BF reckons Jeremy Hunt has more chance of being next PM than Phillipson.
LOL.
I could see Hunt becoming Tory leader in the run up to the election if Kemi has made no impact and we're still below 30%.
It would need the MPs to panic and arrange another coronation - the members would never stand for him.
Hunt might actually be the best placed of the potential candidates to do a deal with Refuk - on the understanding that the Hunt-led Tories would concentrate on battling the Lib Dems in the Tory shires, whilst Refuk are given free reign in the red wall / left-behind areas.
Not sure he'd find that a particularly appealing prospect, though!
There are only 17 LibDem seats among the top 100 Conservative targets and likely a lot harder to gain.
The only viable strategy for the Conservatives is to reverse this year's losses to Labour.
And then gain some more from Labour.
We have a situation where the Conservatives could win Bolsover and still have fewer than 300 MPs.
Indeed, though Reform are more likely to win Bolsover and the other redwall seats now.
Badenoch has near zero chance of winning a Tory majority again next time, if she wins power it will mainly be via gaining soft Leave marginal seats held by Labour while Farage wins most hard Leave marginal seats held by Labour. Then the 2 doing a deal together to form a government in a hung parliament
The Conservatives will certainly not win a majority if they adopt any attitude of 'giving up' to Reform seats they won in 2019.
Predictions are very unstable at the moment, but I can't see any route to a Tory election outright win until and until it decides what the party is for. Is it Reformlite or is it the old One Nation Tory party, or is it a new thing yet to be revealed?
In the olden days of a few years ago, the Tories could reliably win simply because Labour were worse. I think that is over for now. A real option is that the punters respond to a Labour epic fail (which it isn't yet) by decisively rejecting both Lab and Con. Just look at their collective polling score. Down from 80+% to about 53%.
On topic: Rishi's legacy is going to be worse than Trusses.
Turns out useless managerialism combined with a sprinkling of bonkers policies about smoking doesn't cut the mustard
Sunak made mistakes - as Chancellor, as Prime Minister and as Conservative leader.
But the damage was done by the Downing Street parties, Truss cos-playing mytho-Thatcherism and the ocean of sleaze.
The rot was too intrinsic within the Conservatives - they deserved to lose and to lose big.
I say this as someone who voted for them and wants them to learn from their mistakes and misbehaviour.
No it wasn't. The polling trajectory is quite clear. If this were correct, we'd have seen severe drops under Boris, worse under Truss, and Sunak steadying things a bit but falling to mount a significant recovery.
Instead we saw reasonably good polling for Boris until the Sunakites stabbed him, followed by a crash in polling after Truss's minibudget, followed by a cautious recovery when Sunak came in promising to steady the ship, followed by a faltering of that recovery and a slow, steady decline, eventually equalling the worst of Truss. Sunak owns that fully.
You have your political opinion and that's fine, but please don't try to misrepresent the facts on a political betting forum where everyone knows what happened.
Boris destroyed himself by repeatedly breaking his own lockdown rules and then pointlessly trying to protect sleaze merchants such as Patterson and Pincher.
Truss destroyed herself by cos-playing mytho-Thatcherism and putting people's homes and mortgages at risk.
The damage was done. And it couldn't be repaired whoever was Conservative leader.
Could Sunak have done better as Conservative leader ?
Yes. But even if he had done, and the other Conservative politicians had behaved themselves, they would still have lost.
You're not listening. We have frequent opinion polling throughout the entire era, and the polls DO NOT SUPPORT YOUR THEORY.
Its not a theory it was the reality.
You have to deal with it.
Instead you seem to be fantasising about some scenario where everyone ignores Boris breaking his own lockdown rules and then trying to pointlessly protect the likes of Patterson and Pincher.
You need to accept that Boris destroyed himself and thereby damaged the Conservatives.
And then Truss destroyed herself and made the damage terminal.
From then on the Conservatives were headed for defeat, only the scale of the defeat remained to be decided.
Again, like Mexican Pete the other day, you're simply ignoring facts and indulging in rhetoric. We have clear polling on the popularity of the Tory Party throughout the era concerned, we don't need to rely on your feelings about the matter, or mine.
As it happens, I don’t massively rate Boris as a PM (though I rate him as a campaigner) - I thought he was a better than Sunak, but that's not difficult. However, the polls at his nadir showed him about 5 points behind Labour.
Regarding Truss, you say that they couldn't recover after her, but in fact there was a fairly OK recovery on the back of optimism when 'the grown ups' came back in. The polls then went down again, as people found that the Sunak Government was actually a pile of shite. They didn’t go down because more and more people woke up and suddenly found they resented Truss did they - that's an utter nonsense.
Sunak made mistakes as Conservative leader and numerous Conservative politicians disgraced themselves.
The effect being a bigger defeat than what might have happened but it is only the scale of the defeat that is debateable.
Tell us under which alternate Conservative leader would the Conservatives have done better ?
Farage wants to leave the ECHR. Is this a popular policy?
Saying woke foreigners are interfering with British Sovereignty is a tried and trusted method of undermining a European institution. I think it happened once before about a decade ago, although I might be wrong.
It'll certainly be a popular policy once he has banged on about it for next four years with the help of social media disinformation funded by god knows who.
And we would join Russia in being the only other european country to not be in it iirc. So what's not to like for our man of the people Nige?
And Belarus, or are you including that within Russia. If so, a fair point.
BF reckons Jeremy Hunt has more chance of being next PM than Phillipson.
LOL.
I could see Hunt becoming Tory leader in the run up to the election if Kemi has made no impact and we're still below 30%.
It would need the MPs to panic and arrange another coronation - the members would never stand for him.
Hunt might actually be the best placed of the potential candidates to do a deal with Refuk - on the understanding that the Hunt-led Tories would concentrate on battling the Lib Dems in the Tory shires, whilst Refuk are given free reign in the red wall / left-behind areas.
Not sure he'd find that a particularly appealing prospect, though!
There are only 17 LibDem seats among the top 100 Conservative targets and likely a lot harder to gain.
The only viable strategy for the Conservatives is to reverse this year's losses to Labour.
And then gain some more from Labour.
We have a situation where the Conservatives could win Bolsover and still have fewer than 300 MPs.
Indeed, though Reform are more likely to win Bolsover and the other redwall seats now.
Badenoch has near zero chance of winning a Tory majority again next time, if she wins power it will mainly be via gaining soft Leave marginal seats held by Labour while Farage wins most hard Leave marginal seats held by Labour. Then the 2 doing a deal together to form a government in a hung parliament
The Conservatives will certainly not win a majority if they adopt any attitude of 'giving up' to Reform seats they won in 2019.
Predictions are very unstable at the moment, but I can't see any route to a Tory election outright win until and until it decides what the party is for. Is it Reformlite or is it the old One Nation Tory party, or is it a new thing yet to be revealed?
In the olden days of a few years ago, the Tories could reliably win simply because Labour were worse. I think that is over for now. A real option is that the punters respond to a Labour epic fail (which it isn't yet) by decisively rejecting both Lab and Con. Just look at their collective polling score. Down from 80+% to about 53%.
The Badenoch Tories are basically the party for middle class soft Leavers, Farage's Reform now the party for working class hard Leavers with Labour, the LDs and Greens and SNP and Plaid splitting Remainers between them. NI still divided on Unionist and Nationalist lines
John Swinney is on course to command a pro-independence majority in Holyrood and lead the SNP into a third decade in power after a popular debut budget as first minister, according to a new poll.
In a significant blow to Scottish Labour, the first survey carried out since the Scottish government’s tax and spend plans were announced has seen the party’s support drop to its lowest level in three years.
Backing for independence has also risen to 54 per cent when undecided voters are excluded, the highest level for more than four years.
Just catching up on the day’s events after going out for a long lunch (but got volunteered to be the driver).
So Macron brokered a meeting between Trump and Zelensky, but Starmer couldn’t be arsed to turn up? Would any other recent UK PM not have wanted to be there in that meeting?
The event was for heads of state, wasn't it? I think Prince Billy went...
From yesterday’s thread William was a very late addition. Was it really only Heads of State there?
Maybe he hates Ukraine and is rooting for a Putin win. Oh sorry I mixed Starmer up with Trump.
BF reckons Jeremy Hunt has more chance of being next PM than Phillipson.
LOL.
I could see Hunt becoming Tory leader in the run up to the election if Kemi has made no impact and we're still below 30%.
It would need the MPs to panic and arrange another coronation - the members would never stand for him.
Hunt might actually be the best placed of the potential candidates to do a deal with Refuk - on the understanding that the Hunt-led Tories would concentrate on battling the Lib Dems in the Tory shires, whilst Refuk are given free reign in the red wall / left-behind areas.
Not sure he'd find that a particularly appealing prospect, though!
There are only 17 LibDem seats among the top 100 Conservative targets and likely a lot harder to gain.
The only viable strategy for the Conservatives is to reverse this year's losses to Labour.
And then gain some more from Labour.
We have a situation where the Conservatives could win Bolsover and still have fewer than 300 MPs.
Indeed, though Reform are more likely to win Bolsover and the other redwall seats now.
Badenoch has near zero chance of winning a Tory majority again next time, if she wins power it will mainly be via gaining soft Leave marginal seats held by Labour while Farage wins most hard Leave marginal seats held by Labour. Then the 2 doing a deal together to form a government in a hung parliament
The Conservatives will certainly not win a majority if they adopt any attitude of 'giving up' to Reform seats they won in 2019.
Predictions are very unstable at the moment, but I can't see any route to a Tory election outright win until and until it decides what the party is for. Is it Reformlite or is it the old One Nation Tory party, or is it a new thing yet to be revealed?
In the olden days of a few years ago, the Tories could reliably win simply because Labour were worse. I think that is over for now. A real option is that the punters respond to a Labour epic fail (which it isn't yet) by decisively rejecting both Lab and Con. Just look at their collective polling score. Down from 80+% to about 53%.
Unstable and also volatile.
It doesn't take much for their to big swings the other way.
BF reckons Jeremy Hunt has more chance of being next PM than Phillipson.
LOL.
I could see Hunt becoming Tory leader in the run up to the election if Kemi has made no impact and we're still below 30%.
It would need the MPs to panic and arrange another coronation - the members would never stand for him.
Hunt might actually be the best placed of the potential candidates to do a deal with Refuk - on the understanding that the Hunt-led Tories would concentrate on battling the Lib Dems in the Tory shires, whilst Refuk are given free reign in the red wall / left-behind areas.
Not sure he'd find that a particularly appealing prospect, though!
There are only 17 LibDem seats among the top 100 Conservative targets and likely a lot harder to gain.
The only viable strategy for the Conservatives is to reverse this year's losses to Labour.
And then gain some more from Labour.
We have a situation where the Conservatives could win Bolsover and still have fewer than 300 MPs.
Indeed, though Reform are more likely to win Bolsover and the other redwall seats now.
Badenoch has near zero chance of winning a Tory majority again next time, if she wins power it will mainly be via gaining soft Leave marginal seats held by Labour while Farage wins most hard Leave marginal seats held by Labour. Then the 2 doing a deal together to form a government in a hung parliament
The Conservatives will certainly not win a majority if they adopt any attitude of 'giving up' to Reform seats they won in 2019.
Predictions are very unstable at the moment, but I can't see any route to a Tory election outright win until and until it decides what the party is for. Is it Reformlite or is it the old One Nation Tory party, or is it a new thing yet to be revealed?
In the olden days of a few years ago, the Tories could reliably win simply because Labour were worse. I think that is over for now. A real option is that the punters respond to a Labour epic fail (which it isn't yet) by decisively rejecting both Lab and Con. Just look at their collective polling score. Down from 80+% to about 53%.
The Badenoch Tories are basically the party for middle class soft Leavers, Farage's Reform now the party for working class hard Leavers with Labour, the LDs and Greens and SNP and Plaid splitting Remainers between them
HY. You can't make these sweeping statements without some empirical evidence to back them up. I suspect you are particularly wrong about the Badenoch Tories. It is so much more tiresome trying to ski in Cortina and Innsbruck now we have left the EU.
Just catching up on the day’s events after going out for a long lunch (but got volunteered to be the driver).
So Macron brokered a meeting between Trump and Zelensky, but Starmer couldn’t be arsed to turn up? Would any other recent UK PM not have wanted to be there in that meeting?
He doesn't work after 6pm on a Friday.*
* One of the better Tory clichés.
It's certainly a line Sandpit could feed Nick Ferrari for his Monday morning LBC show.
A couple of thousand Syrian Army soldiers have crossed into Iraq and surrendered there. Not seeing much sign of resistance from the Syrian Army today. Can Assad still make it out? Will anyone fight for him to make a last stand?
The speed at which things have moved in the south has been stunning. It might all be over in Damascus before HTS has taken Homs.
The Alawites will, as Assad is one of their own and half of them will be massacred if the Islamist militant rebels take over.
If Assad has any sense he will arm all the Alawites in the Alawi heartland of the Syrian coast and Lebanese border and Alawi areas of Damascus and get them fighting street to street until more Russian mercenaries and Hezbollah fighters arrive to support them
Do you have any evidence for your assertion that the Alawites will be massacred if the rebels take over?
That was 11 years ago and involved ISIL. It's not very strong evidence.
PBers doing PR for Islamists again. Someone pass the sick bag.
How do you think we all feel after all your PR for Putin's evils on here? You must have generated an ocean of vomit.
Do you really think things will get better in Syria with a bunch of jihadis and Islamists in charge? You can dress HTS as much as you like but we're replacing a known enemy with predictable behaviour with an unknown enemy with unpredictable behaviour. How do you think it's going to play out for Syria's minorities with a bunch of Islamists in power? Last time ISIS had territory Yazidi women were turned into sex slaves and sold all across the Arabic world. How will this be any different?
I've never said it would get better, but it's also not very good to ignore Assad's regime and their crimes
If you read my posts on this, much depends on what happens next: HTS does not control the entire country, and I doubt has the ability to take power from the other regional groups (who are not all Islamist by a long shot). So what happens? You also need to throw Turkey into the mix, and its feelings towards the Kurds.
You seem to be happy for Assad to go away, fine, but with no clue as to what replaces that regime. This worked out terribly for the west in Libya which was a stable (though awful) dictatorship and now it's a hellscape of jihadis and Islamists who have made it terrible and a sanctuary for terrorists and people trafficking.
