BREAKING NEWS: The Met Office has issued a severe weather warning for December 25th stating that a thick cloud of Lynx Africa will cover the majority of the United Kingdom from around 8am onwards.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
What a load of bollocks, from beginning to end
For a start, the 19th century, certainly after 1815, was a benign period for humanity, compared to what came before and after
"When viewed in terms of large-scale, Europe-wide or globally transformative wars between major powers, the 19th century (particularly from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914) was generally more stable than the 18th century’s frequent dynastic conflicts and far less globally devastating than the industrialized and ideological cataclysms of the 20th century."
Pax Brittanica was a thing
The rest of your comment is on a similarly sophomoric level
Sophomoric, perhaps.
But your "benign period for humanity" requires a Euro-centric tunnel visioned proviso - "viewed in terms of...Europe-wide of globally transformative...", whatever that latter phrase means.
Viewed in terms of actual wars or deaths by violence, the 19th C globe was considerably bloodier than the preceding one. https://necrometrics.com/wars19c.htm Note this rough accounting doesn't even include the Dungan Revolt, which accounted for millions.
But the 19th century saw a huge rise in global population...
Around 60%.
But even in percentage terms, the 19th was considerably bloodier than the 18th. And of course, the 20th far bloodier still. I suppose you might argue that the end of Pax Britannica had something to do with that, but it's a bit of a stretch.
Wars tend to lead to technological advancement which supports population growth. The war itself and aftermath is a temporary setback to the overall population but every major war will be followed by a sustained period of population growth that far exceeds what was considered normal before the war started because the technology advancements supports denser populations.
Do they ? Correlation is not causation.
I suppose if you count the conquest of the New World as a war, then that's sort of true for 1492 - the new S American foods allowing far higher calorific crop yields on other continents.
But the other huge advances which fed greater populations were the Haber/Bosch process - invented and perfected 1909/1910 - and Norman Borlaug's green revolution, which had nothing to do with war either.
The counterfactual is that wars are immensely destructive. What might Europe have achieved had it avoided the devastation of two world wars ?
NOOKS
Yes, without the massive disruptions of WWI, self sustaining chain reactions from nuclear fission would quite probably have been discovered somewhat earlier, in Europe rather than the US.
I've banged on about Reform and the red wall on and off for a while. The economy simply does not work for millions upon millions of voters. They find themselves stuck in dead towns surrounded by decay doing whatever work they can and never quite managing.
Labour have clearly failed them - hence the desperate vote for Brexit and then Boris. Hoping that something will change. The Tories made Big Promises and delivered nothing so have been eviscerated. The best weapon for said flaying was Labour, but as we've all touched on that vote is an ocean wide and a paddling pool deep.
Labour have joined the Tories on the naughty step, and it will be Reform who will benefit and benefit big.
Yup, exactly this and marries with my perception too.
Labour fail the Red Wall The Tories fail the Red Wall
Voters turn to Reform
The political classes - The voters are at fault.
To address this the main parties need to accept their failings and reach out to these areas and try to genuinely level up or just accept it is managed decline.
Labour *don't know how* to level up. The Tories have no interest in levelling up.
Reform will come in and offer simplistic bullshit which we may as well try say the voters as nothing else has worked.
This is why Reform’s message is so hard to counter. When you distrust Labour/Tories so much, as a regular voter on the street who feels ignored, why wouldn’t you give them a go?
Because the vast majority of voters aren’t as ignorant and stupid as you are making out. They know the difference between a slogan and an actual policy.
Reform vote will eventually be eaten up by the Conservatives, who are struggling to at moment as they shredded the parties long term vote winner for economic competence - but the process won’t be quick, and we’ll have to put up with several Labour governments before we get there.
Point of order - most people don't know how things work and don't care. They are by definition ignorant of it - just as I am ignorant about a vast number of things such as brain surgery.
"They know the difference between an actual slogan and a policy". We have demonstrable proof that they don't. Get Brexit Done as a prime example.
This explains how Reform have been able to build so rapidly. People don't know how the economy works but they do understand they are broke. Reform come along with a simple explanation - your cash spent on asylum seekers - and seem to make sense.
As for being eaten by the Tories, its the opposite. The Tories are done.
Point of order to point of order.
Reform vote is a “none of the above” vote during time of income erosion. As Bobby J said, no income erosion last few years, no shredding of economic competence that’s returned Tory government for most the last hundred years, no Reform vote at all, no 6.2 million Starmer majority in commons either. Simples.
The psephological evidence is opposite of what you claim. No other party lends votes to help Reform, not even Conservatives. Reform are distrusted, disliked, laughed at by the vast majority of UK voters. Without that help, they can get nowhere in UK politics with current electoral system.
“As for being eaten by the Tories, its the opposite. The Tories are done.” That’s a keeper. Though probably for more than 10 years. 😕
Its a philosophical debate about direction of travel. My rationale is clear: 1) Labour will not be able to fix the systemic structural problems which have slowly broken our economy and for many our society 2) The time of income erosion is already measured in decades for so many voters 3) The Tories have trashed their reputation for a generation and continue along the wrong path with Her Wokewarness as leader 4) Farage is the only politician that many voters know. And when I say voters I mean the kind of voters who can deliver "that can't happen" results such as Brexit and the Johnson red wall landslide 5) Reform now have an ocean of cash and serious people organising them. They aren't the joke that Brexit and UKIP used to be 6) "No other party lends its vote to Reform". Well, apart from all the former Tory and former Labour voters who vote for them. That number will only grow and grow btw, with further millions being disconnected from their former Tory and Labour votes to be picked up by Reform later 7) "Reform are distrusted, disliked, laughed at by the vast majority of UK voters." Yes - and the WWC will never vote Tory. Oh that's right, until they did. Don't presume to impose your prejudices onto the opinions of voters.
The only way to fight populism is to Do Stuff. The Tories failed, Labour are failing. LibDems to indistinct and indirect to hone into One Message. Reform are led by the best agiprop politician of our age, funded by an ocean of cash and broadcast on social media...
I don't want to be right on this one. But will need serious persuasion that it isn't going to happen because it is happening right in front of us.
“ 6) "No other party lends its vote to Reform". Well, apart from all the former Tory and former Labour voters who vote for them. That number will only grow and grow btw, with further millions being disconnected from their former Tory and Labour votes to be picked up by Reform later‘
No. As economic and other credibility returns to Labour and Conservatives, support for policy non existent the “none of the above” option will shrink shrink shrink. They are in a voting block of one, created by the unusual situation of the most unprecedented credit crunch in history. When the GE comes, with just five seats and polling in single figures, Reform are not part of the equation which of the two parties do you want to win the election, and that will squeeze them still more next time, probably to zero seats.
“Don't presume to impose your prejudices onto the opinions of voters.”
I know you love politics, and I don’t want to be hurtful to anyone on earth, but imo you could do better at seeing the bigger picture and each moment set in historical context.
“It’s no big deal, no reason to big it up” is not what you tend to post - but in most political instances it’s probably right. As most voter decisions in elections are driven by the economics.
I do enjoy debate!
I think the crux of our disagreement is this line: "As economic and other credibility returns to Labour and Conservatives, support for policy non existent the “none of the above” option will shrink shrink shrink."
I Do Not Believe that credibility will return to those parties. Tories and Tory-leaning posters are in utter denial about just how destroyed that party is. Badenoch is heading even further away from credibility which is an impressive feat. The party long since stopped being Conservative - the conservative party is Reform. And Labour? Give over - they had one shot at cementing their hold on their wide but thin support and they've blown it.
You say voters are driven by economics. Exactly - and my inference from your post is that you think the economy is basically ok and people will get over themselves. It isn't They won't. The reason for the Brexit vote and then for the red wall landsliding for Boris was because of attitudes like that. Being told to suck it up. That bad is actually good, that actually they aren't broke actually.
The only part of your post I agree with is the size of the Reform electoral challenge. Which is preposterously steep. But have we not yet learned that impossible no longer exists in our politics? How could Reform win big? By wining more votes and concentrating it inside target constituencies. They already know how to do this, they're investing a lot of cash and bodies in rolling this out, and they have an ocean of cash to keep spending on it.
We had a landslide win for the Tories, where they took seats which have ben Labour since the Danelaw. Would be in power for a generation as a result, and instead gow swept away by a landslide twice as big with only a third of the vote. Impossible on stilts, yet it happened. So how can you proclaim that Reform winning seats into 3 figures is impossible?
Substantive policy decisions will, in any event, be made by the government, not by the ambassador. Mandleson's job is to smooth the relationship with the US, not sabotage it; if he fails in that, he won't last long in post.
Nicko Henderson was the ambassador when my father worked at the DC embassy. According to him, Henderson ran his own completely autonomous foreign policy and often wouldn't even pick up the phone when King Charles Street was calling. He was a distressed purchase by Thatcher who had to appoint him in a tearing hurry when Heath told her to shove the job up her narrow arse.
NH was also a workaholic which was ill-matched to my father's overwhelming preference to spend his working day doing crosswords and perusing catalogues of model train bits.
Sad for all concerned Heath not wanting to go to the US. There was very little point in the loathsome liver-spotted sack of bile remaining in the Commons.
You didn’t like him? What did he do wrong?
You feel he did something right?
Putting country out of the misery of the 1960s Labour in government.
Decimalisation.
Getting the French to allow us to join EEC.
Getting Labour out was fine, but it didn't mean an awful lot in the days of the postwar consensus (as indeed it seems to mean little in these days of centrist consensus).
I regard getting us into the EEC as an unalloyed ill. We should never have joined. It was a distraction at best from the real issues of the British economy, held up as a panacea by dishonest politicians like Heath who had an ideological agenda - again much the same as today's politicians.
Decimalisation I'm fairly neutral on. Pre-decimal currency enforced numeracy.
Decimalisation was an excellent idea, and an all-party one. The move to it began well before Heath. Indeed, the first 'decimal' coins were introduced in 1968, IIRC.
Likewise, Heath didn't persuade the French to drop their opposition (Heath was, of course, lead UK minister under Macmillan, when the French vetoed UK entry). The change wasn't in the British government but the French one.
Heath also ushered the same Labour government back in, in 1974, that he kicked out in 1970.
But he did see the need for fundamental national reform and gave it a good go, so paving the way for Thatcher to make a success of it once the political landscape was more conducive post-Winter of Discontent.
Five years is a Long time. The right don’t seem to get that. Appear to be still in election mode and not thinking strategically.
Nobody knows what the next election will bring. Can see almost any outcome.
Er, this is political betting. Our whole raison d’etre is making predictions, sometimes from absurdly long distances - geographical and temporal
Perhaps you’d be happier on nopoliticalbettingherethanks.com
Predicting what happens in an election four or five years away requires a tad more than looking at current polling or news cycles.
One only needs to see what’s happened in the last five years (since the week Johnson won a landslide), to think how crazy it must be to try and predict the next five!
ESPECIALLY the next five
*cue: ominous technological music*
The only thing we know for certain in today's politics is that the impossible keeps happening. And yet I get told with almost patronising confidence that Reform simply cannot happen as its politically impossible.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
What a load of bollocks, from beginning to end
For a start, the 19th century, certainly after 1815, was a benign period for humanity, compared to what came before and after
"When viewed in terms of large-scale, Europe-wide or globally transformative wars between major powers, the 19th century (particularly from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914) was generally more stable than the 18th century’s frequent dynastic conflicts and far less globally devastating than the industrialized and ideological cataclysms of the 20th century."
Pax Brittanica was a thing
The rest of your comment is on a similarly sophomoric level
Sophomhoric, perhaps.
But your "benign period for humanity" requires a Euro-centric tunnel visioned proviso - "viewed in terms of...Europe-wide of globally transformative...", whatever that latter phrase means.
Viewed in terms of actual wars or deaths by violence, the 19th C globe was considerably bloodier than the preceding one. https://necrometrics.com/wars19c.htm Note this rough accounting doesn't even include the Dungan Revolt, which accounted for millions.
But the 19th century saw a huge rise in global population...
Around 60%.
But even in percentage terms, the 19th was considerably bloodier than the 18th. And of course, the 20th far bloodier still. I suppose you might argue that the end of Pax Britannica had something to do with that, but it's a bit of a stretch.
Ah, I see what you're doing, you're inciuding deaths from colonial and imperial conquest in the 19th century list. That's a bit devious. Those weren't deaths by war, they were an unfortunate by-product of the "mission civilisatrice" - as we exported freedom, capitalism, Christianity, democracy, human rights, the Westminster parliamentary system, clothing, cooked food, comprehensible speech, the flushing toilet, wheels, biscuits, chicken tikka masala, bakelite, Agatha Christie novels, feminism, lawn tennis, electricity, "running fast", advanced ergonomics, the condom, "having a bit of a sniffle", kettles, The Emancipation of Slaves, Victoria sponges, cloud identification, theatre, Ovaltine, a really good sit down, and, most of all, the mighty English language to largely grateful natives overseas, esp the Scots and Irish
Nice try. But yes, it was already quite clear from your first post that only some deaths were worth counting.
Actually. this is moot. It all depends whether you include the Taipeng Rebellion, according to my new friend who is expert on this. That killed an incredible 30m or so, ergo if you include it then yes the period 1815-1914 - Pax Britannica - was much bloodier than the preceding century. But if, as seems reasonable, you exclude a truly anomalous domestic tiff from the total, then the the century of British hegemony is about as bloody as the 18th century, and given that global population increased by 60-70% in that time (almost doubling) that means I win and Britain is fab
The Tories destroyed themselves with a succession of leadership changes, each more absurd than the last with policies created from thin air and rapidly discarded.
The Tories destroyed themselves with a succession of leadership changes, each more absurd than the last with policies created from thin air and rapidly discarded.
The Tories destroyed themselves with a succession of leadership changes, each more absurd than the last with policies created from thin air and rapidly discarded.
Are the Labour team really saying "hold my beer?"
Labour has always talked about replacing leaders. It just very rarely actually does it.
I've banged on about Reform and the red wall on and off for a while. The economy simply does not work for millions upon millions of voters. They find themselves stuck in dead towns surrounded by decay doing whatever work they can and never quite managing.
Labour have clearly failed them - hence the desperate vote for Brexit and then Boris. Hoping that something will change. The Tories made Big Promises and delivered nothing so have been eviscerated. The best weapon for said flaying was Labour, but as we've all touched on that vote is an ocean wide and a paddling pool deep.
Labour have joined the Tories on the naughty step, and it will be Reform who will benefit and benefit big.
Yup, exactly this and marries with my perception too.
Labour fail the Red Wall The Tories fail the Red Wall
Voters turn to Reform
The political classes - The voters are at fault.
To address this the main parties need to accept their failings and reach out to these areas and try to genuinely level up or just accept it is managed decline.
Labour *don't know how* to level up. The Tories have no interest in levelling up.
Reform will come in and offer simplistic bullshit which we may as well try say the voters as nothing else has worked.
Which is why I liked the Biden administrations efforts.
You may not agree with them politically, but they came up with a plan to revitalise a range of industries in the US, via government support.
It may not be my favourite answer - but they came up with an answer to the problem. One that was politically saleable and in line with the beliefs of the Democratic Party.
Rather than just shrugging and saying “you can’t have any jobs”
The most stupid thing was in how this *wasn’t* sold to the electorate - I would have been running a half billion dollars of ads on that.
Because it was one of the key differences between Biden and Harris. Biden actually cared about the communities in industrial Middle America.
Harris and her staff were all West Coast Liberals who couldn’t sell condoms in a brothel to Middle America.
Peston is worth following precisely because he understands so little of politics that he broadcasts what he's told pretty much unfiltered. Obviously, what he's told isn't necessarily what the people telling him it are actually thinking - but it is what they want broadcast, which is of itself useful to know.
Five years is a Long time. The right don’t seem to get that. Appear to be still in election mode and not thinking strategically.
Nobody knows what the next election will bring. Can see almost any outcome.
Er, this is political betting. Our whole raison d’etre is making predictions, sometimes from absurdly long distances - geographical and temporal
Perhaps you’d be happier on nopoliticalbettingherethanks.com
Predicting what happens in an election four or five years away requires a tad more than looking at current polling or news cycles.
One only needs to see what’s happened in the last five years (since the week Johnson won a landslide), to think how crazy it must be to try and predict the next five!
ESPECIALLY the next five
*cue: ominous technological music*
On the up side, we have ominous technological music to look forward to in the future.
I'm not surprised. In the old days, so the thought went, the electorate would wait till nearer the time, make a sober assessment and usually incline towards the incumbent (assuming nothing too catastrophic had occurred). Nowadays the electorate is just too volatile and could opt for Farage at the drop of a hat. It's starting to feel that to even compete with Farage Labour would need a superhuman leader, which Sir Keir palpably isn't. Desperate measures are in order.
The Tories destroyed themselves with a succession of leadership changes, each more absurd than the last with policies created from thin air and rapidly discarded.
Are the Labour team really saying "hold my beer?"
I'm fairly convinced that what Labour needs most at the moment is to project an air of calm competence. There is certainly calmness, but the *image* seems to veer more towards incompetence than competence.
With better media handling and news management, then the government's standings would be much better. Although the media handling hasn't been helped by the fact they've shot themselves in their feet a few times.
