It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
When are you expecting global warming really to take effect.
Any day now, surely.
Oh God, the global warming deniers are back.
Cool it bonzo. Just wondered when @eek thinks global warming will really take effect.
When do you think it will.
Well it's already changing the weather - but my point was that it's likely to be as with bankruptcy - slow changes and then all at once...
And when do you expect the all at once to happen.
Not a clue - some point in the future a drought / famine will occur and the after effects will be millions heading towards Europe...
Finland has always seemed a bit pointless and “extra”. I mean: Iceland is proper fun. Denmark is near and has Lego. Norway is genuinely Nordic - it’s in the name - and Sweden has meatballs, IKEA and ABBA. All good
But what’s the point of Finland? Just an extra sticky-out bit that exhausts the theme, like that sixth season of House where it all went wrong
Just call it something else. Like, I dunno, “Russia”. Sorted
You’ve either never been to Finland or, much more likely, since it’s your usual modus operandi, just jetted in and out without learning anything whatsoever.
I’ve not only been to Finland (four times) I’ve done the “sauna in the snowbound forest at midnight then dive in the icebound lake where we’ve just chopped a hole” rigmarole
Felt like a god, afterwards. Ended up in bed with the PR girl, too
Ah, memories
Then your abject ignorance is all the more remarkable.
It really is an achievement to be visiting so many parts of the world, meeting your contact at the airport and then becoming drunk in some hotel bubble by lunchtime every day, and returning just a few days later having learned almost nothing about all the places you have been, apart from what you have managed to scrape on your laptop from Wikipedia.
And yet, weirdly, I am professionally paid to write about my travel experiences - indeed I am paid to HAVE these travel experiences, and then thousands of people happily pay to read about them
Whereas you, sadly, have to pay to travel and no one cares what you do when you’re abroad because you’re a weird friendless idiot
I know this drives you nuts and that only adds to my pleasure. Sorry
I’m happy and able to afford my time spent travelling.
That I am able to return from Finland, with an appreciation of its culture and history and fully understanding why it would never consent to being renamed ‘Russia’, while you travel for nothing and come back with precisely your money’s worth, in terms of understanding and knowledge, says it all.
lol
Your surrender accepted.
That the most travelled person on PB comes away with the narrowest mind is the most tragic of outcomes, to someone who always tries to return from travel at least a little more enlightened than before.
Mate, all you do is go to America with a dog, and take suspiciously zoophiliac photos
Finland has always seemed a bit pointless and “extra”. I mean: Iceland is proper fun. Denmark is near and has Lego. Norway is genuinely Nordic - it’s in the name - and Sweden has meatballs, IKEA and ABBA. All good
But what’s the point of Finland? Just an extra sticky-out bit that exhausts the theme, like that sixth season of House where it all went wrong
Just call it something else. Like, I dunno, “Russia”. Sorted
You’ve either never been to Finland or, much more likely, since it’s your usual modus operandi, just jetted in and out without learning anything whatsoever.
I’ve not only been to Finland (four times) I’ve done the “sauna in the snowbound forest at midnight then dive in the icebound lake where we’ve just chopped a hole” rigmarole
Felt like a god, afterwards. Ended up in bed with the PR girl, too
Ah, memories
Then your abject ignorance is all the more remarkable.
It really is an achievement to be visiting so many parts of the world, meeting your contact at the airport and then becoming drunk in some hotel bubble by lunchtime every day, and returning just a few days later having learned almost nothing about all the places you have been, apart from what you have managed to scrape on your laptop from Wikipedia.
And yet, weirdly, I am professionally paid to write about my travel experiences - indeed I am paid to HAVE these travel experiences, and then thousands of people happily pay to read about them
Whereas you, sadly, have to pay to travel and no one cares what you do when you’re abroad because you’re a weird friendless idiot
I know this drives you nuts and that only adds to my pleasure. Sorry
I’m happy and able to afford my time spent travelling.
That I am able to return from Finland, with an appreciation of its culture and history and fully understanding why it would never consent to being renamed ‘Russia’, while you travel for nothing and come back with precisely your money’s worth, in terms of understanding and knowledge, says it all.
lol
Your surrender accepted.
That the most travelled person on PB comes away with the narrowest mind is the most tragic of outcomes, to someone who always tries to return from travel at least a little more enlightened than before.
Mate, all you do is go to America with a dog, and take suspiciously zoophiliac photos
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
That's such Guardian wank.
I wonder if they got paid extra for every time they managed to squeeze "far right" into that article, even insinuating Von der Leyen loves a piece of it.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
When are you expecting global warming really to take effect.
Any day now, surely.
Oh God, the global warming deniers are back.
Cool it bonzo. Just wondered when @eek thinks global warming will really take effect.
When do you think it will.
Well it's already changing the weather - but my point was that it's likely to be as with bankruptcy - slow changes and then all at once...
And when do you expect the all at once to happen.
Not a clue - some point in the future a drought / famine will occur and the after effects will be millions heading towards Europe...
I recall seeing a documentary about the future of climate change in - I think - the late 90s
It featured prophetic images of black and brown people literally scaling walls to get into Europe. At the time I dismissed it as hysterical lefty nonsense
Did they get it right? Is it even climate change?
Who knows. But the contemporary images of migrants climbing walls on the Polish and Spanish borders exactly match what they predicted, visually
Caroline Lucas joins Dominic Grieve a new co chairs of the European Movement
'Delighted to join Dominic as new Co-Presidents of European Movement. With election of Trump, it’s more urgent than ever that UK government puts its values before narrow short term economic interests, & rebuilds relationship with EU @euromove' https://x.com/CarolineLucas/status/1858480555668517186
'It was a privilege on Saturday to be elected co-President with Caroline Lucas of the U.K. European Movement. We come from different political traditions but are united in believing that our country's wellbeing is dependant on rebuilding our relationships with our European neighbours who share our values. I look forward to working with Caroline and Mike Galsworthy it's Chair in furthering its work. We were also given a rousing valedictory address by Michael Heseltine. His long career spans the entirety of the life of the EM since its foundation. It gives us confidence that the dismal consequences of Brexit for our country are a transient phenomenon that we can and will overcome.' https://x.com/dominicgrieve_/status/1858521029636710612
Caroline Lucas joins Dominic Grieve a new co chairs of the European Movement
'Delighted to join Dominic as new Co-Presidents of European Movement. With election of Trump, it’s more urgent than ever that UK government puts its values before narrow short term economic interests, & rebuilds relationship with EU @euromove' https://x.com/CarolineLucas/status/1858480555668517186
And of course they are making a big deal of being on BlueSky....
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
That's such Guardian wank.
I wonder if they got paid extra for every time they managed to squeeze "far right" into that article, even insinuating Von der Leyen loves a piece of it.
Pathetic.
Er, it’s not wank. It’s the Guardian being unusually honest about the new political complexion of the EU. The populist/hard/far right is on the march everywhere in Europe (and the USA) and this is the Guardian correctly acknowledging that
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
When are you expecting global warming really to take effect.
Any day now, surely.
Oh God, the global warming deniers are back.
Cool it bonzo. Just wondered when @eek thinks global warming will really take effect.
When do you think it will.
Well it's already changing the weather - but my point was that it's likely to be as with bankruptcy - slow changes and then all at once...
And when do you expect the all at once to happen.
Not a clue - some point in the future a drought / famine will occur and the after effects will be millions heading towards Europe...
Righty-ho.
I mean mitigate for sure, try to move to renewables I get (mathematically it makes sense/is an imperative).
But the more you trot out the Trump is a nazi global catastrophe any minute now just that I can't quite tell you when, you put people off. Plus you expose yourself as a massive hypocrite.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
That's such Guardian wank.
I wonder if they got paid extra for every time they managed to squeeze "far right" into that article, even insinuating Von der Leyen loves a piece of it.
Pathetic.
Er, it’s not wank. It’s the Guardian being unusually honest about the new political complexion of the EU. The populist/hard/far right is on the march everywhere in Europe (and the USA) and this is the Guardian correctly acknowledging that
Which bit do you dispute?
We shall see, I think it is also partly just the rising cost of living since Covid and lockdown and the Ukraine war that brought in social democrats across most of the West to government in the last few years and is now starting to sweep them out again.
If however next year Polievre gets a majority in Canada, Dutton and his rightwing Coalition wins in Australia and the CDU/CSU with the AfD win a majority of German seats and then the GOP hold Congress in the 2026 US midterms it may look more evident. Then in Spain in 2027 if the PP and Vox alliance sweep to power and in Italy Meloni is easily re elected and most dramatic of all Le Pen and her party sweep to power in the Elysee and National Assembly elections in France while finally in the UK in 2028 Badenoch and Farage combined win enough seats for a majority and Vance wins a 3rd term for MAGA we can say the hard right swing is definitely here but not yet
Caroline Lucas joins Dominic Grieve a new co chairs of the European Movement
'Delighted to join Dominic as new Co-Presidents of European Movement. With election of Trump, it’s more urgent than ever that UK government puts its values before narrow short term economic interests, & rebuilds relationship with EU @euromove' https://x.com/CarolineLucas/status/1858480555668517186
'It was a privilege on Saturday to be elected co-President with Caroline Lucas of the U.K. European Movement. We come from different political traditions but are united in believing that our country's wellbeing is dependant on rebuilding our relationships with our European neighbours who share our values. I look forward to working with Caroline and Mike Galsworthy it's Chair in furthering its work. We were also given a rousing valedictory address by Michael Heseltine. His long career spans the entirety of the life of the EM since its foundation. It gives us confidence that the dismal consequences of Brexit for our country are a transient phenomenon that we can and will overcome.' https://x.com/dominicgrieve_/status/1858521029636710612
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
That's such Guardian wank.
I wonder if they got paid extra for every time they managed to squeeze "far right" into that article, even insinuating Von der Leyen loves a piece of it.
Pathetic.
