The Russian withdrawal from Syria, makes the US withdrawal from Afghanistan look like it was well organised and brilliantly executed.
What a shame for Putin’s 21st Century Potemkin army.
I wouldn't celebrate too soon. Putin needs a win, fast, and the only place he can get it is Ukraine.
They are also struggling and a major Russian push could see a sudden collapse.
It would be a grim irony if the disaster Russia has suffered in the ME led to a mirror effect in Ukraine.
And an utter disaster if Syria falls to the jihadi rebels and Putin makes further incursions into Ukraine before Trump tries and imposes a peace deal
It's clear that in your mind, anyone who is not Christian is a Jihadi rebel...
Your takes on this situation have been truly awful.
The rebels are led by Al Qaeda linked militants and ISIS are beginning to make a resurgence too in parts of Syria as the rebels pushed against Assad's regime.
It is what Syria looks like this time next year or in 2030 that is significant, not some celebrations over statues falling this week
There are many rebel groups.
I'd say you're a fool, but you're now well into maliciousness.
Most with Al Qaeda or ISIS links, Syria may now become the biggest centre for jihadi terrorism in the world by far
HTS are the good bit of AQ apparently. They've got a HR Dept. and do a lot of work for charity.
The reason that Islamists have such popularity is because they do provide food, healthcare and education, while the Arab authoritarians simply embezzle and spend on secret police and prisons.
We really have got to the stage where our biggest dickheads are openly defending Islamists on here, dear God. 'Food, healthcare and education' - who would that education be for you moral vacuum - presumably not girls. I'd love you to move your family to the new Syria to enjoy all that 'food healthcare and education'. I'm sure you'd all have a super time.
Nope, not defending Islamists at all, just pointing out where they get their popular support.
The West defeated Communism after WW2 principle by creating working class prosperity. A growing economy, labour rights, affordable housing, access to higher education etc Communism is now history in the Far East for much the same reason too, de facto if not de sure.
The way to defeat Islamism lies in much the same way. If the average Palastinian, Syrian or Iraqi has a better way to a decent life then revolution won't appeal to them either.
The West seems to have forgotten this important lesson of history. If the state fails to look after it's people then revolutionaries gain influence, whether far right populists or the people cheerleading the murder of the United Health CEO.
The Broligarchs need to fear the Tumbrils as much as the middle Eastern "strongman" like Assad.
We - the west - need to offer hands of friendships to the rebel groups. Syria and its people desperately need help, and it is in our interests to give it. But any help we give groups should come with a mahoosive "play nicely" red card.
What is in 'our' interests? What should keep the red card in the pocket?
*) A stable Syria that is not in hock to Russia or Iran. *) Refugees flowing back into, and not out from, Syria. *) No home for ISIS/L or AQ. *) As little internal violence as possible (some is inevitable). *) Be better than Assad was.
Keep within those bounds, and we help them. I think Al-Jolani may understand this.
Abysmal apologia for violent islamic fundamentalism. 'As little internal violence as possible'. Lovely.
The other day you were justifying chemical weapons attacks as less nasty than conventional weapons.
Would you like to try some chlorine gas to compare? Just so you understand, the chlorine reacts with the water present on the surface of the lungs to produce Hydrochloric acid.
Due to a fucking idiot with some polyclay in a workshop, I have actual seen the result. And that was a mild one.
I simply do not fully understand the implications of the toppling of Assad, especially as it is reported Israel is actively bombing parts of Damascus and other military areas within Syria
I hope that removing Assad creates a better place for Syrians and the wider middle east unrest
I'd suggest that a stable Syria will not exist, any more than a stable Lebanon and perhaps Iraq, whilst larger players in the area - Russia, Iran, perhaps Turkey and Israel - use them as proxy battlefields to fight out their wars and bugger zones to defend their own interests.
I can't see a way ahead. I'd suggest the Netanyahu strategy is the same as in 1982 and 2006 - create a delay until next time.
The Government should embrace the fact it has pissed off a self-centred vested interest group that primarily didn't vote for it anyway and do the right things that for too long haven't been done for the country.
Planning reform so that young people can own their own home, even if it affects the views or property prices of landlords.
End the triple lock and link pensioners salaries to working people's salaries so that we really are "all in it together".
Merge NI and Income Tax so everyone pays the same tax rate regardless of whether they're working or not.
Labour should grasp the nettle and govern for people who are working for a living like their name implies.
NI should be ringfenced for state pensions, contributions based unemployment benefit and some social care funding.
Planning reform must not rip all over the greenbelt and also needs to go hand in hand with reduced immigration to cut demand
An excellent example of how the Tories are the servants of the elderly Home Counties voters. .
I think Greenbelt is overemphasised relative to other designations for preservation / conservation; it has too much head space so it is obsessed over.
Large areas of the country have little or no Greenbelt, but do have National Parks, AONBs, SPAs etc.
There's much brown belt or grey belt within Greenbelt, especially for example around London, and that should be used to allow growth - with a hefty premium of planning gain levy (probably most of it) to help fund Local Authorities more effectively. There is far too much sitting on green belt land for decades and decades for when it can be released. That's a bubble that we need to pop.
The Green Belt around London came about after British politicians visited Los Angeles and were horrified by its nondescript urban sprawl. And the concept is still cherished by people living in Outer London and the Inner Home Counties, who fear waking up one day to find their area turned into another Peckham.
Objectively, everyone knows that protecting the sites of former petrol stations and the like against worthwhile development is a nonsense. But every politician in those areas knows the enduring power of a ‘save the Green Belt’ campaign, and therein lies the problem.
It’s rather like social care. Everyone knows that the solution has to involve better off people using at least some of the equity from their property to pay for care - as many people are forced to do by the status quo. But as soon as any party makes this explicit, they offer their opponents a golden campaigning opportunity.
Bashar al-Asad has done many evil things, but he’s weak rather than wicked. His family members, Iran and especially Russia told him what to do, and he feebly did it. In person, I found him meek and anxious to please — the reverse of the traditional dictator.
Mr. al-Jolani, 42, is the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group once linked to Al Qaeda that has controlled most of Idlib Province, in northwestern Syria, for years during a long stalemate in the conflict.
“By far, he’s the most important player on the ground in Syria,” said Jerome Drevon, a senior analyst of jihad and modern conflict at the International Crisis Group
The Russian withdrawal from Syria, makes the US withdrawal from Afghanistan look like it was well organised and brilliantly executed.
What a shame for Putin’s 21st Century Potemkin army.
I wouldn't celebrate too soon. Putin needs a win, fast, and the only place he can get it is Ukraine.
They are also struggling and a major Russian push could see a sudden collapse.
It would be a grim irony if the disaster Russia has suffered in the ME led to a mirror effect in Ukraine.
And an utter disaster if Syria falls to the jihadi rebels and Putin makes further incursions into Ukraine before Trump tries and imposes a peace deal
It's clear that in your mind, anyone who is not Christian is a Jihadi rebel...
Your takes on this situation have been truly awful.
The rebels are led by Al Qaeda linked militants and ISIS are beginning to make a resurgence too in parts of Syria as the rebels pushed against Assad's regime.
It is what Syria looks like this time next year or in 2030 that is significant, not some celebrations over statues falling this week
There are many rebel groups.
I'd say you're a fool, but you're now well into maliciousness.
Most with Al Qaeda or ISIS links, Syria may now become the biggest centre for jihadi terrorism in the world by far
HTS are the good bit of AQ apparently. They've got a HR Dept. and do a lot of work for charity.
The reason that Islamists have such popularity is because they do provide food, healthcare and education, while the Arab authoritarians simply embezzle and spend on secret police and prisons.
We really have got to the stage where our biggest dickheads are openly defending Islamists on here, dear God. 'Food, healthcare and education' - who would that education be for you moral vacuum - presumably not girls. I'd love you to move your family to the new Syria to enjoy all that 'food healthcare and education'. I'm sure you'd all have a super time.
Nope, not defending Islamists at all, just pointing out where they get their popular support.
The West defeated Communism after WW2 principle by creating working class prosperity. A growing economy, labour rights, affordable housing, access to higher education etc Communism is now history in the Far East for much the same reason too, de facto if not de sure.
The way to defeat Islamism lies in much the same way. If the average Palastinian, Syrian or Iraqi has a better way to a decent life then revolution won't appeal to them either.
The West seems to have forgotten this important lesson of history. If the state fails to look after it's people then revolutionaries gain influence, whether far right populists or the people cheerleading the murder of the United Health CEO.
The Broligarchs need to fear the Tumbrils as much as the middle Eastern "strongman" like Assad.
We - the west - need to offer hands of friendships to the rebel groups. Syria and its people desperately need help, and it is in our interests to give it. But any help we give groups should come with a mahoosive "play nicely" red card.
What is in 'our' interests? What should keep the red card in the pocket?
*) A stable Syria that is not in hock to Russia or Iran. *) Refugees flowing back into, and not out from, Syria. *) No home for ISIS/L or AQ. *) As little internal violence as possible (some is inevitable). *) Be better than Assad was.
Keep within those bounds, and we help them. I think Al-Jolani may understand this.
Abysmal apologia for violent islamic fundamentalism. 'As little internal violence as possible'. Lovely.
The other day you were justifying chemical weapons attacks as less nasty than conventional weapons.
Would you like to try some chlorine gas to compare? Just so you understand, the chlorine reacts with the water present on the surface of the lungs to produce Hydrochloric acid.
Due to a fucking idiot with some polyclay in a workshop, I have actual seen the result. And that was a mild one.
Can pop round anytime, if you’d care for a dose?
I said that if I was trapped in a building with insurgents that I'd prefer for the authorities to use a chlorine bomb on it than blow it up. It's not a tempting menu to be sure, but I think I'd take my chances with chlorine inhalation than be blown to bits, Gaza style. Which would you prefer?
The Government should embrace the fact it has pissed off a self-centred vested interest group that primarily didn't vote for it anyway and do the right things that for too long haven't been done for the country.
Planning reform so that young people can own their own home, even if it affects the views or property prices of landlords.
End the triple lock and link pensioners salaries to working people's salaries so that we really are "all in it together".
Merge NI and Income Tax so everyone pays the same tax rate regardless of whether they're working or not.
Labour should grasp the nettle and govern for people who are working for a living like their name implies.
NI should be ringfenced for state pensions, contributions based unemployment benefit and some social care funding.
Planning reform must not rip all over the greenbelt and also needs to go hand in hand with reduced immigration to cut demand
An excellent example of how the Tories are the servants of the elderly Home Counties voters. .
I think Greenbelt is overemphasised relative to other designations for preservation / conservation; it has too much head space so it is obsessed over.
Large areas of the country have little or no Greenbelt, but do have National Parks, AONBs, SPAs etc.
There's much brown belt or grey belt within Greenbelt, especially for example around London, and that should be used to allow growth - with a hefty premium of planning gain levy (probably most of it) to help fund Local Authorities more effectively. There is far too much sitting on green belt land for decades and decades for when it can be released. That's a bubble that we need to pop.
The Green Belt around London came about after British politicians visited Los Angeles and were horrified by its nondescript urban sprawl. And the concept is still cherished by people living in Outer London and the Inner Home Counties, who fear waking up one day to find their area turned into another piece of inner London.
Objectively, everyone knows that protecting the sites of former petrol stations and the like against worthwhile development is a nonsense. But every politician in those areas knows the enduring power of a ‘save the Green Belt’ campaign, and therein lies the problem.
It’s rather like social care. Everyone knows that the solution has to involve better off people using at least some of the equity from their property to pay for care - as many people are forced to do by the status quo. But as soon as any party makes this explicit, they offer their opponents a golden campaigning opportunity.
That's fair comment, and brings it back to there only being an opportunity got such change in political cycles in the first 1-2 years of likely 2 term Governments to change the guiderails - when there is at least a driver behind it, the chance that sufficient benefits will accrue, and some time for the change to bed in.
The Government should embrace the fact it has pissed off a self-centred vested interest group that primarily didn't vote for it anyway and do the right things that for too long haven't been done for the country.
Planning reform so that young people can own their own home, even if it affects the views or property prices of landlords.
End the triple lock and link pensioners salaries to working people's salaries so that we really are "all in it together".
Merge NI and Income Tax so everyone pays the same tax rate regardless of whether they're working or not.
Labour should grasp the nettle and govern for people who are working for a living like their name implies.
NI should be ringfenced for state pensions, contributions based unemployment benefit and some social care funding.
Planning reform must not rip all over the greenbelt and also needs to go hand in hand with reduced immigration to cut demand
An excellent example of how the Tories are the servants of the elderly Home Counties voters. .
I think Greenbelt is overemphasised relative to other designations for preservation / conservation; it has too much head space so it is obsessed over.
Large areas of the country have little or no Greenbelt, but do have National Parks, AONBs, SPAs etc.
There's much brown belt or grey belt within Greenbelt, especially for example around London, and that should be used to allow growth - with a hefty premium of planning gain levy (probably most of it) to help fund Local Authorities more effectively. There is far too much sitting on green belt land for decades and decades for when it can be released. That's a bubble that we need to pop.
The Green Belt around London came about after British politicians visited Los Angeles and were horrified by its nondescript urban sprawl. And the concept is still cherished by people living in Outer London and the Inner Home Counties, who fear waking up one day to find their area turned into another Peckham.
Objectively, everyone knows that protecting the sites of former petrol stations and the like against worthwhile development is a nonsense. But every politician in those areas knows the enduring power of a ‘save the Green Belt’ campaign, and therein lies the problem.
It’s rather like social care. Everyone knows that the solution has to involve better off people using at least some of the equity from their property to pay for care - as many people are forced to do by the status quo. But as soon as any party makes this explicit, they offer their opponents a golden campaigning opportunity.
That's the problem, urban sprawl is a very good thing.