Mandelson would have been much better behind the scenes in No. 10 than in the USA.
I've banged on about Reform and the red wall on and off for a while. The economy simply does not work for millions upon millions of voters. They find themselves stuck in dead towns surrounded by decay doing whatever work they can and never quite managing.
Labour have clearly failed them - hence the desperate vote for Brexit and then Boris. Hoping that something will change. The Tories made Big Promises and delivered nothing so have been eviscerated. The best weapon for said flaying was Labour, but as we've all touched on that vote is an ocean wide and a paddling pool deep.
Labour have joined the Tories on the naughty step, and it will be Reform who will benefit and benefit big.
Yup, exactly this and marries with my perception too.
Labour fail the Red Wall The Tories fail the Red Wall
Voters turn to Reform
The political classes - The voters are at fault.
To address this the main parties need to accept their failings and reach out to these areas and try to genuinely level up or just accept it is managed decline.
Labour *don't know how* to level up. The Tories have no interest in levelling up.
Reform will come in and offer simplistic bullshit which we may as well try say the voters as nothing else has worked.
Which is why I liked the Biden administrations efforts.
You may not agree with them politically, but they came up with a plan to revitalise a range of industries in the US, via government support.
It may not be my favourite answer - but they came up with an answer to the problem. One that was politically saleable and in line with the beliefs of the Democratic Party.
Rather than just shrugging and saying “you can’t have any jobs”
The most stupid thing was in how this *wasn’t* sold to the electorate - I would have been running a half billion dollars of ads on that.
Because it was one of the key differences between Biden and Harris. Biden actually cared about the communities in industrial Middle America.
Harris and her staff were all West Coast Liberals who couldn’t sell condoms in a brothel to Middle America.
If she didn't care about the middle American Middle Class then why did she choose Tim Walz as running mate?
Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 2h Gannett, owner of the Des Moines Register, won’t publicly commit to paying legal costs for Ann Seltzer, the pollster being sued by Trump.
This is ominous, especially in light of the capitulation last week by Disney/ABC, which is vastly better resourced than Gannett.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
What a load of bollocks, from beginning to end
For a start, the 19th century, certainly after 1815, was a benign period for humanity, compared to what came before and after
"When viewed in terms of large-scale, Europe-wide or globally transformative wars between major powers, the 19th century (particularly from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914) was generally more stable than the 18th century’s frequent dynastic conflicts and far less globally devastating than the industrialized and ideological cataclysms of the 20th century."
Pax Brittanica was a thing
The rest of your comment is on a similarly sophomoric level
Sophomhoric, perhaps.
But your "benign period for humanity" requires a Euro-centric tunnel visioned proviso - "viewed in terms of...Europe-wide of globally transformative...", whatever that latter phrase means.
Viewed in terms of actual wars or deaths by violence, the 19th C globe was considerably bloodier than the preceding one. https://necrometrics.com/wars19c.htm Note this rough accounting doesn't even include the Dungan Revolt, which accounted for millions.
But the 19th century saw a huge rise in global population...
Around 60%.
But even in percentage terms, the 19th was considerably bloodier than the 18th. And of course, the 20th far bloodier still. I suppose you might argue that the end of Pax Britannica had something to do with that, but it's a bit of a stretch.
Ah, I see what you're doing, you're inciuding deaths from colonial and imperial conquest in the 19th century list. That's a bit devious. Those weren't deaths by war, they were an unfortunate by-product of the "mission civilisatrice" - as we exported freedom, capitalism, Christianity, democracy, human rights, the Westminster parliamentary system, clothing, cooked food, comprehensible speech, the flushing toilet, wheels, biscuits, chicken tikka masala, bakelite, Agatha Christie novels, feminism, lawn tennis, electricity, "running fast", advanced ergonomics, the condom, "having a bit of a sniffle", kettles, The Emancipation of Slaves, Victoria sponges, cloud identification, theatre, Ovaltine, a really good sit down, and, most of all, the mighty English language to largely grateful natives overseas, esp the Scots and Irish
Nice try. But yes, it was already quite clear from your first post that only some deaths were worth counting.
Actually. this is moot. It all depends whether you include the Taipeng Rebellion, according to my new friend who is expert on this. That killed an incredible 30m or so, ergo if you include it then yes the period 1815-1914 - Pax Britannica - was much bloodier than the preceding century. But if, as seems reasonable, you exclude a truly anomalous domestic tiff from the total, then the the century of British hegemony is about as bloody as the 18th century, and given that global population increased by 60-70% in that time (almost doubling) that means I win and Britain is fab
The US, Russian, Argentinian and Chinese versions of the Manifest Destiny, were all extremely brutal in the 19th century.
Five years is a Long time. The right don’t seem to get that. Appear to be still in election mode and not thinking strategically.
Nobody knows what the next election will bring. Can see almost any outcome.
Er, this is political betting. Our whole raison d’etre is making predictions, sometimes from absurdly long distances - geographical and temporal
Perhaps you’d be happier on nopoliticalbettingherethanks.com
Predicting what happens in an election four or five years away requires a tad more than looking at current polling or news cycles.
One only needs to see what’s happened in the last five years (since the week Johnson won a landslide), to think how crazy it must be to try and predict the next five!
ESPECIALLY the next five
*cue: ominous technological music*
On the up side, we have ominous technological music to look forward to in the future.
I've banged on about Reform and the red wall on and off for a while. The economy simply does not work for millions upon millions of voters. They find themselves stuck in dead towns surrounded by decay doing whatever work they can and never quite managing.
Labour have clearly failed them - hence the desperate vote for Brexit and then Boris. Hoping that something will change. The Tories made Big Promises and delivered nothing so have been eviscerated. The best weapon for said flaying was Labour, but as we've all touched on that vote is an ocean wide and a paddling pool deep.
Labour have joined the Tories on the naughty step, and it will be Reform who will benefit and benefit big.
Yup, exactly this and marries with my perception too.
Labour fail the Red Wall The Tories fail the Red Wall
Voters turn to Reform
The political classes - The voters are at fault.
To address this the main parties need to accept their failings and reach out to these areas and try to genuinely level up or just accept it is managed decline.
Labour *don't know how* to level up. The Tories have no interest in levelling up.
Reform will come in and offer simplistic bullshit which we may as well try say the voters as nothing else has worked.
Which is why I liked the Biden administrations efforts.
You may not agree with them politically, but they came up with a plan to revitalise a range of industries in the US, via government support.
It may not be my favourite answer - but they came up with an answer to the problem. One that was politically saleable and in line with the beliefs of the Democratic Party.
Rather than just shrugging and saying “you can’t have any jobs”
The most stupid thing was in how this *wasn’t* sold to the electorate - I would have been running a half billion dollars of ads on that.
Because it was one of the key differences between Biden and Harris. Biden actually cared about the communities in industrial Middle America.
Harris and her staff were all West Coast Liberals who couldn’t sell condoms in a brothel to Middle America.
If she didn't care about the middle American Middle Class then why did she choose Tim Walz as running mate?
The guy who passed 40-week abortions and was all up for transgender surgeries on children?
I've banged on about Reform and the red wall on and off for a while. The economy simply does not work for millions upon millions of voters. They find themselves stuck in dead towns surrounded by decay doing whatever work they can and never quite managing.
Labour have clearly failed them - hence the desperate vote for Brexit and then Boris. Hoping that something will change. The Tories made Big Promises and delivered nothing so have been eviscerated. The best weapon for said flaying was Labour, but as we've all touched on that vote is an ocean wide and a paddling pool deep.
Labour have joined the Tories on the naughty step, and it will be Reform who will benefit and benefit big.
Yup, exactly this and marries with my perception too.
Labour fail the Red Wall The Tories fail the Red Wall
Voters turn to Reform
The political classes - The voters are at fault.
To address this the main parties need to accept their failings and reach out to these areas and try to genuinely level up or just accept it is managed decline.
Labour *don't know how* to level up. The Tories have no interest in levelling up.
Reform will come in and offer simplistic bullshit which we may as well try say the voters as nothing else has worked.
Which is why I liked the Biden administrations efforts.
You may not agree with them politically, but they came up with a plan to revitalise a range of industries in the US, via government support.
It may not be my favourite answer - but they came up with an answer to the problem. One that was politically saleable and in line with the beliefs of the Democratic Party.
Rather than just shrugging and saying “you can’t have any jobs”
The most stupid thing was in how this *wasn’t* sold to the electorate - I would have been running a half billion dollars of ads on that.
Because it was one of the key differences between Biden and Harris. Biden actually cared about the communities in industrial Middle America.
Harris and her staff were all West Coast Liberals who couldn’t sell condoms in a brothel to Middle America.
If she didn't care about the middle American Middle Class then why did she choose Tim Walz as running mate?
Why indeed? A left-leaning governor of a left-leaning State brought nothing to the table.
Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 2h Gannett, owner of the Des Moines Register, won’t publicly commit to paying legal costs for Ann Seltzer, the pollster being sued by Trump.
This is ominous, especially in light of the capitulation last week by Disney/ABC, which is vastly better resourced than Gannett.
I've banged on about Reform and the red wall on and off for a while. The economy simply does not work for millions upon millions of voters. They find themselves stuck in dead towns surrounded by decay doing whatever work they can and never quite managing.
Labour have clearly failed them - hence the desperate vote for Brexit and then Boris. Hoping that something will change. The Tories made Big Promises and delivered nothing so have been eviscerated. The best weapon for said flaying was Labour, but as we've all touched on that vote is an ocean wide and a paddling pool deep.
Labour have joined the Tories on the naughty step, and it will be Reform who will benefit and benefit big.
Yup, exactly this and marries with my perception too.
Labour fail the Red Wall The Tories fail the Red Wall
Voters turn to Reform
The political classes - The voters are at fault.
To address this the main parties need to accept their failings and reach out to these areas and try to genuinely level up or just accept it is managed decline.
Labour *don't know how* to level up. The Tories have no interest in levelling up.
Reform will come in and offer simplistic bullshit which we may as well try say the voters as nothing else has worked.
Which is why I liked the Biden administrations efforts.
You may not agree with them politically, but they came up with a plan to revitalise a range of industries in the US, via government support.
It may not be my favourite answer - but they came up with an answer to the problem. One that was politically saleable and in line with the beliefs of the Democratic Party.
Rather than just shrugging and saying “you can’t have any jobs”
The most stupid thing was in how this *wasn’t* sold to the electorate - I would have been running a half billion dollars of ads on that.
Because it was one of the key differences between Biden and Harris. Biden actually cared about the communities in industrial Middle America.
Harris and her staff were all West Coast Liberals who couldn’t sell condoms in a brothel to Middle America.
If she didn't care about the middle American Middle Class then why did she choose Tim Walz as running mate?
The guy who passed 40-week abortions and was all up for transgender surgeries on children?
Are they the only industrial policies that you noticed from Walz?
Well we had some stuff about Reeves yesterday too, anonymous comments.
If he goes it’s PM Rayner.
Well now that depends.
Rayner is the elected Deputy Leader. If Starmer abruptly went then she would be *acting* leader. We don't have acting PMs, so she would kiss the royal ring and I suspect incumbency would make her hard to replace as permanent party leader.
But Starmer won't abruptly go. If he is quitting to spend more time watching Arsenal then he'll hang on to get her ouster in place. If he is being resigned to do the same then the cabal doing the ousting will have her manoeuvred out as well.
There is a significant faction of the Labour Party who *cannot stand* northern types like Rayner.
Five years is a Long time. The right don’t seem to get that. Appear to be still in election mode and not thinking strategically.
Nobody knows what the next election will bring. Can see almost any outcome.
Er, this is political betting. Our whole raison d’etre is making predictions, sometimes from absurdly long distances - geographical and temporal
Perhaps you’d be happier on nopoliticalbettingherethanks.com
Predicting what happens in an election four or five years away requires a tad more than looking at current polling or news cycles.
One only needs to see what’s happened in the last five years (since the week Johnson won a landslide), to think how crazy it must be to try and predict the next five!
ESPECIALLY the next five
*cue: ominous technological music*
The only thing we know for certain in today's politics is that the impossible keeps happening. And yet I get told with almost patronising confidence that Reform simply cannot happen as its politically impossible.
Hello!
Reform are a threat to both labour and conservatives and there is plenty of evidence of that and the locals has seen them decimate Labour in red wall seats
I posed the question previously and ask it again
Will Farage accepting money from Trump/Musk help or hinder Reform
The conservative party lost their way and were deservedly thrown out of office, though I did vote conservative at GE 24
I accepted Labour deserved to win but am utterly astonished how Starmer and Reeves have become so unpopular so quickly, but they have only themselves to blame with the way they have governed to date
It is too early to condemn Badenoch, and for that matter the conservatives who have performed well in the locals including here in Wales.
I can see a Conservative - Reform Government but as so many wise heads say it is far too early to predict the next GE
Worth returning to those incredible Macron remarks in mayotte
“Emmanuel Macron swore during a furious exchange with residents of the cyclone-hit islands of Mayotte on Thursday night, telling a jeering crowd in the French territory “if this wasn’t France, you’d be in a bath of shit 10,000 times worse”.”
At any one point in time, there is an approximately 12% chance that my printer will work on demand
I’m an IT manager, and I hate printers with a passion.
I once worked as IT service manager for a company of 400 people, and my biggest achievement in three years there was having them replace about 70 small printers with 15 large printer/copiers. I literally had one man doing nothing but fixing printers and printer issues at one point.
Printers are evil, and the sooner the office can work totally paperless the better!
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
What a load of bollocks, from beginning to end
For a start, the 19th century, certainly after 1815, was a benign period for humanity, compared to what came before and after
"When viewed in terms of large-scale, Europe-wide or globally transformative wars between major powers, the 19th century (particularly from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914) was generally more stable than the 18th century’s frequent dynastic conflicts and far less globally devastating than the industrialized and ideological cataclysms of the 20th century."
Pax Brittanica was a thing
The rest of your comment is on a similarly sophomoric level
Sophomhoric, perhaps.
But your "benign period for humanity" requires a Euro-centric tunnel visioned proviso - "viewed in terms of...Europe-wide of globally transformative...", whatever that latter phrase means.
Viewed in terms of actual wars or deaths by violence, the 19th C globe was considerably bloodier than the preceding one. https://necrometrics.com/wars19c.htm Note this rough accounting doesn't even include the Dungan Revolt, which accounted for millions.
But the 19th century saw a huge rise in global population...
Around 60%.
But even in percentage terms, the 19th was considerably bloodier than the 18th. And of course, the 20th far bloodier still. I suppose you might argue that the end of Pax Britannica had something to do with that, but it's a bit of a stretch.
Ah, I see what you're doing, you're inciuding deaths from colonial and imperial conquest in the 19th century list. That's a bit devious. Those weren't deaths by war, they were an unfortunate by-product of the "mission civilisatrice" - as we exported freedom, capitalism, Christianity, democracy, human rights, the Westminster parliamentary system, clothing, cooked food, comprehensible speech, the flushing toilet, wheels, biscuits, chicken tikka masala, bakelite, Agatha Christie novels, feminism, lawn tennis, electricity, "running fast", advanced ergonomics, the condom, "having a bit of a sniffle", kettles, The Emancipation of Slaves, Victoria sponges, cloud identification, theatre, Ovaltine, a really good sit down, and, most of all, the mighty English language to largely grateful natives overseas, esp the Scots and Irish
Nice try. But yes, it was already quite clear from your first post that only some deaths were worth counting.
Actually. this is moot. It all depends whether you include the Taipeng Rebellion, according to my new friend who is expert on this. That killed an incredible 30m or so, ergo if you include it then yes the period 1815-1914 - Pax Britannica - was much bloodier than the preceding century. But if, as seems reasonable, you exclude a truly anomalous domestic tiff from the total, then the the century of British hegemony is about as bloody as the 18th century, and given that global population increased by 60-70% in that time (almost doubling) that means I win and Britain is fab
If we're talking about international state-to-state conflict (so excluding civil wars, slavery and colonial violence / maladministration) then the 1815-1914 period was much less bloody than the century either side - although of course those dates aren't neutral: 1792-1918 would look rather different.
Personally, I think there's a case for using both sets of figures. We would certainly include the deaths of Mao's famines, Hitler's genocide, Stalin's purges and holodomor, Rwanda, Pol Pot and so on within the figures for 20th century political violence, as well as civilian casualties of war, of which there were tens of millions.
But even then, these non-war of 19th century types violence came out out of processes already underway in 1800 and probably tended to reduce in severity overall as the century went on, with the exception of the civil wars in China and the US.
The Tories destroyed themselves with a succession of leadership changes, each more absurd than the last with policies created from thin air and rapidly discarded.
Are the Labour team really saying "hold my beer?"
Oh God, don’t get Big G started off again about Starmer and beer.
Well we had some stuff about Reeves yesterday too, anonymous comments.
If he goes it’s PM Rayner.
Well now that depends.
Rayner is the elected Deputy Leader. If Starmer abruptly went then she would be *acting* leader. We don't have acting PMs, so she would kiss the royal ring and I suspect incumbency would make her hard to replace as permanent party leader.
But Starmer won't abruptly go. If he is quitting to spend more time watching Arsenal then he'll hang on to get her ouster in place. If he is being resigned to do the same then the cabal doing the ousting will have her manoeuvred out as well.