As much as I don't like Assad, the prospect of his replacement is extremely worrying, we're going to get another wave of refugees in Europe, more terrorists and more destabilisation of European countries due to this. If anything can out Marine Le Pen in the Elysee it's 2 million more Muslim refugees entering Europe.
Nobody locally is willing to fight for Assad, so it’s all moot what we might think.
Yes of course, what I take issue with is people on here celebrating his downfall without taking a single moment to think about how it might not be such a great result for Europe.
I, for one, am not 'celebrating' his downfall. But I am also not mourning it.
The same attitude people had when Gaddafi fell in Libya, which has turned out brilliantly for us.
And frankly Saddam in Iraq. Each time we've done this, the result has been death and insecurity on a mass scale.
What are the Arab countries going to do about Syria? I don't imagine they like seeing the imperial powers battling it out.
Are Arab countries in any position to do anything about it?
Saudi Arabia has failed in its intervention in Yemen. Iraq has enough trouble of its own. Jordan seems to have stayed relatively stable in recent decades precisely by not getting involved in other countries troubles.
But worth keeping an eye on Jordan - which will be on the lists of extremist targets and, also in the problems department, in the nicest possible way doesn't especially want to be the home of a few million Palestinians seeking a homeland that isn't a pile of rubble.
Mutatis mutandis, also keep an eye on Egypt for the same reasons.
BTW not much sign yet of the Syrian moderates, LibDem community minded types who donate to their local hospice and put up hanging baskets that Cameron wanted us to back not so long ago.
Isn't it odd to be still playing out the aftermath of WWI 106 years after it ended.
The 'Syrian moderates' you were talking about where the original Free Syrian Army, which got devastated by Assad's troops and ISI/L in the year afterwards. AIUI many of the remnants are in the new FSA, which is allied to Turkey.
Nice guy that PBers think we should have propped up. This is just one of his prisons, though one of the more notorious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sednaya_Prison Sednaya Prison (Arabic: سجن صيدنايا Sajn Ṣaydnāyā), nicknamed the "Human Slaughterhouse"[a] is a military prison near Damascus in Syria operated by the Syrian government. The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilian detainees and anti-government rebels.[1][2] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that 30,000 detainees have perished in Sednaya from torture, ill-treatment and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War,[3] while Amnesty International estimated in February 2017 "that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015."
A former inmate of the prison who was detained for participating in a peaceful non-violent protest told Amnesty International that at Sednaya prisoners were forced to choose between dying themselves or killing one of their own relatives or friends. The former inmate also stated that in the first prison he was at, prisoners were also forced into cannibalism, but that prison was "heaven" compared to Sednaya Prison. According to the inmate, the other prison (Branch 215) was "to interrogate" (including through torture), but when that was done, you were moved to Sednaya "to die"...
Straw man. Not a single PBer is saying Assad is anything but an evil bastard. The question is: will his likely replacements be even worse?
It’s the choice between Stalin or Hitler. We chose to support Stalin, who was personally responsible for the torture and death of MILLIONS
Except it clearly isn't. He's a weak and useless leader, and any effort to prop him up is likely futile. All it would achieve is to extend a bloody conflict, and alienate whoever takes over.
You misconstrue me. I’m talking about those who argued we should have supported the Assad regime way back. I’m saying it is ARGUABLE - and it is - but only because ISIS contrive, somehow, to be even nastier than Assad. Stalin v Hitler. We chose Stalin
Right now Assad is finished so the idea we should support him is rendered nonsense by the facts
BF reckons Jeremy Hunt has more chance of being next PM than Phillipson.
LOL.
I could see Hunt becoming Tory leader in the run up to the election if Kemi has made no impact and we're still below 30%.
It would need the MPs to panic and arrange another coronation - the members would never stand for him.
Hunt might actually be the best placed of the potential candidates to do a deal with Refuk - on the understanding that the Hunt-led Tories would concentrate on battling the Lib Dems in the Tory shires, whilst Refuk are given free reign in the red wall / left-behind areas.
Not sure he'd find that a particularly appealing prospect, though!
There are only 17 LibDem seats among the top 100 Conservative targets and likely a lot harder to gain.
The only viable strategy for the Conservatives is to reverse this year's losses to Labour.
And then gain some more from Labour.
We have a situation where the Conservatives could win Bolsover and still have fewer than 300 MPs.
Indeed, though Reform are more likely to win Bolsover and the other redwall seats now.
Badenoch has near zero chance of winning a Tory majority again next time, if she wins power it will mainly be via gaining soft Leave marginal seats held by Labour while Farage wins most hard Leave marginal seats held by Labour. Then the 2 doing a deal together to form a government in a hung parliament
The Conservatives will certainly not win a majority if they adopt any attitude of 'giving up' to Reform seats they won in 2019.
It is just reality, once Boris went (the only Tory most redwallers would ever vote for) the Tories will likely never win former safe Labour but strong Leave seats like Bolsover, Stoke, West Bromwich, Grimsby, Workington etc again.
Farage however might be able to take them
@HYUFD What do you think of my idea of Boris for Mayor of London?
What are the Arab countries going to do about Syria? I don't imagine they like seeing the imperial powers battling it out.
Are Arab countries in any position to do anything about it?
Saudi Arabia has failed in its intervention in Yemen. Iraq has enough trouble of its own. Jordan seems to have stayed relatively stable in recent decades precisely by not getting involved in other countries troubles.
But worth keeping an eye on Jordan - which will be on the lists of extremist targets and, also in the problems department, in the nicest possible way doesn't especially want to be the home of a few million Palestinians seeking a homeland that isn't a pile of rubble.
Mutatis mutandis, also keep an eye on Egypt for the same reasons.
BTW not much sign yet of the Syrian moderates, LibDem community minded types who donate to their local hospice and put up hanging baskets that Cameron wanted us to back not so long ago.
Isn't it odd to be still playing out the aftermath of WWI 106 years after it ended.
The 'Syrian moderates' you were talking about where the original Free Syrian Army, which got devastated by Assad's troops and ISI/L in the year afterwards. AIUI many of the remnants are in the new FSA, which is allied to Turkey.
Miliband's treachery doomed them.
ISIL were strong enough to take over almost all of Syria bar Kurdish heartlands a decade ago, the FSA weren't
BF reckons Jeremy Hunt has more chance of being next PM than Phillipson.
LOL.
I could see Hunt becoming Tory leader in the run up to the election if Kemi has made no impact and we're still below 30%.
It would need the MPs to panic and arrange another coronation - the members would never stand for him.
Hunt might actually be the best placed of the potential candidates to do a deal with Refuk - on the understanding that the Hunt-led Tories would concentrate on battling the Lib Dems in the Tory shires, whilst Refuk are given free reign in the red wall / left-behind areas.
Not sure he'd find that a particularly appealing prospect, though!
There are only 17 LibDem seats among the top 100 Conservative targets and likely a lot harder to gain.
The only viable strategy for the Conservatives is to reverse this year's losses to Labour.
And then gain some more from Labour.
We have a situation where the Conservatives could win Bolsover and still have fewer than 300 MPs.
Indeed, though Reform are more likely to win Bolsover and the other redwall seats now.
Badenoch has near zero chance of winning a Tory majority again next time, if she wins power it will mainly be via gaining soft Leave marginal seats held by Labour while Farage wins most hard Leave marginal seats held by Labour. Then the 2 doing a deal together to form a government in a hung parliament
The Conservatives will certainly not win a majority if they adopt any attitude of 'giving up' to Reform seats they won in 2019.
It is just reality, once Boris went (the only Tory most redwallers would ever vote for) the Tories will likely never win former safe Labour but strong Leave seats like Bolsover, Stoke, West Bromwich, Grimsby, Workington etc again.
Farage however might be able to take them
Plenty of examples of the moderate right allying with the hard right to beat the left. It's a logical thing to do.
Macron now speaking and dedicating the rebuilt cathedral to Catholics from France and the world
Something I've just learnt. Cathedrals in France are owned by the State, not the Church. Which means the State is responsible for their maintenance. Could be a solution for the cathedrals in the Church of England.
Nice guy that PBers think we should have propped up. This is just one of his prisons, though one of the more notorious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sednaya_Prison Sednaya Prison (Arabic: سجن صيدنايا Sajn Ṣaydnāyā), nicknamed the "Human Slaughterhouse"[a] is a military prison near Damascus in Syria operated by the Syrian government. The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilian detainees and anti-government rebels.[1][2] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that 30,000 detainees have perished in Sednaya from torture, ill-treatment and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War,[3] while Amnesty International estimated in February 2017 "that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015."
A former inmate of the prison who was detained for participating in a peaceful non-violent protest told Amnesty International that at Sednaya prisoners were forced to choose between dying themselves or killing one of their own relatives or friends. The former inmate also stated that in the first prison he was at, prisoners were also forced into cannibalism, but that prison was "heaven" compared to Sednaya Prison. According to the inmate, the other prison (Branch 215) was "to interrogate" (including through torture), but when that was done, you were moved to Sednaya "to die"...
Straw man. Not a single PBer is saying Assad is anything but an evil bastard. The question is: will his likely replacements be even worse?
It’s the choice between Stalin or Hitler. We chose to support Stalin, who was personally responsible for the torture and death of MILLIONS
Except it clearly isn't. He's a weak and useless leader, and any effort to prop him up is likely futile. All it would achieve is to extend a bloody conflict, and alienate whoever takes over.
You misconstrue me. I’m talking about those who argued we should have supported the Assad regime way back. I’m saying it is ARGUABLE - and it is - but only because ISIS contrive, somehow, to be even nastier than Assad. Stalin v Hitler. We chose Stalin
Right now Assad is finished so the idea we should support him is rendered nonsense by the facts
Supporting Assad back then was impossible. See the docs I linked to earlier to see what his regime was - and is - like.
There are good reasons why so many regions - and ethnic groupings - in Syria rose up in 2011.
Just catching up on the day’s events after going out for a long lunch (but got volunteered to be the driver).
So Macron brokered a meeting between Trump and Zelensky, but Starmer couldn’t be arsed to turn up? Would any other recent UK PM not have wanted to be there in that meeting?
The event was for heads of state, wasn't it? I think Prince Billy went...
From yesterday’s thread William was a very late addition. Was it really only Heads of State there?
Maybe he hates Ukraine and is rooting for a Putin win. Oh sorry I mixed Starmer up with Trump.
It is Heads Of State only
Cut the anti Starmer bullcrap
He was not invited.
Did you read my post? Irrespective of your moniker you never did irony did you?
BF reckons Jeremy Hunt has more chance of being next PM than Phillipson.
LOL.
I could see Hunt becoming Tory leader in the run up to the election if Kemi has made no impact and we're still below 30%.
It would need the MPs to panic and arrange another coronation - the members would never stand for him.
Hunt might actually be the best placed of the potential candidates to do a deal with Refuk - on the understanding that the Hunt-led Tories would concentrate on battling the Lib Dems in the Tory shires, whilst Refuk are given free reign in the red wall / left-behind areas.
Not sure he'd find that a particularly appealing prospect, though!
There are only 17 LibDem seats among the top 100 Conservative targets and likely a lot harder to gain.
The only viable strategy for the Conservatives is to reverse this year's losses to Labour.
And then gain some more from Labour.
We have a situation where the Conservatives could win Bolsover and still have fewer than 300 MPs.
Indeed, though Reform are more likely to win Bolsover and the other redwall seats now.
Badenoch has near zero chance of winning a Tory majority again next time, if she wins power it will mainly be via gaining soft Leave marginal seats held by Labour while Farage wins most hard Leave marginal seats held by Labour. Then the 2 doing a deal together to form a government in a hung parliament
The Conservatives will certainly not win a majority if they adopt any attitude of 'giving up' to Reform seats they won in 2019.
Predictions are very unstable at the moment, but I can't see any route to a Tory election outright win until and until it decides what the party is for. Is it Reformlite or is it the old One Nation Tory party, or is it a new thing yet to be revealed?
In the olden days of a few years ago, the Tories could reliably win simply because Labour were worse. I think that is over for now. A real option is that the punters respond to a Labour epic fail (which it isn't yet) by decisively rejecting both Lab and Con. Just look at their collective polling score. Down from 80+% to about 53%.
The Badenoch Tories are basically the party for middle class soft Leavers, Farage's Reform now the party for working class hard Leavers with Labour, the LDs and Greens and SNP and Plaid splitting Remainers between them
HY. You can't make these sweeping statements without some empirical evidence to back them up. I suspect you are particularly wrong about the Badenoch Tories. It is so much more tiresome trying to ski in Cortina and Innsbruck now we have left the EU.
Of course I can because that is what the latest polls show, the Tories and Reform and DUP/TUV combined effectively =close to 52% and Labour and LDs and Greens around 48% combined
BF reckons Jeremy Hunt has more chance of being next PM than Phillipson.
LOL.
I could see Hunt becoming Tory leader in the run up to the election if Kemi has made no impact and we're still below 30%.
It would need the MPs to panic and arrange another coronation - the members would never stand for him.
Hunt might actually be the best placed of the potential candidates to do a deal with Refuk - on the understanding that the Hunt-led Tories would concentrate on battling the Lib Dems in the Tory shires, whilst Refuk are given free reign in the red wall / left-behind areas.
Not sure he'd find that a particularly appealing prospect, though!
There are only 17 LibDem seats among the top 100 Conservative targets and likely a lot harder to gain.
The only viable strategy for the Conservatives is to reverse this year's losses to Labour.
And then gain some more from Labour.
We have a situation where the Conservatives could win Bolsover and still have fewer than 300 MPs.
Indeed, though Reform are more likely to win Bolsover and the other redwall seats now.
Badenoch has near zero chance of winning a Tory majority again next time, if she wins power it will mainly be via gaining soft Leave marginal seats held by Labour while Farage wins most hard Leave marginal seats held by Labour. Then the 2 doing a deal together to form a government in a hung parliament
The Conservatives will certainly not win a majority if they adopt any attitude of 'giving up' to Reform seats they won in 2019.
It is just reality, once Boris went (the only Tory most redwallers would ever vote for) the Tories will likely never win former safe Labour but strong Leave seats like Bolsover, Stoke, West Bromwich, Grimsby, Workington etc again.