Sprawl enables far more people to have somewhere to live of their own.
Pulling up the drawbridge and saying the boundary is here and no further is fine if you have no population changes and everyone already has somewhere to live of their own. Neither of those is the case.
Preventing sprawl in these circumstances isn't just wrong, it's hateful.
The trouble is that people have become fixated on ‘planning’ and local democracy being the obstacle, whereas in reality our planning system is well down the list of reasons why we’re not building more homes.
Similarly, our dysfunctional property market arises from a whole stack of mostly financial and legislative weaknesses, including our relatively minimal tax on holding property, low interest rates, and comparative wide-openness to foreign criminals investors buying up UK property, whereas it’s so much easier for politicians to think that simply building more homes will resolve the problem.
The Russian withdrawal from Syria, makes the US withdrawal from Afghanistan look like it was well organised and brilliantly executed.
What a shame for Putin’s 21st Century Potemkin army.
I wouldn't celebrate too soon. Putin needs a win, fast, and the only place he can get it is Ukraine.
They are also struggling and a major Russian push could see a sudden collapse.
It would be a grim irony if the disaster Russia has suffered in the ME led to a mirror effect in Ukraine.
And an utter disaster if Syria falls to the jihadi rebels and Putin makes further incursions into Ukraine before Trump tries and imposes a peace deal
It's clear that in your mind, anyone who is not Christian is a Jihadi rebel...
Your takes on this situation have been truly awful.
The rebels are led by Al Qaeda linked militants and ISIS are beginning to make a resurgence too in parts of Syria as the rebels pushed against Assad's regime.
It is what Syria looks like this time next year or in 2030 that is significant, not some celebrations over statues falling this week
There are many rebel groups.
I'd say you're a fool, but you're now well into maliciousness.
Most with Al Qaeda or ISIS links, Syria may now become the biggest centre for jihadi terrorism in the world by far
HTS are the good bit of AQ apparently. They've got a HR Dept. and do a lot of work for charity.
The reason that Islamists have such popularity is because they do provide food, healthcare and education, while the Arab authoritarians simply embezzle and spend on secret police and prisons.
We really have got to the stage where our biggest dickheads are openly defending Islamists on here, dear God. 'Food, healthcare and education' - who would that education be for you moral vacuum - presumably not girls. I'd love you to move your family to the new Syria to enjoy all that 'food healthcare and education'. I'm sure you'd all have a super time.
Nope, not defending Islamists at all, just pointing out where they get their popular support.
The West defeated Communism after WW2 principle by creating working class prosperity. A growing economy, labour rights, affordable housing, access to higher education etc Communism is now history in the Far East for much the same reason too, de facto if not de sure.
The way to defeat Islamism lies in much the same way. If the average Palastinian, Syrian or Iraqi has a better way to a decent life then revolution won't appeal to them either.
The West seems to have forgotten this important lesson of history. If the state fails to look after it's people then revolutionaries gain influence, whether far right populists or the people cheerleading the murder of the United Health CEO.
The Broligarchs need to fear the Tumbrils as much as the middle Eastern "strongman" like Assad.
We - the west - need to offer hands of friendships to the rebel groups. Syria and its people desperately need help, and it is in our interests to give it. But any help we give groups should come with a mahoosive "play nicely" red card.
What is in 'our' interests? What should keep the red card in the pocket?
*) A stable Syria that is not in hock to Russia or Iran. *) Refugees flowing back into, and not out from, Syria. *) No home for ISIS/L or AQ. *) As little internal violence as possible (some is inevitable). *) Be better than Assad was.
Keep within those bounds, and we help them. I think Al-Jolani may understand this.
Abysmal apologia for violent islamic fundamentalism. 'As little internal violence as possible'. Lovely.
It's a hope, not a prediction or an apologia..
For context, Assad's siege of Aleppo took years, killed heaven knows how many, but certainly tens of thousands of civilians, indiscriminately - and directly drive millions into exile.
The revolt, as you seem to have forgotten, was sparked by the very public murder of an eleven year old by his security forces.
Nothing the west could, or would have done is likely to have changed any of that. Syrians had just had enough of being brutalised by a regime representing a seventh of their population.
A reminder that there are great swathes of derelict/vacant land available for development. Just look at Glasgow - masses of space right next to the city centre. Even Edinburgh has large chunks in the north.
We just need to give councils the power and financing options to use them:
The trouble is that people have become fixated on ‘planning’ and local democracy being the obstacle, whereas in reality our planning system is well down the list of reasons why we’re not building more homes.
Similarly, our dysfunctional property market arises from a whole stack of mostly financial and legislative weaknesses, including our relatively minimal tax on holding property, low interest rates, and comparative wide-openness to foreign criminals investors buying up UK property, whereas it’s so much easier for politicians to think that simply building more homes will resolve the problem.
Our planning system is top of the list why we aren't building enough houses.
It hands development power to an oligopoly of developers that can get permission as all other competition is effectively obstructed.
The Russian withdrawal from Syria, makes the US withdrawal from Afghanistan look like it was well organised and brilliantly executed.
What a shame for Putin’s 21st Century Potemkin army.
I wouldn't celebrate too soon. Putin needs a win, fast, and the only place he can get it is Ukraine.
They are also struggling and a major Russian push could see a sudden collapse.
It would be a grim irony if the disaster Russia has suffered in the ME led to a mirror effect in Ukraine.
And an utter disaster if Syria falls to the jihadi rebels and Putin makes further incursions into Ukraine before Trump tries and imposes a peace deal
It's clear that in your mind, anyone who is not Christian is a Jihadi rebel...
Your takes on this situation have been truly awful.
The rebels are led by Al Qaeda linked militants and ISIS are beginning to make a resurgence too in parts of Syria as the rebels pushed against Assad's regime.
It is what Syria looks like this time next year or in 2030 that is significant, not some celebrations over statues falling this week
There are many rebel groups.
I'd say you're a fool, but you're now well into maliciousness.
Most with Al Qaeda or ISIS links, Syria may now become the biggest centre for jihadi terrorism in the world by far
HTS are the good bit of AQ apparently. They've got a HR Dept. and do a lot of work for charity.
The reason that Islamists have such popularity is because they do provide food, healthcare and education, while the Arab authoritarians simply embezzle and spend on secret police and prisons.
We really have got to the stage where our biggest dickheads are openly defending Islamists on here, dear God. 'Food, healthcare and education' - who would that education be for you moral vacuum - presumably not girls. I'd love you to move your family to the new Syria to enjoy all that 'food healthcare and education'. I'm sure you'd all have a super time.
Nope, not defending Islamists at all, just pointing out where they get their popular support.
The West defeated Communism after WW2 principle by creating working class prosperity. A growing economy, labour rights, affordable housing, access to higher education etc Communism is now history in the Far East for much the same reason too, de facto if not de sure.
The way to defeat Islamism lies in much the same way. If the average Palastinian, Syrian or Iraqi has a better way to a decent life then revolution won't appeal to them either.
The West seems to have forgotten this important lesson of history. If the state fails to look after it's people then revolutionaries gain influence, whether far right populists or the people cheerleading the murder of the United Health CEO.
The Broligarchs need to fear the Tumbrils as much as the middle Eastern "strongman" like Assad.
Indeed. Since the defeat of communism and hence the loss of any alternative economic model to rival the oligarchic-capitalism the world now enjoys, it is pretty clear that the benefits of economic growth have accrued mostly to the small group of already super-wealthy, undoing the progress toward relative egalitarianism and meritocracy ushered in by the two world wars. Our politics has been captured by those with money, and since the media is also mostly controlled by those with money, the reality of the situation doesn’t get very much scrutiny.
And the kind of "open borders experiment" that we've seen in various forms across the West is what resulted from that elite capture. The dogma of expanding the "four freedoms" to cover as much of the world as possible is at the root of the problem.
The Russian withdrawal from Syria, makes the US withdrawal from Afghanistan look like it was well organised and brilliantly executed.
What a shame for Putin’s 21st Century Potemkin army.
I wouldn't celebrate too soon. Putin needs a win, fast, and the only place he can get it is Ukraine.
They are also struggling and a major Russian push could see a sudden collapse.
It would be a grim irony if the disaster Russia has suffered in the ME led to a mirror effect in Ukraine.
And an utter disaster if Syria falls to the jihadi rebels and Putin makes further incursions into Ukraine before Trump tries and imposes a peace deal
It's clear that in your mind, anyone who is not Christian is a Jihadi rebel...
Your takes on this situation have been truly awful.
The rebels are led by Al Qaeda linked militants and ISIS are beginning to make a resurgence too in parts of Syria as the rebels pushed against Assad's regime.
It is what Syria looks like this time next year or in 2030 that is significant, not some celebrations over statues falling this week
There are many rebel groups.
I'd say you're a fool, but you're now well into maliciousness.
Most with Al Qaeda or ISIS links, Syria may now become the biggest centre for jihadi terrorism in the world by far
HTS are the good bit of AQ apparently. They've got a HR Dept. and do a lot of work for charity.
The reason that Islamists have such popularity is because they do provide food, healthcare and education, while the Arab authoritarians simply embezzle and spend on secret police and prisons.
We really have got to the stage where our biggest dickheads are openly defending Islamists on here, dear God. 'Food, healthcare and education' - who would that education be for you moral vacuum - presumably not girls. I'd love you to move your family to the new Syria to enjoy all that 'food healthcare and education'. I'm sure you'd all have a super time.
Nope, not defending Islamists at all, just pointing out where they get their popular support.
The West defeated Communism after WW2 principle by creating working class prosperity. A growing economy, labour rights, affordable housing, access to higher education etc Communism is now history in the Far East for much the same reason too, de facto if not de sure.
The way to defeat Islamism lies in much the same way. If the average Palastinian, Syrian or Iraqi has a better way to a decent life then revolution won't appeal to them either.
The West seems to have forgotten this important lesson of history. If the state fails to look after it's people then revolutionaries gain influence, whether far right populists or the people cheerleading the murder of the United Health CEO.
The Broligarchs need to fear the Tumbrils as much as the middle Eastern "strongman" like Assad.
We - the west - need to offer hands of friendships to the rebel groups. Syria and its people desperately need help, and it is in our interests to give it. But any help we give groups should come with a mahoosive "play nicely" red card.
What is in 'our' interests? What should keep the red card in the pocket?
*) A stable Syria that is not in hock to Russia or Iran. *) Refugees flowing back into, and not out from, Syria. *) No home for ISIS/L or AQ. *) As little internal violence as possible (some is inevitable). *) Be better than Assad was.
Keep within those bounds, and we help them. I think Al-Jolani may understand this.
Abysmal apologia for violent islamic fundamentalism. 'As little internal violence as possible'. Lovely.
It's a hope, not a prediction or an apologia..
For context, Assad's siege of Aleppo took years, killed heaven knows how many, but certainly tens of thousands of civilians, indiscriminately - and directly drive millions into exile.
The revolt, as you seem to have forgotten, was sparked by the very public murder of an eleven year old by his security forces.
Nothing the west could, or would have done is likely to have changed any of that. Syrians had just had enough of being brutalised by a regime representing a seventh of their population.
It is grimly hilarious the lows which you'll stoop to defend this Islamist takeover. Now it's 'representing a seventh of their population' - because he came from a monority sect? What freedoms to follow their religion were denied to the Sunni majority? You would foam at the mouth if anyone tried to make that sort of blood and soil point about British politics.
The trouble is that people have become fixated on ‘planning’ and local democracy being the obstacle, whereas in reality our planning system is well down the list of reasons why we’re not building more homes.
Similarly, our dysfunctional property market arises from a whole stack of mostly financial and legislative weaknesses, including our relatively minimal tax on holding property, low interest rates, and comparative wide-openness to foreign criminals investors buying up UK property, whereas it’s so much easier for politicians to think that simply building more homes will resolve the problem.
Not sure I agree.
The MNOs stand ready to build masts but they keep getting rejected.
WHP applied for something like 10,000 installations over the last four years and half got rejected.
The Government should embrace the fact it has pissed off a self-centred vested interest group that primarily didn't vote for it anyway and do the right things that for too long haven't been done for the country.
Planning reform so that young people can own their own home, even if it affects the views or property prices of landlords.
End the triple lock and link pensioners salaries to working people's salaries so that we really are "all in it together".
Merge NI and Income Tax so everyone pays the same tax rate regardless of whether they're working or not.
Labour should grasp the nettle and govern for people who are working for a living like their name implies.
NI should be ringfenced for state pensions, contributions based unemployment benefit and some social care funding.
Planning reform must not rip all over the greenbelt and also needs to go hand in hand with reduced immigration to cut demand
An excellent example of how the Tories are the servants of the elderly Home Counties voters. .
I think Greenbelt is overemphasised relative to other designations for preservation / conservation; it has too much head space so it is obsessed over.
Large areas of the country have little or no Greenbelt, but do have National Parks, AONBs, SPAs etc.
There's much brown belt or grey belt within Greenbelt, especially for example around London, and that should be used to allow growth - with a hefty premium of planning gain levy (probably most of it) to help fund Local Authorities more effectively. There is far too much sitting on green belt land for decades and decades for when it can be released. That's a bubble that we need to pop.
The Green Belt around London came about after British politicians visited Los Angeles and were horrified by its nondescript urban sprawl. And the concept is still cherished by people living in Outer London and the Inner Home Counties, who fear waking up one day to find their area turned into another Peckham.
Objectively, everyone knows that protecting the sites of former petrol stations and the like against worthwhile development is a nonsense. But every politician in those areas knows the enduring power of a ‘save the Green Belt’ campaign, and therein lies the problem.
It’s rather like social care. Everyone knows that the solution has to involve better off people using at least some of the equity from their property to pay for care - as many people are forced to do by the status quo. But as soon as any party makes this explicit, they offer their opponents a golden campaigning opportunity.