There is a significant faction of the Labour Party who *cannot stand* northern types like Rayner.
It's not being northern that they're against: it's that she's working class and *sounds* northern.
I'm not surprised. In the old days, so the thought went, the electorate would wait till nearer the time, make a sober assessment and usually incline towards the incumbent (assuming nothing too catastrophic had occurred). Nowadays the electorate is just too volatile and could opt for Farage at the drop of a hat. It's starting to feel that to even compete with Farage Labour would need a superhuman leader, which Sir Keir palpably isn't. Desperate measures are in order.
There's no point in Starmer departing just before the election. The new leader would sink without a trace.
Five years is a Long time. The right don’t seem to get that. Appear to be still in election mode and not thinking strategically.
Nobody knows what the next election will bring. Can see almost any outcome.
Er, this is political betting. Our whole raison d’etre is making predictions, sometimes from absurdly long distances - geographical and temporal
Perhaps you’d be happier on nopoliticalbettingherethanks.com
Predicting what happens in an election four or five years away requires a tad more than looking at current polling or news cycles.
One only needs to see what’s happened in the last five years (since the week Johnson won a landslide), to think how crazy it must be to try and predict the next five!
ESPECIALLY the next five
*cue: ominous technological music*
On the up side, we have ominous technological music to look forward to in the future.
The Tories destroyed themselves with a succession of leadership changes, each more absurd than the last with policies created from thin air and rapidly discarded.
Are the Labour team really saying "hold my beer?"
Oh God, don’t get Big G started off again about Starmer and beer.
Well we had some stuff about Reeves yesterday too, anonymous comments.
If he goes it’s PM Rayner.
Well now that depends.
Rayner is the elected Deputy Leader. If Starmer abruptly went then she would be *acting* leader. We don't have acting PMs, so she would kiss the royal ring and I suspect incumbency would make her hard to replace as permanent party leader.
But Starmer won't abruptly go. If he is quitting to spend more time watching Arsenal then he'll hang on to get her ouster in place. If he is being resigned to do the same then the cabal doing the ousting will have her manoeuvred out as well.
There is a significant faction of the Labour Party who *cannot stand* northern types like Rayner.
Which faction would that be ?
You could say factions of the Labour party *cannot stand* Scottish, Welsh, London, Southern & Midlands types depending on which way the wind is blowing.
I've banged on about Reform and the red wall on and off for a while. The economy simply does not work for millions upon millions of voters. They find themselves stuck in dead towns surrounded by decay doing whatever work they can and never quite managing.
Labour have clearly failed them - hence the desperate vote for Brexit and then Boris. Hoping that something will change. The Tories made Big Promises and delivered nothing so have been eviscerated. The best weapon for said flaying was Labour, but as we've all touched on that vote is an ocean wide and a paddling pool deep.
Labour have joined the Tories on the naughty step, and it will be Reform who will benefit and benefit big.
Yup, exactly this and marries with my perception too.
Labour fail the Red Wall The Tories fail the Red Wall
Voters turn to Reform
The political classes - The voters are at fault.
To address this the main parties need to accept their failings and reach out to these areas and try to genuinely level up or just accept it is managed decline.
Labour *don't know how* to level up. The Tories have no interest in levelling up.
Reform will come in and offer simplistic bullshit which we may as well try say the voters as nothing else has worked.
Which is why I liked the Biden administrations efforts.
You may not agree with them politically, but they came up with a plan to revitalise a range of industries in the US, via government support.
It may not be my favourite answer - but they came up with an answer to the problem. One that was politically saleable and in line with the beliefs of the Democratic Party.
Rather than just shrugging and saying “you can’t have any jobs”
The most stupid thing was in how this *wasn’t* sold to the electorate - I would have been running a half billion dollars of ads on that.
Because it was one of the key differences between Biden and Harris. Biden actually cared about the communities in industrial Middle America.
Harris and her staff were all West Coast Liberals who couldn’t sell condoms in a brothel to Middle America.
If she didn't care about the middle American Middle Class then why did she choose Tim Walz as running mate?
The guy who passed 40-week abortions and was all up for transgender surgeries on children?
Are they the only industrial policies that you noticed from Walz?
At any one point in time, there is an approximately 12% chance that my printer will work on demand
I’m an IT manager, and I hate printers with a passion.
I once worked as IT service manager for a company of 400 people, and my biggest achievement in three years there was having them replace about 70 small printers with 15 large printer/copiers. I literally had one man doing nothing but fixing printers and printer issues at one point.
Printers are evil, and the sooner the office can work totally paperless the better!
In one bank, the only thing to be printed were the expense claim sheets.
I caused a panic when I printed mine - to PDF. And emailed it to the expense people. Along with the receipts.
To the whining, I pointed out that internal email was secure, the expenses were non confidential and that sending stuff internally in unsealed envelopes was less secure.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
There is no such thing as international law. It is just the set of rules most recently agreed upon by whoever were Top Nations at the time. As there is currently only one Top Nation it is that nation which makes the rules. Or breaks them.
There is, however, pragmatism, which every nation engages in.
I know you've just come back wowed by America but the idea that America rules the roost as it did, is nuts
Go to East Asia (or indeed the Indian Ocean, or Africa, or Latin America) and you can feel the overwhelming power of China. Certainly equal to the USA
There was a NYT piece t'other day which made the point that China will soon have such a huge chunk of global manufacturing it will be akin to Britain at the early peak of the Industrial Revolution, or America at the end of WW2. Hegemonic
China doesn't now, and never did see itself as the upholder of universal values. It doesn't project force or want to. It is (fiercely) protective about territories it believes are part of Greater China but aside from voicing the odd (usually conciliatory) view on global events, isn't about to send a task force to the Balkans. It is not hugely removed from cultivering its jardin (disputes about just what is in the jardin aside).
The US, however, does see itself as the world's policeman and as the upholder of universal values.
Is the difference.
A bizarre take. America DID see itself as that, but not any more. The election of Trump is a symptom of that withdrawal, not a cause
Trump wants the world to look after itself, and Europeans can get fucked if they won't pay for their own defence
America is returning to isolationism, its policeman role is over and it doesn't care about "international rules" and it CERTAINLY ain't gonna pay to uphold them
Much less so with Trump for sure. But to turn the ship around takes more than one isolationist-adjacent POTUS. There is a whole structure around eg putting warships here, there and everywhere, about projecting force, and, when all is said and done, about supporting its allies, whether those are in Western Europe or the Middle East.
There is as we speak a huge amount of US activity in any and every theatre you care to name, whether directly involved or not, and that won't change come 1/1/25. Which supports your final point, that I made earlier, that the US, as Top Nation, doesn't care about "international rules", whatever they are.
You claimed it is and wants to be "world policeman". Absurd. That era ended some time ago, and Trump has sealed the deal. America ain't gonna be intervening in any regional wars for many years, if ever, unless they are right on the door step and Quebec attacks Ontario with nukes. Then America MIGHT step in
You are simply wrong. America is set up to be the world's policeman and the world expects it to be the world's policeman. Trump as POTUS isn't going to change that.
You are stuck in the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush era where you think that this means responding to a particular vendetta.
It doesn't, it means the world looks to you when events happen. As it will when they do. And the US will respond.
I'm sure @Dura can tell us current US warship and battle group deployments and they aren't all in Kentucky.
I agree with you: America is heavily involved throughout the world, militarily.
But: Putin and Xi desperately desire an isolationist USA, so they can do their non-isolationist rubbish. Trump's rhetoric is music to their ears.
Sadly, isolationism doesn't work, especially when you are a world power.
Trump isn't an isolationist though. Has he not made great play of how there will be hell to pay if the hostages are not released by Hamas by the time he is inaugurated and his incoming team has spent the time since the election trying to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. That's not isolationism.
I might suggest that his currently-stated ideas for 'peace' in Ukraine is music to Putin's ears. As are his threats towards NATO.
Trump's threats to NATO are purely monetary. He wants European countries to pay their own way, which is a very fair position to hold.
Five years is a Long time. The right don’t seem to get that. Appear to be still in election mode and not thinking strategically.
Nobody knows what the next election will bring. Can see almost any outcome.
Er, this is political betting. Our whole raison d’etre is making predictions, sometimes from absurdly long distances - geographical and temporal
Perhaps you’d be happier on nopoliticalbettingherethanks.com
Predicting what happens in an election four or five years away requires a tad more than looking at current polling or news cycles.
One only needs to see what’s happened in the last five years (since the week Johnson won a landslide), to think how crazy it must be to try and predict the next five!
ESPECIALLY the next five
*cue: ominous technological music*
AI (assuming thats what you are referring to) is going to bring enormous changes, but I think your timescales are rather too rapid for what is likely to happen. Lots of sectors are already using AI. I think it will be amazing in medical diagnosis (and we have been using machine learning etc for many years in this area). I am less convinced by you bonfire of the jobs rhetoric. But time will tell.
Going back on topic for a moment, even when the SNP were actively campaigning for independence, it was to keep "our" monarchy. I don't see how republicanism and independence are automatically linked.
Scotland is as broke as the rest of the UK. If independence or ditching the King or making Donald Trump the Laird would sort the economy, then people would support it. Instead - with the exception of the true believers - independence offers the opportunity for broke people to throw themselves off the cliff in the dark with the promise of a nice new net below them...
I think Scotland is significantly more broke than the rest of the country.
The biggest failure of the SNP at Holyrood is that they've made no progress on changing that. If they'd had a greater focus on attracting inward investment to Scotland for the past 17 years then they might have convinced a slice of the electorate that independence was a sensible option for escaping Britain's economic decline.
If it's Scotland's oil, it's also Scotland's abandonment obligations - to clear up the seabed and take away the platforms and detritus of oil extraction.
Well we had some stuff about Reeves yesterday too, anonymous comments.
If he goes it’s PM Rayner.
Well now that depends.
Rayner is the elected Deputy Leader. If Starmer abruptly went then she would be *acting* leader. We don't have acting PMs, so she would kiss the royal ring and I suspect incumbency would make her hard to replace as permanent party leader.
But Starmer won't abruptly go. If he is quitting to spend more time watching Arsenal then he'll hang on to get her ouster in place. If he is being resigned to do the same then the cabal doing the ousting will have her manoeuvred out as well.
There is a significant faction of the Labour Party who *cannot stand* northern types like Rayner.
I can’t say I’m a fan either.
The phrase ‘kiss the royal ring’ is somewhat juvenile which is why it made me laugh out loud 😂
Not sure how the mechanics would work but he’s started poorly but he’s got time. Not years but certainly time and many MPs and ministers owe their position to him so he will have some loyalty.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
There is no such thing as international law. It is just the set of rules most recently agreed upon by whoever were Top Nations at the time. As there is currently only one Top Nation it is that nation which makes the rules. Or breaks them.
There is, however, pragmatism, which every nation engages in.
I know you've just come back wowed by America but the idea that America rules the roost as it did, is nuts
Go to East Asia (or indeed the Indian Ocean, or Africa, or Latin America) and you can feel the overwhelming power of China. Certainly equal to the USA
There was a NYT piece t'other day which made the point that China will soon have such a huge chunk of global manufacturing it will be akin to Britain at the early peak of the Industrial Revolution, or America at the end of WW2. Hegemonic
China doesn't now, and never did see itself as the upholder of universal values. It doesn't project force or want to. It is (fiercely) protective about territories it believes are part of Greater China but aside from voicing the odd (usually conciliatory) view on global events, isn't about to send a task force to the Balkans. It is not hugely removed from cultivering its jardin (disputes about just what is in the jardin aside).
The US, however, does see itself as the world's policeman and as the upholder of universal values.
Is the difference.
A bizarre take. America DID see itself as that, but not any more. The election of Trump is a symptom of that withdrawal, not a cause
Trump wants the world to look after itself, and Europeans can get fucked if they won't pay for their own defence
America is returning to isolationism, its policeman role is over and it doesn't care about "international rules" and it CERTAINLY ain't gonna pay to uphold them
Much less so with Trump for sure. But to turn the ship around takes more than one isolationist-adjacent POTUS. There is a whole structure around eg putting warships here, there and everywhere, about projecting force, and, when all is said and done, about supporting its allies, whether those are in Western Europe or the Middle East.
There is as we speak a huge amount of US activity in any and every theatre you care to name, whether directly involved or not, and that won't change come 1/1/25. Which supports your final point, that I made earlier, that the US, as Top Nation, doesn't care about "international rules", whatever they are.
You claimed it is and wants to be "world policeman". Absurd. That era ended some time ago, and Trump has sealed the deal. America ain't gonna be intervening in any regional wars for many years, if ever, unless they are right on the door step and Quebec attacks Ontario with nukes. Then America MIGHT step in
You are simply wrong. America is set up to be the world's policeman and the world expects it to be the world's policeman. Trump as POTUS isn't going to change that.
You are stuck in the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush era where you think that this means responding to a particular vendetta.
It doesn't, it means the world looks to you when events happen. As it will when they do. And the US will respond.
I'm sure @Dura can tell us current US warship and battle group deployments and they aren't all in Kentucky.
I agree with you: America is heavily involved throughout the world, militarily.
But: Putin and Xi desperately desire an isolationist USA, so they can do their non-isolationist rubbish. Trump's rhetoric is music to their ears.
Sadly, isolationism doesn't work, especially when you are a world power.
Trump isn't an isolationist though. Has he not made great play of how there will be hell to pay if the hostages are not released by Hamas by the time he is inaugurated and his incoming team has spent the time since the election trying to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. That's not isolationism.
I might suggest that his currently-stated ideas for 'peace' in Ukraine is music to Putin's ears. As are his threats towards NATO.
Trump's threats to NATO are purely monetary. He wants European countries to pay their own way, which is a very fair position to hold.
They're not remotely purely monetary. Sure, he thinks that some European states are getting a free ride and are not contributing sufficiently - and he has a point there.
But in terms of the fundamental purpose of Nato, he opposes it. If push came to shove, he'd try to cut a deal rather than take action.
Trump is a dodgy businessman. He understands deals. He understands bribery, blackmail, intimidation and lawfare. He does not understand why the US should go to war on behalf of another country - and particularly one that isn't paying for it. He never will. He sees US troops abroad solely as mercenaries who should be returning an income.
He would be better off making the case against tariffs on UK exports given Trump will impose them on EU and Chinese exports anyway
UK goods exports to the US are basically McLaren and Macallan. There’s no need to put tarrifs on high-end or explicitly British-branded items, no-one is buying American Scotch or supercars.
The EU situation is very different, which is why the UK ambassador being in receipt of an EU pension is potentially a conflict of interest which needs to be resolved.
Going after people's contractual pension entitlements is very high up the lists of things that boil my blood, even when those affected are NU10K. Because weakening the immutability of pensions is a classic face eating leopard type path. Why not say my accrued pension is undeserved and go for me. Taxing it is one thing, saying the entitlement shouldn't be there is wholly another. And to a fairly sizeable extent I'd go in to bat for the pension entitlements of some deeply unpopular people in the past, the Sharon Shoesmiths and Fred the Shreds of this world. They did the work and, short of proven financial criminality, they accrued those pensions.
That is not to say that the sort of multiples accrued by senior execs in their pensions aren't silly money, and I'd be tempted to regulate not the pay of a top exec, but the sort of contribution they'd be able to get relative to the lowest employee in their company (e.g., if your ordinary employee gets 4% company contribution, the highest UK exec can only get 8%). Obviously on a forward going basis - those past contractual accruals are locked in.
In this case, as Cyclefree says, note the potential conflict, say why it isn't, move on.
Someone who zigs when the rest of the site zags. Good to see and rare on here these days. A bonus point for it 'boiling your blood' rather than the vulgarians who like Jessop and Casino think they're still at a boys prep school
He would be better off making the case against tariffs on UK exports given Trump will impose them on EU and Chinese exports anyway
UK goods exports to the US are basically McLaren and Macallan. There’s no need to put tarrifs on high-end or explicitly British-branded items, no-one is buying American Scotch or supercars.
The EU situation is very different, which is why the UK ambassador being in receipt of an EU pension is potentially a conflict of interest which needs to be resolved.
Going after people's contractual pension entitlements is very high up the lists of things that boil my blood, even when those affected are NU10K. Because weakening the immutability of pensions is a classic face eating leopard type path. Why not say my accrued pension is undeserved and go for me. Taxing it is one thing, saying the entitlement shouldn't be there is wholly another. And to a fairly sizeable extent I'd go in to bat for the pension entitlements of some deeply unpopular people in the past, the Sharon Shoesmiths and Fred the Shreds of this world. They did the work and, short of proven financial criminality, they accrued those pensions.
That is not to say that the sort of multiples accrued by senior execs in their pensions aren't silly money, and I'd be tempted to regulate not the pay of a top exec, but the sort of contribution they'd be able to get relative to the lowest employee in their company (e.g., if your ordinary employee gets 4% company contribution, the highest UK exec can only get 8%). Obviously on a forward going basis - those past contractual accruals are locked in.
In this case, as Cyclefree says, note the potential conflict, say why it isn't, move on.