Farage however might be able to take them
Quite remarkable that you're so willing to give up on constituencies which the Conservatives won in 2019 and were second this year.
Almost as remarkable as your faith in being able to form a stable, competent coalition with Farage's rabble of malcontents.
What are the Arab countries going to do about Syria? I don't imagine they like seeing the imperial powers battling it out.
Are Arab countries in any position to do anything about it?
Saudi Arabia has failed in its intervention in Yemen. Iraq has enough trouble of its own. Jordan seems to have stayed relatively stable in recent decades precisely by not getting involved in other countries troubles.
But worth keeping an eye on Jordan - which will be on the lists of extremist targets and, also in the problems department, in the nicest possible way doesn't especially want to be the home of a few million Palestinians seeking a homeland that isn't a pile of rubble.
Mutatis mutandis, also keep an eye on Egypt for the same reasons.
BTW not much sign yet of the Syrian moderates, LibDem community minded types who donate to their local hospice and put up hanging baskets that Cameron wanted us to back not so long ago.
Isn't it odd to be still playing out the aftermath of WWI 106 years after it ended.
The 'Syrian moderates' you were talking about where the original Free Syrian Army, which got devastated by Assad's troops and ISI/L in the year afterwards. AIUI many of the remnants are in the new FSA, which is allied to Turkey.
Miliband's treachery doomed them.
So let's say the FSA won, what would have stopped them being supplanted by ISIS? The idea that they were "moderate" is laughable. It was as much a rag tag bunch of jihadis and Islamists as this bunch.
The Arab spring was a disaster and we should have helped the dictators put it down, not egged it on.
BF reckons Jeremy Hunt has more chance of being next PM than Phillipson.
LOL.
I could see Hunt becoming Tory leader in the run up to the election if Kemi has made no impact and we're still below 30%.
It would need the MPs to panic and arrange another coronation - the members would never stand for him.
Hunt might actually be the best placed of the potential candidates to do a deal with Refuk - on the understanding that the Hunt-led Tories would concentrate on battling the Lib Dems in the Tory shires, whilst Refuk are given free reign in the red wall / left-behind areas.
Not sure he'd find that a particularly appealing prospect, though!
There are only 17 LibDem seats among the top 100 Conservative targets and likely a lot harder to gain.
The only viable strategy for the Conservatives is to reverse this year's losses to Labour.
And then gain some more from Labour.
We have a situation where the Conservatives could win Bolsover and still have fewer than 300 MPs.
Indeed, though Reform are more likely to win Bolsover and the other redwall seats now.
Badenoch has near zero chance of winning a Tory majority again next time, if she wins power it will mainly be via gaining soft Leave marginal seats held by Labour while Farage wins most hard Leave marginal seats held by Labour. Then the 2 doing a deal together to form a government in a hung parliament
The Conservatives will certainly not win a majority if they adopt any attitude of 'giving up' to Reform seats they won in 2019.
It is just reality, once Boris went (the only Tory most redwallers would ever vote for) the Tories will likely never win former safe Labour but strong Leave seats like Bolsover, Stoke, West Bromwich, Grimsby, Workington etc again.
Farage however might be able to take them
Quite remarkable that you're so willing to give up on constituencies which the Conservatives won in 2019 and were second this year.
Almost as remarkable as your faith in being able to form a stable, competent coalition with Farage's rabble of malcontents.
No, the Tories gave up those seats when they removed Boris, not me, I backed keeping Boris remember.
Those seats will never vote for a Tory other than Boris, that is reality, only Farage can win them for the right again now
BF reckons Jeremy Hunt has more chance of being next PM than Phillipson.
LOL.
I could see Hunt becoming Tory leader in the run up to the election if Kemi has made no impact and we're still below 30%.
It would need the MPs to panic and arrange another coronation - the members would never stand for him.
Hunt might actually be the best placed of the potential candidates to do a deal with Refuk - on the understanding that the Hunt-led Tories would concentrate on battling the Lib Dems in the Tory shires, whilst Refuk are given free reign in the red wall / left-behind areas.
Not sure he'd find that a particularly appealing prospect, though!
There are only 17 LibDem seats among the top 100 Conservative targets and likely a lot harder to gain.
The only viable strategy for the Conservatives is to reverse this year's losses to Labour.
And then gain some more from Labour.
We have a situation where the Conservatives could win Bolsover and still have fewer than 300 MPs.
Indeed, though Reform are more likely to win Bolsover and the other redwall seats now.
Badenoch has near zero chance of winning a Tory majority again next time, if she wins power it will mainly be via gaining soft Leave marginal seats held by Labour while Farage wins most hard Leave marginal seats held by Labour. Then the 2 doing a deal together to form a government in a hung parliament
The Conservatives will certainly not win a majority if they adopt any attitude of 'giving up' to Reform seats they won in 2019.
It is just reality, once Boris went (the only Tory most redwallers would ever vote for) the Tories will likely never win former safe Labour but strong Leave seats like Bolsover, Stoke, West Bromwich, Grimsby, Workington etc again.
Farage however might be able to take them
@HYUFD What do you think of my idea of Boris for Mayor of London?
Fine a decade ago, Londoners won't vote for him again after Brexit though
BF reckons Jeremy Hunt has more chance of being next PM than Phillipson.
LOL.
I could see Hunt becoming Tory leader in the run up to the election if Kemi has made no impact and we're still below 30%.
It would need the MPs to panic and arrange another coronation - the members would never stand for him.
Hunt might actually be the best placed of the potential candidates to do a deal with Refuk - on the understanding that the Hunt-led Tories would concentrate on battling the Lib Dems in the Tory shires, whilst Refuk are given free reign in the red wall / left-behind areas.
Not sure he'd find that a particularly appealing prospect, though!
There are only 17 LibDem seats among the top 100 Conservative targets and likely a lot harder to gain.
The only viable strategy for the Conservatives is to reverse this year's losses to Labour.
And then gain some more from Labour.
We have a situation where the Conservatives could win Bolsover and still have fewer than 300 MPs.
Indeed, though Reform are more likely to win Bolsover and the other redwall seats now.
Badenoch has near zero chance of winning a Tory majority again next time, if she wins power it will mainly be via gaining soft Leave marginal seats held by Labour while Farage wins most hard Leave marginal seats held by Labour. Then the 2 doing a deal together to form a government in a hung parliament
The Conservatives will certainly not win a majority if they adopt any attitude of 'giving up' to Reform seats they won in 2019.
Predictions are very unstable at the moment, but I can't see any route to a Tory election outright win until and until it decides what the party is for. Is it Reformlite or is it the old One Nation Tory party, or is it a new thing yet to be revealed?
In the olden days of a few years ago, the Tories could reliably win simply because Labour were worse. I think that is over for now. A real option is that the punters respond to a Labour epic fail (which it isn't yet) by decisively rejecting both Lab and Con. Just look at their collective polling score. Down from 80+% to about 53%.
The Badenoch Tories are basically the party for middle class soft Leavers, Farage's Reform now the party for working class hard Leavers with Labour, the LDs and Greens and SNP and Plaid splitting Remainers between them
HY. You can't make these sweeping statements without some empirical evidence to back them up. I suspect you are particularly wrong about the Badenoch Tories. It is so much more tiresome trying to ski in Cortina and Innsbruck now we have left the EU.
Of course I can because that is what the latest polls show, the Tories and Reform and DUP/TUV combined effectively =close to 52% and Labour and LDs and Greens around 48% combined
You've answered a different question. You were the one banging bon about which parliamentary party would from now on view Brexit.
What are the Arab countries going to do about Syria? I don't imagine they like seeing the imperial powers battling it out.
Are Arab countries in any position to do anything about it?
Saudi Arabia has failed in its intervention in Yemen. Iraq has enough trouble of its own. Jordan seems to have stayed relatively stable in recent decades precisely by not getting involved in other countries troubles.
But worth keeping an eye on Jordan - which will be on the lists of extremist targets and, also in the problems department, in the nicest possible way doesn't especially want to be the home of a few million Palestinians seeking a homeland that isn't a pile of rubble.
Mutatis mutandis, also keep an eye on Egypt for the same reasons.
BTW not much sign yet of the Syrian moderates, LibDem community minded types who donate to their local hospice and put up hanging baskets that Cameron wanted us to back not so long ago.
Isn't it odd to be still playing out the aftermath of WWI 106 years after it ended.
The 'Syrian moderates' you were talking about where the original Free Syrian Army, which got devastated by Assad's troops and ISI/L in the year afterwards. AIUI many of the remnants are in the new FSA, which is allied to Turkey.
Miliband's treachery doomed them.
So let's say the FSA won, what would have stopped them being supplanted by ISIS? The idea that they were "moderate" is laughable. It was as much a rag tag bunch of jihadis and Islamists as this bunch.
The Arab spring was a disaster and we should have helped the dictators put it down, not egged it on.
The FSA was formed by deserters from Assad's military.
You are utterly clueless and immoral if you think supporting 'dictators' would have worked in the medium or long term, or would have helped us in the long run.
BF reckons Jeremy Hunt has more chance of being next PM than Phillipson.
LOL.
I could see Hunt becoming Tory leader in the run up to the election if Kemi has made no impact and we're still below 30%.
It would need the MPs to panic and arrange another coronation - the members would never stand for him.
Hunt might actually be the best placed of the potential candidates to do a deal with Refuk - on the understanding that the Hunt-led Tories would concentrate on battling the Lib Dems in the Tory shires, whilst Refuk are given free reign in the red wall / left-behind areas.
Not sure he'd find that a particularly appealing prospect, though!
There are only 17 LibDem seats among the top 100 Conservative targets and likely a lot harder to gain.
The only viable strategy for the Conservatives is to reverse this year's losses to Labour.
And then gain some more from Labour.
We have a situation where the Conservatives could win Bolsover and still have fewer than 300 MPs.
Indeed, though Reform are more likely to win Bolsover and the other redwall seats now.
Badenoch has near zero chance of winning a Tory majority again next time, if she wins power it will mainly be via gaining soft Leave marginal seats held by Labour while Farage wins most hard Leave marginal seats held by Labour. Then the 2 doing a deal together to form a government in a hung parliament
The Conservatives will certainly not win a majority if they adopt any attitude of 'giving up' to Reform seats they won in 2019.
It is just reality, once Boris went (the only Tory most redwallers would ever vote for) the Tories will likely never win former safe Labour but strong Leave seats like Bolsover, Stoke, West Bromwich, Grimsby, Workington etc again.
Farage however might be able to take them
Quite remarkable that you're so willing to give up on constituencies which the Conservatives won in 2019 and were second this year.
Almost as remarkable as your faith in being able to form a stable, competent coalition with Farage's rabble of malcontents.
No, the Tories gave up those seats when they removed Boris, not me, I backed keeping Boris remember.
Those seats will never vote for a Tory other than Boris, that is reality, only Farage can win them for the right again now
Tell me do you think that the Conservatives can win Rother Valley, Doncaster East and Scunthorpe ?
How about Darlington, Redcar and Middlesbrough South ?
Or are they also added to the list of constituencies you want the Conservatives to give up on ?
Lazy journalism. The Guardian labels this pic 'King's College and Chapel'. The chapel looks faintly familiar, but the college right in the centre of the picture is Clare. Did everyone at the Guardian go to Oxford?
Nice guy that PBers think we should have propped up. This is just one of his prisons, though one of the more notorious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sednaya_Prison Sednaya Prison (Arabic: سجن صيدنايا Sajn Ṣaydnāyā), nicknamed the "Human Slaughterhouse"[a] is a military prison near Damascus in Syria operated by the Syrian government. The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilian detainees and anti-government rebels.[1][2] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that 30,000 detainees have perished in Sednaya from torture, ill-treatment and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War,[3] while Amnesty International estimated in February 2017 "that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015."
A former inmate of the prison who was detained for participating in a peaceful non-violent protest told Amnesty International that at Sednaya prisoners were forced to choose between dying themselves or killing one of their own relatives or friends. The former inmate also stated that in the first prison he was at, prisoners were also forced into cannibalism, but that prison was "heaven" compared to Sednaya Prison. According to the inmate, the other prison (Branch 215) was "to interrogate" (including through torture), but when that was done, you were moved to Sednaya "to die"...
Straw man. Not a single PBer is saying Assad is anything but an evil bastard. The question is: will his likely replacements be even worse?
It’s the choice between Stalin or Hitler. We chose to support Stalin, who was personally responsible for the torture and death of MILLIONS
Except it clearly isn't. He's a weak and useless leader, and any effort to prop him up is likely futile. All it would achieve is to extend a bloody conflict, and alienate whoever takes over.
You misconstrue me. I’m talking about those who argued we should have supported the Assad regime way back. I’m saying it is ARGUABLE - and it is - but only because ISIS contrive, somehow, to be even nastier than Assad. Stalin v Hitler. We chose Stalin
Right now Assad is finished so the idea we should support him is rendered nonsense by the facts
I really don't know what you're on about with this 'Hitler vs. Stalin' bollocks. Stalin was not a less bad option than Hitler - he killed more people for a start.
Furthermore, there is absolutely no equivalence in the wickedness of a repressive dictator who does however support religious tolerance, the education of women, the ability of women to attend university, and a stable and livable society, with the wickedness of a bunch of headchopping islamist nutters, *let alone* ISIS.
What are the Arab countries going to do about Syria? I don't imagine they like seeing the imperial powers battling it out.
Are Arab countries in any position to do anything about it?
Saudi Arabia has failed in its intervention in Yemen. Iraq has enough trouble of its own. Jordan seems to have stayed relatively stable in recent decades precisely by not getting involved in other countries troubles.
But worth keeping an eye on Jordan - which will be on the lists of extremist targets and, also in the problems department, in the nicest possible way doesn't especially want to be the home of a few million Palestinians seeking a homeland that isn't a pile of rubble.
Mutatis mutandis, also keep an eye on Egypt for the same reasons.
BTW not much sign yet of the Syrian moderates, LibDem community minded types who donate to their local hospice and put up hanging baskets that Cameron wanted us to back not so long ago.
Isn't it odd to be still playing out the aftermath of WWI 106 years after it ended.
The 'Syrian moderates' you were talking about where the original Free Syrian Army, which got devastated by Assad's troops and ISI/L in the year afterwards. AIUI many of the remnants are in the new FSA, which is allied to Turkey.
