People do sometimes succumb to a misty-eyed sense of identification with their 'nation' or their 'people'. I guess this is where the far right would claim that what they offer to their followers is 'deep'.
I would like to point out that economic and social liberalism doesnt really satisfy human needs which is why people are looking to the far right. People thirst for a deeper meaning in life and if the far right provies it so be it.
Nobody looks to the far right for a 'deeper meaning in life'. They look to them so as to be able to blame others.
The far right does many things; 'deep' is not among them.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Talking of the Telegraph this headline poses the real question
Why Musks love in with Tommy Robinson presents a problem for Farage
Yup. I've thought that as well. All of the LABOUR ARE EVIL posts on there, WE NEED REFORM. And then a rapid pivot to FREE TOMMY ROBINSON complete with SYL looking less thuggish with a Lion and a smart suit superimposed over a flag and the white cliffs of Dover.
Why does SYL hold such a thrall over some people? Because (a) there is a kernel of truth in his analysis before he pivoting off into "and the solution is deport the muslims", and (b) his presentation is just slick enough to enthral morons.
Farage knows that offering up kernels of truth and then pivoting off into "lets abolish the NHS" will win a lot of votes. But he also knows that SYL and the other hardcore racists will lose him votes. And yet his boss President Musk just wants to agitate. How do you tell the new boss that he needs to be nuanced, when his movement is about rile up the mob and watch them tear it all down?
It wouldn't be surprised if Musk continues to pick out individual MPs he hates some Thomas Mair character might act on it. It has happened before. This is one of the reasons I believe Badenoch is unwise to jump onto every passing Musk bandwagon. How long before she starts demanding to "free the Yaxley-Lennon one"?
Even on here, as I have previously noted, people I thought of as fairly sober but solidly right wrong posters, those who now go on every single day about how crap Labour are in every tiniest respect, jumped in very willingly during the riots with two tier Keir and more than that direct echoing of the lies of actual neo-Nazis to politically point score. After the first 5 weeks of going on about how crap Labour were in every tiniest respect before they'd actually done anything.
Now PB Tories are a rump of what they once were, but as a grouping most of them now mirror the Corbynites - their hatred of Labour is so blind, so total, that they deserve to be on Prevent's Brownshirt watch - not active neo-Nazis or anything like today but, come the brownshirt revolution, quite susceptible to falling into line.
So, perhaps with these analytics, Musk is right and Farage is wrong -the basic rump right are already so far down the rabbit hole that his message will hit home.
Terrible though Muslim bombers and this generation of care home abusers are, the Momentum of Labour haters led by Republican expulsionists is the clearest, most present danger to ripping asunder the fabric of British society and to my own and my family's life because they seek to become once more the establishment. They seek damage in a way that no dodgy Labour tax rise can hope to replicate.
Yes, the greatest threat to British society now is not Muslim suicide bombers but PB Tories.
I try not to be a Tory hater, I have little trick with the Fatchtarati, and I am massively saddened to come to the point where I'm concluding this.
That's a bizarre view to take - the democratic Opposition is the problem.
That is, by the way, exactly how the MAGA crowd get to "We must nullify elections to protect Democracy".
It's a strong view for sure.
But the general principle that the in group going off the rails is far, far more dangerous than a small proportion of minority random extremists trying to cause havoc is one to which I hold. The world invited in by Leon and more illustrious writers terrifies me far more than taking my chances in a city centre Christmas market. And seeing even passing signs of it getting currency in supporters not of SYL or even Farage, but in the mainstream opposition is slightly chilling, especially with the prospect of 4 years of shit stirring to come from the US.
I did seriously consider the Leon challenge of, if you think Trump is that bad why not support nobbling / assassinating him. I've come to a fatalist conclusion, no precognition, by the time you know that he is bad enough to justify that it will inevitably be too late. You just have to trust that the collective memory of liberal democracy is enough to pull back after bad things happen. In democracy, there are rules to be followed, but the efforts to disqualify him as an insurrectionist failed because the institutional and democratic will to disqualify him wasn't strong enough. So, no MAGA style "protection of democracy" from me, we must go where we must go, whether in the US or the UK.
Your argument seems to be that it's an either/or: that the current world of periodic atrocities across the western world perpetuated by Islamic terrorists, peppered by background grimness exemplified by Rochdale and rape parties in Cologne and the like, is the price we must pay because the alternative is that someone like Trump or worse takes over. Is that right?
If so, my reaction would be that it doesn't have to be either/or. Ideally, the current mainstream parties would try to do something about the current unpleasantness. If we end up with Trumps and mini-Trumps and worse throughout the western world, it will be because the mainstream parties have given up trying to address these issues, and voters see no alternative.