Someone who zigs when the rest of the site zags. Good to see and rare on here these days. A bonus point for it 'boiling your blood' rather than the vulgarians who like Jessop and Casino think they're still at a boys prep school
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
There is no such thing as international law. It is just the set of rules most recently agreed upon by whoever were Top Nations at the time. As there is currently only one Top Nation it is that nation which makes the rules. Or breaks them.
There is, however, pragmatism, which every nation engages in.
I know you've just come back wowed by America but the idea that America rules the roost as it did, is nuts
Go to East Asia (or indeed the Indian Ocean, or Africa, or Latin America) and you can feel the overwhelming power of China. Certainly equal to the USA
There was a NYT piece t'other day which made the point that China will soon have such a huge chunk of global manufacturing it will be akin to Britain at the early peak of the Industrial Revolution, or America at the end of WW2. Hegemonic
China doesn't now, and never did see itself as the upholder of universal values. It doesn't project force or want to. It is (fiercely) protective about territories it believes are part of Greater China but aside from voicing the odd (usually conciliatory) view on global events, isn't about to send a task force to the Balkans. It is not hugely removed from cultivering its jardin (disputes about just what is in the jardin aside).
The US, however, does see itself as the world's policeman and as the upholder of universal values.
Is the difference.
A bizarre take. America DID see itself as that, but not any more. The election of Trump is a symptom of that withdrawal, not a cause
Trump wants the world to look after itself, and Europeans can get fucked if they won't pay for their own defence
America is returning to isolationism, its policeman role is over and it doesn't care about "international rules" and it CERTAINLY ain't gonna pay to uphold them
Much less so with Trump for sure. But to turn the ship around takes more than one isolationist-adjacent POTUS. There is a whole structure around eg putting warships here, there and everywhere, about projecting force, and, when all is said and done, about supporting its allies, whether those are in Western Europe or the Middle East.
There is as we speak a huge amount of US activity in any and every theatre you care to name, whether directly involved or not, and that won't change come 1/1/25. Which supports your final point, that I made earlier, that the US, as Top Nation, doesn't care about "international rules", whatever they are.
You claimed it is and wants to be "world policeman". Absurd. That era ended some time ago, and Trump has sealed the deal. America ain't gonna be intervening in any regional wars for many years, if ever, unless they are right on the door step and Quebec attacks Ontario with nukes. Then America MIGHT step in
You are simply wrong. America is set up to be the world's policeman and the world expects it to be the world's policeman. Trump as POTUS isn't going to change that.
You are stuck in the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush era where you think that this means responding to a particular vendetta.
It doesn't, it means the world looks to you when events happen. As it will when they do. And the US will respond.
I'm sure @Dura can tell us current US warship and battle group deployments and they aren't all in Kentucky.
I agree with you: America is heavily involved throughout the world, militarily.
But: Putin and Xi desperately desire an isolationist USA, so they can do their non-isolationist rubbish. Trump's rhetoric is music to their ears.
Sadly, isolationism doesn't work, especially when you are a world power.
Trump isn't an isolationist though. Has he not made great play of how there will be hell to pay if the hostages are not released by Hamas by the time he is inaugurated and his incoming team has spent the time since the election trying to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. That's not isolationism.
I might suggest that his currently-stated ideas for 'peace' in Ukraine is music to Putin's ears. As are his threats towards NATO.
Trump's threats to NATO are purely monetary. He wants European countries to pay their own way, which is a very fair position to hold.
They're not remotely purely monetary. Sure, he thinks that some European states are getting a free ride and are not contributing sufficiently - and he has a point there.
But in terms of the fundamental purpose of Nato, he opposes it. If push came to shove, he'd try to cut a deal rather than take action.
Trump is a dodgy businessman. He understands deals. He understands bribery, blackmail, intimidation and lawfare. He does not understand why the US should go to war on behalf of another country - and particularly one that isn't paying for it. He never will. He sees US troops abroad solely as mercenaries who should be returning an income.
It's possible to understand an argument and still disagree with it.
If America's main strategic threat is from China, then being tied into a formal alliance with small states that might drag it into a war with Russia is a liability when they can deal with Russia directly.
You know you’re getting old when friends start getting peerages
That kind of stink usually sets in a year before the government expects to lose. No idea what Starmer is playing at, it looks corrupt and for no gain.
"I think most people will look at Sue Gray's record and think 'fair dos'".
It really does begin to look like quid pro quo for Sue Grey burying the Boris government with the party gate inquiry. It might not be but it does look like it now and the Tories need to start "asking questions" about it across the media and implicating Starmer as corrupt and having a hand in what they can turn into a tainted inquiry that was a set up by Labour to make the Tories look bad.
You know you’re getting old when friends start getting peerages
That kind of stink usually sets in a year before the government expects to lose. No idea what Starmer is playing at, it looks corrupt and for no gain.
"I think most people will look at Sue Gray's record and think 'fair dos'".
It really does begin to look like quid pro quo for Sue Grey burying the Boris government with the party gate inquiry. It might not be but it does look like it now and the Tories need to start "asking questions" about it across the media and implicating Starmer as corrupt and having a hand in what they can turn into a tainted inquiry that was a set up by Labour to make the Tories look bad.
Perhaps it does, but I don't see the Tories pursuing that line particularly hard?
Speaking of Boris, he should be the Tories' candidate for Mayor of London.
I've banged on about Reform and the red wall on and off for a while. The economy simply does not work for millions upon millions of voters. They find themselves stuck in dead towns surrounded by decay doing whatever work they can and never quite managing.
Labour have clearly failed them - hence the desperate vote for Brexit and then Boris. Hoping that something will change. The Tories made Big Promises and delivered nothing so have been eviscerated. The best weapon for said flaying was Labour, but as we've all touched on that vote is an ocean wide and a paddling pool deep.
Labour have joined the Tories on the naughty step, and it will be Reform who will benefit and benefit big.
Yup, exactly this and marries with my perception too.
Labour fail the Red Wall The Tories fail the Red Wall
Voters turn to Reform
The political classes - The voters are at fault.
To address this the main parties need to accept their failings and reach out to these areas and try to genuinely level up or just accept it is managed decline.
Labour *don't know how* to level up. The Tories have no interest in levelling up.
Reform will come in and offer simplistic bullshit which we may as well try say the voters as nothing else has worked.
Which is why I liked the Biden administrations efforts.
You may not agree with them politically, but they came up with a plan to revitalise a range of industries in the US, via government support.
It may not be my favourite answer - but they came up with an answer to the problem. One that was politically saleable and in line with the beliefs of the Democratic Party.
Rather than just shrugging and saying “you can’t have any jobs”
The most stupid thing was in how this *wasn’t* sold to the electorate - I would have been running a half billion dollars of ads on that.
Because it was one of the key differences between Biden and Harris. Biden actually cared about the communities in industrial Middle America.
Harris and her staff were all West Coast Liberals who couldn’t sell condoms in a brothel to Middle America.
If she didn't care about the middle American Middle Class then why did she choose Tim Walz as running mate?
The guy who passed 40-week abortions and was all up for transgender surgeries on children?
Are they the only industrial policies that you noticed from Walz?
Mentioning America, eyes down for Trump's first federal government shutdown since the last one. Quite an impressive achievement since he's still a month from taking office.
Fuck me - for what? How long was she his chief of staff? A week? Its almost worse than Johnson giving one to a blond who may or may not be his daughter or who gave him a 'good time' in Downing Street.
You know you’re getting old when friends start getting peerages
That kind of stink usually sets in a year before the government expects to lose. No idea what Starmer is playing at, it looks corrupt and for no gain.
"I think most people will look at Sue Gray's record and think 'fair dos'".
It really does begin to look like quid pro quo for Sue Grey burying the Boris government with the party gate inquiry. It might not be but it does look like it now and the Tories need to start "asking questions" about it across the media and implicating Starmer as corrupt and having a hand in what they can turn into a tainted inquiry that was a set up by Labour to make the Tories look bad.
Perhaps it does, but I don't see the Tories pursuing that line particularly hard?
Speaking of Boris, he should be the Tories' candidate for Mayor of London.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
There is no such thing as international law. It is just the set of rules most recently agreed upon by whoever were Top Nations at the time. As there is currently only one Top Nation it is that nation which makes the rules. Or breaks them.
There is, however, pragmatism, which every nation engages in.
I know you've just come back wowed by America but the idea that America rules the roost as it did, is nuts
Go to East Asia (or indeed the Indian Ocean, or Africa, or Latin America) and you can feel the overwhelming power of China. Certainly equal to the USA
There was a NYT piece t'other day which made the point that China will soon have such a huge chunk of global manufacturing it will be akin to Britain at the early peak of the Industrial Revolution, or America at the end of WW2. Hegemonic
China doesn't now, and never did see itself as the upholder of universal values. It doesn't project force or want to. It is (fiercely) protective about territories it believes are part of Greater China but aside from voicing the odd (usually conciliatory) view on global events, isn't about to send a task force to the Balkans. It is not hugely removed from cultivering its jardin (disputes about just what is in the jardin aside).
The US, however, does see itself as the world's policeman and as the upholder of universal values.
Is the difference.
A bizarre take. America DID see itself as that, but not any more. The election of Trump is a symptom of that withdrawal, not a cause
Trump wants the world to look after itself, and Europeans can get fucked if they won't pay for their own defence
America is returning to isolationism, its policeman role is over and it doesn't care about "international rules" and it CERTAINLY ain't gonna pay to uphold them
Much less so with Trump for sure. But to turn the ship around takes more than one isolationist-adjacent POTUS. There is a whole structure around eg putting warships here, there and everywhere, about projecting force, and, when all is said and done, about supporting its allies, whether those are in Western Europe or the Middle East.
There is as we speak a huge amount of US activity in any and every theatre you care to name, whether directly involved or not, and that won't change come 1/1/25. Which supports your final point, that I made earlier, that the US, as Top Nation, doesn't care about "international rules", whatever they are.
You claimed it is and wants to be "world policeman". Absurd. That era ended some time ago, and Trump has sealed the deal. America ain't gonna be intervening in any regional wars for many years, if ever, unless they are right on the door step and Quebec attacks Ontario with nukes. Then America MIGHT step in
You are simply wrong. America is set up to be the world's policeman and the world expects it to be the world's policeman. Trump as POTUS isn't going to change that.
You are stuck in the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush era where you think that this means responding to a particular vendetta.
It doesn't, it means the world looks to you when events happen. As it will when they do. And the US will respond.
I'm sure @Dura can tell us current US warship and battle group deployments and they aren't all in Kentucky.
I agree with you: America is heavily involved throughout the world, militarily.
But: Putin and Xi desperately desire an isolationist USA, so they can do their non-isolationist rubbish. Trump's rhetoric is music to their ears.
Sadly, isolationism doesn't work, especially when you are a world power.
Trump isn't an isolationist though. Has he not made great play of how there will be hell to pay if the hostages are not released by Hamas by the time he is inaugurated and his incoming team has spent the time since the election trying to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. That's not isolationism.
I might suggest that his currently-stated ideas for 'peace' in Ukraine is music to Putin's ears. As are his threats towards NATO.
Trump's threats to NATO are purely monetary. He wants European countries to pay their own way, which is a very fair position to hold.
They're not remotely purely monetary. Sure, he thinks that some European states are getting a free ride and are not contributing sufficiently - and he has a point there.
But in terms of the fundamental purpose of Nato, he opposes it. If push came to shove, he'd try to cut a deal rather than take action.
Trump is a dodgy businessman. He understands deals. He understands bribery, blackmail, intimidation and lawfare. He does not understand why the US should go to war on behalf of another country - and particularly one that isn't paying for it. He never will. He sees US troops abroad solely as mercenaries who should be returning an income.
But the point is that if Europe resolved the monetary issue and actually paid for it's own defence the thought of a Russian incursion would be ridiculous. That the likes of Germany have spend half of the already too low target for two decades is why the Russians are even capable of taking on European countries in our backyard.
If we want Trump to understand why the US should go to war for another country then we should first get other European nations to understand why we should go to war. It's completely hypocritical to expect the US to bail out rich nations across the EU when it comes to defending out territory and frankly, I'm on Trump's side to some extent. We need to be able to look after our own and not rely on another country to do it for us. This isn't WW2 and a fight for survival, this is a minor territorial incursion that European NATO countries should have been able to repel back in 2014 in alliance with Ukraine to put Putin back in his box but we have neither the capability nor the will to spend our blood and treasure doing so. Suggesting that Trump is uniquely bad for not wanting to spend American blood and treasure on defending foreign territory not in his backyard is simply ridiculous.
You know you’re getting old when friends start getting peerages
That kind of stink usually sets in a year before the government expects to lose. No idea what Starmer is playing at, it looks corrupt and for no gain.
"I think most people will look at Sue Gray's record and think 'fair dos'".
It really does begin to look like quid pro quo for Sue Grey burying the Boris government with the party gate inquiry. It might not be but it does look like it now and the Tories need to start "asking questions" about it across the media and implicating Starmer as corrupt and having a hand in what they can turn into a tainted inquiry that was a set up by Labour to make the Tories look bad.
There is no-one other than Johnson and Nadine Dorries who believes that Boris wasn't completely in the wrong on Partygate. It didn't take Sue Grey to decide that: the country was perfectly capable of coming to its own conclusions on the evidence freely available.
I would gently suggest it would not be in the Tories' best interests to raise the issue again.
Starmer has not proven himself particularly adept at making appointments; there will be other opportunities.
He would be better off making the case against tariffs on UK exports given Trump will impose them on EU and Chinese exports anyway
UK goods exports to the US are basically McLaren and Macallan. There’s no need to put tarrifs on high-end or explicitly British-branded items, no-one is buying American Scotch or supercars.
The EU situation is very different, which is why the UK ambassador being in receipt of an EU pension is potentially a conflict of interest which needs to be resolved.
Going after people's contractual pension entitlements is very high up the lists of things that boil my blood, even when those affected are NU10K. Because weakening the immutability of pensions is a classic face eating leopard type path. Why not say my accrued pension is undeserved and go for me. Taxing it is one thing, saying the entitlement shouldn't be there is wholly another. And to a fairly sizeable extent I'd go in to bat for the pension entitlements of some deeply unpopular people in the past, the Sharon Shoesmiths and Fred the Shreds of this world. They did the work and, short of proven financial criminality, they accrued those pensions.
That is not to say that the sort of multiples accrued by senior execs in their pensions aren't silly money, and I'd be tempted to regulate not the pay of a top exec, but the sort of contribution they'd be able to get relative to the lowest employee in their company (e.g., if your ordinary employee gets 4% company contribution, the highest UK exec can only get 8%). Obviously on a forward going basis - those past contractual accruals are locked in.
In this case, as Cyclefree says, note the potential conflict, say why it isn't, move on.
Someone who zigs when the rest of the site zags. Good to see and rare on here these days. A bonus point for it 'boiling your blood' rather than the vulgarians who like Jessop and Casino think they're still at a boys prep school
???
I noticed you used 'boil my p***' a particularly unpleasant misuse of an expression. Often used on here by Casino Royale
Fuck me - for what? How long was she his chief of staff? A week? Its almost worse than Johnson giving one to a blond who may or may not be his daughter or who gave him a 'good time' in Downing Street.
It just adds to the cronyism narrative and time for this nonsense to end
I thought Starmer was above all this but he is no better than Johnson and others in awarding failure
You know you’re getting old when friends start getting peerages
That kind of stink usually sets in a year before the government expects to lose. No idea what Starmer is playing at, it looks corrupt and for no gain.
"I think most people will look at Sue Gray's record and think 'fair dos'".
It really does begin to look like quid pro quo for Sue Grey burying the Boris government with the party gate inquiry. It might not be but it does look like it now and the Tories need to start "asking questions" about it across the media and implicating Starmer as corrupt and having a hand in what they can turn into a tainted inquiry that was a set up by Labour to make the Tories look bad.
There is no-one other than Johnson and Nadine Dorries who believes that Boris wasn't completely in the wrong on Partygate. It didn't take Sue Grey to decide that: the country was perfectly capable of coming to its own conclusions on the evidence freely available.
I would gently suggest it would not be in the Tories' best interests to raise the issue again.
Starmer has not proven himself particularly adept at making appointments; there will be other opportunities.
I disagree to some extent. I have long argued that Johnson tried to comply with the rules in a rather cack handed way - see the stupid Zoom quiz etc. Sunak was given a ticket for attending a meeting and being given some cake. The offenders were the No 10 staff, in the main. Now Johnson and the leadership team should have stopped this. Johnson also was an idiot for not announcing an immediate enquiry when it was first raised. But I do not buy into the narrative of Johnson personally partying all the time.
None of this matters, of course, as 99.9 % think he did. And you are right that there is no earthly reason for the Tories to dredge it up again, whether or not they think Sue Gray has done a Shami Chakrabati.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
There is no such thing as international law. It is just the set of rules most recently agreed upon by whoever were Top Nations at the time. As there is currently only one Top Nation it is that nation which makes the rules. Or breaks them.
There is, however, pragmatism, which every nation engages in.