Miliband's treachery doomed them.
ISIL were strong enough to take over almost all of Syria bar Kurdish heartlands a decade ago, the FSA weren't
After Assad helped destroy the FSA.
To be clear: Assad and the Russians went after other 'rebel' groups much more than ISIS/L. In many areas, ISIS/L's presence *helped* Assad as they were fighting other rebels.
". But the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad took the strategic decision to enable and facilitate the continued survival of the Islamic State in Syria in an effort to paint all of the Syrian opposition as “terrorists.” The Syrian government’s support included both passive support, such as deciding not to target ISIS positions, and active support, such as releasing terrorists from Syrian prisons and helping to bankroll ISIS by purchasing oil from ISIS and wheat from ISIS-controlled areas that ISIS was able to tax. In fact, Syrian government support for the terrorist network that morphed into ISIS goes back many years, to include support for foreign fighters traveling through Syria to join al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI, later the Islamic State in Iraq, ISI), making it the group’s earliest and most significant state sponsor."
Nice guy that PBers think we should have propped up. This is just one of his prisons, though one of the more notorious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sednaya_Prison Sednaya Prison (Arabic: سجن صيدنايا Sajn Ṣaydnāyā), nicknamed the "Human Slaughterhouse"[a] is a military prison near Damascus in Syria operated by the Syrian government. The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilian detainees and anti-government rebels.[1][2] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that 30,000 detainees have perished in Sednaya from torture, ill-treatment and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War,[3] while Amnesty International estimated in February 2017 "that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015."
A former inmate of the prison who was detained for participating in a peaceful non-violent protest told Amnesty International that at Sednaya prisoners were forced to choose between dying themselves or killing one of their own relatives or friends. The former inmate also stated that in the first prison he was at, prisoners were also forced into cannibalism, but that prison was "heaven" compared to Sednaya Prison. According to the inmate, the other prison (Branch 215) was "to interrogate" (including through torture), but when that was done, you were moved to Sednaya "to die"...
Straw man. Not a single PBer is saying Assad is anything but an evil bastard. The question is: will his likely replacements be even worse?
It’s the choice between Stalin or Hitler. We chose to support Stalin, who was personally responsible for the torture and death of MILLIONS
Except it clearly isn't. He's a weak and useless leader, and any effort to prop him up is likely futile. All it would achieve is to extend a bloody conflict, and alienate whoever takes over.
You misconstrue me. I’m talking about those who argued we should have supported the Assad regime way back. I’m saying it is ARGUABLE - and it is - but only because ISIS contrive, somehow, to be even nastier than Assad. Stalin v Hitler. We chose Stalin
Right now Assad is finished so the idea we should support him is rendered nonsense by the facts
Supporting Assad back then was impossible. See the docs I linked to earlier to see what his regime was - and is - like.
There are good reasons why so many regions - and ethnic groupings - in Syria rose up in 2011.
Lazy journalism. The Guardian labels this pic 'King's College and Chapel'. The chapel looks faintly familiar, but the college right in the centre of the picture is Clare. Did everyone at the Guardian go to Oxford?
What are the Arab countries going to do about Syria? I don't imagine they like seeing the imperial powers battling it out.
Are Arab countries in any position to do anything about it?
Saudi Arabia has failed in its intervention in Yemen. Iraq has enough trouble of its own. Jordan seems to have stayed relatively stable in recent decades precisely by not getting involved in other countries troubles.
But worth keeping an eye on Jordan - which will be on the lists of extremist targets and, also in the problems department, in the nicest possible way doesn't especially want to be the home of a few million Palestinians seeking a homeland that isn't a pile of rubble.
Mutatis mutandis, also keep an eye on Egypt for the same reasons.
BTW not much sign yet of the Syrian moderates, LibDem community minded types who donate to their local hospice and put up hanging baskets that Cameron wanted us to back not so long ago.
Isn't it odd to be still playing out the aftermath of WWI 106 years after it ended.
The 'Syrian moderates' you were talking about where the original Free Syrian Army, which got devastated by Assad's troops and ISI/L in the year afterwards. AIUI many of the remnants are in the new FSA, which is allied to Turkey.
Miliband's treachery doomed them.
So let's say the FSA won, what would have stopped them being supplanted by ISIS? The idea that they were "moderate" is laughable. It was as much a rag tag bunch of jihadis and Islamists as this bunch.
The Arab spring was a disaster and we should have helped the dictators put it down, not egged it on.
The FSA was formed by deserters from Assad's military.
You are utterly clueless and immoral if you think supporting 'dictators' would have worked in the medium or long term, or would have helped us in the long run.
As Russia is just finding out.
I'm sorry, this is ridiculous. After what happened in Libya, Egypt and Iraq you think there would have been some kind of moderate revolution in Syria? The only way Egypt became "moderate" again was another dictator replacing the Islamists. You've seriously got your head in the clouds if you think that supporting the FSA would have resulted in anything different.
As for morals, what's more moral - allowing Islamists in power and watching these countries slowly become more like Iran and Afghanistan where non-Muslims and women become third class citizens and export terrorism to the west or supporting somewhat secular dictators who we can pay off when necessary.
What are the Arab countries going to do about Syria? I don't imagine they like seeing the imperial powers battling it out.
Are Arab countries in any position to do anything about it?
Saudi Arabia has failed in its intervention in Yemen. Iraq has enough trouble of its own. Jordan seems to have stayed relatively stable in recent decades precisely by not getting involved in other countries troubles.
But worth keeping an eye on Jordan - which will be on the lists of extremist targets and, also in the problems department, in the nicest possible way doesn't especially want to be the home of a few million Palestinians seeking a homeland that isn't a pile of rubble.
Mutatis mutandis, also keep an eye on Egypt for the same reasons.
BTW not much sign yet of the Syrian moderates, LibDem community minded types who donate to their local hospice and put up hanging baskets that Cameron wanted us to back not so long ago.
Isn't it odd to be still playing out the aftermath of WWI 106 years after it ended.
The 'Syrian moderates' you were talking about where the original Free Syrian Army, which got devastated by Assad's troops and ISI/L in the year afterwards. AIUI many of the remnants are in the new FSA, which is allied to Turkey.
Miliband's treachery doomed them.
So let's say the FSA won, what would have stopped them being supplanted by ISIS? The idea that they were "moderate" is laughable. It was as much a rag tag bunch of jihadis and Islamists as this bunch.
The Arab spring was a disaster and we should have helped the dictators put it down, not egged it on.
The FSA was formed by deserters from Assad's military.
You are utterly clueless and immoral if you think supporting 'dictators' would have worked in the medium or long term, or would have helped us in the long run.
As Russia is just finding out.
Its not like the West has been behind the rebel advances, by staying largely outcof it thats tacit support for the regime by default. If it still falls that surely shows it was too weak to deliver the kind of outcome assumed possible in the 'realpolitik' view. So it feels like imagining a different world where a horrible but lesser evil could hold out, rather than the world we have.
Macron now speaking and dedicating the rebuilt cathedral to Catholics from France and the world
Something I've just learnt. Cathedrals in France are owned by the State, not the Church. Which means the State is responsible for their maintenance. Could be a solution for the cathedrals in the Church of England.
This is why churches and cathedrals in France have no noom. Indeed it was this observation that inspired my genius coinage of the term
For all its faults, because the C of E maintains churches etc as places of worship, they generally have a spiritual vibe - noom - this is not true in France
Macron now speaking and dedicating the rebuilt cathedral to Catholics from France and the world
Something I've just learnt. Cathedrals in France are owned by the State, not the Church. Which means the State is responsible for their maintenance. Could be a solution for the cathedrals in the Church of England.
This is why churches and cathedrals in France have no noom. Indeed it was this observation that inspired my genius coinage of the term
For all its faults, because the C of E maintains churches etc as places of worship, they generally have a spiritual vibe - noom - this is not true in France
Nice guy that PBers think we should have propped up. This is just one of his prisons, though one of the more notorious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sednaya_Prison Sednaya Prison (Arabic: سجن صيدنايا Sajn Ṣaydnāyā), nicknamed the "Human Slaughterhouse"[a] is a military prison near Damascus in Syria operated by the Syrian government. The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilian detainees and anti-government rebels.[1][2] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that 30,000 detainees have perished in Sednaya from torture, ill-treatment and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War,[3] while Amnesty International estimated in February 2017 "that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015."
A former inmate of the prison who was detained for participating in a peaceful non-violent protest told Amnesty International that at Sednaya prisoners were forced to choose between dying themselves or killing one of their own relatives or friends. The former inmate also stated that in the first prison he was at, prisoners were also forced into cannibalism, but that prison was "heaven" compared to Sednaya Prison. According to the inmate, the other prison (Branch 215) was "to interrogate" (including through torture), but when that was done, you were moved to Sednaya "to die"...
Straw man. Not a single PBer is saying Assad is anything but an evil bastard. The question is: will his likely replacements be even worse?
It’s the choice between Stalin or Hitler. We chose to support Stalin, who was personally responsible for the torture and death of MILLIONS
Except it clearly isn't. He's a weak and useless leader, and any effort to prop him up is likely futile. All it would achieve is to extend a bloody conflict, and alienate whoever takes over.
You misconstrue me. I’m talking about those who argued we should have supported the Assad regime way back. I’m saying it is ARGUABLE - and it is - but only because ISIS contrive, somehow, to be even nastier than Assad. Stalin v Hitler. We chose Stalin
Right now Assad is finished so the idea we should support him is rendered nonsense by the facts
Supporting Assad back then was impossible. See the docs I linked to earlier to see what his regime was - and is - like.
There are good reasons why so many regions - and ethnic groupings - in Syria rose up in 2011.
Supporting Stalin was morally impossible
Stalin was able to offer practical benefits for the allies even though he was a morally horrible option. By contrast Assad does not appear to be offering many practical benefits for his allies in the long term. So if this is about cold pragmatism and national self interest, are Russia and Iran getting bang for their buck?
Macron now speaking and dedicating the rebuilt cathedral to Catholics from France and the world
Something I've just learnt. Cathedrals in France are owned by the State, not the Church. Which means the State is responsible for their maintenance. Could be a solution for the cathedrals in the Church of England.
Generally older English cathedrals manage maintenance OK, often with grant help, sources of these being various. The grave problem is not cathedrals but the thousands of Grade 1 and Grade 2* parish churches, which are an amazing adornment to our cultural heritage, and of course are gfound everywhere. This needs a new deal between church, state, local authorities and other donors. It's becoming urgent especially where there are hundreds of huge and great churches in tiny populations - Lincs, Norfolk, Suffolk, Somerset, Devon all come to mind.
Macron now speaking and dedicating the rebuilt cathedral to Catholics from France and the world
Something I've just learnt. Cathedrals in France are owned by the State, not the Church. Which means the State is responsible for their maintenance. Could be a solution for the cathedrals in the Church of England.
Generally older English cathedrals manage maintenance OK, often with grant help, sources of these being various. The grave problem is not cathedrals but the thousands of Grade 1 and Grade 2* parish churches, which are an amazing adornment to our cultural heritage, and of course are gfound everywhere. This needs a new deal between church, state, local authorities and other donors. It's becoming urgent especially where there are hundreds of huge and great churches in tiny populations - Lincs, Norfolk, Suffolk, Somerset, Devon all come to mind.
Indeed, the C of E should also spend more of its billions on them not the latest woke scheme or church plant
On topic: Rishi's legacy is going to be worse than Trusses.
Turns out useless managerialism combined with a sprinkling of bonkers policies about smoking doesn't cut the mustard
Rishi had the opportunity to fall with style. However cutting NI (twice) without a replacement tax and canning HS2 were unforgivable. Even with those errors he remained head and shoulders better than his two immediate predecessors.
Again with this lie.
There was a replacement tax. Income tax and NI went up when the tax thresholds were frozen for longer.
It was a tax rise, not a tax cut.
NI could have been merged quite simply with income tax. I thought that is what you were once asking for.
It is what I'm asking for but don't pretend it is "simple".
But don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. You keep on with this pretence that NI was cut "salting the earth" without a tax being raised to compensate, but income tax was raised by more than NI was cut. It was a net tax rise. It wasn't enough, but it was a step in the right direction.
To only look at the rates and not the thresholds is disingenuous.
Nice guy that PBers think we should have propped up. This is just one of his prisons, though one of the more notorious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sednaya_Prison Sednaya Prison (Arabic: سجن صيدنايا Sajn Ṣaydnāyā), nicknamed the "Human Slaughterhouse"[a] is a military prison near Damascus in Syria operated by the Syrian government. The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilian detainees and anti-government rebels.[1][2] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that 30,000 detainees have perished in Sednaya from torture, ill-treatment and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War,[3] while Amnesty International estimated in February 2017 "that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015."
A former inmate of the prison who was detained for participating in a peaceful non-violent protest told Amnesty International that at Sednaya prisoners were forced to choose between dying themselves or killing one of their own relatives or friends. The former inmate also stated that in the first prison he was at, prisoners were also forced into cannibalism, but that prison was "heaven" compared to Sednaya Prison. According to the inmate, the other prison (Branch 215) was "to interrogate" (including through torture), but when that was done, you were moved to Sednaya "to die"...
Straw man. Not a single PBer is saying Assad is anything but an evil bastard. The question is: will his likely replacements be even worse?
It’s the choice between Stalin or Hitler. We chose to support Stalin, who was personally responsible for the torture and death of MILLIONS
Except it clearly isn't. He's a weak and useless leader, and any effort to prop him up is likely futile. All it would achieve is to extend a bloody conflict, and alienate whoever takes over.
You misconstrue me. I’m talking about those who argued we should have supported the Assad regime way back. I’m saying it is ARGUABLE - and it is - but only because ISIS contrive, somehow, to be even nastier than Assad. Stalin v Hitler. We chose Stalin
Right now Assad is finished so the idea we should support him is rendered nonsense by the facts
Supporting Assad back then was impossible. See the docs I linked to earlier to see what his regime was - and is - like.
There are good reasons why so many regions - and ethnic groupings - in Syria rose up in 2011.
Supporting Stalin was morally impossible
Stalin was able to offer practical benefits for the allies even though he was a morally horrible option. By contrast Assad does not appear to be offering many practical benefits for his allies in the long term. So if this is about cold pragmatism and national self interest, are Russia and Iran getting bang for their buck?