That's the problem, urban sprawl is a very good thing.
Sprawl enables far more people to have somewhere to live of their own.
Pulling up the drawbridge and saying the boundary is here and no further is fine if you have no population changes and everyone already has somewhere to live of their own. Neither of those is the case.
Preventing sprawl in these circumstances isn't just wrong, it's hateful.
No, really it doesn’t. Draw a radius around any major European city, and there will be a million or more living within it. You simply can’t do that in the US, away from NYC which is on an island. Urban sprawl, and the car-dependent culture it requires, is the problem.
A sensible policy is to review and reconfigure the Green Belt provisions to enable the development of obviously already-‘spoiled’ land.
The problem with our politics is that the most simplistic messages often carry the most appeal, for the majority of voters who aren’t paying all that much attention.
I simply do not fully understand the implications of the toppling of Assad, especially as it is reported Israel is actively bombing parts of Damascus and other military areas within Syria
I hope that removing Assad creates a better place for Syrians and the wider middle east unrest
Hope maybe, expect probably not. Especially if it ends up the AQ linked rebels and ISIS who fill the gap now Assad has gone
Assad directly supported Islamist terrorists like Hezbollah so there's no qualitative difference between him and ISIS.
Apart from AQ and ISIS have actively supported terrorist attacks in western cities and Hezbollah haven't, only attacks on Israel (not that they are much better either)
The trouble is that people have become fixated on ‘planning’ and local democracy being the obstacle, whereas in reality our planning system is well down the list of reasons why we’re not building more homes.
Similarly, our dysfunctional property market arises from a whole stack of mostly financial and legislative weaknesses, including our relatively minimal tax on holding property, low interest rates, and comparative wide-openness to foreign criminals investors buying up UK property, whereas it’s so much easier for politicians to think that simply building more homes will resolve the problem.
Our planning system is top of the list why we aren't building enough houses.
It hands development power to an oligopoly of developers that can get permission as all other competition is effectively obstructed.
Building more homes will resolve the problem.
What happened when the Tories tried to do something about it like reforming Nutrient Neutrality requirements. Labour, and others, opposed them for the sake of opposing.
The very people these changes would have helped opposed it because, Tories, innit.
A reminder that there are great swathes of derelict/vacant land available for development. Just look at Glasgow - masses of space right next to the city centre. Even Edinburgh has large chunks in the north.
We just need to give councils the power and financing options to use them:
Attended a planning meeting on Tuesday. Leicestershire County Council wanted to reduce percentage of "affordable" homes on a site already agreed by the planning authority from 40% to 10% to make a 2,750 home site viable. [The development will actually never be viable IMHO]. When asked how if replace small affordable homes with 4 and 5 bedroom ones they can still fit 2,750 home on the land allocated, Council representative said "Oh,2,750 homes is a maximum".
Getting developers -in this case the County Council - to actually build anything is like pushing on string.
There seem to be strange politics going on there. Looking at the coverage, a couple of local pols are demanding a "Government Review" after the District Council granted planning permission. Once PP is granted I think the Government has no power to review.
It would need to be a High Court challenge or Judicial Review by the opponents, on objective legal or process grounds.
I'd say that logistics is a strange area to drive as a development focus, as it is relatively low on employment for the scale of development. We have the same thing up here in North Notts - mega warehouses that do not provide *that* much local benefit.
A reminder that there are great swathes of derelict/vacant land available for development. Just look at Glasgow - masses of space right next to the city centre. Even Edinburgh has large chunks in the north.
We just need to give councils the power and financing options to use them:
The Government should embrace the fact it has pissed off a self-centred vested interest group that primarily didn't vote for it anyway and do the right things that for too long haven't been done for the country.
Planning reform so that young people can own their own home, even if it affects the views or property prices of landlords.
End the triple lock and link pensioners salaries to working people's salaries so that we really are "all in it together".
Merge NI and Income Tax so everyone pays the same tax rate regardless of whether they're working or not.
Labour should grasp the nettle and govern for people who are working for a living like their name implies.
NI should be ringfenced for state pensions, contributions based unemployment benefit and some social care funding.
Planning reform must not rip all over the greenbelt and also needs to go hand in hand with reduced immigration to cut demand
An excellent example of how the Tories are the servants of the elderly Home Counties voters. .
I think Greenbelt is overemphasised relative to other designations for preservation / conservation; it has too much head space so it is obsessed over.
Large areas of the country have little or no Greenbelt, but do have National Parks, AONBs, SPAs etc.
There's much brown belt or grey belt within Greenbelt, especially for example around London, and that should be used to allow growth - with a hefty premium of planning gain levy (probably most of it) to help fund Local Authorities more effectively. There is far too much sitting on green belt land for decades and decades for when it can be released. That's a bubble that we need to pop.
The Green Belt around London came about after British politicians visited Los Angeles and were horrified by its nondescript urban sprawl. And the concept is still cherished by people living in Outer London and the Inner Home Counties, who fear waking up one day to find their area turned into another Peckham.
Objectively, everyone knows that protecting the sites of former petrol stations and the like against worthwhile development is a nonsense. But every politician in those areas knows the enduring power of a ‘save the Green Belt’ campaign, and therein lies the problem.
It’s rather like social care. Everyone knows that the solution has to involve better off people using at least some of the equity from their property to pay for care - as many people are forced to do by the status quo. But as soon as any party makes this explicit, they offer their opponents a golden campaigning opportunity.
That's the problem, urban sprawl is a very good thing.
Sprawl enables far more people to have somewhere to live of their own.
Pulling up the drawbridge and saying the boundary is here and no further is fine if you have no population changes and everyone already has somewhere to live of their own. Neither of those is the case.
Preventing sprawl in these circumstances isn't just wrong, it's hateful.
No, really it doesn’t. Draw a radius around any major European city, and there will be a million or more living within it. You simply can’t do that in the US, away from NYC which is on an island. Urban sprawl, and the car-dependent culture it requires, is the problem.
A sensible policy is to review and reconfigure the Green Belt provisions to enable the development of obviously already-‘spoiled’ land.
The problem with our politics is that the most simplistic messages often carry the most appeal, for the majority of voters who aren’t paying all that much attention.
It's also more expensive to build and more expensive to run, per person housed.
The Russian withdrawal from Syria, makes the US withdrawal from Afghanistan look like it was well organised and brilliantly executed.
What a shame for Putin’s 21st Century Potemkin army.
I wouldn't celebrate too soon. Putin needs a win, fast, and the only place he can get it is Ukraine.
They are also struggling and a major Russian push could see a sudden collapse.
It would be a grim irony if the disaster Russia has suffered in the ME led to a mirror effect in Ukraine.
And an utter disaster if Syria falls to the jihadi rebels and Putin makes further incursions into Ukraine before Trump tries and imposes a peace deal
It's clear that in your mind, anyone who is not Christian is a Jihadi rebel...
Your takes on this situation have been truly awful.
The rebels are led by Al Qaeda linked militants and ISIS are beginning to make a resurgence too in parts of Syria as the rebels pushed against Assad's regime.
It is what Syria looks like this time next year or in 2030 that is significant, not some celebrations over statues falling this week
There are many rebel groups.
I'd say you're a fool, but you're now well into maliciousness.
Most with Al Qaeda or ISIS links, Syria may now become the biggest centre for jihadi terrorism in the world by far
HTS are the good bit of AQ apparently. They've got a HR Dept. and do a lot of work for charity.
The reason that Islamists have such popularity is because they do provide food, healthcare and education, while the Arab authoritarians simply embezzle and spend on secret police and prisons.
We really have got to the stage where our biggest dickheads are openly defending Islamists on here, dear God. 'Food, healthcare and education' - who would that education be for you moral vacuum - presumably not girls. I'd love you to move your family to the new Syria to enjoy all that 'food healthcare and education'. I'm sure you'd all have a super time.
Nope, not defending Islamists at all, just pointing out where they get their popular support.
The West defeated Communism after WW2 principle by creating working class prosperity. A growing economy, labour rights, affordable housing, access to higher education etc Communism is now history in the Far East for much the same reason too, de facto if not de sure.
The way to defeat Islamism lies in much the same way. If the average Palastinian, Syrian or Iraqi has a better way to a decent life then revolution won't appeal to them either.
The West seems to have forgotten this important lesson of history. If the state fails to look after it's people then revolutionaries gain influence, whether far right populists or the people cheerleading the murder of the United Health CEO.
The Broligarchs need to fear the Tumbrils as much as the middle Eastern "strongman" like Assad.
We - the west - need to offer hands of friendships to the rebel groups. Syria and its people desperately need help, and it is in our interests to give it. But any help we give groups should come with a mahoosive "play nicely" red card.
What is in 'our' interests? What should keep the red card in the pocket?
*) A stable Syria that is not in hock to Russia or Iran. *) Refugees flowing back into, and not out from, Syria. *) No home for ISIS/L or AQ. *) As little internal violence as possible (some is inevitable). *) Be better than Assad was.
Keep within those bounds, and we help them. I think Al-Jolani may understand this.
Abysmal apologia for violent islamic fundamentalism. 'As little internal violence as possible'. Lovely.
It's a hope, not a prediction or an apologia..
For context, Assad's siege of Aleppo took years, killed heaven knows how many, but certainly tens of thousands of civilians, indiscriminately - and directly drive millions into exile.
The revolt, as you seem to have forgotten, was sparked by the very public murder of an eleven year old by his security forces.
Nothing the west could, or would have done is likely to have changed any of that. Syrians had just had enough of being brutalised by a regime representing a seventh of their population.
It is grimly hilarious the lows which you'll stoop to defend this Islamist takeover. Now it's 'representing a seventh of their population' - because he came from a monority sect? What freedoms to follow their religion were denied to the Sunni majority? You would foam at the mouth if anyone tried to make that sort of blood and soil point about British politics.
"Because he came from a minority sect" - bollicks. Because that's all he had, along with the repression.
I'm done with arguing with you. You're in complete denial.
Either Reeves needs to back down/ameliorate or Starmer needs to sack her before she ends their 2028-29 chances with four years to go.
It's a bloody disaster as PBers like me said on the day it was announced.
" ‘It’s only a matter of time until we get some terrible case,’ a minister confided to me. ‘It happens every year, some tragedy where a pensioner dies alone. But this year it will be blamed on us – for winter fuel allowance cuts. And then we’re going to be in the midst of a full-blown crisis.’ "
"But they cannot align the relatively small saving with the potentially catastrophic political cost of being seen to target some of the most vulnerable in society in wintertime."
"I’ve spoken to Cabinet ministers, junior ministers, MPs, councillors, party officials, activists, trade union officials. I have yet to find a single person within Labour’s ranks who genuinely believes in the winter fuel benefit cut. Or thinks it is politically sustainable."
Featherbedded spoilt people expecting others to give them money they haven't earned and don't need deserve zero sympathy. None whatsoever.
Pensioners are not the "most vulnerable" in society, that is pig ignorant. 75% own their own home without a mortgage and they aren't even the most vulnerable to the cold, that is infants under 1 year of age who are far more vulnerable than pensioners but have never had such entitlement.
Welfare should be a safety net for those who need it.
You are not even at the level of a halfwit. Plenty of pensioners are poor you absolute unfeeling twat , an excuse for a human being.
Plenty of people of all ages are poor - why do only pensioners matter to you?
If poor people need welfare, then it should be targeted at those who need it, not those who don't.
And the most in need are poor babies, not pensioners. Contrary to received myths on here, pensioners have never been the most vulnerable to the cold.
Compared to the average Briton pensioners are more vulnerable to the cold, what a stupid post
Why are you comparing to "average"?
Compared to infants under 1 year of age pensioners are LESS vulnerable to the cold.
So give me one damned reason why the hell should we give pensioners universal payments for winter fuel while their more vulnerable (great-)grandchildren are left to freeze in their cots without it.
For starters as their parents are likely to be on higher incomes as still earning a wage while many pensioners will be on little more than state pensions
A reminder that there are great swathes of derelict/vacant land available for development. Just look at Glasgow - masses of space right next to the city centre. Even Edinburgh has large chunks in the north.
We just need to give councils the power and financing options to use them:
If Reform were to support Labour's planning reforms they'll gain support in the younger cohort forever. The Tories will be finished.
Well as I just told you Reform don't. Indeed in Epping Forest Reform are more NIMBY than the Tories and the Reform councillor is in alliance with LD councillors and Independent councillors, the Loughton Residents Association councillors and Greens to oppose new homes in the Tory council's Local Plan. Indeed here it is the Conservatives and the Labour councillor most pro new homes and Reform along with the Liberal Democrats most anti
If Reform were to support Labour's planning reforms they'll gain support in the younger cohort forever. The Tories will be finished.
Well as I just told you Reform don't. Indeed in Epping Forest Reform are more NIMBY than the Tories and in alliance with LDs and Independents to oppose new homes in the Tory council's Local Plan
Then Reform are idiots.
And so is your party. Your planning system is a disaster.
The Government should embrace the fact it has pissed off a self-centred vested interest group that primarily didn't vote for it anyway and do the right things that for too long haven't been done for the country.
Planning reform so that young people can own their own home, even if it affects the views or property prices of landlords.
End the triple lock and link pensioners salaries to working people's salaries so that we really are "all in it together".
Merge NI and Income Tax so everyone pays the same tax rate regardless of whether they're working or not.
Labour should grasp the nettle and govern for people who are working for a living like their name implies.
NI should be ringfenced for state pensions, contributions based unemployment benefit and some social care funding.
Planning reform must not rip all over the greenbelt and also needs to go hand in hand with reduced immigration to cut demand
An excellent example of how the Tories are the servants of the elderly Home Counties voters. .
I think Greenbelt is overemphasised relative to other designations for preservation / conservation; it has too much head space so it is obsessed over.