I know you've just come back wowed by America but the idea that America rules the roost as it did, is nuts
Go to East Asia (or indeed the Indian Ocean, or Africa, or Latin America) and you can feel the overwhelming power of China. Certainly equal to the USA
There was a NYT piece t'other day which made the point that China will soon have such a huge chunk of global manufacturing it will be akin to Britain at the early peak of the Industrial Revolution, or America at the end of WW2. Hegemonic
China doesn't now, and never did see itself as the upholder of universal values. It doesn't project force or want to. It is (fiercely) protective about territories it believes are part of Greater China but aside from voicing the odd (usually conciliatory) view on global events, isn't about to send a task force to the Balkans. It is not hugely removed from cultivering its jardin (disputes about just what is in the jardin aside).
The US, however, does see itself as the world's policeman and as the upholder of universal values.
Is the difference.
A bizarre take. America DID see itself as that, but not any more. The election of Trump is a symptom of that withdrawal, not a cause
Trump wants the world to look after itself, and Europeans can get fucked if they won't pay for their own defence
America is returning to isolationism, its policeman role is over and it doesn't care about "international rules" and it CERTAINLY ain't gonna pay to uphold them
Much less so with Trump for sure. But to turn the ship around takes more than one isolationist-adjacent POTUS. There is a whole structure around eg putting warships here, there and everywhere, about projecting force, and, when all is said and done, about supporting its allies, whether those are in Western Europe or the Middle East.
There is as we speak a huge amount of US activity in any and every theatre you care to name, whether directly involved or not, and that won't change come 1/1/25. Which supports your final point, that I made earlier, that the US, as Top Nation, doesn't care about "international rules", whatever they are.
You claimed it is and wants to be "world policeman". Absurd. That era ended some time ago, and Trump has sealed the deal. America ain't gonna be intervening in any regional wars for many years, if ever, unless they are right on the door step and Quebec attacks Ontario with nukes. Then America MIGHT step in
You are simply wrong. America is set up to be the world's policeman and the world expects it to be the world's policeman. Trump as POTUS isn't going to change that.
You are stuck in the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush era where you think that this means responding to a particular vendetta.
It doesn't, it means the world looks to you when events happen. As it will when they do. And the US will respond.
I'm sure @Dura can tell us current US warship and battle group deployments and they aren't all in Kentucky.
I agree with you: America is heavily involved throughout the world, militarily.
But: Putin and Xi desperately desire an isolationist USA, so they can do their non-isolationist rubbish. Trump's rhetoric is music to their ears.
Sadly, isolationism doesn't work, especially when you are a world power.
Trump isn't an isolationist though. Has he not made great play of how there will be hell to pay if the hostages are not released by Hamas by the time he is inaugurated and his incoming team has spent the time since the election trying to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. That's not isolationism.
I might suggest that his currently-stated ideas for 'peace' in Ukraine is music to Putin's ears. As are his threats towards NATO.
Trump's threats to NATO are purely monetary. He wants European countries to pay their own way, which is a very fair position to hold.
They're not remotely purely monetary. Sure, he thinks that some European states are getting a free ride and are not contributing sufficiently - and he has a point there.
But in terms of the fundamental purpose of Nato, he opposes it. If push came to shove, he'd try to cut a deal rather than take action.
Trump is a dodgy businessman. He understands deals. He understands bribery, blackmail, intimidation and lawfare. He does not understand why the US should go to war on behalf of another country - and particularly one that isn't paying for it. He never will. He sees US troops abroad solely as mercenaries who should be returning an income.
But the point is that if Europe resolved the monetary issue and actually paid for it's own defence the thought of a Russian incursion would be ridiculous. That the likes of Germany have spend half of the already too low target for two decades is why the Russians are even capable of taking on European countries in our backyard.
If we want Trump to understand why the US should go to war for another country then we should first get other European nations to understand why we should go to war. It's completely hypocritical to expect the US to bail out rich nations across the EU when it comes to defending out territory and frankly, I'm on Trump's side to some extent. We need to be able to look after our own and not rely on another country to do it for us. This isn't WW2 and a fight for survival, this is a minor territorial incursion that European NATO countries should have been able to repel back in 2014 in alliance with Ukraine to put Putin back in his box but we have neither the capability nor the will to spend our blood and treasure doing so. Suggesting that Trump is uniquely bad for not wanting to spend American blood and treasure on defending foreign territory not in his backyard is simply ridiculous.
"But the point is that if Europe resolved the monetary issue and actually paid for it's own defence the thought of a Russian incursion would be ridiculous."
I think that's very wrong. Firstly, no single European country could be expected to match what Russia is currently spending alone. Even together, 'Europe' would find it hard. The massive block that is NATO has its own power; the power of a grouping. Russia is going through enormous pain to support Putin's war. NATO has hardly buffed its nails and has grievously wounded Russia.
Putin loves to divide and separate. If there was no NATO, then he would pick everyone else off, one-by-one, as he has Hungary, and has tried in Romania.
The fact NATO is a massive power block works to all members' advantage; including America. That does not mean European countries should not be paying more - and I agree they should. But all Putin will hear from Trump's stupid rhetoric is "NATO can be divided and defeated."
Peston is worth following precisely because he understands so little of politics that he broadcasts what he's told pretty much unfiltered. Obviously, what he's told isn't necessarily what the people telling him it are actually thinking - but it is what they want broadcast, which is of itself useful to know.
Some of us have been predicting, with reasons, on PB for months that Starmer will probably resign before the next election. Peston should not be surprised.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
There is no such thing as international law. It is just the set of rules most recently agreed upon by whoever were Top Nations at the time. As there is currently only one Top Nation it is that nation which makes the rules. Or breaks them.
There is, however, pragmatism, which every nation engages in.
I know you've just come back wowed by America but the idea that America rules the roost as it did, is nuts
Go to East Asia (or indeed the Indian Ocean, or Africa, or Latin America) and you can feel the overwhelming power of China. Certainly equal to the USA
There was a NYT piece t'other day which made the point that China will soon have such a huge chunk of global manufacturing it will be akin to Britain at the early peak of the Industrial Revolution, or America at the end of WW2. Hegemonic
China doesn't now, and never did see itself as the upholder of universal values. It doesn't project force or want to. It is (fiercely) protective about territories it believes are part of Greater China but aside from voicing the odd (usually conciliatory) view on global events, isn't about to send a task force to the Balkans. It is not hugely removed from cultivering its jardin (disputes about just what is in the jardin aside).
The US, however, does see itself as the world's policeman and as the upholder of universal values.
Is the difference.
A bizarre take. America DID see itself as that, but not any more. The election of Trump is a symptom of that withdrawal, not a cause
Trump wants the world to look after itself, and Europeans can get fucked if they won't pay for their own defence
America is returning to isolationism, its policeman role is over and it doesn't care about "international rules" and it CERTAINLY ain't gonna pay to uphold them
Much less so with Trump for sure. But to turn the ship around takes more than one isolationist-adjacent POTUS. There is a whole structure around eg putting warships here, there and everywhere, about projecting force, and, when all is said and done, about supporting its allies, whether those are in Western Europe or the Middle East.
There is as we speak a huge amount of US activity in any and every theatre you care to name, whether directly involved or not, and that won't change come 1/1/25. Which supports your final point, that I made earlier, that the US, as Top Nation, doesn't care about "international rules", whatever they are.
You claimed it is and wants to be "world policeman". Absurd. That era ended some time ago, and Trump has sealed the deal. America ain't gonna be intervening in any regional wars for many years, if ever, unless they are right on the door step and Quebec attacks Ontario with nukes. Then America MIGHT step in
You are simply wrong. America is set up to be the world's policeman and the world expects it to be the world's policeman. Trump as POTUS isn't going to change that.
You are stuck in the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush era where you think that this means responding to a particular vendetta.
It doesn't, it means the world looks to you when events happen. As it will when they do. And the US will respond.
I'm sure @Dura can tell us current US warship and battle group deployments and they aren't all in Kentucky.
I agree with you: America is heavily involved throughout the world, militarily.
But: Putin and Xi desperately desire an isolationist USA, so they can do their non-isolationist rubbish. Trump's rhetoric is music to their ears.
Sadly, isolationism doesn't work, especially when you are a world power.
Trump isn't an isolationist though. Has he not made great play of how there will be hell to pay if the hostages are not released by Hamas by the time he is inaugurated and his incoming team has spent the time since the election trying to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. That's not isolationism.
I might suggest that his currently-stated ideas for 'peace' in Ukraine is music to Putin's ears. As are his threats towards NATO.
Trump's threats to NATO are purely monetary. He wants European countries to pay their own way, which is a very fair position to hold.
They're not remotely purely monetary. Sure, he thinks that some European states are getting a free ride and are not contributing sufficiently - and he has a point there.
But in terms of the fundamental purpose of Nato, he opposes it. If push came to shove, he'd try to cut a deal rather than take action.
Trump is a dodgy businessman. He understands deals. He understands bribery, blackmail, intimidation and lawfare. He does not understand why the US should go to war on behalf of another country - and particularly one that isn't paying for it. He never will. He sees US troops abroad solely as mercenaries who should be returning an income.
But the point is that if Europe resolved the monetary issue and actually paid for it's own defence the thought of a Russian incursion would be ridiculous. That the likes of Germany have spend half of the already too low target for two decades is why the Russians are even capable of taking on European countries in our backyard.
If we want Trump to understand why the US should go to war for another country then we should first get other European nations to understand why we should go to war. It's completely hypocritical to expect the US to bail out rich nations across the EU when it comes to defending out territory and frankly, I'm on Trump's side to some extent. We need to be able to look after our own and not rely on another country to do it for us. This isn't WW2 and a fight for survival, this is a minor territorial incursion that European NATO countries should have been able to repel back in 2014 in alliance with Ukraine to put Putin back in his box but we have neither the capability nor the will to spend our blood and treasure doing so. Suggesting that Trump is uniquely bad for not wanting to spend American blood and treasure on defending foreign territory not in his backyard is simply ridiculous.
Yes - to a point.
If Europe collectively had the military spending of the Cold War - when Germany had tanks by the thousand - then Russia might have been deterred.
It is rather childish to not be able to defend ourselves, and our close neighbours. NATO is an insurance policy. We need to pay the premiums.
Five years is a Long time. The right don’t seem to get that. Appear to be still in election mode and not thinking strategically.
Nobody knows what the next election will bring. Can see almost any outcome.
Er, this is political betting. Our whole raison d’etre is making predictions, sometimes from absurdly long distances - geographical and temporal
Perhaps you’d be happier on nopoliticalbettingherethanks.com
Predicting what happens in an election four or five years away requires a tad more than looking at current polling or news cycles.
One only needs to see what’s happened in the last five years (since the week Johnson won a landslide), to think how crazy it must be to try and predict the next five!
ESPECIALLY the next five
*cue: ominous technological music*
AI (assuming thats what you are referring to) is going to bring enormous changes, but I think your timescales are rather too rapid for what is likely to happen. Lots of sectors are already using AI. I think it will be amazing in medical diagnosis (and we have been using machine learning etc for many years in this area). I am less convinced by you bonfire of the jobs rhetoric. But time will tell.
Well, I'm basically right about everything, tho I do hyperbolise. So expect it to happen, but maybe a couple years after my due date
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
There is no such thing as international law. It is just the set of rules most recently agreed upon by whoever were Top Nations at the time. As there is currently only one Top Nation it is that nation which makes the rules. Or breaks them.
There is, however, pragmatism, which every nation engages in.
I know you've just come back wowed by America but the idea that America rules the roost as it did, is nuts
Go to East Asia (or indeed the Indian Ocean, or Africa, or Latin America) and you can feel the overwhelming power of China. Certainly equal to the USA
There was a NYT piece t'other day which made the point that China will soon have such a huge chunk of global manufacturing it will be akin to Britain at the early peak of the Industrial Revolution, or America at the end of WW2. Hegemonic
China doesn't now, and never did see itself as the upholder of universal values. It doesn't project force or want to. It is (fiercely) protective about territories it believes are part of Greater China but aside from voicing the odd (usually conciliatory) view on global events, isn't about to send a task force to the Balkans. It is not hugely removed from cultivering its jardin (disputes about just what is in the jardin aside).
The US, however, does see itself as the world's policeman and as the upholder of universal values.
Is the difference.
A bizarre take. America DID see itself as that, but not any more. The election of Trump is a symptom of that withdrawal, not a cause
Trump wants the world to look after itself, and Europeans can get fucked if they won't pay for their own defence
America is returning to isolationism, its policeman role is over and it doesn't care about "international rules" and it CERTAINLY ain't gonna pay to uphold them
Much less so with Trump for sure. But to turn the ship around takes more than one isolationist-adjacent POTUS. There is a whole structure around eg putting warships here, there and everywhere, about projecting force, and, when all is said and done, about supporting its allies, whether those are in Western Europe or the Middle East.
There is as we speak a huge amount of US activity in any and every theatre you care to name, whether directly involved or not, and that won't change come 1/1/25. Which supports your final point, that I made earlier, that the US, as Top Nation, doesn't care about "international rules", whatever they are.
You claimed it is and wants to be "world policeman". Absurd. That era ended some time ago, and Trump has sealed the deal. America ain't gonna be intervening in any regional wars for many years, if ever, unless they are right on the door step and Quebec attacks Ontario with nukes. Then America MIGHT step in
You are simply wrong. America is set up to be the world's policeman and the world expects it to be the world's policeman. Trump as POTUS isn't going to change that.
You are stuck in the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush era where you think that this means responding to a particular vendetta.
It doesn't, it means the world looks to you when events happen. As it will when they do. And the US will respond.
I'm sure @Dura can tell us current US warship and battle group deployments and they aren't all in Kentucky.
I agree with you: America is heavily involved throughout the world, militarily.
But: Putin and Xi desperately desire an isolationist USA, so they can do their non-isolationist rubbish. Trump's rhetoric is music to their ears.
Sadly, isolationism doesn't work, especially when you are a world power.
Trump isn't an isolationist though. Has he not made great play of how there will be hell to pay if the hostages are not released by Hamas by the time he is inaugurated and his incoming team has spent the time since the election trying to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. That's not isolationism.
I might suggest that his currently-stated ideas for 'peace' in Ukraine is music to Putin's ears. As are his threats towards NATO.
Trump's threats to NATO are purely monetary. He wants European countries to pay their own way, which is a very fair position to hold.
They're not remotely purely monetary. Sure, he thinks that some European states are getting a free ride and are not contributing sufficiently - and he has a point there.
But in terms of the fundamental purpose of Nato, he opposes it. If push came to shove, he'd try to cut a deal rather than take action.
Trump is a dodgy businessman. He understands deals. He understands bribery, blackmail, intimidation and lawfare. He does not understand why the US should go to war on behalf of another country - and particularly one that isn't paying for it. He never will. He sees US troops abroad solely as mercenaries who should be returning an income.
But the point is that if Europe resolved the monetary issue and actually paid for it's own defence the thought of a Russian incursion would be ridiculous. That the likes of Germany have spend half of the already too low target for two decades is why the Russians are even capable of taking on European countries in our backyard.
If we want Trump to understand why the US should go to war for another country then we should first get other European nations to understand why we should go to war. It's completely hypocritical to expect the US to bail out rich nations across the EU when it comes to defending out territory and frankly, I'm on Trump's side to some extent. We need to be able to look after our own and not rely on another country to do it for us. This isn't WW2 and a fight for survival, this is a minor territorial incursion that European NATO countries should have been able to repel back in 2014 in alliance with Ukraine to put Putin back in his box but we have neither the capability nor the will to spend our blood and treasure doing so. Suggesting that Trump is uniquely bad for not wanting to spend American blood and treasure on defending foreign territory not in his backyard is simply ridiculous.
That's not what I'm saying though, is it?
Trump would not join in an alliance campaign against an attack on a Nato member, whether or not it was paying a sensible amount for its defence (which isn't a condition in the Treaty anyway).
Europe, including the UK, should be spending more and should be spending it better. It should also rely more on its own industrial production - including jet fighters and nuclear capacity.
Anyway, it's not just Trump: the US as a whole is turning away from Europe, and not without reason. While the two sides of the Atlantic have good reason to remain aligned and allied, Europe does need to care more for its own defence and prepare for a future without America.
He would be better off making the case against tariffs on UK exports given Trump will impose them on EU and Chinese exports anyway
UK goods exports to the US are basically McLaren and Macallan. There’s no need to put tarrifs on high-end or explicitly British-branded items, no-one is buying American Scotch or supercars.
The EU situation is very different, which is why the UK ambassador being in receipt of an EU pension is potentially a conflict of interest which needs to be resolved.
Going after people's contractual pension entitlements is very high up the lists of things that boil my blood, even when those affected are NU10K. Because weakening the immutability of pensions is a classic face eating leopard type path. Why not say my accrued pension is undeserved and go for me. Taxing it is one thing, saying the entitlement shouldn't be there is wholly another. And to a fairly sizeable extent I'd go in to bat for the pension entitlements of some deeply unpopular people in the past, the Sharon Shoesmiths and Fred the Shreds of this world. They did the work and, short of proven financial criminality, they accrued those pensions.
That is not to say that the sort of multiples accrued by senior execs in their pensions aren't silly money, and I'd be tempted to regulate not the pay of a top exec, but the sort of contribution they'd be able to get relative to the lowest employee in their company (e.g., if your ordinary employee gets 4% company contribution, the highest UK exec can only get 8%). Obviously on a forward going basis - those past contractual accruals are locked in.