The practical advantage of Assad is that he attacks the jihadists and keeps them from power in Damascus (or he did). He also used to run a fairly pluralist society - better for women, Christians etc - by the terrible standards of the region
Be honest, who here wasn’t quietly cheering when Assad backed by Putin was bombing the shit out of ISIS and cleansing them from the face of the earth?
Macron now speaking and dedicating the rebuilt cathedral to Catholics from France and the world
Something I've just learnt. Cathedrals in France are owned by the State, not the Church. Which means the State is responsible for their maintenance. Could be a solution for the cathedrals in the Church of England.
Cathedrals and churches are often funded through state backed systems anyway - the Heritage Lottery Fund, English Heritage, landfill offset.
But, and it is an important but, they remain under the control of congregations who value them. That is not true in France, where maintenance backlogs are often even more of a problem than in England.
It may be we go that way in the end, but it has its drawbacks as well as its advantages.
BF reckons Jeremy Hunt has more chance of being next PM than Phillipson.
LOL.
I could see Hunt becoming Tory leader in the run up to the election if Kemi has made no impact and we're still below 30%.
It would need the MPs to panic and arrange another coronation - the members would never stand for him.
Hunt might actually be the best placed of the potential candidates to do a deal with Refuk - on the understanding that the Hunt-led Tories would concentrate on battling the Lib Dems in the Tory shires, whilst Refuk are given free reign in the red wall / left-behind areas.
Not sure he'd find that a particularly appealing prospect, though!
There are only 17 LibDem seats among the top 100 Conservative targets and likely a lot harder to gain.
The only viable strategy for the Conservatives is to reverse this year's losses to Labour.
And then gain some more from Labour.
We have a situation where the Conservatives could win Bolsover and still have fewer than 300 MPs.
Indeed, though Reform are more likely to win Bolsover and the other redwall seats now.
Badenoch has near zero chance of winning a Tory majority again next time, if she wins power it will mainly be via gaining soft Leave marginal seats held by Labour while Farage wins most hard Leave marginal seats held by Labour. Then the 2 doing a deal together to form a government in a hung parliament
The Conservatives will certainly not win a majority if they adopt any attitude of 'giving up' to Reform seats they won in 2019.
It is just reality, once Boris went (the only Tory most redwallers would ever vote for) the Tories will likely never win former safe Labour but strong Leave seats like Bolsover, Stoke, West Bromwich, Grimsby, Workington etc again.
Farage however might be able to take them
Quite remarkable that you're so willing to give up on constituencies which the Conservatives won in 2019 and were second this year.
Almost as remarkable as your faith in being able to form a stable, competent coalition with Farage's rabble of malcontents.
No, the Tories gave up those seats when they removed Boris, not me, I backed keeping Boris remember.
Those seats will never vote for a Tory other than Boris, that is reality, only Farage can win them for the right again now
Tell me do you think that the Conservatives can win Rother Valley, Doncaster East and Scunthorpe ?
How about Darlington, Redcar and Middlesbrough South ?
Or are they also added to the list of constituencies you want the Conservatives to give up on ?
No, even Cameron didn't win any of them, the Tories have also lost the bluewall seats Cameron won mainly to the LDs. So as I said only Reform gains in traditionally Labour redwall seats too will get the Tories back into power again
Nice guy that PBers think we should have propped up. This is just one of his prisons, though one of the more notorious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sednaya_Prison Sednaya Prison (Arabic: سجن صيدنايا Sajn Ṣaydnāyā), nicknamed the "Human Slaughterhouse"[a] is a military prison near Damascus in Syria operated by the Syrian government. The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilian detainees and anti-government rebels.[1][2] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that 30,000 detainees have perished in Sednaya from torture, ill-treatment and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War,[3] while Amnesty International estimated in February 2017 "that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015."
A former inmate of the prison who was detained for participating in a peaceful non-violent protest told Amnesty International that at Sednaya prisoners were forced to choose between dying themselves or killing one of their own relatives or friends. The former inmate also stated that in the first prison he was at, prisoners were also forced into cannibalism, but that prison was "heaven" compared to Sednaya Prison. According to the inmate, the other prison (Branch 215) was "to interrogate" (including through torture), but when that was done, you were moved to Sednaya "to die"...
Straw man. Not a single PBer is saying Assad is anything but an evil bastard. The question is: will his likely replacements be even worse?
It’s the choice between Stalin or Hitler. We chose to support Stalin, who was personally responsible for the torture and death of MILLIONS
Except it clearly isn't. He's a weak and useless leader, and any effort to prop him up is likely futile. All it would achieve is to extend a bloody conflict, and alienate whoever takes over.
You misconstrue me. I’m talking about those who argued we should have supported the Assad regime way back. I’m saying it is ARGUABLE - and it is - but only because ISIS contrive, somehow, to be even nastier than Assad. Stalin v Hitler. We chose Stalin
Right now Assad is finished so the idea we should support him is rendered nonsense by the facts
Supporting Assad back then was impossible. See the docs I linked to earlier to see what his regime was - and is - like.
There are good reasons why so many regions - and ethnic groupings - in Syria rose up in 2011.
Supporting Stalin was morally impossible
Stalin was able to offer practical benefits for the allies even though he was a morally horrible option. By contrast Assad does not appear to be offering many practical benefits for his allies in the long term. So if this is about cold pragmatism and national self interest, are Russia and Iran getting bang for their buck?
At the time there wasn’t a choice for what was left of what we now call The West. Hitler, having put most of Western Europe under his control, decided to attack the East. So Stalin was the only option vs Hitler.
Macron now speaking and dedicating the rebuilt cathedral to Catholics from France and the world
Something I've just learnt. Cathedrals in France are owned by the State, not the Church. Which means the State is responsible for their maintenance. Could be a solution for the cathedrals in the Church of England.
This is why churches and cathedrals in France have no noom. Indeed it was this observation that inspired my genius coinage of the term
For all its faults, because the C of E maintains churches etc as places of worship, they generally have a spiritual vibe - noom - this is not true in France
Yes. Easily the best solution to thousands of great churches across the country is for them to be churches. And an astonishing number still are. But often run by a tiny committee of much older people. It is unrealistic often for these groups to fix hundreds of thousands of pounds for the massive works needed just to keep the rain out, in a village of 250 people.
In the next generation much of this will vanish without a change of policy.
Noom is essential, and the CoE is good at it. But it is not cheap.
What are the Arab countries going to do about Syria? I don't imagine they like seeing the imperial powers battling it out.
Are Arab countries in any position to do anything about it?
Saudi Arabia has failed in its intervention in Yemen. Iraq has enough trouble of its own. Jordan seems to have stayed relatively stable in recent decades precisely by not getting involved in other countries troubles.
But worth keeping an eye on Jordan - which will be on the lists of extremist targets and, also in the problems department, in the nicest possible way doesn't especially want to be the home of a few million Palestinians seeking a homeland that isn't a pile of rubble.
Mutatis mutandis, also keep an eye on Egypt for the same reasons.
BTW not much sign yet of the Syrian moderates, LibDem community minded types who donate to their local hospice and put up hanging baskets that Cameron wanted us to back not so long ago.
Isn't it odd to be still playing out the aftermath of WWI 106 years after it ended.
The 'Syrian moderates' you were talking about where the original Free Syrian Army, which got devastated by Assad's troops and ISI/L in the year afterwards. AIUI many of the remnants are in the new FSA, which is allied to Turkey.
Miliband's treachery doomed them.
So let's say the FSA won, what would have stopped them being supplanted by ISIS? The idea that they were "moderate" is laughable. It was as much a rag tag bunch of jihadis and Islamists as this bunch.
The Arab spring was a disaster and we should have helped the dictators put it down, not egged it on.
The FSA was formed by deserters from Assad's military.
You are utterly clueless and immoral if you think supporting 'dictators' would have worked in the medium or long term, or would have helped us in the long run.
As Russia is just finding out.
I'm sorry, this is ridiculous. After what happened in Libya, Egypt and Iraq you think there would have been some kind of moderate revolution in Syria? The only way Egypt became "moderate" again was another dictator replacing the Islamists. You've seriously got your head in the clouds if you think that supporting the FSA would have resulted in anything different.
As for morals, what's more moral - allowing Islamists in power and watching these countries slowly become more like Iran and Afghanistan where non-Muslims and women become third class citizens and export terrorism to the west or supporting somewhat secular dictators who we can pay off when necessary.
Quite so. The treatment of women under the new Taliban is one of the most repulsive spectacles of human history. I’m not sure it has an equal this century. Half of humanity literally forbidden to speak
Saddam was better than that. Assad was better than that. Gadaffi was better than that. Apartheid South Africa was better than that
What are the Arab countries going to do about Syria? I don't imagine they like seeing the imperial powers battling it out.
Are Arab countries in any position to do anything about it?
Saudi Arabia has failed in its intervention in Yemen. Iraq has enough trouble of its own. Jordan seems to have stayed relatively stable in recent decades precisely by not getting involved in other countries troubles.
But worth keeping an eye on Jordan - which will be on the lists of extremist targets and, also in the problems department, in the nicest possible way doesn't especially want to be the home of a few million Palestinians seeking a homeland that isn't a pile of rubble.
Mutatis mutandis, also keep an eye on Egypt for the same reasons.
BTW not much sign yet of the Syrian moderates, LibDem community minded types who donate to their local hospice and put up hanging baskets that Cameron wanted us to back not so long ago.
Isn't it odd to be still playing out the aftermath of WWI 106 years after it ended.
The 'Syrian moderates' you were talking about where the original Free Syrian Army, which got devastated by Assad's troops and ISI/L in the year afterwards. AIUI many of the remnants are in the new FSA, which is allied to Turkey.
Miliband's treachery doomed them.
So let's say the FSA won, what would have stopped them being supplanted by ISIS? The idea that they were "moderate" is laughable. It was as much a rag tag bunch of jihadis and Islamists as this bunch.
The Arab spring was a disaster and we should have helped the dictators put it down, not egged it on.
The FSA was formed by deserters from Assad's military.
You are utterly clueless and immoral if you think supporting 'dictators' would have worked in the medium or long term, or would have helped us in the long run.
As Russia is just finding out.
I'm sorry, this is ridiculous. After what happened in Libya, Egypt and Iraq you think there would have been some kind of moderate revolution in Syria? The only way Egypt became "moderate" again was another dictator replacing the Islamists. You've seriously got your head in the clouds if you think that supporting the FSA would have resulted in anything different.
As for morals, what's more moral - allowing Islamists in power and watching these countries slowly become more like Iran and Afghanistan where non-Muslims and women become third class citizens and export terrorism to the west or supporting somewhat secular dictators who we can pay off when necessary.
I might suggest you read some of the links I gave below, as you seem pretty clueless about what was happening in Syria, and Assad's actions.
In the end we did nothing in Syria back in 2013, and this is where the country ended up. I'm darned sure that supporting Assad back then - after all his crimes - would not only have been reprehensible, but also very counter-productive. And it would also not have worked.
Assad has failed because his people were against him. And that was largely because he treated vast portions of his population terribly. Your view would just have mired us in, at best, Russia's situation in Afghanistan in 1979.
Nice guy that PBers think we should have propped up. This is just one of his prisons, though one of the more notorious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sednaya_Prison Sednaya Prison (Arabic: سجن صيدنايا Sajn Ṣaydnāyā), nicknamed the "Human Slaughterhouse"[a] is a military prison near Damascus in Syria operated by the Syrian government. The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilian detainees and anti-government rebels.[1][2] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that 30,000 detainees have perished in Sednaya from torture, ill-treatment and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War,[3] while Amnesty International estimated in February 2017 "that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015."
A former inmate of the prison who was detained for participating in a peaceful non-violent protest told Amnesty International that at Sednaya prisoners were forced to choose between dying themselves or killing one of their own relatives or friends. The former inmate also stated that in the first prison he was at, prisoners were also forced into cannibalism, but that prison was "heaven" compared to Sednaya Prison. According to the inmate, the other prison (Branch 215) was "to interrogate" (including through torture), but when that was done, you were moved to Sednaya "to die"...
Straw man. Not a single PBer is saying Assad is anything but an evil bastard. The question is: will his likely replacements be even worse?
It’s the choice between Stalin or Hitler. We chose to support Stalin, who was personally responsible for the torture and death of MILLIONS
Except it clearly isn't. He's a weak and useless leader, and any effort to prop him up is likely futile. All it would achieve is to extend a bloody conflict, and alienate whoever takes over.
You misconstrue me. I’m talking about those who argued we should have supported the Assad regime way back. I’m saying it is ARGUABLE - and it is - but only because ISIS contrive, somehow, to be even nastier than Assad. Stalin v Hitler. We chose Stalin
Right now Assad is finished so the idea we should support him is rendered nonsense by the facts
Supporting Assad back then was impossible. See the docs I linked to earlier to see what his regime was - and is - like.
There are good reasons why so many regions - and ethnic groupings - in Syria rose up in 2011.
Supporting Stalin was morally impossible
Stalin was able to offer practical benefits for the allies even though he was a morally horrible option. By contrast Assad does not appear to be offering many practical benefits for his allies in the long term. So if this is about cold pragmatism and national self interest, are Russia and Iran getting bang for their buck?
The practical advantage of Assad is that he attacks the jihadists and keeps them from power in Damascus (or he did). He also used to run a fairly pluralist society - better for women, Christians etc - by the terrible standards of the region
Be honest, who here wasn’t quietly cheering when Assad backed by Putin was bombing the shit out of ISIS and cleansing them from the face of the earth?
I was. And I accept Assad is a brutal despot
Yup that's the truth of the matter, we backed the wrong horses in the Arab spring. We should have backed the dictators and propped them up for a bit against the protestors and revolutionaries until everything calmed down. We've literally seen the alternative path and that's been a disaster in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Nice guy that PBers think we should have propped up. This is just one of his prisons, though one of the more notorious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sednaya_Prison Sednaya Prison (Arabic: سجن صيدنايا Sajn Ṣaydnāyā), nicknamed the "Human Slaughterhouse"[a] is a military prison near Damascus in Syria operated by the Syrian government. The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilian detainees and anti-government rebels.[1][2] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that 30,000 detainees have perished in Sednaya from torture, ill-treatment and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War,[3] while Amnesty International estimated in February 2017 "that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015."