Large areas of the country have little or no Greenbelt, but do have National Parks, AONBs, SPAs etc.
There's much brown belt or grey belt within Greenbelt, especially for example around London, and that should be used to allow growth - with a hefty premium of planning gain levy (probably most of it) to help fund Local Authorities more effectively. There is far too much sitting on green belt land for decades and decades for when it can be released. That's a bubble that we need to pop.
The Green Belt around London came about after British politicians visited Los Angeles and were horrified by its nondescript urban sprawl. And the concept is still cherished by people living in Outer London and the Inner Home Counties, who fear waking up one day to find their area turned into another Peckham.
Objectively, everyone knows that protecting the sites of former petrol stations and the like against worthwhile development is a nonsense. But every politician in those areas knows the enduring power of a ‘save the Green Belt’ campaign, and therein lies the problem.
It’s rather like social care. Everyone knows that the solution has to involve better off people using at least some of the equity from their property to pay for care - as many people are forced to do by the status quo. But as soon as any party makes this explicit, they offer their opponents a golden campaigning opportunity.
That's the problem, urban sprawl is a very good thing.
Sprawl enables far more people to have somewhere to live of their own.
Pulling up the drawbridge and saying the boundary is here and no further is fine if you have no population changes and everyone already has somewhere to live of their own. Neither of those is the case.
Preventing sprawl in these circumstances isn't just wrong, it's hateful.
Our problem is not urban sprawl but specifically London sprawl. One corner of the country dominates the rest in a way that is not true of our peer nations. We need to defend London's green belt and create new towns and new economic activity away from the capital.
Both wearing jacket and T shirt, so the jacket (which isn't washed every wear) is directly on the skin. Not only slovenly and ugly, but smelly too.
It is very common in ladies clothing to wear a cami top or other non-collar shirt under a tailored jacket - more so than wearing a shirt. Are all these ladies slovenly and ugly dressers? It's less conventional in men's clothing and I'm not a big fan of the style, but your post is a reach. We don't know whether the tees have long sleeves, and most of the soiling of a jacket will come from under arm sweat, which will happen whether one is wearing a shirt or a tee.
Why not liberalise planning within already built up areas and let developers build upwards? Keep the Green Belt outside of planned new towns.
That’s what the last government did. Made it easier in theory to build in unprotected areas. Did sod all as the planning people still rejected things for no good reason.
The Russian withdrawal from Syria, makes the US withdrawal from Afghanistan look like it was well organised and brilliantly executed.
What a shame for Putin’s 21st Century Potemkin army.
I wouldn't celebrate too soon. Putin needs a win, fast, and the only place he can get it is Ukraine.
They are also struggling and a major Russian push could see a sudden collapse.
It would be a grim irony if the disaster Russia has suffered in the ME led to a mirror effect in Ukraine.
And an utter disaster if Syria falls to the jihadi rebels and Putin makes further incursions into Ukraine before Trump tries and imposes a peace deal
It's clear that in your mind, anyone who is not Christian is a Jihadi rebel...
Your takes on this situation have been truly awful.
The rebels are led by Al Qaeda linked militants and ISIS are beginning to make a resurgence too in parts of Syria as the rebels pushed against Assad's regime.
It is what Syria looks like this time next year or in 2030 that is significant, not some celebrations over statues falling this week
There are many rebel groups.
I'd say you're a fool, but you're now well into maliciousness.
Most with Al Qaeda or ISIS links, Syria may now become the biggest centre for jihadi terrorism in the world by far
HTS are the good bit of AQ apparently. They've got a HR Dept. and do a lot of work for charity.
The reason that Islamists have such popularity is because they do provide food, healthcare and education, while the Arab authoritarians simply embezzle and spend on secret police and prisons.
We really have got to the stage where our biggest dickheads are openly defending Islamists on here, dear God. 'Food, healthcare and education' - who would that education be for you moral vacuum - presumably not girls. I'd love you to move your family to the new Syria to enjoy all that 'food healthcare and education'. I'm sure you'd all have a super time.
Nope, not defending Islamists at all, just pointing out where they get their popular support.
The West defeated Communism after WW2 principle by creating working class prosperity. A growing economy, labour rights, affordable housing, access to higher education etc Communism is now history in the Far East for much the same reason too, de facto if not de sure.
The way to defeat Islamism lies in much the same way. If the average Palastinian, Syrian or Iraqi has a better way to a decent life then revolution won't appeal to them either.
The West seems to have forgotten this important lesson of history. If the state fails to look after it's people then revolutionaries gain influence, whether far right populists or the people cheerleading the murder of the United Health CEO.
The Broligarchs need to fear the Tumbrils as much as the middle Eastern "strongman" like Assad.
We - the west - need to offer hands of friendships to the rebel groups. Syria and its people desperately need help, and it is in our interests to give it. But any help we give groups should come with a mahoosive "play nicely" red card.
What is in 'our' interests? What should keep the red card in the pocket?
*) A stable Syria that is not in hock to Russia or Iran. *) Refugees flowing back into, and not out from, Syria. *) No home for ISIS/L or AQ. *) As little internal violence as possible (some is inevitable). *) Be better than Assad was.
Keep within those bounds, and we help them. I think Al-Jolani may understand this.
Abysmal apologia for violent islamic fundamentalism. 'As little internal violence as possible'. Lovely.
The other day you were justifying chemical weapons attacks as less nasty than conventional weapons.
Would you like to try some chlorine gas to compare? Just so you understand, the chlorine reacts with the water present on the surface of the lungs to produce Hydrochloric acid.
Due to a fucking idiot with some polyclay in a workshop, I have actual seen the result. And that was a mild one.
Can pop round anytime, if you’d care for a dose?
I said that if I was trapped in a building with insurgents that I'd prefer for the authorities to use a chlorine bomb on it than blow it up. It's not a tempting menu to be sure, but I think I'd take my chances with chlorine inhalation than be blown to bits, Gaza style. Which would you prefer?
Chlorine involves slowly choking to death. In hideous pain. If you don’t die immediately, you will carry on coughing, with reduced lung capacity until you die.
A charming, but forgotten feature of such weapons is that he reduced lung capacity and coughing puts a massive strain on the rest of cardio vascular system. So victims would often die of heart failure - lots of gas victims dropped dead within 10 years of WWI.
Being killed instantly (faster than the synapses in your brain can respond) by the supersonic blast wave from a bomb sounds quite boring, really.
The Russian withdrawal from Syria, makes the US withdrawal from Afghanistan look like it was well organised and brilliantly executed.
What a shame for Putin’s 21st Century Potemkin army.
I wouldn't celebrate too soon. Putin needs a win, fast, and the only place he can get it is Ukraine.
They are also struggling and a major Russian push could see a sudden collapse.
It would be a grim irony if the disaster Russia has suffered in the ME led to a mirror effect in Ukraine.
And an utter disaster if Syria falls to the jihadi rebels and Putin makes further incursions into Ukraine before Trump tries and imposes a peace deal
That "If" is a few days behind the curve. Even the Alawites of Latakia are pulling down the Assad statues.
It's a bad week for right wing authoritarians in Syria, Moscow and South Korea.
Do you hear the people sing?
Music is banned under the Taliban
The Taliban will soon ban banning, and then explode in a logical conundrum. They're too daft to count.
Who knows what might happen in Syria, and who the people that might find themselves in power are. There are a lot of very sensible, very wise, and quite pragmatic people in the Arab world. Surely not all change has to lead to the nutters? (Admittedly the record isn't great)
The Russian withdrawal from Syria, makes the US withdrawal from Afghanistan look like it was well organised and brilliantly executed.
What a shame for Putin’s 21st Century Potemkin army.
I wouldn't celebrate too soon. Putin needs a win, fast, and the only place he can get it is Ukraine.
They are also struggling and a major Russian push could see a sudden collapse.
It would be a grim irony if the disaster Russia has suffered in the ME led to a mirror effect in Ukraine.
And an utter disaster if Syria falls to the jihadi rebels and Putin makes further incursions into Ukraine before Trump tries and imposes a peace deal
It's clear that in your mind, anyone who is not Christian is a Jihadi rebel...
Your takes on this situation have been truly awful.
The rebels are led by Al Qaeda linked militants and ISIS are beginning to make a resurgence too in parts of Syria as the rebels pushed against Assad's regime.
It is what Syria looks like this time next year or in 2030 that is significant, not some celebrations over statues falling this week
There are many rebel groups.
I'd say you're a fool, but you're now well into maliciousness.
Most with Al Qaeda or ISIS links, Syria may now become the biggest centre for jihadi terrorism in the world by far
HTS are the good bit of AQ apparently. They've got a HR Dept. and do a lot of work for charity.
The reason that Islamists have such popularity is because they do provide food, healthcare and education, while the Arab authoritarians simply embezzle and spend on secret police and prisons.
We really have got to the stage where our biggest dickheads are openly defending Islamists on here, dear God. 'Food, healthcare and education' - who would that education be for you moral vacuum - presumably not girls. I'd love you to move your family to the new Syria to enjoy all that 'food healthcare and education'. I'm sure you'd all have a super time.
@Foxy is basically defending Nazis on the grounds they “built good motorways” and had “great summer camps for the kids”
The Russian withdrawal from Syria, makes the US withdrawal from Afghanistan look like it was well organised and brilliantly executed.
What a shame for Putin’s 21st Century Potemkin army.
I wouldn't celebrate too soon. Putin needs a win, fast, and the only place he can get it is Ukraine.
They are also struggling and a major Russian push could see a sudden collapse.
It would be a grim irony if the disaster Russia has suffered in the ME led to a mirror effect in Ukraine.
And an utter disaster if Syria falls to the jihadi rebels and Putin makes further incursions into Ukraine before Trump tries and imposes a peace deal
It's clear that in your mind, anyone who is not Christian is a Jihadi rebel...
Your takes on this situation have been truly awful.
The rebels are led by Al Qaeda linked militants and ISIS are beginning to make a resurgence too in parts of Syria as the rebels pushed against Assad's regime.
It is what Syria looks like this time next year or in 2030 that is significant, not some celebrations over statues falling this week
There are many rebel groups.
I'd say you're a fool, but you're now well into maliciousness.
Most with Al Qaeda or ISIS links, Syria may now become the biggest centre for jihadi terrorism in the world by far
HTS are the good bit of AQ apparently. They've got a HR Dept. and do a lot of work for charity.
The reason that Islamists have such popularity is because they do provide food, healthcare and education, while the Arab authoritarians simply embezzle and spend on secret police and prisons.
We really have got to the stage where our biggest dickheads are openly defending Islamists on here, dear God. 'Food, healthcare and education' - who would that education be for you moral vacuum - presumably not girls. I'd love you to move your family to the new Syria to enjoy all that 'food healthcare and education'. I'm sure you'd all have a super time.
Nope, not defending Islamists at all, just pointing out where they get their popular support.
The West defeated Communism after WW2 principle by creating working class prosperity. A growing economy, labour rights, affordable housing, access to higher education etc Communism is now history in the Far East for much the same reason too, de facto if not de sure.
The way to defeat Islamism lies in much the same way. If the average Palastinian, Syrian or Iraqi has a better way to a decent life then revolution won't appeal to them either.
The West seems to have forgotten this important lesson of history. If the state fails to look after it's people then revolutionaries gain influence, whether far right populists or the people cheerleading the murder of the United Health CEO.
The Broligarchs need to fear the Tumbrils as much as the middle Eastern "strongman" like Assad.
We - the west - need to offer hands of friendships to the rebel groups. Syria and its people desperately need help, and it is in our interests to give it. But any help we give groups should come with a mahoosive "play nicely" red card.
What is in 'our' interests? What should keep the red card in the pocket?
*) A stable Syria that is not in hock to Russia or Iran. *) Refugees flowing back into, and not out from, Syria. *) No home for ISIS/L or AQ. *) As little internal violence as possible (some is inevitable). *) Be better than Assad was.
Keep within those bounds, and we help them. I think Al-Jolani may understand this.
Abysmal apologia for violent islamic fundamentalism. 'As little internal violence as possible'. Lovely.
The other day you were justifying chemical weapons attacks as less nasty than conventional weapons.
Would you like to try some chlorine gas to compare? Just so you understand, the chlorine reacts with the water present on the surface of the lungs to produce Hydrochloric acid.
Due to a fucking idiot with some polyclay in a workshop, I have actual seen the result. And that was a mild one.
Can pop round anytime, if you’d care for a dose?
I said that if I was trapped in a building with insurgents that I'd prefer for the authorities to use a chlorine bomb on it than blow it up. It's not a tempting menu to be sure, but I think I'd take my chances with chlorine inhalation than be blown to bits, Gaza style. Which would you prefer?
Chlorine involves slowly choking to death. In hideous pain. If you don’t die immediately, you will carry on coughing, with reduced lung capacity until you die.
A charming, but forgotten feature of such weapons is that he reduced lung capacity and coughing puts a massive strain on the rest of cardio vascular system. So victims would often die of heart failure - lots of gas victims dropped dead within 10 years of WWI.
Being killed instantly (faster than the synapses in your brain can respond) by the supersonic blast wave from a bomb sounds quite boring, really.
The Israeli/Russian approach seems to me to be what one uses if one really doesn't care about the physical destruction. Making Gaza an unliveable pile of rubble was a positive side effect. Likewise Russia and Ukraine. The Syrians seem to have wanted to avoid that, presumably because they had to live in the remains.
A reminder that there are great swathes of derelict/vacant land available for development. Just look at Glasgow - masses of space right next to the city centre. Even Edinburgh has large chunks in the north.
We just need to give councils the power and financing options to use them:
Rather grim. I've given up trying to understand the various local alliances, but Labour have contrived to run the city with only 11/63 councillors, with tacit support from the Tories and Lib Dems. There are also a bunch of farcical by-elections in the offing.
