Ukraine, nor do even some Republicans backing Trump agree with him on Ukraine eg Haley
But Trump isn’t really a conservative and it’s questionable whether the Republican Party is even a Conservative Party any more. The UK Conservatives have a proud history of opposing fascism. Trump is closer to fascism than conservativism.
And Harris and Walz are Marxists according to Trump
Haitian immigrants are eating dogs in Ohio according to Trump. He won the election in 2020 according to Trump. He won the popular vote in 2016 according to Trump. You know and I know that “according to Trump” generally means “not true”.
Eppur è stato eletto. He was 45th President 2016-20 according to Trump, and secured the position by lying. What betting or otherwise useful implications does calling him a liar have?
I don't agree. Both are playing up to the electoral college- i.e. Trump is clearly trying to win back his 2016 winning coalition- an absolute record win with white working class voters. Whether we like it or not they are very receptive to zenophobic attacks (real or imagined in the cat eating case). AND unfortantly it has a good shot of working.
The sad fact is when Trump moderated his attacks in 2020 he lost a few wwc voters to Biden losing him the electoral college, but in 2016 he won when he called for the Muslim ban and didn't moderate.
Just noticed I spelled Xenophobic with a z. (I didn't even learn phonics).
The conflict with Russia will continue, ultimately until there is a new settlement relating to the security of Europe. The conflict in Ukraine is part of this bigger picture.
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
Been reading about Haitian vodou and I want to emigrate there and become a houngan.
It's interesting: animal sacrifice is afaics as normal and necessary a part of vodou as communion is of Christianity. Here's a guardian piece saying so
And vodou is as prevalent among Haitians as Christianity among Ohians. So that's one thing and it doesn't seem to matter too much what sort of animal it is. Separate point, it's entirely good sense to trap and eat standard food animals like geese and ducks (in this country swans and carp) and it's very credible that this has happened a non zero number of times. So trump is quite possibly conflating cat sacrifice and goose consumption.
Yes I’ve been reading about Haitian voodoo. They sacrifice animals and that definitely includes cats - cat bones and the like have special juju
So it is entirely plausible this really is happening (less likely but not impossible that they are eating them)
As I said at the start. This is a mad story for Dems to pursue because it could easily be true and even if not precisely true it’s not a great story for the pro-migration Left
Trump said enough truly insane and stupid things to demolish him forensically, day after day. Avoid this one, as it may not be insane
There is a three chapter digression into Haitian Voodoo in PLF's The Traveller's Tree which is well worth it (as the whole book is as a look at the pre-mass-tourism 20th century Carribean).
I regret to say that I have absolutely no interest in the Tory leadership election. None of the candidates has attracted my interest, let alone enthusiasm. Jenrick probably annoys me the most, both for his vile treatment of young, refugee children and his frankly appalling endorsement of Trump but I am not really persuaded that any of the others will be an improvement. In any event, the "winner" will struggle to hold their party together and then lose badly (if not quite as badly) in 2028 or 2029, at which point they will probably resign so who cares?
I cannot recall having this attitude to the leadership of either of the 2 main parties in my adult lifetime. The Conservatives have a hell of a long road back and their adventures down the road less travelled look likely to lose me altogether.
Right now I feel party less.
Two reasons it might, unfortunately, matter.
One is that another bad defeat in 2028 pushes the next Conservative government back to 2037 or so.
The other is how the Conservatives respond to a hypothetical (but plausible) defeat under Jenrick. Will it be taken as a sign for the party to move closer to the voters, or will he also be seen as Not Sufficiently Tory? God knows what they try in the second case.
Jenrick is a former Remainer, Cameroon Sunak backer just showing a bit of rightwing leg on immigration etc to get the ERG vote in the leadership election.
If he loses the Tories can certainly go further right as he will not have squeezed Reform enough from their perspective, if JRM was back in Parliament in 2028 (he could take Liam Fox's old seat which is much easier to gain than his old seat which neighbours it) then JRM would have an excellent chance of winning the Tory leadership.