In this case, as Cyclefree says, note the potential conflict, say why it isn't, move on.
Someone who zigs when the rest of the site zags. Good to see and rare on here these days. A bonus point for it 'boiling your blood' rather than the vulgarians who like Jessop and Casino think they're still at a boys prep school
???
I noticed you used 'boil my p***' a particularly unpleasant misuse of an expression. Often used on here by Casino Royale
Did I? I can't remember that, but I may have. I don't see it as particularly unpleasant.
But when it comes to misuse of words, I might suggest 'talent' is one that you regularly misuse.
The Tories destroyed themselves with a succession of leadership changes, each more absurd than the last with policies created from thin air and rapidly discarded.
I've banged on about Reform and the red wall on and off for a while. The economy simply does not work for millions upon millions of voters. They find themselves stuck in dead towns surrounded by decay doing whatever work they can and never quite managing.
Labour have clearly failed them - hence the desperate vote for Brexit and then Boris. Hoping that something will change. The Tories made Big Promises and delivered nothing so have been eviscerated. The best weapon for said flaying was Labour, but as we've all touched on that vote is an ocean wide and a paddling pool deep.
Labour have joined the Tories on the naughty step, and it will be Reform who will benefit and benefit big.
Yup, exactly this and marries with my perception too.
Labour fail the Red Wall The Tories fail the Red Wall
Voters turn to Reform
The political classes - The voters are at fault.
To address this the main parties need to accept their failings and reach out to these areas and try to genuinely level up or just accept it is managed decline.
Labour *don't know how* to level up. The Tories have no interest in levelling up.
Reform will come in and offer simplistic bullshit which we may as well try say the voters as nothing else has worked.
Which is why I liked the Biden administrations efforts.
You may not agree with them politically, but they came up with a plan to revitalise a range of industries in the US, via government support.
It may not be my favourite answer - but they came up with an answer to the problem. One that was politically saleable and in line with the beliefs of the Democratic Party.
Rather than just shrugging and saying “you can’t have any jobs”
The most stupid thing was in how this *wasn’t* sold to the electorate - I would have been running a half billion dollars of ads on that.
Because it was one of the key differences between Biden and Harris. Biden actually cared about the communities in industrial Middle America.
Harris and her staff were all West Coast Liberals who couldn’t sell condoms in a brothel to Middle America.
If she didn't care about the middle American Middle Class then why did she choose Tim Walz as running mate?
The guy who passed 40-week abortions and was all up for transgender surgeries on children?
Are they the only industrial policies that you noticed from Walz?
It was Trump/Vance that was all about culture war, not the Dem campaign.
Well it worked with Sandpit.
Certainly so. Even though Trump promises to leave Ukraine to Putins tender mercies.
Some people just aren't open to persuasion.
The fact is that the Dems did campaign on pocketbook issues in middle class middle America. Not enough Americans were convinced (though only by 1% or so).
They now have 4 years of Trump tariffs to learn their lesson.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
There is no such thing as international law. It is just the set of rules most recently agreed upon by whoever were Top Nations at the time. As there is currently only one Top Nation it is that nation which makes the rules. Or breaks them.
There is, however, pragmatism, which every nation engages in.
I know you've just come back wowed by America but the idea that America rules the roost as it did, is nuts
Go to East Asia (or indeed the Indian Ocean, or Africa, or Latin America) and you can feel the overwhelming power of China. Certainly equal to the USA
There was a NYT piece t'other day which made the point that China will soon have such a huge chunk of global manufacturing it will be akin to Britain at the early peak of the Industrial Revolution, or America at the end of WW2. Hegemonic
China doesn't now, and never did see itself as the upholder of universal values. It doesn't project force or want to. It is (fiercely) protective about territories it believes are part of Greater China but aside from voicing the odd (usually conciliatory) view on global events, isn't about to send a task force to the Balkans. It is not hugely removed from cultivering its jardin (disputes about just what is in the jardin aside).
The US, however, does see itself as the world's policeman and as the upholder of universal values.
Is the difference.
A bizarre take. America DID see itself as that, but not any more. The election of Trump is a symptom of that withdrawal, not a cause
Trump wants the world to look after itself, and Europeans can get fucked if they won't pay for their own defence
America is returning to isolationism, its policeman role is over and it doesn't care about "international rules" and it CERTAINLY ain't gonna pay to uphold them
Much less so with Trump for sure. But to turn the ship around takes more than one isolationist-adjacent POTUS. There is a whole structure around eg putting warships here, there and everywhere, about projecting force, and, when all is said and done, about supporting its allies, whether those are in Western Europe or the Middle East.
There is as we speak a huge amount of US activity in any and every theatre you care to name, whether directly involved or not, and that won't change come 1/1/25. Which supports your final point, that I made earlier, that the US, as Top Nation, doesn't care about "international rules", whatever they are.
You claimed it is and wants to be "world policeman". Absurd. That era ended some time ago, and Trump has sealed the deal. America ain't gonna be intervening in any regional wars for many years, if ever, unless they are right on the door step and Quebec attacks Ontario with nukes. Then America MIGHT step in
You are simply wrong. America is set up to be the world's policeman and the world expects it to be the world's policeman. Trump as POTUS isn't going to change that.
You are stuck in the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush era where you think that this means responding to a particular vendetta.
It doesn't, it means the world looks to you when events happen. As it will when they do. And the US will respond.
I'm sure @Dura can tell us current US warship and battle group deployments and they aren't all in Kentucky.
I agree with you: America is heavily involved throughout the world, militarily.
But: Putin and Xi desperately desire an isolationist USA, so they can do their non-isolationist rubbish. Trump's rhetoric is music to their ears.
Sadly, isolationism doesn't work, especially when you are a world power.
Trump isn't an isolationist though. Has he not made great play of how there will be hell to pay if the hostages are not released by Hamas by the time he is inaugurated and his incoming team has spent the time since the election trying to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. That's not isolationism.
I might suggest that his currently-stated ideas for 'peace' in Ukraine is music to Putin's ears. As are his threats towards NATO.
Trump's threats to NATO are purely monetary. He wants European countries to pay their own way, which is a very fair position to hold.
They're not remotely purely monetary. Sure, he thinks that some European states are getting a free ride and are not contributing sufficiently - and he has a point there.
But in terms of the fundamental purpose of Nato, he opposes it. If push came to shove, he'd try to cut a deal rather than take action.
Trump is a dodgy businessman. He understands deals. He understands bribery, blackmail, intimidation and lawfare. He does not understand why the US should go to war on behalf of another country - and particularly one that isn't paying for it. He never will. He sees US troops abroad solely as mercenaries who should be returning an income.
But the point is that if Europe resolved the monetary issue and actually paid for it's own defence the thought of a Russian incursion would be ridiculous. That the likes of Germany have spend half of the already too low target for two decades is why the Russians are even capable of taking on European countries in our backyard.
If we want Trump to understand why the US should go to war for another country then we should first get other European nations to understand why we should go to war. It's completely hypocritical to expect the US to bail out rich nations across the EU when it comes to defending out territory and frankly, I'm on Trump's side to some extent. We need to be able to look after our own and not rely on another country to do it for us. This isn't WW2 and a fight for survival, this is a minor territorial incursion that European NATO countries should have been able to repel back in 2014 in alliance with Ukraine to put Putin back in his box but we have neither the capability nor the will to spend our blood and treasure doing so. Suggesting that Trump is uniquely bad for not wanting to spend American blood and treasure on defending foreign territory not in his backyard is simply ridiculous.
"But the point is that if Europe resolved the monetary issue and actually paid for it's own defence the thought of a Russian incursion would be ridiculous."
I think that's very wrong. Firstly, no single European country could be expected to match what Russia is currently spending alone. Even together, 'Europe' would find it hard. The massive block that is NATO has its own power; the power of a grouping. Russia is going through enormous pain to support Putin's war. NATO has hardly buffed its nails and has grievously wounded Russia.
Putin loves to divide and separate. If there was no NATO, then he would pick everyone else off, one-by-one, as he has Hungary, and has tried in Romania.
The fact NATO is a massive power block works to all members' advantage; including America. That does not mean European countries should not be paying more - and I agree they should. But all Putin will hear from Trump's stupid rhetoric is "NATO can be divided and defeated."
If Biden had said in 2022, "Screw NATO unity. We're going to give Ukraine what it needs to repel the invasion," then Ukraine would be in a much better position.
Instead he ummed and ahhed and worried about keeping the Germans on side and worried about the effect it would have on the EU to be more decisive. Your approach of prioritising unity has been tried, and it's led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
At any one point in time, there is an approximately 12% chance that my printer will work on demand
I’m an IT manager, and I hate printers with a passion.
I once worked as IT service manager for a company of 400 people, and my biggest achievement in three years there was having them replace about 70 small printers with 15 large printer/copiers. I literally had one man doing nothing but fixing printers and printer issues at one point.
Printers are evil, and the sooner the office can work totally paperless the better!
I'd also add that printers encourage printing.
In my current bank, they went for a small number of very high end printer/scanner/copiers. Compete with secure printing via your smart card/pass. They are very rarely used now. So each time the contract comes round, they reduce the number.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
There is no such thing as international law. It is just the set of rules most recently agreed upon by whoever were Top Nations at the time. As there is currently only one Top Nation it is that nation which makes the rules. Or breaks them.
There is, however, pragmatism, which every nation engages in.
I know you've just come back wowed by America but the idea that America rules the roost as it did, is nuts
Go to East Asia (or indeed the Indian Ocean, or Africa, or Latin America) and you can feel the overwhelming power of China. Certainly equal to the USA
There was a NYT piece t'other day which made the point that China will soon have such a huge chunk of global manufacturing it will be akin to Britain at the early peak of the Industrial Revolution, or America at the end of WW2. Hegemonic
China doesn't now, and never did see itself as the upholder of universal values. It doesn't project force or want to. It is (fiercely) protective about territories it believes are part of Greater China but aside from voicing the odd (usually conciliatory) view on global events, isn't about to send a task force to the Balkans. It is not hugely removed from cultivering its jardin (disputes about just what is in the jardin aside).
The US, however, does see itself as the world's policeman and as the upholder of universal values.
Is the difference.
A bizarre take. America DID see itself as that, but not any more. The election of Trump is a symptom of that withdrawal, not a cause
Trump wants the world to look after itself, and Europeans can get fucked if they won't pay for their own defence
America is returning to isolationism, its policeman role is over and it doesn't care about "international rules" and it CERTAINLY ain't gonna pay to uphold them
Much less so with Trump for sure. But to turn the ship around takes more than one isolationist-adjacent POTUS. There is a whole structure around eg putting warships here, there and everywhere, about projecting force, and, when all is said and done, about supporting its allies, whether those are in Western Europe or the Middle East.
There is as we speak a huge amount of US activity in any and every theatre you care to name, whether directly involved or not, and that won't change come 1/1/25. Which supports your final point, that I made earlier, that the US, as Top Nation, doesn't care about "international rules", whatever they are.
You claimed it is and wants to be "world policeman". Absurd. That era ended some time ago, and Trump has sealed the deal. America ain't gonna be intervening in any regional wars for many years, if ever, unless they are right on the door step and Quebec attacks Ontario with nukes. Then America MIGHT step in
You are simply wrong. America is set up to be the world's policeman and the world expects it to be the world's policeman. Trump as POTUS isn't going to change that.
You are stuck in the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush era where you think that this means responding to a particular vendetta.
It doesn't, it means the world looks to you when events happen. As it will when they do. And the US will respond.
I'm sure @Dura can tell us current US warship and battle group deployments and they aren't all in Kentucky.
I agree with you: America is heavily involved throughout the world, militarily.
But: Putin and Xi desperately desire an isolationist USA, so they can do their non-isolationist rubbish. Trump's rhetoric is music to their ears.
Sadly, isolationism doesn't work, especially when you are a world power.
Trump isn't an isolationist though. Has he not made great play of how there will be hell to pay if the hostages are not released by Hamas by the time he is inaugurated and his incoming team has spent the time since the election trying to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. That's not isolationism.
I might suggest that his currently-stated ideas for 'peace' in Ukraine is music to Putin's ears. As are his threats towards NATO.
Trump's threats to NATO are purely monetary. He wants European countries to pay their own way, which is a very fair position to hold.
They're not remotely purely monetary. Sure, he thinks that some European states are getting a free ride and are not contributing sufficiently - and he has a point there.
But in terms of the fundamental purpose of Nato, he opposes it. If push came to shove, he'd try to cut a deal rather than take action.
Trump is a dodgy businessman. He understands deals. He understands bribery, blackmail, intimidation and lawfare. He does not understand why the US should go to war on behalf of another country - and particularly one that isn't paying for it. He never will. He sees US troops abroad solely as mercenaries who should be returning an income.
But the point is that if Europe resolved the monetary issue and actually paid for it's own defence the thought of a Russian incursion would be ridiculous. That the likes of Germany have spend half of the already too low target for two decades is why the Russians are even capable of taking on European countries in our backyard.
If we want Trump to understand why the US should go to war for another country then we should first get other European nations to understand why we should go to war. It's completely hypocritical to expect the US to bail out rich nations across the EU when it comes to defending out territory and frankly, I'm on Trump's side to some extent. We need to be able to look after our own and not rely on another country to do it for us. This isn't WW2 and a fight for survival, this is a minor territorial incursion that European NATO countries should have been able to repel back in 2014 in alliance with Ukraine to put Putin back in his box but we have neither the capability nor the will to spend our blood and treasure doing so. Suggesting that Trump is uniquely bad for not wanting to spend American blood and treasure on defending foreign territory not in his backyard is simply ridiculous.
German non-rearmament was a post-ww2 thing. And post-ww1. Germany was seen as a warmongering nation for most of its short existence.
America saw itself as leader of the free world, and defender of freedom and democracy. Trump's isolationist nationalism goes against the American post-war consensus.
Peston is worth following precisely because he understands so little of politics that he broadcasts what he's told pretty much unfiltered. Obviously, what he's told isn't necessarily what the people telling him it are actually thinking - but it is what they want broadcast, which is of itself useful to know.
Some of us have been predicting, with reasons, on PB for months that Starmer will probably resign before the next election. Peston should not be surprised.
Indeed, it may be here that Peston saw some of us including myself tip it. Surely we are not the only ones speculating too.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
There is no such thing as international law. It is just the set of rules most recently agreed upon by whoever were Top Nations at the time. As there is currently only one Top Nation it is that nation which makes the rules. Or breaks them.
There is, however, pragmatism, which every nation engages in.
I know you've just come back wowed by America but the idea that America rules the roost as it did, is nuts
Go to East Asia (or indeed the Indian Ocean, or Africa, or Latin America) and you can feel the overwhelming power of China. Certainly equal to the USA
There was a NYT piece t'other day which made the point that China will soon have such a huge chunk of global manufacturing it will be akin to Britain at the early peak of the Industrial Revolution, or America at the end of WW2. Hegemonic
China doesn't now, and never did see itself as the upholder of universal values. It doesn't project force or want to. It is (fiercely) protective about territories it believes are part of Greater China but aside from voicing the odd (usually conciliatory) view on global events, isn't about to send a task force to the Balkans. It is not hugely removed from cultivering its jardin (disputes about just what is in the jardin aside).
The US, however, does see itself as the world's policeman and as the upholder of universal values.
Is the difference.
A bizarre take. America DID see itself as that, but not any more. The election of Trump is a symptom of that withdrawal, not a cause
Trump wants the world to look after itself, and Europeans can get fucked if they won't pay for their own defence
America is returning to isolationism, its policeman role is over and it doesn't care about "international rules" and it CERTAINLY ain't gonna pay to uphold them
Much less so with Trump for sure. But to turn the ship around takes more than one isolationist-adjacent POTUS. There is a whole structure around eg putting warships here, there and everywhere, about projecting force, and, when all is said and done, about supporting its allies, whether those are in Western Europe or the Middle East.
There is as we speak a huge amount of US activity in any and every theatre you care to name, whether directly involved or not, and that won't change come 1/1/25. Which supports your final point, that I made earlier, that the US, as Top Nation, doesn't care about "international rules", whatever they are.
You claimed it is and wants to be "world policeman". Absurd. That era ended some time ago, and Trump has sealed the deal. America ain't gonna be intervening in any regional wars for many years, if ever, unless they are right on the door step and Quebec attacks Ontario with nukes. Then America MIGHT step in
You are simply wrong. America is set up to be the world's policeman and the world expects it to be the world's policeman. Trump as POTUS isn't going to change that.
You are stuck in the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush era where you think that this means responding to a particular vendetta.
It doesn't, it means the world looks to you when events happen. As it will when they do. And the US will respond.
I'm sure @Dura can tell us current US warship and battle group deployments and they aren't all in Kentucky.
I agree with you: America is heavily involved throughout the world, militarily.
But: Putin and Xi desperately desire an isolationist USA, so they can do their non-isolationist rubbish. Trump's rhetoric is music to their ears.
Sadly, isolationism doesn't work, especially when you are a world power.
Trump isn't an isolationist though. Has he not made great play of how there will be hell to pay if the hostages are not released by Hamas by the time he is inaugurated and his incoming team has spent the time since the election trying to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. That's not isolationism.