The current administration can't be sustainable, so I suspect a Great Cycle Lane Alliance will form (SNP + Greens) , and the Facebook groups will descend into apoplectic fury as more 20mph limits, LTNs and a city centre ban on private vehicles is finally implemented.
(Trace amounts of wishcasting may be present in this item).
The Russian withdrawal from Syria, makes the US withdrawal from Afghanistan look like it was well organised and brilliantly executed.
What a shame for Putin’s 21st Century Potemkin army.
I wouldn't celebrate too soon. Putin needs a win, fast, and the only place he can get it is Ukraine.
They are also struggling and a major Russian push could see a sudden collapse.
It would be a grim irony if the disaster Russia has suffered in the ME led to a mirror effect in Ukraine.
And an utter disaster if Syria falls to the jihadi rebels and Putin makes further incursions into Ukraine before Trump tries and imposes a peace deal
It's clear that in your mind, anyone who is not Christian is a Jihadi rebel...
Your takes on this situation have been truly awful.
The rebels are led by Al Qaeda linked militants and ISIS are beginning to make a resurgence too in parts of Syria as the rebels pushed against Assad's regime.
It is what Syria looks like this time next year or in 2030 that is significant, not some celebrations over statues falling this week
There are many rebel groups.
I'd say you're a fool, but you're now well into maliciousness.
Most with Al Qaeda or ISIS links, Syria may now become the biggest centre for jihadi terrorism in the world by far
HTS are the good bit of AQ apparently. They've got a HR Dept. and do a lot of work for charity.
The reason that Islamists have such popularity is because they do provide food, healthcare and education, while the Arab authoritarians simply embezzle and spend on secret police and prisons.
We really have got to the stage where our biggest dickheads are openly defending Islamists on here, dear God. 'Food, healthcare and education' - who would that education be for you moral vacuum - presumably not girls. I'd love you to move your family to the new Syria to enjoy all that 'food healthcare and education'. I'm sure you'd all have a super time.
@Foxy is basically defending Nazis on the grounds they “built good motorways” and had “great summer camps for the kids”
Don’t forget that after building thousands of tanks with shitty final drives, the Germans figured out how to build a reliable drive train…
If the Conservatives are just a special interest group for the elderly then perhaps it's time to let them die.
Either they break out or they breakup.
If the Tories lose their core pensioner vote to the LDs and Reform then they definitely die, at the moment the Tories still only lead with over 55s. Reform are neck and neck with Labour and the Tories with the middle aged and Labour still leads with the young with the Greens snapping at their heels
I know it’s the Daily Mail but that’s unbelievably unfair framing in the headline.
She knocked over a box in which a loaded gun was stored; it went off and the bullet hit her father in the face.
It was a tragic accident that traumatised her. Fair play that it inspired her to get into medicine (she said it was because her father was bleeding out and she didn’t know how to help him)
should have inspired her to get into gun control really
Yes, That's the USA being screwy in the head. Just routine regs that guns be kept in locked cabinets, or a simple ban on handguns, would have prevented that. They don't do rationality.
It's nice to see a Daily Mail article where they could not a picture of the female protagonist or victim in a thigh revealing minidress or skin tight lycra tracksuit.
I've no idea why a loaded gun was kept in a box on a high shelf. Whole piece:
The Government should embrace the fact it has pissed off a self-centred vested interest group that primarily didn't vote for it anyway and do the right things that for too long haven't been done for the country.
Planning reform so that young people can own their own home, even if it affects the views or property prices of landlords.
End the triple lock and link pensioners salaries to working people's salaries so that we really are "all in it together".
Merge NI and Income Tax so everyone pays the same tax rate regardless of whether they're working or not.
Labour should grasp the nettle and govern for people who are working for a living like their name implies.
NI should be ringfenced for state pensions, contributions based unemployment benefit and some social care funding.
Planning reform must not rip all over the greenbelt and also needs to go hand in hand with reduced immigration to cut demand
An excellent example of how the Tories are the servants of the elderly Home Counties voters. .
I think Greenbelt is overemphasised relative to other designations for preservation / conservation; it has too much head space so it is obsessed over.
Large areas of the country have little or no Greenbelt, but do have National Parks, AONBs, SPAs etc.
There's much brown belt or grey belt within Greenbelt, especially for example around London, and that should be used to allow growth - with a hefty premium of planning gain levy (probably most of it) to help fund Local Authorities more effectively. There is far too much sitting on green belt land for decades and decades for when it can be released. That's a bubble that we need to pop.
The Green Belt around London came about after British politicians visited Los Angeles and were horrified by its nondescript urban sprawl. And the concept is still cherished by people living in Outer London and the Inner Home Counties, who fear waking up one day to find their area turned into another piece of inner London.
Objectively, everyone knows that protecting the sites of former petrol stations and the like against worthwhile development is a nonsense. But every politician in those areas knows the enduring power of a ‘save the Green Belt’ campaign, and therein lies the problem.
It’s rather like social care. Everyone knows that the solution has to involve better off people using at least some of the equity from their property to pay for care - as many people are forced to do by the status quo. But as soon as any party makes this explicit, they offer their opponents a golden campaigning opportunity.
That's fair comment, and brings it back to there only being an opportunity got such change in political cycles in the first 1-2 years of likely 2 term Governments to change the guiderails - when there is at least a driver behind it, the chance that sufficient benefits will accrue, and some time for the change to bed in.
Give them their due, the Conservatives are doing their best to help on that front.
Up to Labour to use the opportunity to the national good.
Both wearing jacket and T shirt, so the jacket (which isn't washed every wear) is directly on the skin. Not only slovenly and ugly, but smelly too.
It is very common in ladies clothing to wear a cami top or other non-collar shirt under a tailored jacket - more so than wearing a shirt. Are all these ladies slovenly and ugly dressers? It's less conventional in men's clothing and I'm not a big fan of the style, but your post is a reach. We don't know whether the tees have long sleeves, and most of the soiling of a jacket will come from under arm sweat, which will happen whether one is wearing a shirt or a tee.
Well, I don't go around sniffing mens collars. But twenty days back-of-the-neck-sweat between dry cleanings on a taiored jacket won't be pleasant. If a garment touches the skin, it should only be worn once before cleaning.
I know it’s the Daily Mail but that’s unbelievably unfair framing in the headline.
She knocked over a box in which a loaded gun was stored; it went off and the bullet hit her father in the face.
It was a tragic accident that traumatised her. Fair play that it inspired her to get into medicine (she said it was because her father was bleeding out and she didn’t know how to help him)
should have inspired her to get into gun control really
Yes, That's the USA being screwy in the head. Just routine regs that guns be kept in locked cabinets, or a simple ban on handguns, would have prevented that. They don't do rationality.
It's nice to see a Daily Mail article where they could not a picture of the female protagonist or victim in a thigh revealing minidress or skin tight lycra tracksuit.
I've no idea why a loaded gun was kept in a box on a high shelf. Whole piece:
The Russian withdrawal from Syria, makes the US withdrawal from Afghanistan look like it was well organised and brilliantly executed.
What a shame for Putin’s 21st Century Potemkin army.
I wouldn't celebrate too soon. Putin needs a win, fast, and the only place he can get it is Ukraine.
They are also struggling and a major Russian push could see a sudden collapse.
It would be a grim irony if the disaster Russia has suffered in the ME led to a mirror effect in Ukraine.
And an utter disaster if Syria falls to the jihadi rebels and Putin makes further incursions into Ukraine before Trump tries and imposes a peace deal
It's clear that in your mind, anyone who is not Christian is a Jihadi rebel...
Your takes on this situation have been truly awful.
The rebels are led by Al Qaeda linked militants and ISIS are beginning to make a resurgence too in parts of Syria as the rebels pushed against Assad's regime.
It is what Syria looks like this time next year or in 2030 that is significant, not some celebrations over statues falling this week
There are many rebel groups.
I'd say you're a fool, but you're now well into maliciousness.
Most with Al Qaeda or ISIS links, Syria may now become the biggest centre for jihadi terrorism in the world by far
HTS are the good bit of AQ apparently. They've got a HR Dept. and do a lot of work for charity.
The reason that Islamists have such popularity is because they do provide food, healthcare and education, while the Arab authoritarians simply embezzle and spend on secret police and prisons.
We really have got to the stage where our biggest dickheads are openly defending Islamists on here, dear God. 'Food, healthcare and education' - who would that education be for you moral vacuum - presumably not girls. I'd love you to move your family to the new Syria to enjoy all that 'food healthcare and education'. I'm sure you'd all have a super time.
@Foxy is basically defending Nazis on the grounds they “built good motorways” and had “great summer camps for the kids”
He is not. But we do have people on here defending fascists, imperialists, and dictators.
There is a grim satisfaction in seeing Assad go. He was an evil bastard (John Simpson’s tweet is disgraceful)
But I’m not sure it’s any cause to “celebrate”. Not when there is such a likelihood he will be replaced by something easily as bad, or even worse. And this isn’t undue pessimism, time and again we’ve seen this in the MENA - the strongman falls with his army, what follows is brutal chaos, and then islamism
One of the few countries to have avoided this is Egypt, by the clever expedient of going from strongman to chaos and then islamism, at which point the army decided that Islamism is shit, so they went back to a strongman
If the Conservatives are just a special interest group for the elderly then perhaps it's time to let them die.
Either they break out or they breakup.
That is likely to be a very perceptive comment.
For generations - indeed centuries - the Conservatives were attractive to those who ‘had’, and who wanted to protect what they had from sudden or radical change. Hence they opposed any reform, especially those that were happening overseas - but were wise and agile enough to jump to supporting changes once they had been successfully implemented in Britain by their opponents, during their brief ‘goes’ at being in power.
Over recent years, the Conservatives have decided instead to pitch to people who wanted to trash, change, and (sic) reform.
Now, they find that they have lost many of their natural supporters who would instinctively oppose dramatic changes, yet are being outflanked by a bunch of outlaws who will always be able to offer more right-wing radicalism than they can ever sign up for.
They’ve got themselves into a right pickle, and their survival on the political stage is now far from guaranteed.
Both wearing jacket and T shirt, so the jacket (which isn't washed every wear) is directly on the skin. Not only slovenly and ugly, but smelly too.
It is very common in ladies clothing to wear a cami top or other non-collar shirt under a tailored jacket - more so than wearing a shirt. Are all these ladies slovenly and ugly dressers? It's less conventional in men's clothing and I'm not a big fan of the style, but your post is a reach. We don't know whether the tees have long sleeves, and most of the soiling of a jacket will come from under arm sweat, which will happen whether one is wearing a shirt or a tee.
Well, I don't go around sniffing mens collars. But twenty days back-of-the-neck-sweat between dry cleanings on a taiored jacket won't be pleasant. If a garment touches the skin, it should only be worn once before cleaning.
This is total bollocks. Denim jeans are not washed every day. No one does that, nor do they need to, I bet you don’t either - unless you’re quite peculiar
If the Conservatives are just a special interest group for the elderly then perhaps it's time to let them die.
Either they break out or they breakup.
If the Tories lose their core pensioner vote to the LDs and Reform then they definitely die, at the moment the Tories still only lead with over 55s. Reform are neck and neck with Labour and the Tories with the middle aged and Labour still leads with the young with the Greens snapping at their heels
I think the most interesting thing about the header is that the popular targets are ones that relate to ME, and I can understand directly.
So the waiting list target for *my* treatment, more disposable income etc.
If it was "more police" or "less ASB" in my town - rather than X police officers, would that boost the response?
Probably. But I suspect that it one of those knots in human nature that politicians just have to work with/around. Which kinda gets to the heart of what Starmer and Reeves need someone to do for them, because that's not where their skills lie, and it's not really happening now.
But the one that Future Britain should probably be most grateful to 2020s Britain for, if it's achieved, is the school-ready one. Reduce the tail of kids having to play catch-up all the time, and many things are possible in the decades to come.
There is a grim satisfaction in seeing Assad go. He was an evil bastard (John Simpson’s tweet is disgraceful)
But I’m not sure it’s any cause to “celebrate”. Not when there is such a likelihood he will be replaced by something easily as bad, or even worse. And this isn’t undue pessimism, time and again we’ve seen this in the MENA - the strongman falls with his army, what follows is brutal chaos, and then islamism
One of the few countries to have avoided this is Egypt, by the clever expedient of going from strongman to chaos and then islamism, at which point the army decided that Islamism is shit, so they went back to a strongman
Lucky escape for Egypt
I don't 'celebrate' Assad's fall. I'm glad he's gone, though. The situation Syria was in was not stable, very chaotic, and against *our* interests. Perhaps what follows will be worse. Or perhaps it will be better - for the Syrians and us.
But the main point is that the situation was unstable. Assad was going to go sometime.
Either Reeves needs to back down/ameliorate or Starmer needs to sack her before she ends their 2028-29 chances with four years to go.
It's a bloody disaster as PBers like me said on the day it was announced.
" ‘It’s only a matter of time until we get some terrible case,’ a minister confided to me. ‘It happens every year, some tragedy where a pensioner dies alone. But this year it will be blamed on us – for winter fuel allowance cuts. And then we’re going to be in the midst of a full-blown crisis.’ "
"But they cannot align the relatively small saving with the potentially catastrophic political cost of being seen to target some of the most vulnerable in society in wintertime."
"I’ve spoken to Cabinet ministers, junior ministers, MPs, councillors, party officials, activists, trade union officials. I have yet to find a single person within Labour’s ranks who genuinely believes in the winter fuel benefit cut. Or thinks it is politically sustainable."
Featherbedded spoilt people expecting others to give them money they haven't earned and don't need deserve zero sympathy. None whatsoever.
Pensioners are not the "most vulnerable" in society, that is pig ignorant. 75% own their own home without a mortgage and they aren't even the most vulnerable to the cold, that is infants under 1 year of age who are far more vulnerable than pensioners but have never had such entitlement.