Post Boris JRM is the real Tory Corbyn who excites the Right not Jenrick or even Badenoch and probably the only Tory who could really squeeze Reform
On topic, the first Party Conference after a General Election is or can be a non event. For the victors, it becomes a celebration, for the losers, a wake.
The LD Conference kicks off in Brighton today - it's good to see much more outside interest now the party has 72 MPs and is clear third largest in terms of seats. Yet the Party faces some tough questions and challenges and needs to set out the next stage of the journey. As is so often the case, its fate is not in its own hands - yesterday's More In Common suggests the Labour fragmentation is going to the LDs, Greens and Reform rather than the Conservatives as you might expect.
The LDs will, I suspect, focus on the next 50 targets and 38 of them are Conservative-held but of Reform's next 50 targets, 23 are also Conservative held so the potential pincer movement on the Tories is evident but how do the Conservatives simultaenously recapture votes lost to both the LDs and Reform as well as those who stayed at home in July?
As an aside, of the first 150 Conservative targets, only 27 are LD seats
In 2019, the Conservatives won 12,710,845 votes in England (47.2%) - in July they won 6,279.411 (25.9%). Basically, nearly 6.5 million people who voted Conservative in 2019 didn't in July.
Where did all the Tories go?
The Tories went to Labour, Reform and LD and stay at home. I doubt if many are quickly coming back.
The LD plan undoubtedly should be to become the second party, and the way to it is open.
(Speaking of English seats - the rest are too complicated) They are not in a direct contest with Labour, so crucially they need Labour to continue to do well. Have they worked this out? In Lab/Con contests the LDs are unengaged, but it is essential not to have the Tories taking seats off Labour - if they do the Tories continue to come second. So LD need Labour and Reform to continue to eat the Tory vote.
As long as, and only as long as, the Tories are doing relatively badly WRT everyone else, the LD plan works itself. Astonishingly the LDs only need: Labour to hold on in relation to the Tories and LDs to take further 25 Tory seats to become the official opposition.
This of course would suit Labour, as the LDs can come second, but can't come first, now or probably ever.
Simple.
Reform are far more likely to come second than the LDs, not least as they are polling 5%+ higher than the LDs now.
The LDs have probably maxed out their seat gains now, Reform however can gain lots of Labour white working class seats as well as a few more Tory ones
A swing of 3% takes out 46 Conservative seats (all down to Reigate). The nearest Conservative target for the LDs is Godalming & Ash which is the ninth most marginal of the 121 Conservative seats - the other eight include one where Reform are the main challengers and seven where the main challenger is Labour.
Small national swings can mask larger swings at constituency levels. The LDs could drop further back in some seats yet gain seats from the Conservatives if the latter's vote doesn't increase markedly. There's also been a swing from Labour to Liberal Democrat if you want to play that game but currently it's all academic.
OT: Earlier in the day in the cricket, there was an advert on the telly for Medical Cannabis. It was a bit surreal, in that it never actaully said the word "Cannabis", but it was pretty clear what they were referring to. Never thought I'd see that on British TV.
The whole story is weirdly reminiscent of the “asylum seekers eating swans” story. Fiercely debunked as right wing bollocks, later on it quietly turned out to be true
Been reading about Haitian vodou and I want to emigrate there and become a houngan.
It's interesting: animal sacrifice is afaics as normal and necessary a part of vodou as communion is of Christianity. Here's a guardian piece saying so
And vodou is as prevalent among Haitians as Christianity among Ohians. So that's one thing and it doesn't seem to matter too much what sort of animal it is. Separate point, it's entirely good sense to trap and eat standard food animals like geese and ducks (in this country swans and carp) and it's very credible that this has happened a non zero number of times. So trump is quite possibly conflating cat sacrifice and goose consumption.
Yes I’ve been reading about Haitian voodoo. They sacrifice animals and that definitely includes cats - cat bones and the like have special juju
So it is entirely plausible this really is happening (less likely but not impossible that they are eating them)
As I said at the start. This is a mad story for Dems to pursue because it could easily be true and even if not precisely true it’s not a great story for the pro-migration Left
Trump said enough truly insane and stupid things to demolish him forensically, day after day. Avoid this one, as it may not be insane
There is a three chapter digression into Haitian Voodoo in PLF's The Traveller's Tree which is well worth it (as the whole book is as a look at the pre-mass-tourism 20th century Carribean).