Er, it’s not wank. It’s the Guardian being unusually honest about the new political complexion of the EU. The populist/hard/far right is on the march everywhere in Europe (and the USA) and this is the Guardian correctly acknowledging that
Which bit do you dispute?
We shall see, I think it is also partly just the rising cost of living since Covid that brought in social democrats across most of the West to government in the last few years and is now starting to sweep them out again.
If however next year Polievre gets a majority in Canada, Dutton and his rightwing Coalition wins in Australia and the CDU/CSU with the AfD win a majority of German seats and the GOP hold Congress in the midterms it may look more evident. Then in Spain in 2027 the PP and Vox alliance sweep to power and in Italy Meloni is easily re elected and most dramatic of all Le Pen and her party sweep to power in the Elysee and National Assembly elections in France while finally in the UK in 2028 Badenoch and Farage combined win enough seats for a majority we can say the hard right swing is definitely here but not yet
I like your dry sense of humour. Laughter in the dark
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
That's such Guardian wank.
I wonder if they got paid extra for every time they managed to squeeze "far right" into that article, even insinuating Von der Leyen loves a piece of it.
Pathetic.
Er, it’s not wank. It’s the Guardian being unusually honest about the new political complexion of the EU. The populist/hard/far right is on the march everywhere in Europe (and the USA) and this is the Guardian correctly acknowledging that
Which bit do you dispute?
The Guardian call anything to the right of Donald Tusk far-right, and even have to develop a new term there extreme far-right to describe those who are actually far-right.
It's absurd Guardianism. To them, it's a slur for anyone serious about euroscepticism or migration.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
Someone flagged this. I take it Remainers don’t like this awkward new fact
I think the EU would have to become a lot fiercer, to make rejoining an attractive proposition. That would mean member states ramping up military spending, and being willing both to inflict, and take, casualties in large numbers. That would mean altering the mindset of decades.
If I'm honest, the battle to Remain a member of the EU was lost between 2004-2009 when it was considering the EU Constitution and then moved to the Lisbon Treaty as part of its long-term confederalism as a consequence of adopting the Euro.
That was the time when our membership could have been put on a stable footing: Blair then Brown chose to ignore it, and Cameron/Osborne pretended to be bothered by it but entirely insincerely.
You think people in Hartlepool and Stoke cared about the Lisbon Treaty, seriously?
Caroline Lucas joins Dominic Grieve a new co chairs of the European Movement
'Delighted to join Dominic as new Co-Presidents of European Movement. With election of Trump, it’s more urgent than ever that UK government puts its values before narrow short term economic interests, & rebuilds relationship with EU @euromove' https://x.com/CarolineLucas/status/1858480555668517186
'It was a privilege on Saturday to be elected co-President with Caroline Lucas of the U.K. European Movement. We come from different political traditions but are united in believing that our country's wellbeing is dependant on rebuilding our relationships with our European neighbours who share our values. I look forward to working with Caroline and Mike Galsworthy it's Chair in furthering its work. We were also given a rousing valedictory address by Michael Heseltine. His long career spans the entirety of the life of the EM since its foundation. It gives us confidence that the dismal consequences of Brexit for our country are a transient phenomenon that we can and will overcome.' https://x.com/dominicgrieve_/status/1858521029636710612
You'd get more intelligence from a bowel movement.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
Someone flagged this. I take it Remainers don’t like this awkward new fact
I think the EU would have to become a lot fiercer, to make rejoining an attractive proposition. That would mean member states ramping up military spending, and being willing both to inflict, and take, casualties in large numbers. That would mean altering the mindset of decades.
If I'm honest, the battle to Remain a member of the EU was lost between 2004-2009 when it was considering the EU Constitution and then moved to the Lisbon Treaty as part of its long-term confederalism as a consequence of adopting the Euro.
That was the time when our membership could have been put on a stable footing: Blair then Brown chose to ignore it, and Cameron/Osborne pretended to be bothered by it but entirely insincerely.
You think people in Hartlepool and Stoke cared about the Lisbon Treaty, seriously?
No but a vote then would have had an actual purpose and may well have been won...
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
That's such Guardian wank.
I wonder if they got paid extra for every time they managed to squeeze "far right" into that article, even insinuating Von der Leyen loves a piece of it.
Pathetic.
Er, it’s not wank. It’s the Guardian being unusually honest about the new political complexion of the EU. The populist/hard/far right is on the march everywhere in Europe (and the USA) and this is the Guardian correctly acknowledging that
Which bit do you dispute?
The Guardian call anything to the right of Donald Tusk far-right, and even have to develop a new term there extreme far-right to describe those who are actually far-right.
It's absurd Guardianism. To them, it's a slur for anyone serious about euroscepticism or migration.
Ah ok. Generally I agree with you, tho I think some of these new European alt.right parties - eg the Austrians - are genuinely adjacent to Fascism
Meloni and Le Pen are quite moderate in comparison
Finland has always seemed a bit pointless and “extra”. I mean: Iceland is proper fun. Denmark is near and has Lego. Norway is genuinely Nordic - it’s in the name - and Sweden has meatballs, IKEA and ABBA. All good
But what’s the point of Finland? Just an extra sticky-out bit that exhausts the theme, like that sixth season of House where it all went wrong
Just call it something else. Like, I dunno, “Russia”. Sorted
I have thought you'd be up for naked blondes in saunas, duelling with hazel twigs?
(Nearly wrote "blonds" by mistake )
There's a good Bagley thriller novel set in Sweden, called The Tightrope Men.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
Someone flagged this. I take it Remainers don’t like this awkward new fact
I think the EU would have to become a lot fiercer, to make rejoining an attractive proposition. That would mean member states ramping up military spending, and being willing both to inflict, and take, casualties in large numbers. That would mean altering the mindset of decades.
If I'm honest, the battle to Remain a member of the EU was lost between 2004-2009 when it was considering the EU Constitution and then moved to the Lisbon Treaty as part of its long-term confederalism as a consequence of adopting the Euro.
That was the time when our membership could have been put on a stable footing: Blair then Brown chose to ignore it, and Cameron/Osborne pretended to be bothered by it but entirely insincerely.
You think people in Hartlepool and Stoke cared about the Lisbon Treaty, seriously?
No, they didn’t. But enough clever politically aware people DID - and that drove the rise of UKIP which in the end led to Cameron’s fateful referendum
Perun on "The War in Ukraine After the US Election - Biden's final moves, President Trump & Ukraine"
From the very beginning we've know that the war in Ukraine would turn on not just battlefield outcomes and bravery, but policy decisions made in foreign capitals. With the election of Donald Trump, it's clear that US policy in Ukraine is about to shift. What is less clear is how and what the results will be. And so today we discuss the closing moves of the Biden presidency and what some of the objectives and challenges might be for the Trump administration regarding Ukraine in 2025.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
Someone flagged this. I take it Remainers don’t like this awkward new fact
I think the EU would have to become a lot fiercer, to make rejoining an attractive proposition. That would mean member states ramping up military spending, and being willing both to inflict, and take, casualties in large numbers. That would mean altering the mindset of decades.
If I'm honest, the battle to Remain a member of the EU was lost between 2004-2009 when it was considering the EU Constitution and then moved to the Lisbon Treaty as part of its long-term confederalism as a consequence of adopting the Euro.
That was the time when our membership could have been put on a stable footing: Blair then Brown chose to ignore it, and Cameron/Osborne pretended to be bothered by it but entirely insincerely.
You think people in Hartlepool and Stoke cared about the Lisbon Treaty, seriously?
You underestimate politically-engaged working class people. Things like that really do resonate.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
But your comments demonstrate the problem with the West re-defining what asylum is. The UK gets fewer asylum seekers, being an island at the end of the continent, while France, Germany and particularly Italy, Spain and Greece get more. A re-definition that suits the UK won’t suit Italy, etc. Countries will stick with the old definition because they can’t work out a new definition that everyone wants.
We did, of course, used to have a system where we could move people between safe countries so as to reduce any “asylum shoppin”, mitigating some of these issues… but we Brexited from that.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
Someone flagged this. I take it Remainers don’t like this awkward new fact
I think the EU would have to become a lot fiercer, to make rejoining an attractive proposition. That would mean member states ramping up military spending, and being willing both to inflict, and take, casualties in large numbers. That would mean altering the mindset of decades.
If I'm honest, the battle to Remain a member of the EU was lost between 2004-2009 when it was considering the EU Constitution and then moved to the Lisbon Treaty as part of its long-term confederalism as a consequence of adopting the Euro.
That was the time when our membership could have been put on a stable footing: Blair then Brown chose to ignore it, and Cameron/Osborne pretended to be bothered by it but entirely insincerely.
You think people in Hartlepool and Stoke cared about the Lisbon Treaty, seriously?
You underestimate politically-engaged working class people. Things like that really do resonate.
I doubt most university-educated Remainers even knew what it was. Most he country didn't know what it was nor cared. What turned the vote far more was immigration, living standards, and non-political types just not liking the way the country was going. It's part of the reason Cameron holding the referendum was a stupid idea.
A man has gone to jail for somewhat dodgy “Islamophobic” Facebook posts. AFAICS that’s it. He didn’t do any actual violence. Didn’t join any riots. Didn’t throw anything
Caroline Lucas joins Dominic Grieve a new co chairs of the European Movement
'Delighted to join Dominic as new Co-Presidents of European Movement. With election of Trump, it’s more urgent than ever that UK government puts its values before narrow short term economic interests, & rebuilds relationship with EU @euromove' https://x.com/CarolineLucas/status/1858480555668517186
And of course they are making a big deal of being on BlueSky....
I haven't used Twitter/X for years, so finally deactivated it today. I'll wait to see how Bluesky progresses before thinking about joining it. It will need a critical mass of users and will need to be moderated better than X is.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
But your comments demonstrate the problem with the West re-defining what asylum is. The UK gets fewer asylum seekers, being an island at the end of the continent, while France, Germany and particularly Italy, Spain and Greece get more. A re-definition that suits the UK won’t suit Italy, etc. Countries will stick with the old definition because they can’t work out a new definition that everyone wants.