A former inmate of the prison who was detained for participating in a peaceful non-violent protest told Amnesty International that at Sednaya prisoners were forced to choose between dying themselves or killing one of their own relatives or friends. The former inmate also stated that in the first prison he was at, prisoners were also forced into cannibalism, but that prison was "heaven" compared to Sednaya Prison. According to the inmate, the other prison (Branch 215) was "to interrogate" (including through torture), but when that was done, you were moved to Sednaya "to die"...
Straw man. Not a single PBer is saying Assad is anything but an evil bastard. The question is: will his likely replacements be even worse?
It’s the choice between Stalin or Hitler. We chose to support Stalin, who was personally responsible for the torture and death of MILLIONS
Except it clearly isn't. He's a weak and useless leader, and any effort to prop him up is likely futile. All it would achieve is to extend a bloody conflict, and alienate whoever takes over.
You misconstrue me. I’m talking about those who argued we should have supported the Assad regime way back. I’m saying it is ARGUABLE - and it is - but only because ISIS contrive, somehow, to be even nastier than Assad. Stalin v Hitler. We chose Stalin
Right now Assad is finished so the idea we should support him is rendered nonsense by the facts
Supporting Assad back then was impossible. See the docs I linked to earlier to see what his regime was - and is - like.
There are good reasons why so many regions - and ethnic groupings - in Syria rose up in 2011.
Supporting Stalin was morally impossible
Stalin was able to offer practical benefits for the allies even though he was a morally horrible option. By contrast Assad does not appear to be offering many practical benefits for his allies in the long term. So if this is about cold pragmatism and national self interest, are Russia and Iran getting bang for their buck?
The practical advantage of Assad is that he attacks the jihadists and keeps them from power in Damascus (or he did). He also used to run a fairly pluralist society - better for women, Christians etc - by the terrible standards of the region
Be honest, who here wasn’t quietly cheering when Assad backed by Putin was bombing the shit out of ISIS and cleansing them from the face of the earth?
I was. And I accept Assad is a brutal despot
Assad works with the Jihadists. He's allies of Hezbollah.
It's not dictator versus Jihadists, it is Jihadists versus Jihadists.
Nice guy that PBers think we should have propped up. This is just one of his prisons, though one of the more notorious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sednaya_Prison Sednaya Prison (Arabic: سجن صيدنايا Sajn Ṣaydnāyā), nicknamed the "Human Slaughterhouse"[a] is a military prison near Damascus in Syria operated by the Syrian government. The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilian detainees and anti-government rebels.[1][2] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that 30,000 detainees have perished in Sednaya from torture, ill-treatment and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War,[3] while Amnesty International estimated in February 2017 "that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015."
A former inmate of the prison who was detained for participating in a peaceful non-violent protest told Amnesty International that at Sednaya prisoners were forced to choose between dying themselves or killing one of their own relatives or friends. The former inmate also stated that in the first prison he was at, prisoners were also forced into cannibalism, but that prison was "heaven" compared to Sednaya Prison. According to the inmate, the other prison (Branch 215) was "to interrogate" (including through torture), but when that was done, you were moved to Sednaya "to die"...
Straw man. Not a single PBer is saying Assad is anything but an evil bastard. The question is: will his likely replacements be even worse?
It’s the choice between Stalin or Hitler. We chose to support Stalin, who was personally responsible for the torture and death of MILLIONS
Except it clearly isn't. He's a weak and useless leader, and any effort to prop him up is likely futile. All it would achieve is to extend a bloody conflict, and alienate whoever takes over.
You misconstrue me. I’m talking about those who argued we should have supported the Assad regime way back. I’m saying it is ARGUABLE - and it is - but only because ISIS contrive, somehow, to be even nastier than Assad. Stalin v Hitler. We chose Stalin
Right now Assad is finished so the idea we should support him is rendered nonsense by the facts
Supporting Assad back then was impossible. See the docs I linked to earlier to see what his regime was - and is - like.
There are good reasons why so many regions - and ethnic groupings - in Syria rose up in 2011.
Supporting Stalin was morally impossible
Stalin was able to offer practical benefits for the allies even though he was a morally horrible option. By contrast Assad does not appear to be offering many practical benefits for his allies in the long term. So if this is about cold pragmatism and national self interest, are Russia and Iran getting bang for their buck?
The practical advantage of Assad is that he attacks the jihadists and keeps them from power in Damascus (or he did). He also used to run a fairly pluralist society - better for women, Christians etc - by the terrible standards of the region
Be honest, who here wasn’t quietly cheering when Assad backed by Putin was bombing the shit out of ISIS and cleansing them from the face of the earth?
I was. And I accept Assad is a brutal despot
I repeat:
". But the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad took the strategic decision to enable and facilitate the continued survival of the Islamic State in Syria in an effort to paint all of the Syrian opposition as “terrorists.” The Syrian government’s support included both passive support, such as deciding not to target ISIS positions, and active support, such as releasing terrorists from Syrian prisons and helping to bankroll ISIS by purchasing oil from ISIS and wheat from ISIS-controlled areas that ISIS was able to tax. In fact, Syrian government support for the terrorist network that morphed into ISIS goes back many years, to include support for foreign fighters traveling through Syria to join al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI, later the Islamic State in Iraq, ISI), making it the group’s earliest and most significant state sponsor."
Macron now speaking and dedicating the rebuilt cathedral to Catholics from France and the world
Something I've just learnt. Cathedrals in France are owned by the State, not the Church. Which means the State is responsible for their maintenance. Could be a solution for the cathedrals in the Church of England.
This is why churches and cathedrals in France have no noom. Indeed it was this observation that inspired my genius coinage of the term
For all its faults, because the C of E maintains churches etc as places of worship, they generally have a spiritual vibe - noom - this is not true in France
Mm. For my tastes, there is no noom in Catholic buildings. Far too try-too-hard. Very impressive, but doesn't invoke any spiritual awe. The noomiest religious buildings are tiny whitewashed kirks in the highlands with almost no ornamentation at all, or lonely chapels high in the Pennines. The CofE is at its noomiest with towers rising from wintry landscapes, possibly in the Fens.
BF reckons Jeremy Hunt has more chance of being next PM than Phillipson.
LOL.
I could see Hunt becoming Tory leader in the run up to the election if Kemi has made no impact and we're still below 30%.
It would need the MPs to panic and arrange another coronation - the members would never stand for him.
Hunt might actually be the best placed of the potential candidates to do a deal with Refuk - on the understanding that the Hunt-led Tories would concentrate on battling the Lib Dems in the Tory shires, whilst Refuk are given free reign in the red wall / left-behind areas.
Not sure he'd find that a particularly appealing prospect, though!
There are only 17 LibDem seats among the top 100 Conservative targets and likely a lot harder to gain.
The only viable strategy for the Conservatives is to reverse this year's losses to Labour.
And then gain some more from Labour.
We have a situation where the Conservatives could win Bolsover and still have fewer than 300 MPs.
Indeed, though Reform are more likely to win Bolsover and the other redwall seats now.
Badenoch has near zero chance of winning a Tory majority again next time, if she wins power it will mainly be via gaining soft Leave marginal seats held by Labour while Farage wins most hard Leave marginal seats held by Labour. Then the 2 doing a deal together to form a government in a hung parliament
The Conservatives will certainly not win a majority if they adopt any attitude of 'giving up' to Reform seats they won in 2019.
It is just reality, once Boris went (the only Tory most redwallers would ever vote for) the Tories will likely never win former safe Labour but strong Leave seats like Bolsover, Stoke, West Bromwich, Grimsby, Workington etc again.
Farage however might be able to take them
Quite remarkable that you're so willing to give up on constituencies which the Conservatives won in 2019 and were second this year.
Almost as remarkable as your faith in being able to form a stable, competent coalition with Farage's rabble of malcontents.
No, the Tories gave up those seats when they removed Boris, not me, I backed keeping Boris remember.
Those seats will never vote for a Tory other than Boris, that is reality, only Farage can win them for the right again now
Tell me do you think that the Conservatives can win Rother Valley, Doncaster East and Scunthorpe ?
How about Darlington, Redcar and Middlesbrough South ?
Or are they also added to the list of constituencies you want the Conservatives to give up on ?
No, even Cameron didn't win any of them, the Tories have also lost the bluewall seats Cameron won mainly to the LDs. So as I said only Reform gains in traditionally Labour redwall seats too will get the Tories back into power again
Rother Valley, hmm, but Doncaster East is the kind of seat that the Tories should be aspiring to win.
It is much changed from when it was part of the Red Wall.
There is an awful lot of housebuilding, development, not many miners and it is actually quite rural outside a couple of towns.
Nice guy that PBers think we should have propped up. This is just one of his prisons, though one of the more notorious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sednaya_Prison Sednaya Prison (Arabic: سجن صيدنايا Sajn Ṣaydnāyā), nicknamed the "Human Slaughterhouse"[a] is a military prison near Damascus in Syria operated by the Syrian government. The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilian detainees and anti-government rebels.[1][2] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that 30,000 detainees have perished in Sednaya from torture, ill-treatment and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War,[3] while Amnesty International estimated in February 2017 "that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015."
A former inmate of the prison who was detained for participating in a peaceful non-violent protest told Amnesty International that at Sednaya prisoners were forced to choose between dying themselves or killing one of their own relatives or friends. The former inmate also stated that in the first prison he was at, prisoners were also forced into cannibalism, but that prison was "heaven" compared to Sednaya Prison. According to the inmate, the other prison (Branch 215) was "to interrogate" (including through torture), but when that was done, you were moved to Sednaya "to die"...
Straw man. Not a single PBer is saying Assad is anything but an evil bastard. The question is: will his likely replacements be even worse?
It’s the choice between Stalin or Hitler. We chose to support Stalin, who was personally responsible for the torture and death of MILLIONS
Except it clearly isn't. He's a weak and useless leader, and any effort to prop him up is likely futile. All it would achieve is to extend a bloody conflict, and alienate whoever takes over.
You misconstrue me. I’m talking about those who argued we should have supported the Assad regime way back. I’m saying it is ARGUABLE - and it is - but only because ISIS contrive, somehow, to be even nastier than Assad. Stalin v Hitler. We chose Stalin
Right now Assad is finished so the idea we should support him is rendered nonsense by the facts
Supporting Assad back then was impossible. See the docs I linked to earlier to see what his regime was - and is - like.
There are good reasons why so many regions - and ethnic groupings - in Syria rose up in 2011.
Supporting Stalin was morally impossible
Stalin was able to offer practical benefits for the allies even though he was a morally horrible option. By contrast Assad does not appear to be offering many practical benefits for his allies in the long term. So if this is about cold pragmatism and national self interest, are Russia and Iran getting bang for their buck?
The practical advantage of Assad is that he attacks the jihadists and keeps them from power in Damascus (or he did). He also used to run a fairly pluralist society - better for women, Christians etc - by the terrible standards of the region
Be honest, who here wasn’t quietly cheering when Assad backed by Putin was bombing the shit out of ISIS and cleansing them from the face of the earth?
I was. And I accept Assad is a brutal despot
I repeat:
". But the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad took the strategic decision to enable and facilitate the continued survival of the Islamic State in Syria in an effort to paint all of the Syrian opposition as “terrorists.” The Syrian government’s support included both passive support, such as deciding not to target ISIS positions, and active support, such as releasing terrorists from Syrian prisons and helping to bankroll ISIS by purchasing oil from ISIS and wheat from ISIS-controlled areas that ISIS was able to tax. In fact, Syrian government support for the terrorist network that morphed into ISIS goes back many years, to include support for foreign fighters traveling through Syria to join al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI, later the Islamic State in Iraq, ISI), making it the group’s earliest and most significant state sponsor."
According to a report I have just read. If you marry your mother in.law you can dodge inheritance tax. The very idea is appalling to me.. there hss to be a better way.....
Nice guy that PBers think we should have propped up. This is just one of his prisons, though one of the more notorious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sednaya_Prison Sednaya Prison (Arabic: سجن صيدنايا Sajn Ṣaydnāyā), nicknamed the "Human Slaughterhouse"[a] is a military prison near Damascus in Syria operated by the Syrian government. The prison has been used to hold thousands of prisoners, both civilian detainees and anti-government rebels.[1][2] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated in January 2021 that 30,000 detainees have perished in Sednaya from torture, ill-treatment and mass executions since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War,[3] while Amnesty International estimated in February 2017 "that between 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed at Saydnaya between September 2011 and December 2015."
A former inmate of the prison who was detained for participating in a peaceful non-violent protest told Amnesty International that at Sednaya prisoners were forced to choose between dying themselves or killing one of their own relatives or friends. The former inmate also stated that in the first prison he was at, prisoners were also forced into cannibalism, but that prison was "heaven" compared to Sednaya Prison. According to the inmate, the other prison (Branch 215) was "to interrogate" (including through torture), but when that was done, you were moved to Sednaya "to die"...
Straw man. Not a single PBer is saying Assad is anything but an evil bastard. The question is: will his likely replacements be even worse?
It’s the choice between Stalin or Hitler. We chose to support Stalin, who was personally responsible for the torture and death of MILLIONS
Except it clearly isn't. He's a weak and useless leader, and any effort to prop him up is likely futile. All it would achieve is to extend a bloody conflict, and alienate whoever takes over.
You misconstrue me. I’m talking about those who argued we should have supported the Assad regime way back. I’m saying it is ARGUABLE - and it is - but only because ISIS contrive, somehow, to be even nastier than Assad. Stalin v Hitler. We chose Stalin
Right now Assad is finished so the idea we should support him is rendered nonsense by the facts
Supporting Assad back then was impossible. See the docs I linked to earlier to see what his regime was - and is - like.
There are good reasons why so many regions - and ethnic groupings - in Syria rose up in 2011.
Supporting Stalin was morally impossible
Stalin was able to offer practical benefits for the allies even though he was a morally horrible option. By contrast Assad does not appear to be offering many practical benefits for his allies in the long term. So if this is about cold pragmatism and national self interest, are Russia and Iran getting bang for their buck?