Itself referred to by Fleming in I think Dr No but anyway one of the JB novels
On topic, the first Party Conference after a General Election is or can be a non event. For the victors, it becomes a celebration, for the losers, a wake.
The LD Conference kicks off in Brighton today - it's good to see much more outside interest now the party has 72 MPs and is clear third largest in terms of seats. Yet the Party faces some tough questions and challenges and needs to set out the next stage of the journey. As is so often the case, its fate is not in its own hands - yesterday's More In Common suggests the Labour fragmentation is going to the LDs, Greens and Reform rather than the Conservatives as you might expect.
The LDs will, I suspect, focus on the next 50 targets and 38 of them are Conservative-held but of Reform's next 50 targets, 23 are also Conservative held so the potential pincer movement on the Tories is evident but how do the Conservatives simultaenously recapture votes lost to both the LDs and Reform as well as those who stayed at home in July?
As an aside, of the first 150 Conservative targets, only 27 are LD seats
In 2019, the Conservatives won 12,710,845 votes in England (47.2%) - in July they won 6,279.411 (25.9%). Basically, nearly 6.5 million people who voted Conservative in 2019 didn't in July.
Where did all the Tories go?
The Tories went to Labour, Reform and LD and stay at home. I doubt if many are quickly coming back.
The LD plan undoubtedly should be to become the second party, and the way to it is open.
(Speaking of English seats - the rest are too complicated) They are not in a direct contest with Labour, so crucially they need Labour to continue to do well. Have they worked this out? In Lab/Con contests the LDs are unengaged, but it is essential not to have the Tories taking seats off Labour - if they do the Tories continue to come second. So LD need Labour and Reform to continue to eat the Tory vote.
As long as, and only as long as, the Tories are doing relatively badly WRT everyone else, the LD plan works itself. Astonishingly the LDs only need: Labour to hold on in relation to the Tories and LDs to take further 25 Tory seats to become the official opposition.
This of course would suit Labour, as the LDs can come second, but can't come first, now or probably ever.
Simple.
Reform are far more likely to come second than the LDs, not least as they are polling 5%+ higher than the LDs now.
The LDs have probably maxed out their seat gains now, Reform however can gain lots of Labour white working class seats as well as a few more Tory ones
A swing of 3% takes out 46 Conservative seats (all down to Reigate). The nearest Conservative target for the LDs is Godalming & Ash which is the ninth most marginal of the 121 Conservative seats - the other eight include one where Reform are the main challengers and seven where the main challenger is Labour.
Small national swings can mask larger swings at constituency levels. The LDs could drop further back in some seats yet gain seats from the Conservatives if the latter's vote doesn't increase markedly. There's also been a swing from Labour to Liberal Democrat if you want to play that game but currently it's all academic.
Your last sentence sums everything up
We have no way of knowing the political landscape of the future when today's polls will be fish and chip paper, and it is a fools game to project them forward in an ever changing world
I've been saying similar to that on here for yonks.
"My take is that once the war is over, Russia will regroup and start harassing other countries, not Ukraine."
Russia ae already harassing other countries, even though the war is still ongoing.
Too many people concentrate on the martial aspects of Russia's evil. There is at least one other aspect: the political. If Russia is failing militarily, then they may well be succeeding politically by spreading division amongst its enemies and even getting more 'friendly' regimes into place.
Sadly, some on here are all too willing to do Putin's work for him.
Comments
Million $$$ question. Is it strong enough to win a US presidential election for a senile pig-ignorant shambles of a woman-hating racist? No way!
I WARNED THEM ABOUT THIS. DON’T GO THERE, I SAID. REMEMBER THE SUN AND THE SWANS AND THE ASYLUM SEEKERS
Did they listen? Pah
That's my approach and I recommend it heartily.