We did, of course, used to have a system where we could move people between safe countries so as to reduce any “asylum shoppin”, mitigating some of these issues… but we Brexited from that.
Do you not think that many residents of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece also want to change how asylum works? It might be that there are different expectations, but the west as a whole is not content to allow millions of migrants in without check.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
Whether or not you think inheritance tax on farms is a good idea, on balance I'm against it, the idea that it is "full Stalin" really does show what an absolute moron Musk is. He didn't use to be as big a berk as this, or maybe he hid it, but it looks like social media has done a number on his mind.
Whether or not you think inheritance tax on farms is a good idea, on balance I'm against it, the idea that it is "full Stalin" really does show what an absolute moron Musk is. He didn't use to be as big a berk as this, or maybe he hid it, but it looks like social media has done a number on his mind.
Read my comment about the guy jailed for Facebook posts and “full Stalin” seems quite fair and judicious
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
I don't disagree but who is a genuine refugee in need of asylum? Or people looking for a better life (and why wouldn't they?)
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
Someone flagged this. I take it Remainers don’t like this awkward new fact
I think the EU would have to become a lot fiercer, to make rejoining an attractive proposition. That would mean member states ramping up military spending, and being willing both to inflict, and take, casualties in large numbers. That would mean altering the mindset of decades.
If I'm honest, the battle to Remain a member of the EU was lost between 2004-2009 when it was considering the EU Constitution and then moved to the Lisbon Treaty as part of its long-term confederalism as a consequence of adopting the Euro.
That was the time when our membership could have been put on a stable footing: Blair then Brown chose to ignore it, and Cameron/Osborne pretended to be bothered by it but entirely insincerely.
You think people in Hartlepool and Stoke cared about the Lisbon Treaty, seriously?
You underestimate politically-engaged working class people. Things like that really do resonate.
I doubt most university-educated Remainers even knew what it was. Most he country didn't know what it was nor cared. What turned the vote far more was immigration, living standards, and non-political types just not liking the way the country was going.
The whole way the constitition/Lisbon Treaty was handled, especially Blair and Brown reneging on the promise of holding a referendum, made it hard to argue against a vote for Remain being effectively a blank cheque for further integration.
A man has gone to jail for somewhat dodgy “Islamophobic” Facebook posts. AFAICS that’s it. He didn’t do any actual violence. Didn’t join any riots. Didn’t throw anything
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
When are you expecting global warming really to take effect.
Any day now, surely.
Oh God, the global warming deniers are back.
Cool it bonzo. Just wondered when @eek thinks global warming will really take effect.
When do you think it will.
Well it's already changing the weather - but my point was that it's likely to be as with bankruptcy - slow changes and then all at once...
And when do you expect the all at once to happen.
Not a clue - some point in the future a drought / famine will occur and the after effects will be millions heading towards Europe...
Righty-ho.
I mean mitigate for sure, try to move to renewables I get (mathematically it makes sense/is an imperative).
But the more you trot out the Trump is a nazi global catastrophe any minute now just that I can't quite tell you when, you put people off. Plus you expose yourself as a massive hypocrite.
If you listed PBers by how often they claim impending global catastrophe, eek would not be first on the list.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
The asylum system as set up in 1951 was aimed towards helping people who found themselves in the 'wrong' state as a result of shifting borders and population movements following WW2. It wasn't meant to be a permanent policy to deal with future conflicts.
Whether or not you think inheritance tax on farms is a good idea, on balance I'm against it, the idea that it is "full Stalin" really does show what an absolute moron Musk is. He didn't use to be as big a berk as this, or maybe he hid it, but it looks like social media has done a number on his mind.
It has definitely done something to his mind view.
As for inheritance tax - as I said yesterday I've spent 25 years with the way I work being caught in the crossfire of HMRC's attacks on fake self-employment.
So I have little concern with other people being caught by similar tax avoidance measures...
A man has gone to jail for somewhat dodgy “Islamophobic” Facebook posts. AFAICS that’s it. He didn’t do any actual violence. Didn’t join any riots. Didn’t throw anything
I'm not sure about the EU turning to the (far) right, but there's a fair bit of evidence that significant elements of PB.com are toying, or more, with the idea.
Whether or not you think inheritance tax on farms is a good idea, on balance I'm against it, the idea that it is "full Stalin" really does show what an absolute moron Musk is. He didn't use to be as big a berk as this, or maybe he hid it, but it looks like social media has done a number on his mind.
Full Stalin would presumably mean handing over all farmland to the state with the local villagers then doing the work, with the bread basket of England being forced into a Holodomor as all its produce is stolen for export...
A man has gone to jail for somewhat dodgy “Islamophobic” Facebook posts. AFAICS that’s it. He didn’t do any actual violence. Didn’t join any riots. Didn’t throw anything
On topic: Burn-Murdoch has gone part of the way, but needs to go further. The confidence bands that he prefers imply that they contain all the possibilities -- which is false. Nor is there anything magical about a 5 percent confidence interval.
A man has gone to jail for somewhat dodgy “Islamophobic” Facebook posts. AFAICS that’s it. He didn’t do any actual violence. Didn’t join any riots. Didn’t throw anything
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
But your comments demonstrate the problem with the West re-defining what asylum is. The UK gets fewer asylum seekers, being an island at the end of the continent, while France, Germany and particularly Italy, Spain and Greece get more. A re-definition that suits the UK won’t suit Italy, etc. Countries will stick with the old definition because they can’t work out a new definition that everyone wants.
We did, of course, used to have a system where we could move people between safe countries so as to reduce any “asylum shoppin”, mitigating some of these issues… but we Brexited from that.
Do you not think that many residents of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece also want to change how asylum works? It might be that there are different expectations, but the west as a whole is not content to allow millions of migrants in without check.
Current systems are not “without check”.
Yes, many people in each of those countries has concerns about the current system. Those countries will and are trying various things. But for there to be a consensus re-definition by the West that works for enough people in the West, I think that’s harder than you think. I think you’re more likely to see each country going its own way.
Whether or not you think inheritance tax on farms is a good idea, on balance I'm against it, the idea that it is "full Stalin" really does show what an absolute moron Musk is. He didn't use to be as big a berk as this, or maybe he hid it, but it looks like social media has done a number on his mind.
It's why hoping on a favourable deal from Trump is utterly daft. Musk loathes Starmer and wants a populist right-wing government to succeed Labour in 2029. He will try to get Trump to humiliate him and the UK government.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
When are you expecting global warming really to take effect.
Any day now, surely.
Oh God, the global warming deniers are back.
Cool it bonzo. Just wondered when @eek thinks global warming will really take effect.
When do you think it will.
Well it's already changing the weather - but my point was that it's likely to be as with bankruptcy - slow changes and then all at once...
And when do you expect the all at once to happen.
Not a clue - some point in the future a drought / famine will occur and the after effects will be millions heading towards Europe...
Righty-ho.
I mean mitigate for sure, try to move to renewables I get (mathematically it makes sense/is an imperative).
But the more you trot out the Trump is a nazi global catastrophe any minute now just that I can't quite tell you when, you put people off. Plus you expose yourself as a massive hypocrite.
If you listed PBers by how often they claim impending global catastrophe, eek would not be first on the list.
Yes point taken. But climate catastrophising does not help.
On topic: Burn-Murdoch has gone part of the way, but needs to go further. The confidence bands that he prefers imply that they contain all the possibilities -- which is false. Nor is there anything magical about a 5 percent confidence interval.
General understanding of stats and probabilities is uniformly poor across most people. The numbers who play the lottery for example when the odds are terrible. And then the inability to understand weather forecasts with probabilities (10% chance of rain means 1 day in 10 you get wet, so don't complain about the forecast being wrong if it rains on a 10% day).
A man has gone to jail for somewhat dodgy “Islamophobic” Facebook posts. AFAICS that’s it. He didn’t do any actual violence. Didn’t join any riots. Didn’t throw anything
Am I missing something? Did he do something else that’s not being reported?!
Wait for the sentencing remarks but this might be a clue, it could have activated some suspended sentences.
Williams has four previous convictions for seven offences including three for drink driving and one conviction by a Military Court for drunkenness.
Why would the BBC not report that?
In my experience court reporting is shocking.
We saw the same during the riots.
From my reading he posted things before Southport and then repeated them after Southport,
Which meant he went from something that was problematic to something that was seriously problematic whilst there was a high risk of / during public disorder. Hence the sentencing being severe as he hit a different sentencing threshold..
As I've said multiple times before on here the issue comes down to the fact many people think social media is equivalent to a pub when it's actually the equivalent of a newspaper...
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
But your comments demonstrate the problem with the West re-defining what asylum is. The UK gets fewer asylum seekers, being an island at the end of the continent, while France, Germany and particularly Italy, Spain and Greece get more. A re-definition that suits the UK won’t suit Italy, etc. Countries will stick with the old definition because they can’t work out a new definition that everyone wants.
We did, of course, used to have a system where we could move people between safe countries so as to reduce any “asylum shoppin”, mitigating some of these issues… but we Brexited from that.
Do you not think that many residents of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece also want to change how asylum works? It might be that there are different expectations, but the west as a whole is not content to allow millions of migrants in without check.
Current systems are not “without check”.
Yes, many people in each of those countries has concerns about the current system. Those countries will and are trying various things. But for there to be a consensus re-definition by the West that works for enough people in the West, I think that’s harder than you think. I think you’re more likely to see each country going its own way.
Yes, you are probably right that the outcome will be horses for courses. My main point is the current system is not sustainable.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
I don't disagree but who is a genuine refugee in need of asylum? Or people looking for a better life (and why wouldn't they?)