The practical advantage of Assad is that he attacks the jihadists and keeps them from power in Damascus (or he did). He also used to run a fairly pluralist society - better for women, Christians etc - by the terrible standards of the region
Be honest, who here wasn’t quietly cheering when Assad backed by Putin was bombing the shit out of ISIS and cleansing them from the face of the earth?
I was. And I accept Assad is a brutal despot
I repeat:
". But the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad took the strategic decision to enable and facilitate the continued survival of the Islamic State in Syria in an effort to paint all of the Syrian opposition as “terrorists.” The Syrian government’s support included both passive support, such as deciding not to target ISIS positions, and active support, such as releasing terrorists from Syrian prisons and helping to bankroll ISIS by purchasing oil from ISIS and wheat from ISIS-controlled areas that ISIS was able to tax. In fact, Syrian government support for the terrorist network that morphed into ISIS goes back many years, to include support for foreign fighters traveling through Syria to join al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI, later the Islamic State in Iraq, ISI), making it the group’s earliest and most significant state sponsor."
Macron now speaking and dedicating the rebuilt cathedral to Catholics from France and the world
Something I've just learnt. Cathedrals in France are owned by the State, not the Church. Which means the State is responsible for their maintenance. Could be a solution for the cathedrals in the Church of England.
This is why churches and cathedrals in France have no noom. Indeed it was this observation that inspired my genius coinage of the term
For all its faults, because the C of E maintains churches etc as places of worship, they generally have a spiritual vibe - noom - this is not true in France
Mm. For my tastes, there is no noom in Catholic buildings. Far too try-too-hard. Very impressive, but doesn't invoke any spiritual awe. The noomiest religious buildings are tiny whitewashed kirks in the highlands with almost no ornamentation at all, or lonely chapels high in the Pennines. The CofE is at its noomiest with towers rising from wintry landscapes, possibly in the Fens.
A somewhat sweeping statement! There are loads of noomy Catholic Churches - they tend to be the really old ones. Archaic. Or sometimes the really modern - corbusier’s priory of La Tourette is noomy
For a proper dose of noom st Stefano rotondo in Rome is fantastic. 5th century AD!
Jesus Christ there’s a horrific fashion in Cartagena for street hustlers to come up to you with a boombox and start aggressively rapping as some kind of “entertainment” which you are meant to enjoy - then pay for
Jesus Christ there’s a horrific fashion in Cartagena for street hustlers to come up to you with a boombox and start aggressively rapping as some kind of “entertainment” which you are meant to enjoy - then pay for
What are the Arab countries going to do about Syria? I don't imagine they like seeing the imperial powers battling it out.
Are Arab countries in any position to do anything about it?
Saudi Arabia has failed in its intervention in Yemen. Iraq has enough trouble of its own. Jordan seems to have stayed relatively stable in recent decades precisely by not getting involved in other countries troubles.
But worth keeping an eye on Jordan - which will be on the lists of extremist targets and, also in the problems department, in the nicest possible way doesn't especially want to be the home of a few million Palestinians seeking a homeland that isn't a pile of rubble.
Mutatis mutandis, also keep an eye on Egypt for the same reasons.
BTW not much sign yet of the Syrian moderates, LibDem community minded types who donate to their local hospice and put up hanging baskets that Cameron wanted us to back not so long ago.
Isn't it odd to be still playing out the aftermath of WWI 106 years after it ended.
The 'Syrian moderates' you were talking about where the original Free Syrian Army, which got devastated by Assad's troops and ISI/L in the year afterwards. AIUI many of the remnants are in the new FSA, which is allied to Turkey.
Miliband's treachery doomed them.
So let's say the FSA won, what would have stopped them being supplanted by ISIS? The idea that they were "moderate" is laughable. It was as much a rag tag bunch of jihadis and Islamists as this bunch.
The Arab spring was a disaster and we should have helped the dictators put it down, not egged it on.
The FSA was formed by deserters from Assad's military.
You are utterly clueless and immoral if you think supporting 'dictators' would have worked in the medium or long term, or would have helped us in the long run.
As Russia is just finding out.
I'm sorry, this is ridiculous. After what happened in Libya, Egypt and Iraq you think there would have been some kind of moderate revolution in Syria? The only way Egypt became "moderate" again was another dictator replacing the Islamists. You've seriously got your head in the clouds if you think that supporting the FSA would have resulted in anything different.
As for morals, what's more moral - allowing Islamists in power and watching these countries slowly become more like Iran and Afghanistan where non-Muslims and women become third class citizens and export terrorism to the west or supporting somewhat secular dictators who we can pay off when necessary.
I might suggest you read some of the links I gave below, as you seem pretty clueless about what was happening in Syria, and Assad's actions.
In the end we did nothing in Syria back in 2013, and this is where the country ended up. I'm darned sure that supporting Assad back then - after all his crimes - would not only have been reprehensible, but also very counter-productive. And it would also not have worked.
Assad has failed because his people were against him. And that was largely because he treated vast portions of his population terribly. Your view would just have mired us in, at best, Russia's situation in Afghanistan in 1979.
I think it's complete bollocks that the country was against Assad. The protests supporting Assad that took place frequently universally dwarved those that protested against him. There would have been no way he could have remained in power all this time without significant support.
What are the Arab countries going to do about Syria? I don't imagine they like seeing the imperial powers battling it out.
Are Arab countries in any position to do anything about it?
Saudi Arabia has failed in its intervention in Yemen. Iraq has enough trouble of its own. Jordan seems to have stayed relatively stable in recent decades precisely by not getting involved in other countries troubles.
But worth keeping an eye on Jordan - which will be on the lists of extremist targets and, also in the problems department, in the nicest possible way doesn't especially want to be the home of a few million Palestinians seeking a homeland that isn't a pile of rubble.
Mutatis mutandis, also keep an eye on Egypt for the same reasons.
BTW not much sign yet of the Syrian moderates, LibDem community minded types who donate to their local hospice and put up hanging baskets that Cameron wanted us to back not so long ago.
Isn't it odd to be still playing out the aftermath of WWI 106 years after it ended.
The 'Syrian moderates' you were talking about where the original Free Syrian Army, which got devastated by Assad's troops and ISI/L in the year afterwards. AIUI many of the remnants are in the new FSA, which is allied to Turkey.
Miliband's treachery doomed them.
So let's say the FSA won, what would have stopped them being supplanted by ISIS? The idea that they were "moderate" is laughable. It was as much a rag tag bunch of jihadis and Islamists as this bunch.
The Arab spring was a disaster and we should have helped the dictators put it down, not egged it on.
The FSA was formed by deserters from Assad's military.
You are utterly clueless and immoral if you think supporting 'dictators' would have worked in the medium or long term, or would have helped us in the long run.
As Russia is just finding out.
I'm sorry, this is ridiculous. After what happened in Libya, Egypt and Iraq you think there would have been some kind of moderate revolution in Syria? The only way Egypt became "moderate" again was another dictator replacing the Islamists. You've seriously got your head in the clouds if you think that supporting the FSA would have resulted in anything different.
As for morals, what's more moral - allowing Islamists in power and watching these countries slowly become more like Iran and Afghanistan where non-Muslims and women become third class citizens and export terrorism to the west or supporting somewhat secular dictators who we can pay off when necessary.
I might suggest you read some of the links I gave below, as you seem pretty clueless about what was happening in Syria, and Assad's actions.
In the end we did nothing in Syria back in 2013, and this is where the country ended up. I'm darned sure that supporting Assad back then - after all his crimes - would not only have been reprehensible, but also very counter-productive. And it would also not have worked.
Assad has failed because his people were against him. And that was largely because he treated vast portions of his population terribly. Your view would just have mired us in, at best, Russia's situation in Afghanistan in 1979.
I think it's complete bollocks that the country was against Assad. The protests supporting Assad that took place frequently dwarved those that protested against him. There would have been no way he could have remained in power all this time without significant support.
He has had significant support, yes, from your buddy Putin and Hezbollah and others.
He's part of an Axis of Evil between Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Russia and the fact his allies have all been pounded thanks to their own misadventures means he's missing that support today.
According to a report I have just read. If you marry your mother in.law you can dodge inheritance tax. The very idea is appalling to me.. there hss to be a better way.....
If that doesn't float your boat these days you can also marry your father in law instead.
What are the Arab countries going to do about Syria? I don't imagine they like seeing the imperial powers battling it out.
Are Arab countries in any position to do anything about it?
Saudi Arabia has failed in its intervention in Yemen. Iraq has enough trouble of its own. Jordan seems to have stayed relatively stable in recent decades precisely by not getting involved in other countries troubles.
But worth keeping an eye on Jordan - which will be on the lists of extremist targets and, also in the problems department, in the nicest possible way doesn't especially want to be the home of a few million Palestinians seeking a homeland that isn't a pile of rubble.
Mutatis mutandis, also keep an eye on Egypt for the same reasons.
BTW not much sign yet of the Syrian moderates, LibDem community minded types who donate to their local hospice and put up hanging baskets that Cameron wanted us to back not so long ago.
Isn't it odd to be still playing out the aftermath of WWI 106 years after it ended.
The 'Syrian moderates' you were talking about where the original Free Syrian Army, which got devastated by Assad's troops and ISI/L in the year afterwards. AIUI many of the remnants are in the new FSA, which is allied to Turkey.
Miliband's treachery doomed them.
So let's say the FSA won, what would have stopped them being supplanted by ISIS? The idea that they were "moderate" is laughable. It was as much a rag tag bunch of jihadis and Islamists as this bunch.
The Arab spring was a disaster and we should have helped the dictators put it down, not egged it on.
The FSA was formed by deserters from Assad's military.
You are utterly clueless and immoral if you think supporting 'dictators' would have worked in the medium or long term, or would have helped us in the long run.
As Russia is just finding out.
I'm sorry, this is ridiculous. After what happened in Libya, Egypt and Iraq you think there would have been some kind of moderate revolution in Syria? The only way Egypt became "moderate" again was another dictator replacing the Islamists. You've seriously got your head in the clouds if you think that supporting the FSA would have resulted in anything different.
As for morals, what's more moral - allowing Islamists in power and watching these countries slowly become more like Iran and Afghanistan where non-Muslims and women become third class citizens and export terrorism to the west or supporting somewhat secular dictators who we can pay off when necessary.
I might suggest you read some of the links I gave below, as you seem pretty clueless about what was happening in Syria, and Assad's actions.
In the end we did nothing in Syria back in 2013, and this is where the country ended up. I'm darned sure that supporting Assad back then - after all his crimes - would not only have been reprehensible, but also very counter-productive. And it would also not have worked.
Assad has failed because his people were against him. And that was largely because he treated vast portions of his population terribly. Your view would just have mired us in, at best, Russia's situation in Afghanistan in 1979.
I think it's complete bollocks that the country was against Assad. The protests supporting Assad that took place frequently universally dwarved those that protested against him. There would have been no way he could have remained in power all this time without significant support.
I think your view is complete bollocks as well, and based on (drumroll please - you guessed it!) Russian propaganda.
Hopefully you will agree that enough of the country was against him to prevent him from retaking the country, even with the help of Russia and Iran?
Also remember that Assad is an Alawite Muslim, and ruled in favour of Alawites. Alawites comprise less than 15% of Syria's population.
According to a report I have just read. If you marry your mother in.law you can dodge inheritance tax. The very idea is appalling to me.. there hss to be a better way.....
If that doesn't float your boat these days you can also marry your father in law instead.
What are the Arab countries going to do about Syria? I don't imagine they like seeing the imperial powers battling it out.
Are Arab countries in any position to do anything about it?
Saudi Arabia has failed in its intervention in Yemen. Iraq has enough trouble of its own. Jordan seems to have stayed relatively stable in recent decades precisely by not getting involved in other countries troubles.
But worth keeping an eye on Jordan - which will be on the lists of extremist targets and, also in the problems department, in the nicest possible way doesn't especially want to be the home of a few million Palestinians seeking a homeland that isn't a pile of rubble.
Mutatis mutandis, also keep an eye on Egypt for the same reasons.
BTW not much sign yet of the Syrian moderates, LibDem community minded types who donate to their local hospice and put up hanging baskets that Cameron wanted us to back not so long ago.
Isn't it odd to be still playing out the aftermath of WWI 106 years after it ended.
The 'Syrian moderates' you were talking about where the original Free Syrian Army, which got devastated by Assad's troops and ISI/L in the year afterwards. AIUI many of the remnants are in the new FSA, which is allied to Turkey.
Miliband's treachery doomed them.
So let's say the FSA won, what would have stopped them being supplanted by ISIS? The idea that they were "moderate" is laughable. It was as much a rag tag bunch of jihadis and Islamists as this bunch.
The Arab spring was a disaster and we should have helped the dictators put it down, not egged it on.
The FSA was formed by deserters from Assad's military.
You are utterly clueless and immoral if you think supporting 'dictators' would have worked in the medium or long term, or would have helped us in the long run.
As Russia is just finding out.
I'm sorry, this is ridiculous. After what happened in Libya, Egypt and Iraq you think there would have been some kind of moderate revolution in Syria? The only way Egypt became "moderate" again was another dictator replacing the Islamists. You've seriously got your head in the clouds if you think that supporting the FSA would have resulted in anything different.
As for morals, what's more moral - allowing Islamists in power and watching these countries slowly become more like Iran and Afghanistan where non-Muslims and women become third class citizens and export terrorism to the west or supporting somewhat secular dictators who we can pay off when necessary.
I might suggest you read some of the links I gave below, as you seem pretty clueless about what was happening in Syria, and Assad's actions.
In the end we did nothing in Syria back in 2013, and this is where the country ended up. I'm darned sure that supporting Assad back then - after all his crimes - would not only have been reprehensible, but also very counter-productive. And it would also not have worked.
Assad has failed because his people were against him. And that was largely because he treated vast portions of his population terribly. Your view would just have mired us in, at best, Russia's situation in Afghanistan in 1979.
I think it's complete bollocks that the country was against Assad. The protests supporting Assad that took place frequently universally dwarved those that protested against him. There would have been no way he could have remained in power all this time without significant support.
I think your view is complete bollocks as well, and based on (drumroll please - you guessed it!) Russian propaganda.
Hopefully you will agree that enough of the country was against him to prevent him from retaking the country, even with the help of Russia and Iran?