I might suggest that his currently-stated ideas for 'peace' in Ukraine is music to Putin's ears. As are his threats towards NATO.
Trump's threats to NATO are purely monetary. He wants European countries to pay their own way, which is a very fair position to hold.
They're not remotely purely monetary. Sure, he thinks that some European states are getting a free ride and are not contributing sufficiently - and he has a point there.
But in terms of the fundamental purpose of Nato, he opposes it. If push came to shove, he'd try to cut a deal rather than take action.
Trump is a dodgy businessman. He understands deals. He understands bribery, blackmail, intimidation and lawfare. He does not understand why the US should go to war on behalf of another country - and particularly one that isn't paying for it. He never will. He sees US troops abroad solely as mercenaries who should be returning an income.
But the point is that if Europe resolved the monetary issue and actually paid for it's own defence the thought of a Russian incursion would be ridiculous. That the likes of Germany have spend half of the already too low target for two decades is why the Russians are even capable of taking on European countries in our backyard.
If we want Trump to understand why the US should go to war for another country then we should first get other European nations to understand why we should go to war. It's completely hypocritical to expect the US to bail out rich nations across the EU when it comes to defending out territory and frankly, I'm on Trump's side to some extent. We need to be able to look after our own and not rely on another country to do it for us. This isn't WW2 and a fight for survival, this is a minor territorial incursion that European NATO countries should have been able to repel back in 2014 in alliance with Ukraine to put Putin back in his box but we have neither the capability nor the will to spend our blood and treasure doing so. Suggesting that Trump is uniquely bad for not wanting to spend American blood and treasure on defending foreign territory not in his backyard is simply ridiculous.
"But the point is that if Europe resolved the monetary issue and actually paid for it's own defence the thought of a Russian incursion would be ridiculous."
I think that's very wrong. Firstly, no single European country could be expected to match what Russia is currently spending alone. Even together, 'Europe' would find it hard. The massive block that is NATO has its own power; the power of a grouping. Russia is going through enormous pain to support Putin's war. NATO has hardly buffed its nails and has grievously wounded Russia.
Putin loves to divide and separate. If there was no NATO, then he would pick everyone else off, one-by-one, as he has Hungary, and has tried in Romania.
The fact NATO is a massive power block works to all members' advantage; including America. That does not mean European countries should not be paying more - and I agree they should. But all Putin will hear from Trump's stupid rhetoric is "NATO can be divided and defeated."
But I'm not suggesting any single nation to do it alone? The EU + UK has collective PPP of $34tn vs Russia at $7tn. It is within the realm of possibility that as a collective European NATO countries can fund a defence budget 2x the size of Russia's in PPP terms, essentially being able to buy double the strength. We choose not to because we prefer to spend on welfare programmes and pensions. We've neglected to defend the border properly and now that bill is coming due.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
There is no such thing as international law. It is just the set of rules most recently agreed upon by whoever were Top Nations at the time. As there is currently only one Top Nation it is that nation which makes the rules. Or breaks them.
There is, however, pragmatism, which every nation engages in.
I know you've just come back wowed by America but the idea that America rules the roost as it did, is nuts
Go to East Asia (or indeed the Indian Ocean, or Africa, or Latin America) and you can feel the overwhelming power of China. Certainly equal to the USA
There was a NYT piece t'other day which made the point that China will soon have such a huge chunk of global manufacturing it will be akin to Britain at the early peak of the Industrial Revolution, or America at the end of WW2. Hegemonic
China doesn't now, and never did see itself as the upholder of universal values. It doesn't project force or want to. It is (fiercely) protective about territories it believes are part of Greater China but aside from voicing the odd (usually conciliatory) view on global events, isn't about to send a task force to the Balkans. It is not hugely removed from cultivering its jardin (disputes about just what is in the jardin aside).
The US, however, does see itself as the world's policeman and as the upholder of universal values.
Is the difference.
A bizarre take. America DID see itself as that, but not any more. The election of Trump is a symptom of that withdrawal, not a cause
Trump wants the world to look after itself, and Europeans can get fucked if they won't pay for their own defence
America is returning to isolationism, its policeman role is over and it doesn't care about "international rules" and it CERTAINLY ain't gonna pay to uphold them
Much less so with Trump for sure. But to turn the ship around takes more than one isolationist-adjacent POTUS. There is a whole structure around eg putting warships here, there and everywhere, about projecting force, and, when all is said and done, about supporting its allies, whether those are in Western Europe or the Middle East.
There is as we speak a huge amount of US activity in any and every theatre you care to name, whether directly involved or not, and that won't change come 1/1/25. Which supports your final point, that I made earlier, that the US, as Top Nation, doesn't care about "international rules", whatever they are.
You claimed it is and wants to be "world policeman". Absurd. That era ended some time ago, and Trump has sealed the deal. America ain't gonna be intervening in any regional wars for many years, if ever, unless they are right on the door step and Quebec attacks Ontario with nukes. Then America MIGHT step in
You are simply wrong. America is set up to be the world's policeman and the world expects it to be the world's policeman. Trump as POTUS isn't going to change that.
You are stuck in the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush era where you think that this means responding to a particular vendetta.
It doesn't, it means the world looks to you when events happen. As it will when they do. And the US will respond.
I'm sure @Dura can tell us current US warship and battle group deployments and they aren't all in Kentucky.
I agree with you: America is heavily involved throughout the world, militarily.
But: Putin and Xi desperately desire an isolationist USA, so they can do their non-isolationist rubbish. Trump's rhetoric is music to their ears.
Sadly, isolationism doesn't work, especially when you are a world power.
Trump isn't an isolationist though. Has he not made great play of how there will be hell to pay if the hostages are not released by Hamas by the time he is inaugurated and his incoming team has spent the time since the election trying to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. That's not isolationism.
I might suggest that his currently-stated ideas for 'peace' in Ukraine is music to Putin's ears. As are his threats towards NATO.
Trump's threats to NATO are purely monetary. He wants European countries to pay their own way, which is a very fair position to hold.
They're not remotely purely monetary. Sure, he thinks that some European states are getting a free ride and are not contributing sufficiently - and he has a point there.
But in terms of the fundamental purpose of Nato, he opposes it. If push came to shove, he'd try to cut a deal rather than take action.
Trump is a dodgy businessman. He understands deals. He understands bribery, blackmail, intimidation and lawfare. He does not understand why the US should go to war on behalf of another country - and particularly one that isn't paying for it. He never will. He sees US troops abroad solely as mercenaries who should be returning an income.
But the point is that if Europe resolved the monetary issue and actually paid for it's own defence the thought of a Russian incursion would be ridiculous. That the likes of Germany have spend half of the already too low target for two decades is why the Russians are even capable of taking on European countries in our backyard.
If we want Trump to understand why the US should go to war for another country then we should first get other European nations to understand why we should go to war. It's completely hypocritical to expect the US to bail out rich nations across the EU when it comes to defending out territory and frankly, I'm on Trump's side to some extent. We need to be able to look after our own and not rely on another country to do it for us. This isn't WW2 and a fight for survival, this is a minor territorial incursion that European NATO countries should have been able to repel back in 2014 in alliance with Ukraine to put Putin back in his box but we have neither the capability nor the will to spend our blood and treasure doing so. Suggesting that Trump is uniquely bad for not wanting to spend American blood and treasure on defending foreign territory not in his backyard is simply ridiculous.
German non-rearmament was a post-ww2 thing. And post-ww1. Germany was seen as a warmongering nation for most of its short existence.
America saw itself as leader of the free world, and defender of freedom and democracy. Trump's isolationist nationalism goes against the American post-war consensus.
Back in 1990, the Bundeswehr was a top class army.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
It was more damaging for the EU than the UK. The loss of UK pragmatism and liberalism has led directly to the EU’s self defeating regulatory bonanza, destroying innovation and crushing flexibility
I don't know about more damaging but certainly damaging, I thought as much at the time of the Referendum. My Remain vote was informed by this. Sort of person I am. Holistic. Big picture.
One reason I voted Leave WAS to damage the EU. Fucking wankers with their “rerun that referendum til you get the right result” ethos. They even tried it on us. I am deeply proud that in the end the British said “Nah, fuck off, we’re democratic, we will respect the result of our referendum, we’re not doing an EU re-run like everyone else, we’re better than them”
I know. I have some of that in me too but it's outweighed by the better bits. I think I've said before it wasn't Leavers v Remainers as distinct boundaried individuals because all Leavers have some Remain in them and all Remainers have some Leave. The vote was in essence a weighing up of these two sides of our national brain chemistry, our character if you like, and it was the less enlightened side which narrowly but clearly prevailed. This is how I see it anyway, the EU Referendum of 2016. It's a good way of looking at it because (i) it's true and (ii) it gets away from personal bitterness and division.
Agree (except obviously I'd say the more enlightened side won). Almost nobody wanted to tow the UK into the mid-Atlantic and shut up the barriers (metaphorically). Almost nobody wanted to bend over and hand the EU the vaseline. It was all a question of degree. Most of politics can be seen this way. Everything is a balance of weighing up the options, everything is on a continuum. If you think something being done by government has no benefits whatsoever then you almost certainly haven't understood the issue properly. [Surely that is the case with Chagos?] Politics gets a lot less heated when you realise you are basically arguing over whether the amount of money the state spends should be 44% of GDP or 40% of GDP.
No. Chagos was a genuinely terrible decision made by seriously stupid people enabled by duplicitous anti-British wankers
I try not to allow nascent nationalistic fervour colour my view here, but I've been a bit stumped what the perceived advantages fo that whole deal were supposed to be, particularly given how things have developed.
At a pragmatic, practical level (which is how every other country seems to be playing it) did we get gain anything useful?
Not that I disagree with the basic premise about weighing up options and taking heat out of politics generally.
The advantage of the deal is that we stop being in breach of international law.
But how much does that actually get us? That's a moral argument, and no one else in this matter seems to care about the moral position or the Chagossians, certainly not Mauritius or the UK. It doesn't appear to have gained us any goodwill with any party, so sure, no longer a breach, but given for all sides this seems to just be a transactional matter, I'm not particularly fussed on the moral position.
I think it’s a good thing to uphold international law. The international rules-based order since World War II has done a relatively good job at maintaining peace and security compared to the first half of the 20th century or to the 19th century. I don’t think we win under the Strong Man approach to global politics of Putin, Trump and Netanyahu.
It is also the case that upholding international law conspicuously helps in international relations. It is difficult to criticise other countries, e.g. Russia, Israel, for breaking international law if we’re also breaking it. Other countries do cite such matters.
There is no such thing as international law. It is just the set of rules most recently agreed upon by whoever were Top Nations at the time. As there is currently only one Top Nation it is that nation which makes the rules. Or breaks them.
There is, however, pragmatism, which every nation engages in.
I know you've just come back wowed by America but the idea that America rules the roost as it did, is nuts
Go to East Asia (or indeed the Indian Ocean, or Africa, or Latin America) and you can feel the overwhelming power of China. Certainly equal to the USA
There was a NYT piece t'other day which made the point that China will soon have such a huge chunk of global manufacturing it will be akin to Britain at the early peak of the Industrial Revolution, or America at the end of WW2. Hegemonic
China doesn't now, and never did see itself as the upholder of universal values. It doesn't project force or want to. It is (fiercely) protective about territories it believes are part of Greater China but aside from voicing the odd (usually conciliatory) view on global events, isn't about to send a task force to the Balkans. It is not hugely removed from cultivering its jardin (disputes about just what is in the jardin aside).
The US, however, does see itself as the world's policeman and as the upholder of universal values.
Is the difference.
A bizarre take. America DID see itself as that, but not any more. The election of Trump is a symptom of that withdrawal, not a cause
Trump wants the world to look after itself, and Europeans can get fucked if they won't pay for their own defence
America is returning to isolationism, its policeman role is over and it doesn't care about "international rules" and it CERTAINLY ain't gonna pay to uphold them
Much less so with Trump for sure. But to turn the ship around takes more than one isolationist-adjacent POTUS. There is a whole structure around eg putting warships here, there and everywhere, about projecting force, and, when all is said and done, about supporting its allies, whether those are in Western Europe or the Middle East.
There is as we speak a huge amount of US activity in any and every theatre you care to name, whether directly involved or not, and that won't change come 1/1/25. Which supports your final point, that I made earlier, that the US, as Top Nation, doesn't care about "international rules", whatever they are.
You claimed it is and wants to be "world policeman". Absurd. That era ended some time ago, and Trump has sealed the deal. America ain't gonna be intervening in any regional wars for many years, if ever, unless they are right on the door step and Quebec attacks Ontario with nukes. Then America MIGHT step in
You are simply wrong. America is set up to be the world's policeman and the world expects it to be the world's policeman. Trump as POTUS isn't going to change that.
You are stuck in the Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush era where you think that this means responding to a particular vendetta.
It doesn't, it means the world looks to you when events happen. As it will when they do. And the US will respond.
I'm sure @Dura can tell us current US warship and battle group deployments and they aren't all in Kentucky.
I agree with you: America is heavily involved throughout the world, militarily.
But: Putin and Xi desperately desire an isolationist USA, so they can do their non-isolationist rubbish. Trump's rhetoric is music to their ears.
Sadly, isolationism doesn't work, especially when you are a world power.
Trump isn't an isolationist though. Has he not made great play of how there will be hell to pay if the hostages are not released by Hamas by the time he is inaugurated and his incoming team has spent the time since the election trying to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. That's not isolationism.
I might suggest that his currently-stated ideas for 'peace' in Ukraine is music to Putin's ears. As are his threats towards NATO.
Trump's threats to NATO are purely monetary. He wants European countries to pay their own way, which is a very fair position to hold.
They're not remotely purely monetary. Sure, he thinks that some European states are getting a free ride and are not contributing sufficiently - and he has a point there.
But in terms of the fundamental purpose of Nato, he opposes it. If push came to shove, he'd try to cut a deal rather than take action.
Trump is a dodgy businessman. He understands deals. He understands bribery, blackmail, intimidation and lawfare. He does not understand why the US should go to war on behalf of another country - and particularly one that isn't paying for it. He never will. He sees US troops abroad solely as mercenaries who should be returning an income.
But the point is that if Europe resolved the monetary issue and actually paid for it's own defence the thought of a Russian incursion would be ridiculous. That the likes of Germany have spend half of the already too low target for two decades is why the Russians are even capable of taking on European countries in our backyard.
If we want Trump to understand why the US should go to war for another country then we should first get other European nations to understand why we should go to war. It's completely hypocritical to expect the US to bail out rich nations across the EU when it comes to defending out territory and frankly, I'm on Trump's side to some extent. We need to be able to look after our own and not rely on another country to do it for us. This isn't WW2 and a fight for survival, this is a minor territorial incursion that European NATO countries should have been able to repel back in 2014 in alliance with Ukraine to put Putin back in his box but we have neither the capability nor the will to spend our blood and treasure doing so. Suggesting that Trump is uniquely bad for not wanting to spend American blood and treasure on defending foreign territory not in his backyard is simply ridiculous.
"But the point is that if Europe resolved the monetary issue and actually paid for it's own defence the thought of a Russian incursion would be ridiculous."
I think that's very wrong. Firstly, no single European country could be expected to match what Russia is currently spending alone. Even together, 'Europe' would find it hard. The massive block that is NATO has its own power; the power of a grouping. Russia is going through enormous pain to support Putin's war. NATO has hardly buffed its nails and has grievously wounded Russia.
Putin loves to divide and separate. If there was no NATO, then he would pick everyone else off, one-by-one, as he has Hungary, and has tried in Romania.
The fact NATO is a massive power block works to all members' advantage; including America. That does not mean European countries should not be paying more - and I agree they should. But all Putin will hear from Trump's stupid rhetoric is "NATO can be divided and defeated."
If Biden had said in 2022, "Screw NATO unity. We're going to give Ukraine what it needs to repel the invasion," then Ukraine would be in a much better position.
Instead he ummed and ahhed and worried about keeping the Germans on side and worried about the effect it would have on the EU to be more decisive. Your approach of prioritising unity has been tried, and it's led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
I really don't think his reticence was anything to do with keeping Germany on side. The problem was keeping the GOP on side. And there's *very* direct evidence of that, in the way the GOP stopped Ukraine getting aid earlier in the year.
(I do think Biden has been middling-to-poor on Ukraine; but the GOP have been disastrous.)
Presumably if its Peston it means that Labour has never been more united...
Peston has turned in to a complete tool. His ridiculous dress sense, affected speech manner and condescending tone.
If he's listening to Abbot, Long-Bailey, Sultana and Co hes even more out of touch than I imagined.
Badenoch is far more at risk than Starmer.The Tories are fighting literally amongst themselves in Oldham example fist fight between leader and deputy leader of Oldham Council.
There is far more disquiet between Lowe and Tice against Farage if you listen to informed sources. Ben Habib is not the only pissed off Reformer.
Farage has made a very very serious enemy in Tommy Robinson and may hope he remains inside for as long as possible.
Cheap pre Christmas over alcololified crap from Peston.
Everyone knows Labour are utterly crap at changing Leaders against Leaders will.... Starmer is there until he decides to leave or the day that the electorate kick him out.