Of course, I do agree with you that I would rather have even this current government which, rubbish though it is, is largely obeying democratic norms, than a Trump-like one. But come on, western establishments - just try to give the impression that you're on your populations' sides.
I don't think the argument made by the side you are arguing against, except in a very few cases, is that "we must have Trumps and mini-Trumps". It's that the level of establishment complacency is so astonishingly large, the denial of the problems we face is so great, that it's unsurprising that the non-establishment parties are attracting more interest.
Indeed. For example in cities like bradford once muslims have bought up most of the housing stock in an area they will give lowball cash offers to the remaining white residents saying take it or leave it. You dont see that on the news.
Hello.
A plane crashes on the Ukraine/Republic of China border. Which side do you bury the survivors?
Ive never seen anyone link bradford to ukraine before but hey ho.
It’s a different starting point to other trolls but it’s still not a story or anything beyond racist tripe. And that post tells me you are a racist with a very short posting lifecycle
Its actually true. I have friends in bradford who can confirm. The fact you dismiss it shows you know nothing of this country.
People do sometimes succumb to a misty-eyed sense of identification with their 'nation' or their 'people'. I guess this is where the far right would claim that what they offer to their followers is 'deep'.
The same emotional identification is used by adherents to various creeds. Common to see "I hate Flag Shaggers" waxing lyrical about the tenets of their replacement faith(s)
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Talking of the Telegraph this headline poses the real question
Why Musks love in with Tommy Robinson presents a problem for Farage
Yup. I've thought that as well. All of the LABOUR ARE EVIL posts on there, WE NEED REFORM. And then a rapid pivot to FREE TOMMY ROBINSON complete with SYL looking less thuggish with a Lion and a smart suit superimposed over a flag and the white cliffs of Dover.
Why does SYL hold such a thrall over some people? Because (a) there is a kernel of truth in his analysis before he pivoting off into "and the solution is deport the muslims", and (b) his presentation is just slick enough to enthral morons.
Farage knows that offering up kernels of truth and then pivoting off into "lets abolish the NHS" will win a lot of votes. But he also knows that SYL and the other hardcore racists will lose him votes. And yet his boss President Musk just wants to agitate. How do you tell the new boss that he needs to be nuanced, when his movement is about rile up the mob and watch them tear it all down?
It wouldn't be surprised if Musk continues to pick out individual MPs he hates some Thomas Mair character might act on it. It has happened before. This is one of the reasons I believe Badenoch is unwise to jump onto every passing Musk bandwagon. How long before she starts demanding to "free the Yaxley-Lennon one"?
Even on here, as I have previously noted, people I thought of as fairly sober but solidly right wrong posters, those who now go on every single day about how crap Labour are in every tiniest respect, jumped in very willingly during the riots with two tier Keir and more than that direct echoing of the lies of actual neo-Nazis to politically point score. After the first 5 weeks of going on about how crap Labour were in every tiniest respect before they'd actually done anything.
Now PB Tories are a rump of what they once were, but as a grouping most of them now mirror the Corbynites - their hatred of Labour is so blind, so total, that they deserve to be on Prevent's Brownshirt watch - not active neo-Nazis or anything like today but, come the brownshirt revolution, quite susceptible to falling into line.
So, perhaps with these analytics, Musk is right and Farage is wrong -the basic rump right are already so far down the rabbit hole that his message will hit home.
Terrible though Muslim bombers and this generation of care home abusers are, the Momentum of Labour haters led by Republican expulsionists is the clearest, most present danger to ripping asunder the fabric of British society and to my own and my family's life because they seek to become once more the establishment. They seek damage in a way that no dodgy Labour tax rise can hope to replicate.
Yes, the greatest threat to British society now is not Muslim suicide bombers but PB Tories.
I try not to be a Tory hater, I have little trick with the Fatchtarati, and I am massively saddened to come to the point where I'm concluding this.
That's a bizarre view to take - the democratic Opposition is the problem.
That is, by the way, exactly how the MAGA crowd get to "We must nullify elections to protect Democracy".
It's a strong view for sure.
But the general principle that the in group going off the rails is far, far more dangerous than a small proportion of minority random extremists trying to cause havoc is one to which I hold. The world invited in by Leon and more illustrious writers terrifies me far more than taking my chances in a city centre Christmas market. And seeing even passing signs of it getting currency in supporters not of SYL or even Farage, but in the mainstream opposition is slightly chilling, especially with the prospect of 4 years of shit stirring to come from the US.
I did seriously consider the Leon challenge of, if you think Trump is that bad why not support nobbling / assassinating him. I've come to a fatalist conclusion, no precognition, by the time you know that he is bad enough to justify that it will inevitably be too late. You just have to trust that the collective memory of liberal democracy is enough to pull back after bad things happen. In democracy, there are rules to be followed, but the efforts to disqualify him as an insurrectionist failed because the institutional and democratic will to disqualify him wasn't strong enough. So, no MAGA style "protection of democracy" from me, we must go where we must go, whether in the US or the UK.