I am unclear what point you are making here. That is a question that the asylum Tribunals seek to answer every day.
On ladders: When I was growing up, I picked cherries from our trees in the summers. We used ladders to get to the cherries higher up. Our land was not flat, so even setting a ladder could be tricky. I fell from time to time, though less often as I got more experience. But I never injured myself.
Why not? I didn't have to go that high. I was often able to grab a branch to slow my fall. I was not as brittle then as I am now. And, perhaps most important, the ground was soft, and covered with long grass.
Whether or not you think inheritance tax on farms is a good idea, on balance I'm against it, the idea that it is "full Stalin" really does show what an absolute moron Musk is. He didn't use to be as big a berk as this, or maybe he hid it, but it looks like social media has done a number on his mind.
It's why hoping on a favourable deal from Trump is utterly daft. Musk loathes Starmer and wants a populist right-wing government to succeed Labour in 2029. He will try to get Trump to humiliate him and the UK government.
Yes, it's weird - Musk does seem to have quite a personal dislike of Starmer. Commenting on such a parochial issue as IHT on farmers in the UK is odd. I'm surprised Musk hasn't weighed in on the gross injustice of removing the VAT exemption on private school fees.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
The asylum system as set up in 1951 was aimed towards helping people who found themselves in the 'wrong' state as a result of shifting borders and population movements following WW2. It wasn't meant to be a permanent policy to deal with future conflicts.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
When are you expecting global warming really to take effect.
Any day now, surely.
Oh God, the global warming deniers are back.
Cool it bonzo. Just wondered when @eek thinks global warming will really take effect.
When do you think it will.
Well it's already changing the weather - but my point was that it's likely to be as with bankruptcy - slow changes and then all at once...
And when do you expect the all at once to happen.
Not a clue - some point in the future a drought / famine will occur and the after effects will be millions heading towards Europe...
Righty-ho.
I mean mitigate for sure, try to move to renewables I get (mathematically it makes sense/is an imperative).
But the more you trot out the Trump is a nazi global catastrophe any minute now just that I can't quite tell you when, you put people off. Plus you expose yourself as a massive hypocrite.
If you listed PBers by how often they claim impending global catastrophe, eek would not be first on the list.
Yes point taken. But climate catastrophising does not help.
I very much agree with you on this. I think the problem has been that not enough people were paying attention in the 90's and noughties so in order to make people listen the more extreme possibilities became the ones that we kept hearing about, not the middle of the range consensus positions. Journalism doesn't help either - they live on the sensational as it sells papers or gets clicks.
And so we end up with people writing things like 'the planet is literally burning" or "the planet will be destroyed" when what is actually going to happen is a degree or three global temperature rises, many challenges needed to adapt to new warmer world, and also some potential benefits too.
A man has gone to jail for somewhat dodgy “Islamophobic” Facebook posts. AFAICS that’s it. He didn’t do any actual violence. Didn’t join any riots. Didn’t throw anything
Am I missing something? Did he do something else that’s not being reported?!
Wait for the sentencing remarks but this might be a clue, it could have activated some suspended sentences.
Williams has four previous convictions for seven offences including three for drink driving and one conviction by a Military Court for drunkenness.
Why would the BBC not report that?
In my experience court reporting is shocking.
We saw the same during the riots.
The BBC article literally says, “Williams has four previous convictions for seven offences including three for drink driving and one conviction by a Military Court for drunkenness.” So I don’t think this is a problem with court reporting so much as with someone’s reading comprehension.
David Frum @davidfrum.bsky.social · 8s Race against time: Will the Russian economy collapse before Team Moscow takes power in Washington DC to bail them out?
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
I don't disagree but who is a genuine refugee in need of asylum? Or people looking for a better life (and why wouldn't they?)
I am unclear what point you are making here. That is a question that the asylum Tribunals seek to answer every day.
I think many people suspect that the tribunals are abused. Migrants told to lose their paperwork by the people smugglers for instance and coached in the 'correct' claims to make to boost their chances. I have no idea if its true but you only need to see how some immigration lawyers fought over Rwanda to think it plausible.
I know some people who have been granted asylum - one in particular is a student on my course. I do not doubt his story. I do not believe all those crossing the Channel have the same tragic back story as he does.
I've been on twitter for years and have never seen any pornographic content - or even risque beyond scantily clad anime drawings. Thought I'd try BlueSky and within 24 hours had a video chap performing a casual w*nk delivered to me caption "feeling horny".
Whether or not you think inheritance tax on farms is a good idea, on balance I'm against it, the idea that it is "full Stalin" really does show what an absolute moron Musk is. He didn't use to be as big a berk as this, or maybe he hid it, but it looks like social media has done a number on his mind.
Stalinist or not the Communist President of China certainly seems very pleased the UK now has a Labour government.
'According to a translation in the room at the top of his meeting with Sir Keir, the Chinese president said: “The world has entered a new period marked by turbulence and transformation. As permanent members of the UN security council and major global economies China and UK share the dual responsibility of advancing our respective national development and addressing global challenges.
“The new UK government is working to fix the foundations of the economy and rebuild Britain and has set the vision of Britain reconnected.”
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
I don't disagree but who is a genuine refugee in need of asylum? Or people looking for a better life (and why wouldn't they?)
I am unclear what point you are making here. That is a question that the asylum Tribunals seek to answer every day.
I think many people suspect that the tribunals are abused. Migrants told to lose their paperwork by the people smugglers for instance and coached in the 'correct' claims to make to boost their chances. I have no idea if its true but you only need to see how some immigration lawyers fought over Rwanda to think it plausible.
I know some people who have been granted asylum - one in particular is a student on my course. I do not doubt his story. I do not believe all those crossing the Channel have the same tragic back story as he does.
And yet you managed to fall into the same old story - most immigrants are trying it on, except the few I know personally all of whom have hideous stories...
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
When are you expecting global warming really to take effect.
Any day now, surely.
Oh God, the global warming deniers are back.
Cool it bonzo. Just wondered when @eek thinks global warming will really take effect.
When do you think it will.
Well it's already changing the weather - but my point was that it's likely to be as with bankruptcy - slow changes and then all at once...
And when do you expect the all at once to happen.
Not a clue - some point in the future a drought / famine will occur and the after effects will be millions heading towards Europe...
Righty-ho.
I mean mitigate for sure, try to move to renewables I get (mathematically it makes sense/is an imperative).
But the more you trot out the Trump is a nazi global catastrophe any minute now just that I can't quite tell you when, you put people off. Plus you expose yourself as a massive hypocrite.
If you listed PBers by how often they claim impending global catastrophe, eek would not be first on the list.
Yes point taken. But climate catastrophising does not help.
I very much agree with you on this. I think the problem has been that not enough people were paying attention in the 90's and noughties so in order to make people listen the more extreme possibilities became the ones that we kept hearing about, not the middle of the range consensus positions. Journalism doesn't help either - they live on the sensational as it sells papers or gets clicks.
And so we end up with people writing things like 'the planet is literally burning" or "the planet will be destroyed" when what is actually going to happen is a degree or three global temperature rises, many challenges needed to adapt to new warmer world, and also some potential benefits too.
Whether or not you think inheritance tax on farms is a good idea, on balance I'm against it, the idea that it is "full Stalin" really does show what an absolute moron Musk is. He didn't use to be as big a berk as this, or maybe he hid it, but it looks like social media has done a number on his mind.
It's why hoping on a favourable deal from Trump is utterly daft. Musk loathes Starmer and wants a populist right-wing government to succeed Labour in 2029. He will try to get Trump to humiliate him and the UK government.
Yes, it's weird - Musk does seem to have quite a personal dislike of Starmer. Commenting on such a parochial issue as IHT on farmers in the UK is odd. I'm surprised Musk hasn't weighed in on the gross injustice of removing the VAT exemption on private school fees.
It’s because right wing Americans see Britain as an example of how it can all go horribly wrong if you let the Woke take over everything - from law to politics to academe. And they’re correct
Britain is a fucked up Wokemare and Labour are determined to make it all much worse, even as they make Britons much poorer
I was thinking maybe it is the nasty Telegraph and the Guardian picking contrasting photos of an ignored Starmer compared to Macron being everybodies best mate. But went on Getty images and from 100+ photos, that is all they have, Starmer sitting there on his own, not talking to anybody (other than that one image), where as Macron and Milei seem in their element, glad handing everybody. Sunak struggled with this as well, but that is because they probably didn't see him unless he got a booster seat.
I've been on twitter for years and have never seen any pornographic content - or even risque beyond scantily clad anime drawings. Thought I'd try BlueSky and within 24 hours had a video chap performing a casual w*nk delivered to me caption "feeling horny".
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
But your comments demonstrate the problem with the West re-defining what asylum is. The UK gets fewer asylum seekers, being an island at the end of the continent, while France, Germany and particularly Italy, Spain and Greece get more. A re-definition that suits the UK won’t suit Italy, etc. Countries will stick with the old definition because they can’t work out a new definition that everyone wants.
We did, of course, used to have a system where we could move people between safe countries so as to reduce any “asylum shoppin”, mitigating some of these issues… but we Brexited from that.
Do you not think that many residents of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece also want to change how asylum works? It might be that there are different expectations, but the west as a whole is not content to allow millions of migrants in without check.
Current systems are not “without check”.
Yes, many people in each of those countries has concerns about the current system. Those countries will and are trying various things. But for there to be a consensus re-definition by the West that works for enough people in the West, I think that’s harder than you think. I think you’re more likely to see each country going its own way.
Yes, you are probably right that the outcome will be horses for courses. My main point is the current system is not sustainable.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
But your comments demonstrate the problem with the West re-defining what asylum is. The UK gets fewer asylum seekers, being an island at the end of the continent, while France, Germany and particularly Italy, Spain and Greece get more. A re-definition that suits the UK won’t suit Italy, etc. Countries will stick with the old definition because they can’t work out a new definition that everyone wants.