What did for them was being in government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield,_Ohio,_cat-eating_hoax
The LDs have probably maxed out their seat gains now, Reform however can gain lots of Labour white working class seats as well as a few more Tory ones
Aren't we talking about Britain's Next Prime Minister?
Indeed it is the second oldest Republic and independent country in the Western Hemisphere, at least since the pre-Columbine nations.
With a fascinating history too, with that rarity, a successful slave revolt that fought off the strongest armies and navies of their day, including ours. After Haiti became independent the writing was on the wall for the colonial slave economy. Slaves in other areas knew it was possible.
He really did have Alzheimer's, of course, although it wasn't diagnosed until later.
Edit - incidentally I think at 69 he was immediately either the oldest or second oldest president ever to hold office, next to Eisenhower. Biden has of course eclipsed his record.
Edit edit - apparently third behind Jackson as well.
The government needs to make the means testing rigorous, right minded and focused on helping those most in need. Above all, stop paying it to the millions who very obviously do not need it, like me.
A reminder that despite the histrionics you might see in press and social media, not all pensioners are evil capital accumulators and not everyone thinks means testing WFP is a bad idea.
If he loses the Tories can certainly go further right as he will not have squeezed Reform enough from their perspective, if JRM was back in Parliament in 2028 (he could take Liam Fox's old seat which is much easier to gain than his old seat which neighbours it) then JRM would have an excellent chance of winning the Tory leadership.
Post Boris JRM is the real Tory Corbyn who excites the Right not Jenrick or even Badenoch and probably the only Tory who could really squeeze Reform
https://x.com/armastrangelo/status/1833627872390480049?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
This guy? He lives in Springfield
https://x.com/wallstreetsilv/status/1834967461097070708?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
And this?
“UPDATE: Women describes witnessing Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio hunting animals, k*ll*ng them, and then feasting on their remains.
She says a neighbor had come home from work to see her cat hanging from a branch being carved up to eat.”
https://x.com/itsmikeluso/status/1833201141829751278?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Honestly this is remarkably stupid. There’s almost certainly enough truth in this story to badly damage Harris. She should go nowhere near it
Or are you suggesting everyone else in Springfield who says it is nonsense is lying?
1. Haitians practise voodoo
2. Voodoo involves a lot of animal sacrifice, including cats
?
Because you are utterly and provably wrong. And idiotically wrong. Tsk
It says nothing good.
Whereas the Lib Dems, cheeky sausages that they are, know exactly which seats to go for. Leafy places where they are second behind the Conservatives with a squeezable Labour a decent third.
Plenty of those left.
By the way, when is your trip to Yorkshire? Remember that ruined monastery and the church near Richmond when you go.
That Vance was among those who started (and is continuing) to push it as deliberate race baiting means it’s not entirely easy to ignore.
The chuckles we will enjoy in the Newent Gulag
Like he had sandpaper on his hands...
This story has WARNING: AVOID: COULD BE TRUE stamped all over it. Plus DANGER
Yet the Left can’t help wading in
But - they do bat deep.
The slave revolt led to the French abandoning their American ambitions, and so to the Louisiana sale/purchase.
Strange question. Do you dispute that vodou got to Haiti from West Africa via the Atlantic slave trade?
He laid his own trap for the Dems.
If America is talking about immigration - even if it because of some made up crap - then Trump figures he wins against Border Czarina.
Marlena Meczynska-Shiibashi, 38, waited until her boyfriend, 50, had fallen asleep and then poured bleach on his face.
As he was confused and fumbling for his clothes in the dark, she stabbed him in the groin, narrowly missing his penis.
The music teacher later said in court: “I wanted to harm his penis but because he moved I got his thigh instead.”
On Friday, she was sentenced to seven years in prison at Lewes Crown Court after she pleaded guilty to wounding her boyfriend with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
The court heard that the couple had been in an on-again off-again relationship since 2011.