Welfare should be a safety net for those who need it.
You are not even at the level of a halfwit. Plenty of pensioners are poor you absolute unfeeling twat , an excuse for a human being.
Plenty of people of all ages are poor - why do only pensioners matter to you?
If poor people need welfare, then it should be targeted at those who need it, not those who don't.
And the most in need are poor babies, not pensioners. Contrary to received myths on here, pensioners have never been the most vulnerable to the cold.
Compared to the average Briton pensioners are more vulnerable to the cold, what a stupid post
Why are you comparing to "average"?
Compared to infants under 1 year of age pensioners are LESS vulnerable to the cold.
So give me one damned reason why the hell should we give pensioners universal payments for winter fuel while their more vulnerable (great-)grandchildren are left to freeze in their cots without it.
For starters as their parents are likely to be on higher incomes as still earning a wage while many pensioners will be on little more than state pensions
You do know that - bizarrely, and dysfunctionally - average disposable income for a British economically inactive pensioner is now higher than for the average person in full-time employment.
This really isn’t a healthy state of affairs - and it’s your party’s desperation to cling onto its elderly support base that has landed us in such a predicament.
The trouble is that people have become fixated on ‘planning’ and local democracy being the obstacle, whereas in reality our planning system is well down the list of reasons why we’re not building more homes.
Similarly, our dysfunctional property market arises from a whole stack of mostly financial and legislative weaknesses, including our relatively minimal tax on holding property, low interest rates, and comparative wide-openness to foreign criminals investors buying up UK property, whereas it’s so much easier for politicians to think that simply building more homes will resolve the problem.
Not sure I agree.
The MNOs stand ready to build masts but they keep getting rejected.
WHP applied for something like 10,000 installations over the last four years and half got rejected.
How many people can live in a mast?
The obvious answer suggests that you are changing the subject.
If the Conservatives are just a special interest group for the elderly then perhaps it's time to let them die.
Either they break out or they breakup.
That is likely to be a very perceptive comment.
For generations - indeed centuries - the Conservatives were attractive to those who ‘had’, and who wanted to protect what they had from sudden or radical change. Hence they opposed any reform, especially those that were happening overseas - but were wise and agile enough to jump to supporting changes once they had been successfully implemented in Britain by their opponents, during their brief ‘goes’ at being in power.
Over recent years, the Conservatives have decided instead to pitch to people who wanted to trash, change, and (sic) reform.
Now, they find that they have lost many of their natural supporters who would instinctively oppose dramatic changes, yet are being outflanked by a bunch of outlaws who will always be able to offer more right-wing radicalism than they can ever sign up for.
They’ve got themselves into a right pickle, and their survival on the political stage is now far from guaranteed.
If we follow the pattern of similar European countries - and what is so exceptional about us that says we won't? - then it's Labour who will find themselves in greater danger quite quickly. It's entirely possible for the two major parties by the time of the next election to be the Conservatives and Reform.
Both wearing jacket and T shirt, so the jacket (which isn't washed every wear) is directly on the skin. Not only slovenly and ugly, but smelly too.
It is very common in ladies clothing to wear a cami top or other non-collar shirt under a tailored jacket - more so than wearing a shirt. Are all these ladies slovenly and ugly dressers? It's less conventional in men's clothing and I'm not a big fan of the style, but your post is a reach. We don't know whether the tees have long sleeves, and most of the soiling of a jacket will come from under arm sweat, which will happen whether one is wearing a shirt or a tee.
Well, I don't go around sniffing mens collars. But twenty days back-of-the-neck-sweat between dry cleanings on a taiored jacket won't be pleasant. If a garment touches the skin, it should only be worn once before cleaning.
Both wearing jacket and T shirt, so the jacket (which isn't washed every wear) is directly on the skin. Not only slovenly and ugly, but smelly too.
It is very common in ladies clothing to wear a cami top or other non-collar shirt under a tailored jacket - more so than wearing a shirt. Are all these ladies slovenly and ugly dressers? It's less conventional in men's clothing and I'm not a big fan of the style, but your post is a reach. We don't know whether the tees have long sleeves, and most of the soiling of a jacket will come from under arm sweat, which will happen whether one is wearing a shirt or a tee.
Well, I don't go around sniffing mens collars. But twenty days back-of-the-neck-sweat between dry cleanings on a taiored jacket won't be pleasant. If a garment touches the skin, it should only be worn once before cleaning.
This is total bollocks. Denim jeans are not washed every day. No one does that, nor do they need to, I bet you don’t either - unless you’re quite peculiar
We all have different standards. I probably go 3-4 wears with jeans, but they ain’t the same at the end as at the beginning. The selvedge denim scene has guys who never wash their jeans or eg one cold soak every year (this is to get cool fades I believe), to me that’s disgusting. Either they’re single or their significant others like their men musky.
If the Conservatives are just a special interest group for the elderly then perhaps it's time to let them die.
Either they break out or they breakup.
If the Tories lose their core pensioner vote to the LDs and Reform then they definitely die, at the moment the Tories still only lead with over 55s. Reform are neck and neck with Labour and the Tories with the middle aged and Labour still leads with the young with the Greens snapping at their heels
Reform are coming for that youth vote
Not the youth vote, more the middle aged vote which is where Trump, Meloni and Le Pen perform best too ie those aged 35-65.
Labour will still continue to win the young under 34s, as Harris also won that age group in the US and Melenchon's block wins that age group in France and the leftist Democratic party win that age group in Italy
Both wearing jacket and T shirt, so the jacket (which isn't washed every wear) is directly on the skin. Not only slovenly and ugly, but smelly too.
It is very common in ladies clothing to wear a cami top or other non-collar shirt under a tailored jacket - more so than wearing a shirt. Are all these ladies slovenly and ugly dressers? It's less conventional in men's clothing and I'm not a big fan of the style, but your post is a reach. We don't know whether the tees have long sleeves, and most of the soiling of a jacket will come from under arm sweat, which will happen whether one is wearing a shirt or a tee.
Well, I don't go around sniffing mens collars. But twenty days back-of-the-neck-sweat between dry cleanings on a taiored jacket won't be pleasant. If a garment touches the skin, it should only be worn once before cleaning.
This is total bollocks. Denim jeans are not washed every day. No one does that, nor do they need to, I bet you don’t either - unless you’re quite peculiar
We all have different standards. I probably go 3-4 wears with jeans, but they ain’t the same at the end as at the beginning. The selvedge denim scene has guys who never wash their jeans or eg one cold soak every year, to me that’s disgusting. Either they’re single or their significant others like their men musky.
Denim is designed to be resistant to sweat and odour, and also incredibly tough, which is why it became popular as workwear, then everywhere
I wash shirts, undercrackers, tee shirts, etc, daily. But not jeans. They can go a week easily. I don’t think I’m especially musky, baby
The trouble is that people have become fixated on ‘planning’ and local democracy being the obstacle, whereas in reality our planning system is well down the list of reasons why we’re not building more homes.
Similarly, our dysfunctional property market arises from a whole stack of mostly financial and legislative weaknesses, including our relatively minimal tax on holding property, low interest rates, and comparative wide-openness to foreign criminals investors buying up UK property, whereas it’s so much easier for politicians to think that simply building more homes will resolve the problem.
Not sure I agree.
The MNOs stand ready to build masts but they keep getting rejected.
WHP applied for something like 10,000 installations over the last four years and half got rejected.
How many people can live in a mast?
The obvious answer suggests that you are changing the subject.
Not really as I initially talked about masts. As I said it’s an area I know about and the planning system is used for it as it is housing. So the issues will be similar with people rejecting them for no good reason.
Do you think those 5000 installations were right to be rejected? None of them were unsafe.
Either Reeves needs to back down/ameliorate or Starmer needs to sack her before she ends their 2028-29 chances with four years to go.
It's a bloody disaster as PBers like me said on the day it was announced.
" ‘It’s only a matter of time until we get some terrible case,’ a minister confided to me. ‘It happens every year, some tragedy where a pensioner dies alone. But this year it will be blamed on us – for winter fuel allowance cuts. And then we’re going to be in the midst of a full-blown crisis.’ "
"But they cannot align the relatively small saving with the potentially catastrophic political cost of being seen to target some of the most vulnerable in society in wintertime."
"I’ve spoken to Cabinet ministers, junior ministers, MPs, councillors, party officials, activists, trade union officials. I have yet to find a single person within Labour’s ranks who genuinely believes in the winter fuel benefit cut. Or thinks it is politically sustainable."
Featherbedded spoilt people expecting others to give them money they haven't earned and don't need deserve zero sympathy. None whatsoever.
Pensioners are not the "most vulnerable" in society, that is pig ignorant. 75% own their own home without a mortgage and they aren't even the most vulnerable to the cold, that is infants under 1 year of age who are far more vulnerable than pensioners but have never had such entitlement.
Welfare should be a safety net for those who need it.
You are not even at the level of a halfwit. Plenty of pensioners are poor you absolute unfeeling twat , an excuse for a human being.
Plenty of people of all ages are poor - why do only pensioners matter to you?
If poor people need welfare, then it should be targeted at those who need it, not those who don't.
And the most in need are poor babies, not pensioners. Contrary to received myths on here, pensioners have never been the most vulnerable to the cold.
Compared to the average Briton pensioners are more vulnerable to the cold, what a stupid post
Why are you comparing to "average"?
Compared to infants under 1 year of age pensioners are LESS vulnerable to the cold.
So give me one damned reason why the hell should we give pensioners universal payments for winter fuel while their more vulnerable (great-)grandchildren are left to freeze in their cots without it.
For starters as their parents are likely to be on higher incomes as still earning a wage while many pensioners will be on little more than state pensions
You do know that - bizarrely, and dysfunctionally - average disposable income for a British economically inactive pensioner is now higher than for the average person in full-time employment.
This really isn’t a healthy state of affairs - and it’s your party’s desperation to cling onto its elderly support base that has landed us in such a predicament.
Only if home owners with significant private pensions, plenty of pensioners on state pensions in council housing or renting privately still on far lower disposable incomes than workers on the average wage
The Russian withdrawal from Syria, makes the US withdrawal from Afghanistan look like it was well organised and brilliantly executed.
What a shame for Putin’s 21st Century Potemkin army.
I wouldn't celebrate too soon. Putin needs a win, fast, and the only place he can get it is Ukraine.
They are also struggling and a major Russian push could see a sudden collapse.
It would be a grim irony if the disaster Russia has suffered in the ME led to a mirror effect in Ukraine.
And an utter disaster if Syria falls to the jihadi rebels and Putin makes further incursions into Ukraine before Trump tries and imposes a peace deal
It's clear that in your mind, anyone who is not Christian is a Jihadi rebel...
Your takes on this situation have been truly awful.
The rebels are led by Al Qaeda linked militants and ISIS are beginning to make a resurgence too in parts of Syria as the rebels pushed against Assad's regime.
It is what Syria looks like this time next year or in 2030 that is significant, not some celebrations over statues falling this week
There are many rebel groups.
I'd say you're a fool, but you're now well into maliciousness.
Most with Al Qaeda or ISIS links, Syria may now become the biggest centre for jihadi terrorism in the world by far
HTS are the good bit of AQ apparently. They've got a HR Dept. and do a lot of work for charity.
The reason that Islamists have such popularity is because they do provide food, healthcare and education, while the Arab authoritarians simply embezzle and spend on secret police and prisons.
We really have got to the stage where our biggest dickheads are openly defending Islamists on here, dear God. 'Food, healthcare and education' - who would that education be for you moral vacuum - presumably not girls. I'd love you to move your family to the new Syria to enjoy all that 'food healthcare and education'. I'm sure you'd all have a super time.
As opposed to the dickheads who actively advocate for direct support of a mass murderer who utterly destroyed his country, created six million refugees - who you've been complaining about for a decade - and allied with Iran and Russia ? Who imprisoned, tortured and murdered tens of thousands; who gassed civilians ?
Neither you, not I have any idea what the successor regime will be like[lie], but it's unlikely to be worse.[lie]
Tell me more about your moral vacuum.
How did Assad destroy his country exactly? And did the 6 million refugees leave Syria befor the civil war started - I must have missed that.
Incidentally, you're one of the very worst, because unlike some of the more mealy-mouthed islamist-defenders on here, you simply lie. Try to grow some integrity and moral courage.
As I pointed out to you a few days ago, Assad was the one who decided to respond to peaceful demonstrations with violence and murder. Well before there was any armed rebellion.
Recollections of the genisis of the Arab spring in Syria may vary. But the fact remains that the six million refugees as well as the destruction of the country came as Assad's regime (sadly ultimately unsuccessfully) fought an Islamist uprising. Before that Syria was a dictatorship where unless you opposed the ruling family, your life tended to be OK and you enjoyed a fair degree of personal and especially religious freedom. Syria's new rulers are not loyal to Syria, they are loyal to global jihad. We've done that. As we did in Iraq, and Libya.
"... unless you opposed the ruling family, your life tended to be OK "
That wasn't the case AIUI. That's not the way countries with secret police work. You may have a falling out with a neighbour, and then you are denounced. Essentially, there is no rule of law. Just like Russia under Stalin.
It's clear that whilst you don't like jihadists (neither do I, or anyone on here), you get positively excited about dictators, fascists, and imperialists.
Assad’s regime was a savage one, prior to 2011, and as @RichardTyndall pointed out, responded to peaceful protest with extreme brutality.
How do you think the new regime will respond to 'peaceful protest'?
If the Conservatives are just a special interest group for the elderly then perhaps it's time to let them die.
Either they break out or they breakup.
That is likely to be a very perceptive comment.