We did, of course, used to have a system where we could move people between safe countries so as to reduce any “asylum shoppin”, mitigating some of these issues… but we Brexited from that.
Though to be fair what Turbotubs is suggesting is exactly what the law/system was in the EU for many years prior to 2015. The rule was that asylum seekers should be declared and processed in the first EU country they came to. Hungary actually tried to enforcve this during the migrant crisis and was roundly attacked by everyone else including Merkel in Germany who then declared her open borders policy.
As I have said before, I have no problem with Europe receiving and helping migrants and asylum seekers but I thought it was pretty poor that Hungary was attacked for actually enforcing the EU rules as they stood.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
When are you expecting global warming really to take effect.
Any day now, surely.
Oh God, the global warming deniers are back.
Cool it bonzo. Just wondered when @eek thinks global warming will really take effect.
When do you think it will.
Well it's already changing the weather - but my point was that it's likely to be as with bankruptcy - slow changes and then all at once...
And when do you expect the all at once to happen.
Not a clue - some point in the future a drought / famine will occur and the after effects will be millions heading towards Europe...
Righty-ho.
I mean mitigate for sure, try to move to renewables I get (mathematically it makes sense/is an imperative).
But the more you trot out the Trump is a nazi global catastrophe any minute now just that I can't quite tell you when, you put people off. Plus you expose yourself as a massive hypocrite.
If you listed PBers by how often they claim impending global catastrophe, eek would not be first on the list.
Yes point taken. But climate catastrophising does not help.
I very much agree with you on this. I think the problem has been that not enough people were paying attention in the 90's and noughties so in order to make people listen the more extreme possibilities became the ones that we kept hearing about, not the middle of the range consensus positions. Journalism doesn't help either - they live on the sensational as it sells papers or gets clicks.
And so we end up with people writing things like 'the planet is literally burning" or "the planet will be destroyed" when what is actually going to happen is a degree or three global temperature rises, many challenges needed to adapt to new warmer world, and also some potential benefits too.
Potential benefits? Heretic!
Increased CO2 can increase crop yields. Warmer conditions (fewer cold winters in the UK) might mean less old folk die of hypothermia.
And the mitigations themselves - phase out fossil fuels means less pollution in cities.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
I don't disagree but who is a genuine refugee in need of asylum? Or people looking for a better life (and why wouldn't they?)
I am unclear what point you are making here. That is a question that the asylum Tribunals seek to answer every day.
I think many people suspect that the tribunals are abused. Migrants told to lose their paperwork by the people smugglers for instance and coached in the 'correct' claims to make to boost their chances. I have no idea if its true but you only need to see how some immigration lawyers fought over Rwanda to think it plausible.
I know some people who have been granted asylum - one in particular is a student on my course. I do not doubt his story. I do not believe all those crossing the Channel have the same tragic back story as he does.
Many people believe those seeking asylum are given houses and loads of dosh. Many people believe most immigrants are asylum seekers. People believe all sorts of things. If there’s actual evidence, I’d be interested to see that.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
I don't disagree but who is a genuine refugee in need of asylum? Or people looking for a better life (and why wouldn't they?)
I am unclear what point you are making here. That is a question that the asylum Tribunals seek to answer every day.
I think many people suspect that the tribunals are abused. Migrants told to lose their paperwork by the people smugglers for instance and coached in the 'correct' claims to make to boost their chances. I have no idea if its true but you only need to see how some immigration lawyers fought over Rwanda to think it plausible.
I know some people who have been granted asylum - one in particular is a student on my course. I do not doubt his story. I do not believe all those crossing the Channel have the same tragic back story as he does.
And yet you managed to fall into the same old story - most immigrants are trying it on, except the few I know personally all of whom have hideous stories...
That's a fair point. How many Albanians were trying it on and now we have the ability to send them back are not doing so?
I was thinking maybe it is the nasty Telegraph and the Guardian picking contrasting photos of an ignored Starmer compared to Macron being everybodies best mate. But went on Getty images and from 100+ photos, that is all they have, Starmer sitting there on his own, not talking to anybody (other than that one image), where as Macron and Milei seem in their element, glad handing everybody.
Plenty of photos of Starmer meeting and talking to Xi and one chatting with a Saudi Prince. I expect he thinks that is rather more important than Macron glad handing Milei and Biden as he actually had one on one time with 2 leaders with rather more power than a whacky Argentine libertarian President and a lame duck US President
Whether or not you think inheritance tax on farms is a good idea, on balance I'm against it, the idea that it is "full Stalin" really does show what an absolute moron Musk is. He didn't use to be as big a berk as this, or maybe he hid it, but it looks like social media has done a number on his mind.
It's why hoping on a favourable deal from Trump is utterly daft. Musk loathes Starmer and wants a populist right-wing government to succeed Labour in 2029. He will try to get Trump to humiliate him and the UK government.
Yes, it's weird - Musk does seem to have quite a personal dislike of Starmer. Commenting on such a parochial issue as IHT on farmers in the UK is odd. I'm surprised Musk hasn't weighed in on the gross injustice of removing the VAT exemption on private school fees.
It’s because right wing Americans see Britain as an example of how it can all go horribly wrong if you let the Woke take over everything - from law to politics to academe. And they’re correct
Britain is a fucked up Wokemare and Labour are determined to make it all much worse, even as they make Britons much poorer
Original take from you. It's not just right-wing Americans, though, is it? It's also right-wing UK-born peripatetic journalists of nowhere, it seems.
Meanwhile, I search in vain for evidence of significant wokeness from Starmer and his government since they came to power.
I was thinking maybe it is the nasty Telegraph and the Guardian picking contrasting photos of an ignored Starmer compared to Macron being everybodies best mate. But went on Getty images and from 100+ photos, that is all they have, Starmer sitting there on his own, not talking to anybody (other than that one image), where as Macron and Milei seem in their element, glad handing everybody.
Plenty of photos of Starmer meeting Xi, I expect he thinks that is rather more important than Macron glad handing Milei and Biden
Yes I know, but that was a pre-arranged meeting set up for him. I meant in the actual G20 meeting hall. It was the same as the Commonwealth event, he was sat their uncomfortably being ignored by everybody.
He doesn't seem at ease at these events in the way say Cameron or Blair were.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
When are you expecting global warming really to take effect.
Any day now, surely.
Oh God, the global warming deniers are back.
Cool it bonzo. Just wondered when @eek thinks global warming will really take effect.
When do you think it will.
Well it's already changing the weather - but my point was that it's likely to be as with bankruptcy - slow changes and then all at once...
And when do you expect the all at once to happen.
Not a clue - some point in the future a drought / famine will occur and the after effects will be millions heading towards Europe...
I recall seeing a documentary about the future of climate change in - I think - the late 90s
It featured prophetic images of black and brown people literally scaling walls to get into Europe. At the time I dismissed it as hysterical lefty nonsense
Did they get it right? Is it even climate change?
Who knows. But the contemporary images of migrants climbing walls on the Polish and Spanish borders exactly match what they predicted, visually
Dare I suggest it has way more to do with social media than with climate change.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
Someone flagged this. I take it Remainers don’t like this awkward new fact
I think the EU would have to become a lot fiercer, to make rejoining an attractive proposition. That would mean member states ramping up military spending, and being willing both to inflict, and take, casualties in large numbers. That would mean altering the mindset of decades.
The practical problems of rejoining the EU, by themselves, make it utterly impossible
Consider the process
You’d have to put a Rejoin promise in your manifesto
Win the election
Call a referendum
Win the referendum
Then hope and pray that - over the next 5-10 years of negotiation? - the EU doesn’t demand we hand over Gibraltar, or every fish in Scotland, and that some tiny country doesn’t veto us for the lolz
Meanwhile UK politics - and economics - would be in turmoil waiting for the decision of the EU - for a decade
It’s simply never going to happen. Its done. We’re out forever and huzzah for that
That is both true. And false.
It's true in the context of "normal" politics.
But it's also false. Churchill was willing to form an Anglo-French Union in an afternoon, in the context of the crisis of the Battle of France in 1940. The Union of England and Scotland came about in the context of the crisis created by the lack of Protestants in the direct line of succession.
If we survive the conflicts of the 21st century then we may find Britain emerges as part of a European Union that forged a national identity in the conflict with Russian imperialism. Naturally they'll be grateful of our participation, and the opportunity to relocate the EU capital to London.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
I don't disagree but who is a genuine refugee in need of asylum? Or people looking for a better life (and why wouldn't they?)
I am unclear what point you are making here. That is a question that the asylum Tribunals seek to answer every day.
I think many people suspect that the tribunals are abused. Migrants told to lose their paperwork by the people smugglers for instance and coached in the 'correct' claims to make to boost their chances. I have no idea if its true but you only need to see how some immigration lawyers fought over Rwanda to think it plausible.
I know some people who have been granted asylum - one in particular is a student on my course. I do not doubt his story. I do not believe all those crossing the Channel have the same tragic back story as he does.
And yet you managed to fall into the same old story - most immigrants are trying it on, except the few I know personally all of whom have hideous stories...
That's a fair point. How many Albanians were trying it on and now we have the ability to send them back are not doing so?
The bilateral deal Sunak did with Albania was one of the high points of his premiership. It is unfortunate that the Tories’ remained wedded to the impractical Rwanda plan rather than building on that success. Their rhetoric was more important to them than practical but boring solutions,
A man has gone to jail for somewhat dodgy “Islamophobic” Facebook posts. AFAICS that’s it. He didn’t do any actual violence. Didn’t join any riots. Didn’t throw anything
I was thinking maybe it is the nasty Telegraph and the Guardian picking contrasting photos of an ignored Starmer compared to Macron being everybodies best mate. But went on Getty images and from 100+ photos, that is all they have, Starmer sitting there on his own, not talking to anybody (other than that one image), where as Macron and Milei seem in their element, glad handing everybody.