Also remember that Assad is an Alawite Muslim, and ruled in favour of Alawites. Alawites comprise less than 15% of Syria's population.
To paraphrase Mrs Merton what was it about Russia's ally Bashir Assad that first attracted @Luckyguy1983 to him?
According to a report I have just read. If you marry your mother in.law you can dodge inheritance tax. The very idea is appalling to me.. there hss to be a better way.....
If that doesn't float your boat these days you can also marry your father in law instead.
Macron now speaking and dedicating the rebuilt cathedral to Catholics from France and the world
Something I've just learnt. Cathedrals in France are owned by the State, not the Church. Which means the State is responsible for their maintenance. Could be a solution for the cathedrals in the Church of England.
This is why churches and cathedrals in France have no noom. Indeed it was this observation that inspired my genius coinage of the term
For all its faults, because the C of E maintains churches etc as places of worship, they generally have a spiritual vibe - noom - this is not true in France
Mm. For my tastes, there is no noom in Catholic buildings. Far too try-too-hard. Very impressive, but doesn't invoke any spiritual awe. The noomiest religious buildings are tiny whitewashed kirks in the highlands with almost no ornamentation at all, or lonely chapels high in the Pennines. The CofE is at its noomiest with towers rising from wintry landscapes, possibly in the Fens.
Also tiny Greek chapels on Greek islands, high up on mountains. Some Italian churches are in fact very spiritual places, in my own experience.
According to a report I have just read. If you marry your mother in.law you can dodge inheritance tax. The very idea is appalling to me.. there hss to be a better way.....
If that doesn't float your boat these days you can also marry your father in law instead.
Wouldn't that be bigamy?
I added "instead" to avoid confusion.
Either way it'd be bigamy surely to marry either your mother or father in law?
Macron now speaking and dedicating the rebuilt cathedral to Catholics from France and the world
Something I've just learnt. Cathedrals in France are owned by the State, not the Church. Which means the State is responsible for their maintenance. Could be a solution for the cathedrals in the Church of England.
This is why churches and cathedrals in France have no noom. Indeed it was this observation that inspired my genius coinage of the term
For all its faults, because the C of E maintains churches etc as places of worship, they generally have a spiritual vibe - noom - this is not true in France
Mm. For my tastes, there is no noom in Catholic buildings. Far too try-too-hard. Very impressive, but doesn't invoke any spiritual awe. The noomiest religious buildings are tiny whitewashed kirks in the highlands with almost no ornamentation at all, or lonely chapels high in the Pennines. The CofE is at its noomiest with towers rising from wintry landscapes, possibly in the Fens.
Also tiny Greek chapels on Greek islands, high up on mountains. Some Italian churches are in fact very spiritual places, in my own experience.
Like that one in Mama Mia? That was one hell of a noomy film.
It’s beautiful but the hassle and the rappers and the tourist tat overwhelms the beauty. Such a shame
It reminds me of marrakech in the 90s when the hassling there reached its peak. It was utterly unbearable. You got hassled every few metres. And it was aggressive and sometimes scary
In the end the government realised it was actually damaging if not destroying the tourist industry so they massively clamped down. It’s a lot better now - not perfect but way better
The Colombian government will need to do the same or their moneymaking tourist machine of Cartagena will cease to work
Jesus Christ there’s a horrific fashion in Cartagena for street hustlers to come up to you with a boombox and start aggressively rapping as some kind of “entertainment” which you are meant to enjoy - then pay for
lol. I have found the only way to avoid being hassled in Cartagena. Sit in the middle of large bunch of hookers all getting ready for an evening of business. I probably look like their aged pimp. But it’s working
First Forest victory at Old Trafford in thirty years.
When do the Amorim Out chants begin? 🤣
Didn't Forest win at Anfield too?
Yes, but not only are we first in the table but we haven't been through five successive Managers in the past decade (not even counting the caretakers) whom the fans have turned against each of them and demanded each of them to be sacked.
Jesus Christ there’s a horrific fashion in Cartagena for street hustlers to come up to you with a boombox and start aggressively rapping as some kind of “entertainment” which you are meant to enjoy - then pay for
Sounds awful.
In all my years of travel it’s the worst form of “street hassle” I’ve ever seen
According to a report I have just read. If you marry your mother in.law you can dodge inheritance tax. The very idea is appalling to me.. there hss to be a better way.....
Isn't the slight flaw that you have to divorce your wife in order to marry her mother?
Possibly this might adversely impact marital harmony.
According to a report I have just read. If you marry your mother in.law you can dodge inheritance tax. The very idea is appalling to me.. there hss to be a better way.....
Isn't the slight flaw that you have to divorce your wife in order to marry her mother?
Possibly this might adversely impact marital harmony.
And if you divorce your wife her mother is no longer your mother in law.
Coming up on three hours without power. Have finished assembling flatpak by iPhone light and have defected to Spoons to download some entertainment for what promises to be a cold night.
One of the rare times I wish I were rich - checking in to the finest hotel in town sounds pretty good to me right now.
I've stayed in an AirBnB in Southsea that looks like that. (Minus the palms).
Concrete + tiles like that looks good when its built but a) it will go out of fashion - asia is full of such buildings from the 70s covered in shades of yellow and brown; and b) its looks very bad if not kept clean.
I've stayed in an AirBnB in Southsea that looks like that. (Minus the palms).
Without wanting to distress the Islamaphobes on here, Islamic art can be sublime. I'm usually not in favour of vibrant colouring, but when matched with flowers and geometry, it can work really well.
lol. I have found the only way to avoid being hassled in Cartagena. Sit in the middle of large bunch of hookers all getting ready for an evening of business. I probably look like their aged pimp. But it’s working
Also an outside chance that the lassies will offer the poor old soul a freebie.
So did the French spend 10 years doing planning work to get this thing done? No, they just built it.
Same in Madrid with the metro expansion.
It is ridiculous things take so long here. SKS needs to get a grip on this or his entire premiership will be pointless.
Completely agreed.
I shan't be holding my breath that it won't be the latter though.
Frankly if he's going to be thrown out anyway, he may as well make the big changes and long term he'll be thought of better. He's got the majority for it.
There have been good moves, e.g. allowing M&S to re-build their store in Oxford Street has been pushed through by Rayner.
But this is all pointless stuff if wholesale change is not made. If SKS wants to be remembered for anything, he can be the one that killed NIMBYism. Actions, not words, Keir. Chop, chop.
Comments
In the olden days of a few years ago, the Tories could reliably win simply because Labour were worse. I think that is over for now. A real option is that the punters respond to a Labour epic fail (which it isn't yet) by decisively rejecting both Lab and Con. Just look at their collective polling score. Down from 80+% to about 53%.
The effect being a bigger defeat than what might have happened but it is only the scale of the defeat that is debateable.
Tell us under which alternate Conservative leader would the Conservatives have done better ?
Cut the anti Starmer bullcrap
He was not invited.
It doesn't take much for their to big swings the other way.
Miliband's treachery doomed them.
Right now Assad is finished so the idea we should support him is rendered nonsense by the facts
Harder to think of examples where it ended well.
10 dive boats in the Red Sea have sunk in the last 7 years. Fire alarms not working, slow rescue, within national waters so Egyptian safety regs etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZxf2p6V2Oo
There are good reasons why so many regions - and ethnic groupings - in Syria rose up in 2011.
Almost as remarkable as your faith in being able to form a stable, competent coalition with Farage's rabble of malcontents.
The Arab spring was a disaster and we should have helped the dictators put it down, not egged it on.
Those seats will never vote for a Tory other than Boris, that is reality, only Farage can win them for the right again now
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Syrian_Army
You are utterly clueless and immoral if you think supporting 'dictators' would have worked in the medium or long term, or would have helped us in the long run.
As Russia is just finding out.
How about Darlington, Redcar and Middlesbrough South ?
Or are they also added to the list of constituencies you want the Conservatives to give up on ?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/dec/07/cambridge-university-urged-to-apologise-over-jailing-of-thousands-of-evil-women-without-evidence-or-trial
Furthermore, there is absolutely no equivalence in the wickedness of a repressive dictator who does however support religious tolerance, the education of women, the ability of women to attend university, and a stable and livable society, with the wickedness of a bunch of headchopping islamist nutters, *let alone* ISIS.
To be clear: Assad and the Russians went after other 'rebel' groups much more than ISIS/L. In many areas, ISIS/L's presence *helped* Assad as they were fighting other rebels.
". But the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad took the strategic decision to enable and facilitate the continued survival
of the Islamic State in Syria in an effort to paint all of the Syrian opposition as “terrorists.” The Syrian government’s support included both passive support, such as deciding not to target ISIS positions, and active support, such as releasing terrorists from Syrian prisons and helping to bankroll ISIS by purchasing oil from ISIS and wheat from ISIS-controlled areas that ISIS was able to tax. In fact, Syrian government support for the terrorist network that morphed into ISIS goes back many years, to include support for foreign fighters traveling through Syria to join al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI, later the Islamic State in Iraq, ISI), making it the group’s earliest and most significant state sponsor."
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/4698
As for morals, what's more moral - allowing Islamists in power and watching these countries slowly become more like Iran and Afghanistan where non-Muslims and women become third class citizens and export terrorism to the west or supporting somewhat secular dictators who we can pay off when necessary.
For all its faults, because the C of E maintains churches etc as places of worship, they generally have a spiritual vibe - noom - this is not true in France
http://www.noom.com
"Dogs welcome on short leads."
I like it.
But don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. You keep on with this pretence that NI was cut "salting the earth" without a tax being raised to compensate, but income tax was raised by more than NI was cut. It was a net tax rise. It wasn't enough, but it was a step in the right direction.
To only look at the rates and not the thresholds is disingenuous.
Be honest, who here wasn’t quietly cheering when Assad backed by Putin was bombing the shit out of ISIS and cleansing them from the face of the earth?
I was. And I accept Assad is a brutal despot
But, and it is an important but, they remain under the control of congregations who value them. That is not true in France, where maintenance backlogs are often even more of a problem than in England.
It may be we go that way in the end, but it has its drawbacks as well as its advantages.
So Stalin was the only option vs Hitler.
In the next generation much of this will vanish without a change of policy.
Noom is essential, and the CoE is good at it. But it is not cheap.
Tides of History
@labour_history
·
9h
#OTD 1955. Clement Attlee steps down as Labour leader after 20 years in charge.
https://x.com/labour_history/status/1865327367092093345
Saddam was better than that. Assad was better than that. Gadaffi was better than that. Apartheid South Africa was better than that
In the end we did nothing in Syria back in 2013, and this is where the country ended up. I'm darned sure that supporting Assad back then - after all his crimes - would not only have been reprehensible, but also very counter-productive. And it would also not have worked.
Assad has failed because his people were against him. And that was largely because he treated vast portions of his population terribly. Your view would just have mired us in, at best, Russia's situation in Afghanistan in 1979.
It's not dictator versus Jihadists, it is Jihadists versus Jihadists.
Let the both die. If Assad is taken out, great.
". But the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad took the strategic decision to enable and facilitate the continued survival
of the Islamic State in Syria in an effort to paint all of the Syrian opposition as “terrorists.” The Syrian government’s support included both passive support, such as deciding not to target ISIS positions, and active support, such as releasing terrorists from Syrian prisons and helping to bankroll ISIS by purchasing oil from ISIS and wheat from ISIS-controlled areas that ISIS was able to tax. In fact, Syrian government support for the terrorist network that morphed into ISIS goes back many years, to include support for foreign fighters traveling through Syria to join al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI, later the Islamic State in Iraq, ISI), making it the group’s earliest and most significant state sponsor."
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/4698
Mm. For my tastes, there is no noom in
Catholic buildings. Far too try-too-hard.
Very impressive, but doesn't invoke any
spiritual awe. The noomiest religious buildings are tiny whitewashed kirks in
the highlands with almost no
ornamentation at all, or lonely chapels high in the Pennines. The CofE is at its
noomiest with towers rising from wintry
landscapes, possibly in the Fens.
It is much changed from when it was part of the Red Wall.
There is an awful lot of housebuilding, development, not many miners and it is actually quite rural outside a couple of towns.
Incidentally, such is the speed of the Assad collapse articles like this are already hopelessly outdated
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/will-the-syrian-civil-war-create-another-isis/
It was published noon today
The very idea is appalling to me.. there hss to be a better way.....
While aiding and abetting his Jihadist allies like Hezbollah.
Assad is not our friend, nor the enemy of Jihadists.
For a proper dose of noom st Stefano rotondo in Rome is fantastic. 5th century AD!
https://www.turismoroma.it/en/places/church-santo-stefano-rotondo-al-celio
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14168087/marry-mother-law-inheritance-tax.html
He's part of an Axis of Evil between Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Russia and the fact his allies have all been pounded thanks to their own misadventures means he's missing that support today.
https://x.com/sustainabletall/status/1864946550453252145
Hopefully you will agree that enough of the country was against him to prevent him from retaking the country, even with the help of Russia and Iran?
Also remember that Assad is an Alawite Muslim, and ruled in favour of Alawites. Alawites comprise less than 15% of Syria's population.
Skip Cartagena
Some Italian churches are in fact very
spiritual places, in my own experience.
When do the Amorim Out chants begin? 🤣
It reminds me of marrakech in the 90s when the hassling there reached its peak. It was utterly unbearable. You got hassled every few metres. And it was aggressive and sometimes scary
In the end the government realised it was actually damaging if not destroying the tourist industry so they massively clamped down. It’s a lot better now - not perfect but way better
The Colombian government will need to do the same or their moneymaking tourist machine of Cartagena will cease to work
Possibly this might adversely impact marital harmony.
I remain a master strategist."
https://x.com/DarthPutinKGB/status/1865445798265106567/photo/1
Marrying your MiL is illegal.
One of the rare times I wish I were rich - checking in to the finest hotel in town sounds pretty good to me right now.
Same in Madrid with the metro expansion.
It is ridiculous things take so long here. SKS needs to get a grip on this or his entire premiership will be pointless.
I shan't be holding my breath that it won't be the latter though.
There have been good moves, e.g. allowing M&S to re-build their store in Oxford Street has been pushed through by Rayner.
But this is all pointless stuff if wholesale change is not made. If SKS wants to be remembered for anything, he can be the one that killed NIMBYism. Actions, not words, Keir. Chop, chop.