For generations - indeed centuries - the Conservatives were attractive to those who ‘had’, and who wanted to protect what they had from sudden or radical change. Hence they opposed any reform, especially those that were happening overseas - but were wise and agile enough to jump to supporting changes once they had been successfully implemented in Britain by their opponents, during their brief ‘goes’ at being in power.
Over recent years, the Conservatives have decided instead to pitch to people who wanted to trash, change, and (sic) reform.
Now, they find that they have lost many of their natural supporters who would instinctively oppose dramatic changes, yet are being outflanked by a bunch of outlaws who will always be able to offer more right-wing radicalism than they can ever sign up for.
They’ve got themselves into a right pickle, and their survival on the political stage is now far from guaranteed.
If we follow the pattern of similar European countries - and what is so exceptional about us that says we won't? - then it's Labour who will find themselves in greater danger quite quickly. It's entirely possible for the two major parties by the time of the next election to be the Conservatives and Reform.
Indeed, the collapse in Labour polling in Scotland is extraordinary - and a harbinger. Five months of Starmerite ineptitude and the SNP are walking all over them again - and Reform are surging
Unless Labour suddenly gets some great ideas and the ability to enact them, and maybe a new leader who isn’t a total dud, they are only going down
Given that they have no ideas, there are pathetically incompetent, and they don’t replace leaders, I suspect they are fucked. A one term government which will crash to a sensational defeat
If the Conservatives are just a special interest group for the elderly then perhaps it's time to let them die.
Either they break out or they breakup.
If the Tories lose their core pensioner vote to the LDs and Reform then they definitely die, at the moment the Tories still only lead with over 55s. Reform are neck and neck with Labour and the Tories with the middle aged and Labour still leads with the young with the Greens snapping at their heels
The thing is, you don’t want the Conservatives to appeal to anybody other than home-owning pensioners.
If the Conservatives are just a special interest group for the elderly then perhaps it's time to let them die.
Either they break out or they breakup.
If the Tories lose their core pensioner vote to the LDs and Reform then they definitely die, at the moment the Tories still only lead with over 55s. Reform are neck and neck with Labour and the Tories with the middle aged and Labour still leads with the young with the Greens snapping at their heels
Reform are coming for that youth vote
Not the youth vote, more the middle aged vote which is where Trump, Meloni and Le Pen perform best too ie those aged 35-65.
Labour will still continue to win the young under 34s, as Harris also won that age group in the US and Melenchon's block wins that age group in France and the leftist Democratic party win that age group in Italy
You’re wrong. Third of UK 18-24 support Trump, up to 50% of young men. Nigel has 1m TikTok followers. The manosphere is swinging hard right, young women will follow
There is a grim satisfaction in seeing Assad go. He was an evil bastard (John Simpson’s tweet is disgraceful)
But I’m not sure it’s any cause to “celebrate”. Not when there is such a likelihood he will be replaced by something easily as bad, or even worse. And this isn’t undue pessimism, time and again we’ve seen this in the MENA - the strongman falls with his army, what follows is brutal chaos, and then islamism
One of the few countries to have avoided this is Egypt, by the clever expedient of going from strongman to chaos and then islamism, at which point the army decided that Islamism is shit, so they went back to a strongman
Lucky escape for Egypt
Some truth in Simpson's tweet, if he hadn't had the surname Assad, he would probably have been happier remaining an ophthalmologist. Bashar was never as ruthless and power crazed as his father, Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi had been as a younger man though he became more brutal as he got power and had to try and hold onto it and followed what Russia and Iran told him to do.
If you were selecting a top graduate from ruthless bastard dictator strongman finishing school, Bashar al Assad would not have made the grade. He now looks like a weak and spineless man, fleeing to exile while Saddam and Gaddafi stayed in their nation and resisted until they were executed or killed. Though Assad will escape with his life it now seems unlike them
Both wearing jacket and T shirt, so the jacket (which isn't washed every wear) is directly on the skin. Not only slovenly and ugly, but smelly too.
It is very common in ladies clothing to wear a cami top or other non-collar shirt under a tailored jacket - more so than wearing a shirt. Are all these ladies slovenly and ugly dressers? It's less conventional in men's clothing and I'm not a big fan of the style, but your post is a reach. We don't know whether the tees have long sleeves, and most of the soiling of a jacket will come from under arm sweat, which will happen whether one is wearing a shirt or a tee.
Well, I don't go around sniffing mens collars. But twenty days back-of-the-neck-sweat between dry cleanings on a taiored jacket won't be pleasant. If a garment touches the skin, it should only be worn once before cleaning.
This is total bollocks. Denim jeans are not washed every day. No one does that, nor do they need to, I bet you don’t either - unless you’re quite peculiar
We all have different standards. I probably go 3-4 wears with jeans, but they ain’t the same at the end as at the beginning. The selvedge denim scene has guys who never wash their jeans or eg one cold soak every year (this is to get cool fades I believe), to me that’s disgusting. Either they’re single or their significant others like their men musky.
Most men, apart from Gregg Wallace, I gather, wear boxers or Y fronts under their jeans. Women, I understand, sometimes wear skimpier underwear.
Both wearing jacket and T shirt, so the jacket (which isn't washed every wear) is directly on the skin. Not only slovenly and ugly, but smelly too.
It is very common in ladies clothing to wear a cami top or other non-collar shirt under a tailored jacket - more so than wearing a shirt. Are all these ladies slovenly and ugly dressers? It's less conventional in men's clothing and I'm not a big fan of the style, but your post is a reach. We don't know whether the tees have long sleeves, and most of the soiling of a jacket will come from under arm sweat, which will happen whether one is wearing a shirt or a tee.
Well, I don't go around sniffing mens collars. But twenty days back-of-the-neck-sweat between dry cleanings on a taiored jacket won't be pleasant. If a garment touches the skin, it should only be worn once before cleaning.
This is total bollocks. Denim jeans are not washed every day. No one does that, nor do they need to, I bet you don’t either - unless you’re quite peculiar
We all have different standards. I probably go 3-4 wears with jeans, but they ain’t the same at the end as at the beginning. The selvedge denim scene has guys who never wash their jeans or eg one cold soak every year (this is to get cool fades I believe), to me that’s disgusting. Either they’re single or their significant others like their men musky.
That is gross.
Oddly, I was reading something similar about pure wool jumpers the other day - there's a body of opinion that says they should just be hung outside for a good soak every now again a la the sheep.
If the Conservatives are just a special interest group for the elderly then perhaps it's time to let them die.
Either they break out or they breakup.
If the Tories lose their core pensioner vote to the LDs and Reform then they definitely die, at the moment the Tories still only lead with over 55s. Reform are neck and neck with Labour and the Tories with the middle aged and Labour still leads with the young with the Greens snapping at their heels
The thing is, you don’t want the Conservatives to appeal to anybody other than home-owning pensioners.
So, they won’t.
I do, 35-55 year olds as well and of course most still own their first home by 40 even if we would like that age a little lower
If the Conservatives are just a special interest group for the elderly then perhaps it's time to let them die.
Either they break out or they breakup.
That is likely to be a very perceptive comment.
For generations - indeed centuries - the Conservatives were attractive to those who ‘had’, and who wanted to protect what they had from sudden or radical change. Hence they opposed any reform, especially those that were happening overseas - but were wise and agile enough to jump to supporting changes once they had been successfully implemented in Britain by their opponents, during their brief ‘goes’ at being in power.
Over recent years, the Conservatives have decided instead to pitch to people who wanted to trash, change, and (sic) reform.
Now, they find that they have lost many of their natural supporters who would instinctively oppose dramatic changes, yet are being outflanked by a bunch of outlaws who will always be able to offer more right-wing radicalism than they can ever sign up for.
They’ve got themselves into a right pickle, and their survival on the political stage is now far from guaranteed.
If we follow the pattern of similar European countries - and what is so exceptional about us that says we won't? - then it's Labour who will find themselves in greater danger quite quickly. It's entirely possible for the two major parties by the time of the next election to be the Conservatives and Reform.
More likely a 3 way between them, it would take the Greens to really eat into Labour support too for them to fall well behind the Tories and Reform
There is a grim satisfaction in seeing Assad go. He was an evil bastard (John Simpson’s tweet is disgraceful)
But I’m not sure it’s any cause to “celebrate”. Not when there is such a likelihood he will be replaced by something easily as bad, or even worse. And this isn’t undue pessimism, time and again we’ve seen this in the MENA - the strongman falls with his army, what follows is brutal chaos, and then islamism
One of the few countries to have avoided this is Egypt, by the clever expedient of going from strongman to chaos and then islamism, at which point the army decided that Islamism is shit, so they went back to a strongman
Lucky escape for Egypt
Some truth in Simpson's tweet, if he hadn't had the surname Assad, he would probably have been happier remaining an ophthalmologist. Bashar was never as ruthless and power crazed as his father, Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi had been as a younger man though he became more brutal as he got power and had to try and hold onto it and followed what Russia and Iran told him to do.
If you were selecting a top graduate from ruthless bastard dictator strongman finishing school, Bashar al Assad would not have made the grade. He now looks like a weak and spineless man, fleeing to exile while Saddam and Gaddafi stayed in their nation and resisted until they were executed or killed. Though Assad will escape with his life it now seems unlike them
He also lasted a great deal longer than they did, and seems to have been genuinely liked by a large proportion of the population - you didn't get millions taking to the streets in support of Saddam.
This looks very much like the US hawks along with Turkey and Israel trying to re-order the Middle East in a hurry before Trump comes in. We'll see what happens when he does.
If the Conservatives are just a special interest group for the elderly then perhaps it's time to let them die.
Either they break out or they breakup.
If the Tories lose their core pensioner vote to the LDs and Reform then they definitely die, at the moment the Tories still only lead with over 55s. Reform are neck and neck with Labour and the Tories with the middle aged and Labour still leads with the young with the Greens snapping at their heels
Reform are coming for that youth vote
Not the youth vote, more the middle aged vote which is where Trump, Meloni and Le Pen perform best too ie those aged 35-65.
Labour will still continue to win the young under 34s, as Harris also won that age group in the US and Melenchon's block wins that age group in France and the leftist Democratic party win that age group in Italy
You’re wrong. Third of UK 18-24 support Trump, up to 50% of young men. Nigel has 1m TikTok followers. The manosphere is swinging hard right, young women will follow
Which given over 2/3 of under 24s oppose Trump doesn't mean they are all going populist right.
Even in the US Trump won only 49% of men under 30 compared to 59% of men aged between 45 and 65.
There is a grim satisfaction in seeing Assad go. He was an evil bastard (John Simpson’s tweet is disgraceful)
But I’m not sure it’s any cause to “celebrate”. Not when there is such a likelihood he will be replaced by something easily as bad, or even worse. And this isn’t undue pessimism, time and again we’ve seen this in the MENA - the strongman falls with his army, what follows is brutal chaos, and then islamism
One of the few countries to have avoided this is Egypt, by the clever expedient of going from strongman to chaos and then islamism, at which point the army decided that Islamism is shit, so they went back to a strongman
Lucky escape for Egypt
Some truth in Simpson's tweet, if he hadn't had the surname Assad, he would probably have been happier remaining an ophthalmologist. Bashar was never as ruthless and power crazed as his father, Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi had been as a younger man though he became more brutal as he got power and had to try and hold onto it and followed what Russia and Iran told him to do.
If you were selecting a top graduate from ruthless bastard dictator strongman finishing school, Bashar al Assad would not have made the grade. He now looks like a weak and spineless man, fleeing to exile while Saddam and Gaddafi stayed in their nation and resisted until they were executed or killed. Though Assad will escape with his life it now seems unlike them
Both wearing jacket and T shirt, so the jacket (which isn't washed every wear) is directly on the skin. Not only slovenly and ugly, but smelly too.
It is very common in ladies clothing to wear a cami top or other non-collar shirt under a tailored jacket - more so than wearing a shirt. Are all these ladies slovenly and ugly dressers? It's less conventional in men's clothing and I'm not a big fan of the style, but your post is a reach. We don't know whether the tees have long sleeves, and most of the soiling of a jacket will come from under arm sweat, which will happen whether one is wearing a shirt or a tee.
Well, I don't go around sniffing mens collars. But twenty days back-of-the-neck-sweat between dry cleanings on a taiored jacket won't be pleasant. If a garment touches the skin, it should only be worn once before cleaning.
This is total bollocks. Denim jeans are not washed every day. No one does that, nor do they need to, I bet you don’t either - unless you’re quite peculiar
We all have different standards. I probably go 3-4 wears with jeans, but they ain’t the same at the end as at the beginning. The selvedge denim scene has guys who never wash their jeans or eg one cold soak every year (this is to get cool fades I believe), to me that’s disgusting. Either they’re single or their significant others like their men musky.
That is gross.
Oddly, I was reading something similar about pure wool jumpers the other day - there's a body of opinion that says they should just be hung outside for a good soak every now again a la the sheep.
They’re right. Never wash extremely posh wool jumpers
There is a grim satisfaction in seeing Assad go. He was an evil bastard (John Simpson’s tweet is disgraceful)
But I’m not sure it’s any cause to “celebrate”. Not when there is such a likelihood he will be replaced by something easily as bad, or even worse. And this isn’t undue pessimism, time and again we’ve seen this in the MENA - the strongman falls with his army, what follows is brutal chaos, and then islamism
One of the few countries to have avoided this is Egypt, by the clever expedient of going from strongman to chaos and then islamism, at which point the army decided that Islamism is shit, so they went back to a strongman
Lucky escape for Egypt
Some truth in Simpson's tweet, if he hadn't had the surname Assad, he would probably have been happier remaining an ophthalmologist. Bashar was never as ruthless and power crazed as his father, Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi had been as a younger man though he became more brutal as he got power and had to try and hold onto it and followed what Russia and Iran told him to do.