Plenty of photos of Starmer meeting and talking to Xi and one chatting with a Saudi Prince. I expect he thinks that is rather more important than Macron glad handing Milei and Biden as he actually had one on one time with 2 leaders with rather more power than a whacky Argentine libertarian President and a lame duck US President
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
I don't disagree but who is a genuine refugee in need of asylum? Or people looking for a better life (and why wouldn't they?)
I am unclear what point you are making here. That is a question that the asylum Tribunals seek to answer every day.
I think many people suspect that the tribunals are abused. Migrants told to lose their paperwork by the people smugglers for instance and coached in the 'correct' claims to make to boost their chances. I have no idea if its true but you only need to see how some immigration lawyers fought over Rwanda to think it plausible.
I know some people who have been granted asylum - one in particular is a student on my course. I do not doubt his story. I do not believe all those crossing the Channel have the same tragic back story as he does.
Many people believe those seeking asylum are given houses and loads of dosh. Many people believe most immigrants are asylum seekers. People believe all sorts of things. If there’s actual evidence, I’d be interested to see that.
Well as the country is housing thousands (tens of thousands?) in hotels and presumably feeding and clothing them, I think its fair to say they are being given housing and money.
Its incredibly complex. People often talk at cross purposes about things. There is no doubt in my mind than many people using people smugglers to get to the UK are economic migrants. We should, in many ways, welcome enterprising people who are trying to make better lives for themselves. I am not someone who thinks they are coming for the free money - they are coming to try to work and improve their lives.
But I think resident populations have rights too - and their wishes are surely part of the equation?
I was thinking maybe it is the nasty Telegraph and the Guardian picking contrasting photos of an ignored Starmer compared to Macron being everybodies best mate. But went on Getty images and from 100+ photos, that is all they have, Starmer sitting there on his own, not talking to anybody (other than that one image), where as Macron and Milei seem in their element, glad handing everybody.
Plenty of photos of Starmer meeting Xi, I expect he thinks that is rather more important than Macron glad handing Milei and Biden
Yes I know, but that was a pre-arranged meeting set up for him. I meant in the actual G20 meeting hall. It was the same as the Commonwealth event, he was sat their uncomfortably being ignored by everybody.
He doesn't seem at ease at these events in the way say Cameron or Blair were.
Neither did May or Brown. Both are dull technocrats like Starmer.
However Xi is also a dull technocrat so probably got along well with Sir Keir
I was thinking maybe it is the nasty Telegraph and the Guardian picking contrasting photos of an ignored Starmer compared to Macron being everybodies best mate. But went on Getty images and from 100+ photos, that is all they have, Starmer sitting there on his own, not talking to anybody (other than that one image), where as Macron and Milei seem in their element, glad handing everybody.
Plenty of photos of Starmer meeting Xi, I expect he thinks that is rather more important than Macron glad handing Milei and Biden
Yes I know, but that was a pre-arranged meeting set up for him. I meant in the actual G20 meeting hall. It was the same as the Commonwealth event, he was sat their uncomfortably being ignored by everybody.
He doesn't seem at ease at these events in the way say Cameron or Blair were.
Neither did May or Brown. Both are dull technocrats like Starmer.
However Xi is also a dull technocrat so probably got along well with Sir Keir
I was thinking maybe it is the nasty Telegraph and the Guardian picking contrasting photos of an ignored Starmer compared to Macron being everybodies best mate. But went on Getty images and from 100+ photos, that is all they have, Starmer sitting there on his own, not talking to anybody (other than that one image), where as Macron and Milei seem in their element, glad handing everybody.
Plenty of photos of Starmer meeting and talking to Xi and one chatting with a Saudi Prince. I expect he thinks that is rather more important than Macron glad handing Milei and Biden as he actually had one on one time with 2 leaders with rather more power than a whacky Argentine libertarian President and a lame duck US President
Brilliant! Are you leaning Starmer-wards, HYUFD?!
No but I don't see why going around glad handing other world leaders means you produce anything of substance in the actual detail of the summit
I was thinking maybe it is the nasty Telegraph and the Guardian picking contrasting photos of an ignored Starmer compared to Macron being everybodies best mate. But went on Getty images and from 100+ photos, that is all they have, Starmer sitting there on his own, not talking to anybody (other than that one image), where as Macron and Milei seem in their element, glad handing everybody.
Plenty of photos of Starmer meeting and talking to Xi and one chatting with a Saudi Prince. I expect he thinks that is rather more important than Macron glad handing Milei and Biden as he actually had one on one time with 2 leaders with rather more power than a whacky Argentine libertarian President and a lame duck US President
There was a lot of photos of Johnson at events like this purporting to show him 'isolated' etc - its easy to do if you take enough photos.
A man has gone to jail for somewhat dodgy “Islamophobic” Facebook posts. AFAICS that’s it. He didn’t do any actual violence. Didn’t join any riots. Didn’t throw anything
Am I missing something? Did he do something else that’s not being reported?!
Wait for the sentencing remarks but this might be a clue, it could have activated some suspended sentences.
Williams has four previous convictions for seven offences including three for drink driving and one conviction by a Military Court for drunkenness.
Why would the BBC not report that?
In my experience court reporting is shocking.
We saw the same during the riots.
From my reading he posted things before Southport and then repeated them after Southport,
Which meant he went from something that was problematic to something that was seriously problematic whilst there was a high risk of / during public disorder. Hence the sentencing being severe as he hit a different sentencing threshold..
As I've said multiple times before on here the issue comes down to the fact many people think social media is equivalent to a pub when it's actually the equivalent of a newspaper...
The lesson here is get off your phone, and go down the pub.
A man has gone to jail for somewhat dodgy “Islamophobic” Facebook posts. AFAICS that’s it. He didn’t do any actual violence. Didn’t join any riots. Didn’t throw anything
Am I missing something? Did he do something else that’s not being reported?!
Wait for the sentencing remarks but this might be a clue, it could have activated some suspended sentences.
Williams has four previous convictions for seven offences including three for drink driving and one conviction by a Military Court for drunkenness.
Why would the BBC not report that?
In my experience court reporting is shocking.
We saw the same during the riots.
From my reading he posted things before Southport and then repeated them after Southport,
Which meant he went from something that was problematic to something that was seriously problematic whilst there was a high risk of / during public disorder. Hence the sentencing being severe as he hit a different sentencing threshold..
As I've said multiple times before on here the issue comes down to the fact many people think social media is equivalent to a pub when it's actually the equivalent of a newspaper...
The lesson here is get off your phone, and go down the pub.
Question - is PB a pub? Leon seems to think it is.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
When are you expecting global warming really to take effect.
Any day now, surely.
Oh God, the global warming deniers are back.
Cool it bonzo. Just wondered when @eek thinks global warming will really take effect.
When do you think it will.
Well it's already changing the weather - but my point was that it's likely to be as with bankruptcy - slow changes and then all at once...
And when do you expect the all at once to happen.
Not a clue - some point in the future a drought / famine will occur and the after effects will be millions heading towards Europe...
I recall seeing a documentary about the future of climate change in - I think - the late 90s
It featured prophetic images of black and brown people literally scaling walls to get into Europe. At the time I dismissed it as hysterical lefty nonsense
Did they get it right? Is it even climate change?
Who knows. But the contemporary images of migrants climbing walls on the Polish and Spanish borders exactly match what they predicted, visually
There was also this 1990 BBC programme about migrants from Africa moving en masse to Europe. (Surprised the BBC showed it, even back then).
Finland has always seemed a bit pointless and “extra”. I mean: Iceland is proper fun. Denmark is near and has Lego. Norway is genuinely Nordic - it’s in the name - and Sweden has meatballs, IKEA and ABBA. All good
But what’s the point of Finland? Just an extra sticky-out bit that exhausts the theme, like that sixth season of House where it all went wrong
Just call it something else. Like, I dunno, “Russia”. Sorted
You’ve either never been to Finland or, much more likely, since it’s your usual modus operandi, just jetted in and out without learning anything whatsoever.
I’ve not only been to Finland (four times) I’ve done the “sauna in the snowbound forest at midnight then dive in the icebound lake where we’ve just chopped a hole” rigmarole
Felt like a god, afterwards. Ended up in bed with the PR girl, too
Ah, memories
Then your abject ignorance is all the more remarkable.
It really is an achievement to be visiting so many parts of the world, meeting your contact at the airport and then becoming drunk in some hotel bubble by lunchtime every day, and returning just a few days later having learned almost nothing about all the places you have been, apart from what you have managed to scrape on your laptop from Wikipedia.
And yet, weirdly, I am professionally paid to write about my travel experiences - indeed I am paid to HAVE these travel experiences, and then thousands of people happily pay to read about them
Whereas you, sadly, have to pay to travel and no one cares what you do when you’re abroad because you’re a weird friendless idiot
I know this drives you nuts and that only adds to my pleasure. Sorry
I’m happy and able to afford my time spent travelling.
That I am able to return from Finland, with an appreciation of its culture and history and fully understanding why it would never consent to being renamed ‘Russia’, while you travel for nothing and come back with precisely your money’s worth, in terms of understanding and knowledge, says it all.
lol
Your surrender accepted.
That the most travelled person on PB comes away with the narrowest mind is the most tragic of outcomes, to someone who always tries to return from travel at least a little more enlightened than before.
Mate, all you do is go to America with a dog, and take suspiciously zoophiliac photos
I was thinking maybe it is the nasty Telegraph and the Guardian picking contrasting photos of an ignored Starmer compared to Macron being everybodies best mate. But went on Getty images and from 100+ photos, that is all they have, Starmer sitting there on his own, not talking to anybody (other than that one image), where as Macron and Milei seem in their element, glad handing everybody.