On the day of the attack in April last year, Maczynska-Shiibashi had tried to initiate sex with her partner at her home in Hastings, East Sussex, but he refused, saying: “Please don’t.”"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/13/piano-teacher-poured-bleach-sever-penis-partner/
The whole debate is now on his territory. Are 20,000 immigrant Haitians in Springfield, who arrived under Harris, eating loads of cats and dogs or is it just the odd duck?
However I don’t think it’s genius, more like desperation - Trump threw it out at random. But it has worked
Vance has realised this and stokes the fire
, and cancelled the Northern part of HS2, cannot really be taken seriously when talking about growth.
Question is: are any indie swing voters focusing in on this deluge of debate about whether cats are not safe in one small town?
I hope not.
After all, the ones most excited about it here are the Trump curious.
They remain very much in the game,
This is a propoganda war, and the liberals are losing. They keep appealing to the notion that they are the guardians of truth and reason, but only they believe this.
I was sitting in the airport watching CNN yesterday night, the ticker just kept blasting out pro Harris propoganda... 'TRUMP REPEATING CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT PET EATING!!!'
All this circus really does is draw attention to the problems about immigration, which is one of Trump's stronger policy areas.
What I don't understand is the insistence on here that it is/is not true. That's so far from relevance that if you tethered the James Webb telescope to relevance it would not be able to resolve the question. As a matter of fact I have a large amount of sympathy with starving people helping themselves to ducks and with the religious performing the rituals taught to them by their parents (subject to no human beings being harmed or eaten). But from historical, current affairs and betting perspectives it DOES NOT MATTER whether it is true or not, nor whether gentlemen in England now abed and without US citizenship and US votes think it is true or think Trump is a fibbing liar who smells of ploppy poo. Just NOT THE POINT.
Even if it is entirely disproved that Haitians in Springfield ate and killed cats, dogs and ducks and so on (and I suspect it is likely true in part, but maybe more for voodoo than food) the focus is on immigration in a bad way
Trump has managed to snatch A victory from the clear defeat of the debate
But the news carnival marches on. Could all be forgotten tomorrow
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.
Likewise any focus on the economy.
The Dems need the focus to be on Trump the individual - a senile, self-obsessed felon.
Which is perhaps why Trump will get Vance and Junior to lead on the issues.
Loomer is a hardcore racist and is tweeting that the White House will smell of curry if Harris wins. Vance, meanwhile, proves to be another in a long line of Republican cowards by avoiding commenting on that slur, throwing his Indian-American wife under the bus.
https://x.com/mylovanov/status/1834951758839247074?s=46
Where does the predator go next?
The Lib Dems did well in terms of number of seats but not particularly in share of the vote. They should be careful not get over excited - 2024 was the perfect storm for the Tories and there is no guarantee that 2029 will be the same
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
And the stupid polarisation is inane. And self defeating. If Trump claims something - anything - then the left sets out to prove it is 100% wrong, no ifs no buts, a complete lie, he’s crazy etc. And they do this even if there is obviously doubt. A chance he might well be right. This then opens them up to ridicule when it turns out Trump was even partly right
(We saw this with lab leak, calamitously)
Trump and his team know this and use it to their advantage. The dems need to relearn the Art of Nuance
Class act, of course.
It will be easy to do. He has TWO breakaway republics ready to go. Transnistria and Gagauzia
It’s not in NATO or the EU. It was part of the USSR. He will swallow it like an orca gulping a herring
Donald Trump and Laura Loomer, the happy couple
Good grief, dipping out again.
We have no way of knowing the political landscape of the future when today's polls will be fish and chip paper, and it is a fools game to project them forward in an ever changing world
"My take is that once the war is over, Russia will regroup and start harassing other countries, not Ukraine."
Russia ae already harassing other countries, even though the war is still ongoing.
Too many people concentrate on the martial aspects of Russia's evil. There is at least one other aspect: the political. If Russia is failing militarily, then they may well be succeeding politically by spreading division amongst its enemies and even getting more 'friendly' regimes into place.
Sadly, some on here are all too willing to do Putin's work for him.
Fine performance from Gregory he's cut short there. Another one who maybe should have played a bit more for England.