If you were selecting a top graduate from ruthless bastard dictator strongman finishing school, Bashar al Assad would not have made the grade. He now looks like a weak and spineless man, fleeing to exile while Saddam and Gaddafi stayed in their nation and resisted until they were executed or killed. Though Assad will escape with his life it now seems unlike them
Both wearing jacket and T shirt, so the jacket (which isn't washed every wear) is directly on the skin. Not only slovenly and ugly, but smelly too.
It is very common in ladies clothing to wear a cami top or other non-collar shirt under a tailored jacket - more so than wearing a shirt. Are all these ladies slovenly and ugly dressers? It's less conventional in men's clothing and I'm not a big fan of the style, but your post is a reach. We don't know whether the tees have long sleeves, and most of the soiling of a jacket will come from under arm sweat, which will happen whether one is wearing a shirt or a tee.
Well, I don't go around sniffing mens collars. But twenty days back-of-the-neck-sweat between dry cleanings on a taiored jacket won't be pleasant. If a garment touches the skin, it should only be worn once before cleaning.
This is total bollocks. Denim jeans are not washed every day. No one does that, nor do they need to, I bet you don’t either - unless you’re quite peculiar
We all have different standards. I probably go 3-4 wears with jeans, but they ain’t the same at the end as at the beginning. The selvedge denim scene has guys who never wash their jeans or eg one cold soak every year (this is to get cool fades I believe), to me that’s disgusting. Either they’re single or their significant others like their men musky.
That is gross.
Oddly, I was reading something similar about pure wool jumpers the other day - there's a body of opinion that says they should just be hung outside for a good soak every now again a la the sheep.
They’re right. Never wash extremely posh wool jumpers
Wouldn't work for someone who likes gravy as much as me.
One local NIMBY arsehole turned up to the meeting with his own barrister, to try and stop a collective of local farmers from selling their own food in a small restaurant.
That particular barrister (ironically, given Clarkson’s views on it) is a noted scourge of HS2. This has included repeating false claims about the importance of certain local areas and landmarks in order to try and block it, e.g. the Roald Dahl wood that wasn’t. While that hasn’t worked, it has been a major factor in ballooning costs.
I haven’t checked whether he was one of the people behind the ‘bat tunnel’ but it seems eminently possible.
According to the (pro-HS2) Green Signals podcast, the bat tunnel thing is hilariously both right and wrong. Yes, there is a tunnel, and the section if is in costs £100 million (not just the tunnel). But the project manager who told us about it got nearly all the details wrong. As a starter: it was HS2 themselves who decided the bats needed protecting!
Building the bat tunnel was supposed to protect the bats. What I don't understand is a dark, enclosed space is what bats like; so they will fly into the tunnel which makes them more likely to be hit by a train. Am I wrong?
One local NIMBY arsehole turned up to the meeting with his own barrister, to try and stop a collective of local farmers from selling their own food in a small restaurant.
That particular barrister (ironically, given Clarkson’s views on it) is a noted scourge of HS2. This has included repeating false claims about the importance of certain local areas and landmarks in order to try and block it, e.g. the Roald Dahl wood that wasn’t. While that hasn’t worked, it has been a major factor in ballooning costs.
I haven’t checked whether he was one of the people behind the ‘bat tunnel’ but it seems eminently possible.
According to the (pro-HS2) Green Signals podcast, the bat tunnel thing is hilariously both right and wrong. Yes, there is a tunnel, and the section if is in costs £100 million (not just the tunnel). But the project manager who told us about it got nearly all the details wrong. As a starter: it was HS2 themselves who decided the bats needed protecting!
Building the bat tunnel was supposed to protect the bats. What I don't understand is a dark, enclosed space is what bats like; so they will fly into the tunnel which makes them more likely to be hit by a train. Am I wrong?
It’s a reason never to actually run the trains. Job done!
One local NIMBY arsehole turned up to the meeting with his own barrister, to try and stop a collective of local farmers from selling their own food in a small restaurant.
That particular barrister (ironically, given Clarkson’s views on it) is a noted scourge of HS2. This has included repeating false claims about the importance of certain local areas and landmarks in order to try and block it, e.g. the Roald Dahl wood that wasn’t. While that hasn’t worked, it has been a major factor in ballooning costs.
I haven’t checked whether he was one of the people behind the ‘bat tunnel’ but it seems eminently possible.
According to the (pro-HS2) Green Signals podcast, the bat tunnel thing is hilariously both right and wrong. Yes, there is a tunnel, and the section if is in costs £100 million (not just the tunnel). But the project manager who told us about it got nearly all the details wrong. As a starter: it was HS2 themselves who decided the bats needed protecting!
Building the bat tunnel was supposed to protect the bats. What I don't understand is a dark, enclosed space is what bats like; so they will fly into the tunnel which makes them more likely to be hit by a train. Am I wrong?
AIUI it's Becnstein's bats at that site, which are tree dwellers. They use woodpecker holes and similar.
Looking at the numbers, I do wonder if cut-and-cover or a different route would have been more effective.
But if it terminates at Birmingham, it's a £66bn white elephant branch line, anyway.
Comments
Would you like to try some chlorine gas to compare? Just so you understand, the chlorine reacts with the water present on the surface of the lungs to produce Hydrochloric acid.
Due to a fucking idiot with some polyclay in a workshop, I have actual seen the result. And that was a mild one.
Can pop round anytime, if you’d care for a dose?
@KemiBadenoch
.
She stands for common sense, freedom and family.
She has the courage to denounce and defeat toxic wokeism and restore ancient British liberties to the United Kingdom.'
https://x.com/PierrePoilievre/status/1865545589569589264
I can't see a way ahead. I'd suggest the Netanyahu strategy is the same as in 1982 and 2006 - create a delay until next time.
Objectively, everyone knows that protecting the sites of former petrol stations and the like against worthwhile development is a nonsense. But every politician in those areas knows the enduring power of a ‘save the Green Belt’ campaign, and therein lies the problem.
It’s rather like social care. Everyone knows that the solution has to involve better off people using at least some of the equity from their property to pay for care - as many people are forced to do by the status quo. But as soon as any party makes this explicit, they offer their opponents a golden campaigning opportunity.
“By far, he’s the most important player on the ground in Syria,” said Jerome Drevon, a senior analyst of jihad and modern conflict at the International Crisis Group
ny times blog
Grasping the nettle of planning reform is a vital part of our Plan for Change.
We are tackling the housing crisis we inherited with bold action to deliver the homes we need.
Labour is getting Britain building.
@BartholomewRoberts did you write this
Sprawl enables far more people to have somewhere to live of their own.
Pulling up the drawbridge and saying the boundary is here and no further is fine if you have no population changes and everyone already has somewhere to live of their own. Neither of those is the case.
Preventing sprawl in these circumstances isn't just wrong, it's hateful.
I would love some credible planning reform but I'm not holding my breath.
Similarly, our dysfunctional property market arises from a whole stack of mostly financial and legislative weaknesses, including our relatively minimal tax on holding property, low interest rates, and comparative wide-openness to foreign criminals investors buying up UK property, whereas it’s so much easier for politicians to think that simply building more homes will resolve the problem.
For context, Assad's siege of Aleppo took years, killed heaven knows how many, but certainly tens of thousands of civilians, indiscriminately - and directly drive millions into exile.
The revolt, as you seem to have forgotten, was sparked by the very public murder of an eleven year old by his security forces.
Nothing the west could, or would have done is likely to have changed any of that.
Syrians had just had enough of being brutalised by a regime representing a seventh of their population.
We just need to give councils the power and financing options to use them:
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/192d9f7b2fb5436a89042b5af7544d9d/
It hands development power to an oligopoly of developers that can get permission as all other competition is effectively obstructed.
Building more homes will resolve the problem.
How about 50m masts?
The MNOs stand ready to build masts but they keep getting rejected.
WHP applied for something like 10,000 installations over the last four years and half got rejected.
A sensible policy is to review and reconfigure the Green Belt provisions to enable the development of obviously already-‘spoiled’ land.
The problem with our politics is that the most simplistic messages often carry the most appeal, for the majority of voters who aren’t paying all that much attention.
The very people these changes would have helped opposed it because, Tories, innit.
It’s a nettle that still needs grasping.
It would need to be a High Court challenge or Judicial Review by the opponents, on objective legal or process grounds.
https://harboroughfm.co.uk/row-over-changes-to-lutterworth-east-plan/
I'd say that logistics is a strange area to drive as a development focus, as it is relatively low on employment for the scale of development. We have the same thing up here in North Notts - mega warehouses that do not provide *that* much local benefit.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9wllwex1j8o
(But profit maximising for developers)
I'm done with arguing with you.
You're in complete denial.
And so is your party. Your planning system is a disaster.
Either they break out or they breakup.
I’m open for voting for a party in 2029 that’s not Labour assuming they appeal more to the younger voter.
A charming, but forgotten feature of such weapons is that he reduced lung capacity and coughing puts a massive strain on the rest of cardio vascular system. So victims would often die of heart failure - lots of gas victims dropped dead within 10 years of WWI.
Being killed instantly (faster than the synapses in your brain can respond) by the supersonic blast wave from a bomb sounds quite boring, really.
So the waiting list target for *my* treatment, more disposable income etc.
If it was "more police" or "less ASB" in my town - rather than X police officers, would that boost the response?
Who knows what might happen in Syria, and who the people that might find themselves in power are. There are a lot of very sensible, very wise, and quite pragmatic people in the Arab world. Surely not all change has to lead to the nutters? (Admittedly the record isn't great)
The current administration can't be sustainable, so I suspect a Great Cycle Lane Alliance will form (SNP + Greens) , and the Facebook groups will descend into apoplectic fury as more 20mph limits, LTNs and a city centre ban on private vehicles is finally implemented.
(Trace amounts of wishcasting may be present in this item).
It's nice to see a Daily Mail article where they could not a picture of the female protagonist or victim in a thigh revealing minidress or skin tight lycra tracksuit.
I've no idea why a loaded gun was kept in a box on a high shelf. Whole piece:
https://archive.is/20241208032301/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14169551/Donald-Trump-new-Surgeon-General-shot-dead-father-aged-13.html#selection-1383.0-1425.149
Up to Labour to use the opportunity to the national good.
But I’m not sure it’s any cause to “celebrate”. Not when there is such a likelihood he will be replaced by something easily as bad, or even worse. And this isn’t undue pessimism, time and again we’ve seen this in the MENA - the strongman falls with his army, what follows is brutal chaos, and then islamism
One of the few countries to have avoided this is Egypt, by the clever expedient of going from strongman to chaos and then islamism, at which point the army decided that Islamism is shit, so they went back to a strongman
Lucky escape for Egypt
For generations - indeed centuries - the Conservatives were attractive to those who ‘had’, and who wanted to protect what they had from sudden or radical change. Hence they opposed any reform, especially those that were happening overseas - but were wise and agile enough to jump to supporting changes once they had been successfully implemented in Britain by their opponents, during their brief ‘goes’ at being in power.
Over recent years, the Conservatives have decided instead to pitch to people who wanted to trash, change, and (sic) reform.
Now, they find that they have lost many of their natural supporters who would instinctively oppose dramatic changes, yet are being outflanked by a bunch of outlaws who will always be able to offer more right-wing radicalism than they can ever sign up for.
They’ve got themselves into a right pickle, and their survival on the political stage is now far from guaranteed.
But the one that Future Britain should probably be most grateful to 2020s Britain for, if it's achieved, is the school-ready one. Reduce the tail of kids having to play catch-up all the time, and many things are possible in the decades to come.
But the main point is that the situation was unstable. Assad was going to go sometime.
And for once, this is not the west's fault.
This really isn’t a healthy state of affairs - and it’s your party’s desperation to cling onto its elderly support base that has landed us in such a predicament.
The obvious answer suggests that you are changing the subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-1N5TJQz7Q
The selvedge denim scene has guys who never wash their jeans or eg one cold soak every year (this is to get cool fades I believe), to me that’s disgusting. Either they’re single or their significant others like their men musky.
Labour will still continue to win the young under 34s, as Harris also won that age group in the US and Melenchon's block wins that age group in France and the leftist Democratic party win that age group in Italy
I wash shirts, undercrackers, tee shirts, etc, daily. But not jeans. They can go a week easily. I don’t think I’m especially musky, baby
Do you think those 5000 installations were right to be rejected? None of them were unsafe.
https://x.com/WarMonitor3/status/1865758240350310833
It'll be interesting to see what happens now, for a number of reasons...
Unless Labour suddenly gets some great ideas and the ability to enact them, and maybe a new leader who isn’t a total dud, they are only going down
Given that they have no ideas, there are pathetically incompetent, and they don’t replace leaders, I suspect they are fucked. A one term government which will crash to a sensational defeat
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/dec/08/labour-big-majority-is-fragile-and-it-has-weak-mandate-for-change-says-report
NEW THREAD
So, they won’t.
If you were selecting a top graduate from ruthless bastard dictator strongman finishing school, Bashar al Assad would not have made the grade. He now looks like a weak and spineless man, fleeing to exile while Saddam and Gaddafi stayed in their nation and resisted until they were executed or killed. Though Assad will escape with his life it now seems unlike them
Women, I understand, sometimes wear skimpier underwear.
Oddly, I was reading something similar about pure wool jumpers the other day - there's a body of opinion that says they should just be hung outside for a good soak every now again a la the sheep.
This looks very much like the US hawks along with Turkey and Israel trying to re-order the Middle East in a hurry before Trump comes in. We'll see what happens when he does.
Even in the US Trump won only 49% of men under 30 compared to 59% of men aged between 45 and 65.
Harris won a landslide 61% of women under 30
Rejoice.
Never change PB, never change.
https://x.com/keir_starmer/status/1865782830615417175
Looking at the numbers, I do wonder if cut-and-cover or a different route would have been more effective.
But if it terminates at Birmingham, it's a £66bn white elephant branch line, anyway.