Plenty of photos of Starmer meeting and talking to Xi and one chatting with a Saudi Prince. I expect he thinks that is rather more important than Macron glad handing Milei and Biden as he actually had one on one time with 2 leaders with rather more power than a whacky Argentine libertarian President and a lame duck US President
There was a lot of photos of Johnson at events like this purporting to show him 'isolated' etc - its easy to do if you take enough photos.
That is what I thought, but if you went to the source like getty and there are 100s of images, you would see they cherry picked. Go and look on getty and you will see Macron is glad handing with everybody, lots of smiles, kissing hands. He is in his element.
And it keeps happening with Starmer. The started the other week without him in Hungary. They ignored him at the Commonwealth event.
I have said before, I would introduce American style sheriffs alongside the police. Tell them to have at it. If the police didn't sort their shit out, more and more of their funding would go to the sheriffs. They are a monopoly, and all monopolies have the same effect.
FPT Scotland already has Sheriffs, though I can't quite imagine them delivering 'summary justice' in the same way as an American Sheriff from the bench, giving them a six-shooter might change the dynamics in court somewhat. Perhaps @DavidL is in a better place to comment.
I don’t think we're alone - pretty sure England has some too no? But of course I speak of the US kind. I hadn't thought of giving them pistols but the idea is tempting.
In England these days I think we have High Sheriffs, who are a ceremonial official representing the monarch, like Lord Lieutenants.
In Scotland they are a legal official analogous to I think a District Judge in England.
I'm never quite sure what a Justice of the Peace is, except they sometimes emerge to do things. The last I heard of one was when a well-connected friend wanted to put up a notice withdrawing the common law right of some officials to enter his property.
At one time you had to have the signature of a JP to submit an election nomination form. Not sure when this ended.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
I don't disagree but who is a genuine refugee in need of asylum? Or people looking for a better life (and why wouldn't they?)
I am unclear what point you are making here. That is a question that the asylum Tribunals seek to answer every day.
I think many people suspect that the tribunals are abused. Migrants told to lose their paperwork by the people smugglers for instance and coached in the 'correct' claims to make to boost their chances. I have no idea if its true but you only need to see how some immigration lawyers fought over Rwanda to think it plausible.
I know some people who have been granted asylum - one in particular is a student on my course. I do not doubt his story. I do not believe all those crossing the Channel have the same tragic back story as he does.
Many people believe those seeking asylum are given houses and loads of dosh. Many people believe most immigrants are asylum seekers. People believe all sorts of things. If there’s actual evidence, I’d be interested to see that.
Well as the country is housing thousands (tens of thousands?) in hotels and presumably feeding and clothing them, I think its fair to say they are being given housing and money.
Its incredibly complex. People often talk at cross purposes about things. There is no doubt in my mind than many people using people smugglers to get to the UK are economic migrants. We should, in many ways, welcome enterprising people who are trying to make better lives for themselves. I am not someone who thinks they are coming for the free money - they are coming to try to work and improve their lives.
But I think resident populations have rights too - and their wishes are surely part of the equation?
The housing asylum seekers receive is a temporary room, maybe in a hotel, maybe in a floating converted prison barge. It’s very different to being given a house.
Asylum seekers are given some money. They are given, if I remember the proportions correctly, 80% of what someone on benefits gets. The amount someone on benefits gets is meant to be the minimum needed to live on. So we give people less than the minimum needed to live on. They are banned from working. I wouldn’t characterise this as a generous gift.
Resident populations, of course, have rights. Their wishes are part of the equation. No-one has argued otherwise. One way they get to express their wishes is through elections, and they just kicked out the party that was ramping up the rhetoric against asylum seekers and voted in the party that was being comparatively more welcoming.
Whether or not you think inheritance tax on farms is a good idea, on balance I'm against it, the idea that it is "full Stalin" really does show what an absolute moron Musk is. He didn't use to be as big a berk as this, or maybe he hid it, but it looks like social media has done a number on his mind.
It's why hoping on a favourable deal from Trump is utterly daft. Musk loathes Starmer and wants a populist right-wing government to succeed Labour in 2029. He will try to get Trump to humiliate him and the UK government.
Yes, it's weird - Musk does seem to have quite a personal dislike of Starmer. Commenting on such a parochial issue as IHT on farmers in the UK is odd. I'm surprised Musk hasn't weighed in on the gross injustice of removing the VAT exemption on private school fees.
I think you'll find there are dwindlingly few people who don't have quite a personal dislike of Starmer.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
I don't disagree but who is a genuine refugee in need of asylum? Or people looking for a better life (and why wouldn't they?)
I am unclear what point you are making here. That is a question that the asylum Tribunals seek to answer every day.
I think many people suspect that the tribunals are abused. Migrants told to lose their paperwork by the people smugglers for instance and coached in the 'correct' claims to make to boost their chances. I have no idea if its true but you only need to see how some immigration lawyers fought over Rwanda to think it plausible.
I know some people who have been granted asylum - one in particular is a student on my course. I do not doubt his story. I do not believe all those crossing the Channel have the same tragic back story as he does.
Many people believe those seeking asylum are given houses and loads of dosh. Many people believe most immigrants are asylum seekers. People believe all sorts of things. If there’s actual evidence, I’d be interested to see that.
Safely assume you are deaf , dumb and blind then, they are living on thin air according to you?
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
I don't disagree but who is a genuine refugee in need of asylum? Or people looking for a better life (and why wouldn't they?)
I am unclear what point you are making here. That is a question that the asylum Tribunals seek to answer every day.
I think many people suspect that the tribunals are abused. Migrants told to lose their paperwork by the people smugglers for instance and coached in the 'correct' claims to make to boost their chances. I have no idea if its true but you only need to see how some immigration lawyers fought over Rwanda to think it plausible.
I know some people who have been granted asylum - one in particular is a student on my course. I do not doubt his story. I do not believe all those crossing the Channel have the same tragic back story as he does.
Many people believe those seeking asylum are given houses and loads of dosh. Many people believe most immigrants are asylum seekers. People believe all sorts of things. If there’s actual evidence, I’d be interested to see that.
Well as the country is housing thousands (tens of thousands?) in hotels and presumably feeding and clothing them, I think its fair to say they are being given housing and money.
Its incredibly complex. People often talk at cross purposes about things. There is no doubt in my mind than many people using people smugglers to get to the UK are economic migrants. We should, in many ways, welcome enterprising people who are trying to make better lives for themselves. I am not someone who thinks they are coming for the free money - they are coming to try to work and improve their lives.
But I think resident populations have rights too - and their wishes are surely part of the equation?
The housing asylum seekers receive is a temporary room, maybe in a hotel, maybe in a floating converted prison barge. It’s very different to being given a house.
Asylum seekers are given some money. They are given, if I remember the proportions correctly, 80% of what someone on benefits gets. The amount someone on benefits gets is meant to be the minimum needed to live on. So we give people less than the minimum needed to live on. They are banned from working. I wouldn’t characterise this as a generous gift.
Resident populations, of course, have rights. Their wishes are part of the equation. No-one has argued otherwise. One way they get to express their wishes is through elections, and they just kicked out the party that was ramping up the rhetoric against asylum seekers and voted in the party that was being comparatively more welcoming.
Although the party just kicked oversaw huge immigration numbers in the last few years, something which may have played a role in their defeat.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
I don't disagree but who is a genuine refugee in need of asylum? Or people looking for a better life (and why wouldn't they?)
I am unclear what point you are making here. That is a question that the asylum Tribunals seek to answer every day.
I think many people suspect that the tribunals are abused. Migrants told to lose their paperwork by the people smugglers for instance and coached in the 'correct' claims to make to boost their chances. I have no idea if its true but you only need to see how some immigration lawyers fought over Rwanda to think it plausible.
I know some people who have been granted asylum - one in particular is a student on my course. I do not doubt his story. I do not believe all those crossing the Channel have the same tragic back story as he does.
Many people believe those seeking asylum are given houses and loads of dosh. Many people believe most immigrants are asylum seekers. People believe all sorts of things. If there’s actual evidence, I’d be interested to see that.
Well as the country is housing thousands (tens of thousands?) in hotels and presumably feeding and clothing them, I think its fair to say they are being given housing and money.
Its incredibly complex. People often talk at cross purposes about things. There is no doubt in my mind than many people using people smugglers to get to the UK are economic migrants. We should, in many ways, welcome enterprising people who are trying to make better lives for themselves. I am not someone who thinks they are coming for the free money - they are coming to try to work and improve their lives.
But I think resident populations have rights too - and their wishes are surely part of the equation?
The housing asylum seekers receive is a temporary room, maybe in a hotel, maybe in a floating converted prison barge. It’s very different to being given a house.
Asylum seekers are given some money. They are given, if I remember the proportions correctly, 80% of what someone on benefits gets. The amount someone on benefits gets is meant to be the minimum needed to live on. So we give people less than the minimum needed to live on. They are banned from working. I wouldn’t characterise this as a generous gift.
Resident populations, of course, have rights. Their wishes are part of the equation. No-one has argued otherwise. One way they get to express their wishes is through elections, and they just kicked out the party that was ramping up the rhetoric against asylum seekers and voted in the party that was being comparatively more welcoming.
They voted in the party that was talking about deporting people to Bangladesh and promising to reduce immigration. Starmer ran on a nationalist platform.
It will be interesting to see how lefty Remainers react to this dawning reality
The entire world is going to shift right - the immigrants arriving now are only a small number compared to what we will see as global warming really takes effect...
The barbed wire will be up long before that
It seems likely that the west will redefine what asylum is in the nearish future. We have an odd geographical situation in the UK - the channel provides a decent obstacle to migrants/asylum seekers etc trying to reach us. And the number one point that annoys many people (mainly on the right, but they are allowed to have opinions) is that anyone leaving France to try to reach the UK to claim asylum is leaving a safe country.