The Tories destroyed themselves with a succession of leadership changes, each more absurd than the last with policies created from thin air and rapidly discarded.
Are the Labour team really saying "hold my beer?"
Second sign of madness. Quoting Peston
You mean he is reporting on national news media a story that upsets you
While it's all getting bad tempered on here, I'm going to tell you a remarkable fact: The UK Air Force that has an F-18 that has been ejected from on two separate occasions, and which is still in service.
Fuck me - for what? How long was she his chief of staff? A week? Its almost worse than Johnson giving one to a blond who may or may not be his daughter or who gave him a 'good time' in Downing Street.
It just adds to the cronyism narrative and time for this nonsense to end
I thought Starmer was above all this but he is no better than Johnson and others in awarding failure
The problem is wider than Starmer (not that I am giving him a free ride here). It’s that the whole Whitehall apparatus is set up (and has been for decades) so that those in and adjacent to power are rewarded by peerages to consolidate the power of the political classes. The HoL was used in this way for centuries to cement the rule of the landed gentry, this is no different - same stuff in a different guise.
To change that would be truly revolutionary and I can’t really say I’m shocked that Starmer has reverted to type.
Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 2h Gannett, owner of the Des Moines Register, won’t publicly commit to paying legal costs for Ann Seltzer, the pollster being sued by Trump.
This is ominous, especially in light of the capitulation last week by Disney/ABC, which is vastly better resourced than Gannett.
They’re all scared sh!tless of the discovery process, which will expose all the emails and phone messages behind the scenes of these media companies.
Trump doesn’t care for the money, he just wants to make them all squirm - and then treat him fairly when in office.
Nope. I'm with the TRiE interpretation. The big entertainment (eg Disney) and tech (eg Amazon) firms want to get out of the news business which does not make them rich or bring them prestige as used to be the case, and especially in the Trump age puts them in politicians' cross-hairs.
Five years is a Long time. The right don’t seem to get that. Appear to be still in election mode and not thinking strategically.
Nobody knows what the next election will bring. Can see almost any outcome.
Er, this is political betting. Our whole raison d’etre is making predictions, sometimes from absurdly long distances - geographical and temporal
Perhaps you’d be happier on nopoliticalbettingherethanks.com
Predicting what happens in an election four or five years away requires a tad more than looking at current polling or news cycles.
One only needs to see what’s happened in the last five years (since the week Johnson won a landslide), to think how crazy it must be to try and predict the next five!
ESPECIALLY the next five
*cue: ominous technological music*
AI (assuming thats what you are referring to) is going to bring enormous changes, but I think your timescales are rather too rapid for what is likely to happen. Lots of sectors are already using AI. I think it will be amazing in medical diagnosis (and we have been using machine learning etc for many years in this area). I am less convinced by you bonfire of the jobs rhetoric. But time will tell.
Well, I'm basically right about everything, tho I do hyperbolise. So expect it to happen, but maybe a couple years after my due date
There is a gulf between being right about everything and believing that you are right about everything.
This message was brought to you by the What3Words corporation and delivered by a UAP.
While it's all getting bad tempered on here, I'm going to tell you a remarkable fact: The UK Air Force that has an F-18 that has been ejected from on two separate occasions, and which is still in service.
And, no, these were not stationary tests.
Canadian, Shirley?
IIRC Martin Baker are still using a couple of twin seat Meteor jets for ejection seat tests. They surely must have (or be near the record) for the number of ejections from a particular aircraft?
At any one point in time, there is an approximately 12% chance that my printer will work on demand
I’m an IT manager, and I hate printers with a passion.
I once worked as IT service manager for a company of 400 people, and my biggest achievement in three years there was having them replace about 70 small printers with 15 large printer/copiers. I literally had one man doing nothing but fixing printers and printer issues at one point.
Printers are evil, and the sooner the office can work totally paperless the better!
I'd also add that printers encourage printing.
In my current bank, they went for a small number of very high end printer/scanner/copiers. Compete with secure printing via your smart card/pass. They are very rarely used now. So each time the contract comes round, they reduce the number.
I have a printer. I bought it during COVID. I used to use it a lot but now not so much. If I need to print off a letter (eg expenses form) I go to the library and print it off. So my printer has become a very small, very expensive desk side table on which notes are precariously balanced. 😃
Presumably if its Peston it means that Labour has never been more united...
Peston has turned in to a complete tool. His ridiculous dress sense, affected speech manner and condescending tone.
If he's listening to Abbot, Long-Bailey, Sultana and Co hes even more out of touch than I imagined.
Badenoch is far more at risk than Starmer.The Tories are fighting literally amongst themselves in Oldham example fist fight between leader and deputy leader of Oldham Council.
There is far more disquiet between Lowe and Tice against Farage if you listen to informed sources. Ben Habib is not the only pissed off Reformer.
Farage has made a very very serious enemy in Tommy Robinson and may hope he remains inside for as long as possible.
Cheap pre Christmas over alcololified crap from Peston.
Everyone knows Labour are utterly crap at changing Leaders against Leaders will.... Starmer is there until he decides to leave or the day that the electorate kick him out.
You said you were going on holiday to the Canaries until January and we would see you then
Never mind, seems Starmer needs his fans more than ever
Presumably if its Peston it means that Labour has never been more united...
Peston has turned in to a complete tool. His ridiculous dress sense, affected speech manner and condescending tone.
If he's listening to Abbot, Long-Bailey, Sultana and Co hes even more out of touch than I imagined.
Badenoch is far more at risk than Starmer.The Tories are fighting literally amongst themselves in Oldham example fist fight between leader and deputy leader of Oldham Council.
There is far more disquiet between Lowe and Tice against Farage if you listen to informed sources. Ben Habib is not the only pissed off Reformer.
Farage has made a very very serious enemy in Tommy Robinson and may hope he remains inside for as long as possible.
Cheap pre Christmas over alcololified crap from Peston.
Everyone knows Labour are utterly crap at changing Leaders against Leaders will.... Starmer is there until he decides to leave or the day that the electorate kick him out.
The Tories destroyed themselves with a succession of leadership changes, each more absurd than the last with policies created from thin air and rapidly discarded.
Are the Labour team really saying "hold my beer?"
Second sign of madness. Quoting Peston
You mean he is reporting on national news media a story that upsets you
Peston is so often wrong that he varies between noise and an inverse signal.
Comments
I think the crux of our disagreement is this line: "As economic and other credibility returns to Labour and Conservatives, support for policy non existent the “none of the above” option will shrink shrink shrink."
I Do Not Believe that credibility will return to those parties. Tories and Tory-leaning posters are in utter denial about just how destroyed that party is. Badenoch is heading even further away from credibility which is an impressive feat. The party long since stopped being Conservative - the conservative party is Reform. And Labour? Give over - they had one shot at cementing their hold on their wide but thin support and they've blown it.
You say voters are driven by economics. Exactly - and my inference from your post is that you think the economy is basically ok and people will get over themselves. It isn't They won't. The reason for the Brexit vote and then for the red wall landsliding for Boris was because of attitudes like that. Being told to suck it up. That bad is actually good, that actually they aren't broke actually.
The only part of your post I agree with is the size of the Reform electoral challenge. Which is preposterously steep. But have we not yet learned that impossible no longer exists in our politics? How could Reform win big? By wining more votes and concentrating it inside target constituencies. They already know how to do this, they're investing a lot of cash and bodies in rolling this out, and they have an ocean of cash to keep spending on it.
We had a landslide win for the Tories, where they took seats which have ben Labour since the Danelaw. Would be in power for a generation as a result, and instead gow swept away by a landslide twice as big with only a third of the vote. Impossible on stilts, yet it happened. So how can you proclaim that Reform winning seats into 3 figures is impossible?
Likewise, Heath didn't persuade the French to drop their opposition (Heath was, of course, lead UK minister under Macmillan, when the French vetoed UK entry). The change wasn't in the British government but the French one.
Heath also ushered the same Labour government back in, in 1974, that he kicked out in 1970.
But he did see the need for fundamental national reform and gave it a good go, so paving the way for Thatcher to make a success of it once the political landscape was more conducive post-Winter of Discontent.
Hello!
Are the Labour team really saying "hold my beer?"
Has that happened yet ?
Harris and her staff were all West Coast Liberals who couldn’t sell condoms in a brothel to Middle America.
With better media handling and news management, then the government's standings would be much better. Although the media handling hasn't been helped by the fact they've shot themselves in their feet a few times.
Mandelson would have been much better behind the scenes in No. 10 than in the USA.
Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social
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2h
Gannett, owner of the Des Moines Register, won’t publicly commit to paying legal costs for Ann Seltzer, the pollster being sued by Trump.
This is ominous, especially in light of the capitulation last week by Disney/ABC, which is vastly better resourced than Gannett.
https://bsky.app/profile/bgrueskin.bsky.social/post/3ldqdlj4jus2a
If he goes it’s PM Rayner.
Trump doesn’t care for the money, he just wants to make them all squirm - and then treat him fairly when in office.
Perhaps you missed this:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/11/harris-walz-trump-manufacturing-working-class-voters-00183449
It was Trump/Vance that was all about culture war, not the Dem campaign.
Rayner is the elected Deputy Leader. If Starmer abruptly went then she would be *acting* leader. We don't have acting PMs, so she would kiss the royal ring and I suspect incumbency would make her hard to replace as permanent party leader.
But Starmer won't abruptly go. If he is quitting to spend more time watching Arsenal then he'll hang on to get her ouster in place. If he is being resigned to do the same then the cabal doing the ousting will have her manoeuvred out as well.
There is a significant faction of the Labour Party who *cannot stand* northern types like Rayner.
I posed the question previously and ask it again
Will Farage accepting money from Trump/Musk help or hinder Reform
The conservative party lost their way and were deservedly thrown out of office, though I did vote conservative at GE 24
I accepted Labour deserved to win but am utterly astonished how Starmer and Reeves have become so unpopular so quickly, but they have only themselves to blame with the way they have governed to date
It is too early to condemn Badenoch, and for that matter the conservatives who have performed well in the locals including here in Wales.
I can see a Conservative - Reform Government but as so many wise heads say it is far too early to predict the next GE
“Emmanuel Macron swore during a furious exchange with residents of the cyclone-hit islands of Mayotte on Thursday night, telling a jeering crowd in the French territory “if this wasn’t France, you’d be in a bath of shit 10,000 times worse”.”
I once worked as IT service manager for a company of 400 people, and my biggest achievement in three years there was having them replace about 70 small printers with 15 large printer/copiers. I literally had one man doing nothing but fixing printers and printer issues at one point.
Printers are evil, and the sooner the office can work totally paperless the better!
Personally, I think there's a case for using both sets of figures. We would certainly include the deaths of Mao's famines, Hitler's genocide, Stalin's purges and holodomor, Rwanda, Pol Pot and so on within the figures for 20th century political violence, as well as civilian casualties of war, of which there were tens of millions.
But even then, these non-war of 19th century types violence came out out of processes already underway in 1800 and probably tended to reduce in severity overall as the century went on, with the exception of the civil wars in China and the US.
https://x.com/JoeyQuits/status/1869551723125293422
Unsurprising news
Time though to abolish all this nonsense
You could say factions of the Labour party *cannot stand* Scottish, Welsh, London, Southern & Midlands types depending on which way the wind is blowing.
Left the CS in controversial fashion, fired after only a few months in government, then immediately kicked upstairs to the Big House.
Long way to do, but at the moment Labour are gifting all the momentum to Farage.
I caused a panic when I printed mine - to PDF. And emailed it to the expense people. Along with the receipts.
To the whining, I pointed out that internal email was secure, the expenses were non confidential and that sending stuff internally in unsealed envelopes was less secure.
Using her story for engagement is crass to say the least.
https://x.com/marshsongs/status/1869883656975855749?s=61
The phrase ‘kiss the royal ring’ is somewhat juvenile which is why it made me laugh out loud 😂
Not sure how the mechanics would work but he’s started poorly but he’s got time. Not years but certainly time and many MPs and ministers owe their position to him so he will have some loyalty.
But in terms of the fundamental purpose of Nato, he opposes it. If push came to shove, he'd try to cut a deal rather than take action.
Trump is a dodgy businessman. He understands deals. He understands bribery, blackmail, intimidation and lawfare. He does not understand why the US should go to war on behalf of another country - and particularly one that isn't paying for it. He never will. He sees US troops abroad solely as mercenaries who should be returning an income.
If America's main strategic threat is from China, then being tied into a formal alliance with small states that might drag it into a war with Russia is a liability when they can deal with Russia directly.
Speaking of Boris, he should be the Tories' candidate for Mayor of London.
The Trump campaign was all about cutting spending and ending wars.
If we want Trump to understand why the US should go to war for another country then we should first get other European nations to understand why we should go to war. It's completely hypocritical to expect the US to bail out rich nations across the EU when it comes to defending out territory and frankly, I'm on Trump's side to some extent. We need to be able to look after our own and not rely on another country to do it for us. This isn't WW2 and a fight for survival, this is a minor territorial incursion that European NATO countries should have been able to repel back in 2014 in alliance with Ukraine to put Putin back in his box but we have neither the capability nor the will to spend our blood and treasure doing so. Suggesting that Trump is uniquely bad for not wanting to spend American blood and treasure on defending foreign territory not in his backyard is simply ridiculous.
I would gently suggest it would not be in the Tories' best interests to raise the issue again.
Starmer has not proven himself particularly adept at making appointments; there will be other opportunities.
I thought Starmer was above all this but he is no better than Johnson and others in awarding failure
None of this matters, of course, as 99.9 % think he did. And you are right that there is no earthly reason for the Tories to dredge it up again, whether or not they think Sue Gray has done a Shami Chakrabati.
I think that's very wrong. Firstly, no single European country could be expected to match what Russia is currently spending alone. Even together, 'Europe' would find it hard. The massive block that is NATO has its own power; the power of a grouping. Russia is going through enormous pain to support Putin's war. NATO has hardly buffed its nails and has grievously wounded Russia.
Putin loves to divide and separate. If there was no NATO, then he would pick everyone else off, one-by-one, as he has Hungary, and has tried in Romania.
The fact NATO is a massive power block works to all members' advantage; including America. That does not mean European countries should not be paying more - and I agree they should. But all Putin will hear from Trump's stupid rhetoric is "NATO can be divided and defeated."
If Europe collectively had the military spending of the Cold War - when Germany had tanks by the thousand - then Russia might have been deterred.
It is rather childish to not be able to defend ourselves, and our close neighbours. NATO is an insurance policy. We need to pay the premiums.
Trump would not join in an alliance campaign against an attack on a Nato member, whether or not it was paying a sensible amount for its defence (which isn't a condition in the Treaty anyway).
Europe, including the UK, should be spending more and should be spending it better. It should also rely more on its own industrial production - including jet fighters and nuclear capacity.
Anyway, it's not just Trump: the US as a whole is turning away from Europe, and not without reason. While the two sides of the Atlantic have good reason to remain aligned and allied, Europe does need to care more for its own defence and prepare for a future without America.
But when it comes to misuse of words, I might suggest 'talent' is one that you regularly misuse.
Some people just aren't open to persuasion.
The fact is that the Dems did campaign on pocketbook issues in middle class middle America. Not enough Americans were convinced (though only by 1% or so).
They now have 4 years of Trump tariffs to learn their lesson.
Instead he ummed and ahhed and worried about keeping the Germans on side and worried about the effect it would have on the EU to be more decisive. Your approach of prioritising unity has been tried, and it's led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
In my current bank, they went for a small number of very high end printer/scanner/copiers. Compete with secure printing via your smart card/pass. They are very rarely used now. So each time the contract comes round, they reduce the number.
America saw itself as leader of the free world, and defender of freedom and democracy. Trump's isolationist nationalism goes against the American post-war consensus.
There have been a spate of these recently.
When my Dad was seriously Ill heading towards end of life he was quoted 1500 quid for travel insurance to holiday with us. He paid it.
Why should people be expected to bail these Penny pinchers out or am I being needlessly harsh ?
In this case she was quoted a cost for travel insurance. Refused to pay it due to cost.
Surely that’s their problem ?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14198963/British-grandma-covid-travel-insurance-Florida-vacation.html
(I do think Biden has been middling-to-poor on Ukraine; but the GOP have been disastrous.)
If he's listening to Abbot, Long-Bailey, Sultana and Co hes even more out of touch than I imagined.
Badenoch is far more at risk than Starmer.The Tories are fighting literally amongst themselves in Oldham example fist fight between leader and deputy leader of Oldham Council.
There is far more disquiet between Lowe and Tice against Farage if you listen to informed sources. Ben Habib is not the only pissed off Reformer.
Farage has made a very very serious enemy in Tommy Robinson and may hope he remains inside for as long as possible.
Cheap pre Christmas over alcololified crap from Peston.
Everyone knows Labour are utterly crap at changing Leaders against Leaders will.... Starmer is there until he decides to leave or the day that the electorate kick him out.
And, no, these were not stationary tests.
To change that would be truly revolutionary and I can’t really say I’m shocked that Starmer has reverted to type.
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IIRC Martin Baker are still using a couple of twin seat Meteor jets for ejection seat tests. They surely must have (or be near the record) for the number of ejections from a particular aircraft?
Never mind, seems Starmer needs his fans more than ever