It doesn't matter how many times we are reminded that there is no requirement to claim asylum in the first safe country, most people, I think, suspect that anyone not doing so, or at least not doing so in France, is asylum 'shopping' - preferring the hell-hole that is the UK to the paradise of France. And they don't believe that that is how asylum ought to work.
And we have blurred to lines around asylum/migration so much now that we have forgotten what asylum was originally for.
PS: A lot of the asylum system was a response to the failure of many countries to take in Jews and others fleeing Nazi Germany. That situation reveals the problem with the idea that those seeking asylum should stop in the first safe country. It was not practical for all the German Jews to stop in France and Belgium, and their fate would have been horrendous had they done so. There needed to be then, as now, ways for those seeking asylum to travel further, to spread out more.
I don't disagree but who is a genuine refugee in need of asylum? Or people looking for a better life (and why wouldn't they?)
I am unclear what point you are making here. That is a question that the asylum Tribunals seek to answer every day.
given it takes years and years to process by which time they cannot upset the snowflakes rights to family , religion , any old persecution you can name , etc it is just a load of bollox and reason why we don't repatriate a fraction of what other countries do. Just buy a kitten from your free handouts and you are safe from deportation.
Comments
I wonder if they got paid extra for every time they managed to squeeze "far right" into that article, even insinuating Von der Leyen loves a piece of it.
Pathetic.
It featured prophetic images of black and brown people literally scaling walls to get into Europe. At the time I dismissed it as hysterical lefty nonsense
Did they get it right? Is it even climate change?
Who knows. But the contemporary images of migrants climbing walls on the Polish and Spanish borders exactly match what they predicted, visually
'Delighted to join Dominic as new Co-Presidents of European Movement. With election of Trump, it’s more urgent than ever that UK government puts its values before narrow short term economic interests, & rebuilds relationship with EU
@euromove'
https://x.com/CarolineLucas/status/1858480555668517186
'It was a privilege on Saturday to be elected co-President with Caroline Lucas of the U.K. European Movement.
We come from different political traditions but are united in believing that our country's wellbeing is dependant on rebuilding our relationships with our European neighbours who share our values. I look forward to working with Caroline and Mike Galsworthy it's Chair in furthering its work.
We were also given a rousing valedictory address by Michael Heseltine. His long career spans the entirety of the life of the EM since its foundation. It gives us confidence that the dismal consequences of Brexit for our country are a transient phenomenon that we can and will overcome.'
https://x.com/dominicgrieve_/status/1858521029636710612
https://kellnerp.substack.com/p/exposed-the-truth-about-labours-red
At least that one's moderately well-written.
Which bit do you dispute?
I mean mitigate for sure, try to move to renewables I get (mathematically it makes sense/is an imperative).
But the more you trot out the
Trump is a naziglobal catastrophe any minute now just that I can't quite tell you when, you put people off. Plus you expose yourself as a massive hypocrite.Hard to recall he was once quite charming and good-looking
https://x.com/brianroemmele/status/1858410951772700899?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
If however next year Polievre gets a majority in Canada, Dutton and his rightwing Coalition wins in Australia and the CDU/CSU with the AfD win a majority of German seats and then the GOP hold Congress in the 2026 US midterms it may look more evident. Then in Spain in 2027 if the PP and Vox alliance sweep to power and in Italy Meloni is easily re elected and most dramatic of all Le Pen and her party sweep to power in the Elysee and National Assembly elections in France while finally in the UK in 2028 Badenoch and Farage combined win enough seats for a majority and Vance wins a 3rd term for MAGA we can say the hard right swing is definitely here but not yet
It's absurd Guardianism. To them, it's a slur for anyone serious about euroscepticism or migration.
Meloni and Le Pen are quite moderate in comparison
(Nearly wrote "blonds" by mistake
There's a good Bagley thriller novel set in Sweden, called The Tightrope Men.
From the very beginning we've know that the war in Ukraine would turn on not just battlefield outcomes and bravery, but policy decisions made in foreign capitals. With the election of Donald Trump, it's clear that US policy in Ukraine is about to shift. What is less clear is how and what the results will be. And so today we discuss the closing moves of the Biden presidency and what some of the objectives and challenges might be for the Trump administration regarding Ukraine in 2025.
Perun, 18 Nov 2024, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZoJKFfZ7nw
Britain is going full Stalin
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1858521463889825807
We did, of course, used to have a system where we could move people between safe countries so as to reduce any “asylum shoppin”, mitigating some of these issues… but we Brexited from that.
A man has gone to jail for somewhat dodgy “Islamophobic” Facebook posts. AFAICS that’s it. He didn’t do any actual violence. Didn’t join any riots. Didn’t throw anything
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c89v5e15wd1o
Two years in jail
Am I missing something? Did he do something else that’s not being reported?!
I'll wait to see how Bluesky progresses before thinking about joining it. It will need a critical mass of users and will need to be moderated better than X is.
Williams has four previous convictions for seven offences including three for drink driving and one conviction by a Military Court for drunkenness.
As for inheritance tax - as I said yesterday I've spent 25 years with the way I work being caught in the crossfire of HMRC's attacks on fake self-employment.
So I have little concern with other people being caught by similar tax avoidance measures...
We saw the same during the riots.
Yes, many people in each of those countries has concerns about the current system. Those countries will and are trying various things. But for there to be a consensus re-definition by the West that works for enough people in the West, I think that’s harder than you think. I think you’re more likely to see each country going its own way.
Which meant he went from something that was problematic to something that was seriously problematic whilst there was a high risk of / during public disorder. Hence the sentencing being severe as he hit a different sentencing threshold..
As I've said multiple times before on here the issue comes down to the fact many people think social media is equivalent to a pub when it's actually the equivalent of a newspaper...
Why not? I didn't have to go that high. I was often able to grab a branch to slow my fall. I was not as brittle then as I am now. And, perhaps most important, the ground was soft, and covered with long grass.
I'm surprised Musk hasn't weighed in on the gross injustice of removing the VAT exemption on private school fees.
And so we end up with people writing things like 'the planet is literally burning" or "the planet will be destroyed" when what is actually going to happen is a degree or three global temperature rises, many challenges needed to adapt to new warmer world, and also some potential benefits too.
David Frum @davidfrum.bsky.social
·
8s
Race against time: Will the Russian economy collapse before Team Moscow takes power in Washington DC to bail them out?
https://bsky.app/profile/davidfrum.bsky.social/post/3lbabr7hthc2g
I know some people who have been granted asylum - one in particular is a student on my course. I do not doubt his story. I do not believe all those crossing the Channel have the same tragic back story as he does.
'According to a translation in the room at the top of his meeting with Sir Keir, the Chinese president said: “The world has entered a new period marked by turbulence and transformation. As permanent members of the UN security council and major global economies China and UK share the dual responsibility of advancing our respective national development and addressing global challenges.
“The new UK government is working to fix the foundations of the economy and rebuild Britain and has set the vision of Britain reconnected.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/18/politics-latest-news-keir-starmer-xi-jinping-g20-brazil/
Britain is a fucked up Wokemare and Labour are determined to make it all much worse, even as they make Britons much poorer
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/18/politics-latest-news-keir-starmer-xi-jinping-g20-brazil/
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/18/keir-starmer-china-xi-jinping-g20-ukraine-latest-live-news
I was thinking maybe it is the nasty Telegraph and the Guardian picking contrasting photos of an ignored Starmer compared to Macron being everybodies best mate. But went on Getty images and from 100+ photos, that is all they have, Starmer sitting there on his own, not talking to anybody (other than that one image), where as Macron and Milei seem in their element, glad handing everybody. Sunak struggled with this as well, but that is because they probably didn't see him unless he got a booster seat.
As I have said before, I have no problem with Europe receiving and helping migrants and asylum seekers but I thought it was pretty poor that Hungary was attacked for actually enforcing the EU rules as they stood.
And the mitigations themselves - phase out fossil fuels means less pollution in cities.
It's not just right-wing Americans, though, is it? It's also right-wing UK-born peripatetic journalists of nowhere, it seems.
Meanwhile, I search in vain for evidence of significant wokeness from Starmer and his government since they came to power.
He doesn't seem at ease at these events in the way say Cameron or Blair were.
It's true in the context of "normal" politics.
But it's also false. Churchill was willing to form an Anglo-French Union in an afternoon, in the context of the crisis of the Battle of France in 1940. The Union of England and Scotland came about in the context of the crisis created by the lack of Protestants in the direct line of succession.
If we survive the conflicts of the 21st century then we may find Britain emerges as part of a European Union that forged a national identity in the conflict with Russian imperialism. Naturally they'll be grateful of our participation, and the opportunity to relocate the EU capital to London.
Its incredibly complex. People often talk at cross purposes about things. There is no doubt in my mind than many people using people smugglers to get to the UK are economic migrants. We should, in many ways, welcome enterprising people who are trying to make better lives for themselves. I am not someone who thinks they are coming for the free money - they are coming to try to work and improve their lives.
But I think resident populations have rights too - and their wishes are surely part of the equation?
However Xi is also a dull technocrat so probably got along well with Sir Keir
https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2015/09/truth-stranger-than-fiction-march.html
Some of it is available to watch here.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x36p678
And it keeps happening with Starmer. The started the other week without him in Hungary. They ignored him at the Commonwealth event.
Asylum seekers are given some money. They are given, if I remember the proportions correctly, 80% of what someone on benefits gets. The amount someone on benefits gets is meant to be the minimum needed to live on. So we give people less than the minimum needed to live on. They are banned from working. I wouldn’t characterise this as a generous gift.
Resident populations, of course, have rights. Their wishes are part of the equation. No-one has argued otherwise. One way they get to express their wishes is through elections, and they just kicked out the party that was ramping up the rhetoric against asylum seekers and voted in the party that was being comparatively more welcoming.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14095795/keir-starmer-father-southport-killer-axel-rudakubana-asylum-case-downing-street.html
I would be a bit worried if I had been tweeting or making YouTube videos about this.