Your argument seems to be that it's an either/or: that the current world of periodic atrocities across the western world perpetuated by Islamic terrorists, peppered by background grimness exemplified by Rochdale and rape parties in Cologne and the like, is the price we must pay because the alternative is that someone like Trump or worse takes over. Is that right?
If so, my reaction would be that it doesn't have to be either/or. Ideally, the current mainstream parties would try to do something about the current unpleasantness. If we end up with Trumps and mini-Trumps and worse throughout the western world, it will be because the mainstream parties have given up trying to address these issues, and voters see no alternative.
Of course, I do agree with you that I would rather have even this current government which, rubbish though it is, is largely obeying democratic norms, than a Trump-like one. But come on, western establishments - just try to give the impression that you're on your populations' sides.
I don't think the argument made by the side you are arguing against, except in a very few cases, is that "we must have Trumps and mini-Trumps". It's that the level of establishment complacency is so astonishingly large, the denial of the problems we face is so great, that it's unsurprising that the non-establishment parties are attracting more interest.
Indeed. For example in cities like bradford once muslims have bought up most of the housing stock in an area they will give lowball cash offers to the remaining white residents saying take it or leave it. You dont see that on the news.
Hello.
A plane crashes on the Ukraine/Republic of China border. Which side do you bury the survivors?
Ive never seen anyone link bradford to ukraine before but hey ho.
It’s a different starting point to other trolls but it’s still not a story or anything beyond racist tripe. And that post tells me you are a racist with a very short posting lifecycle
Its actually true. I have friends in bradford who can confirm. The fact you dismiss it shows you know nothing of this country.
Ruddy hell. Musks feed today. He’s losing it, he really is. I do get how the grooming gangs issue and the institutional cover ups looks to those on the outside but some of his comments are just so wide of left field. His comment about Jess Phillips, a politician I personally have no time for at all, is appalling. He’s just playing to the gallery now.
The objections to Kemi calling for a public enquiry are ludicrous. 1. It may highlight her own incompetence - OK, that's an objection how? 2. She should have called for it long ago - OK, is it too late now and she should just shut her face? Ridiculous argument - the ramifications of what happened still need to be recognised nationally and acted upon. The victims (for the most part) are very much still with us and deserve justice. 3. She's jumping on the Reform/Musk bandwagon - actually she seems slightly to have beaten Nigel to the punch, fair play. She has also made a lot of noise about culture, and reform of public institutions, so I don’t see that this is in any from the left field.
Well done Kemi. GO FOR HIM at PMQs.*
*But do your research and have an answer when he blames the Tories - fairly simple 'If we're to blame, have the enquiry'.
I think people are entitled to raise criticisms of her past statements (or lack thereof) or performance on any issue they want. Same as they are entitled to criticise Jess Phillips and a whole host of Labour politicians who seem to have curiously forgotten some of the things they said in opposition once they got their feet under the table.
It shouldn’t de-legitimise or prevent her from calling for things though, I agree.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Musk, from his feed today, certainly doesn’t seem to have mastered the skill of where to stop
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Good point. I can't see how the pronouncements of Musk are now remotely distinguishable for those of, say, Lozza Fox.
I would like to point out that economic and social liberalism doesnt really satisfy human needs which is why people are looking to the far right. People thirst for a deeper meaning in life and if the far right provies it so be it.
Mm. Bit of a repeated trope, this one. Certainly true that economic and social liberalism doesn't satisfy all human needs - but I don't think there has ever been a political, economic or cultural system which satsifies all human needs. I'm guessing what you're getting at is the lack of a feeling of belonging and/or group identity. I'd certainly like a greater level of this - but it's not something which can be put in place top-down (though it can be damaged top-down). Think of any decade or any government and there were countless people left dissatisfied and/or not belonging.
Most human needs are things which humans need to satisfy themselves, rather than rely on governments to do for them.
Actually, thinking this through a bit, I take it back: look back in history and there have been successful examples of nation-building: think for example of the French enforcement of the French language in the 19th century, which took it from being a minority language of the north to the language of the country. Or various attempts throughout the world at enforcing religious conformity. They worked, albeit their effect weren't necessarily felt for generations. But is this doable in the modern world, even if it were acceptable? I suspect not. And we wouldn't really recognise it if it was - a group feeling is hard to manufacture in the timespans of human lifetimes.
We do pretty well at manufacturing a national group feeling every other June for about three or four weeks until someone misses a penalty.
Even then, we don't really. I'd say the "let's get this over and done with" lobby of various stripes (the not-English, those who think football boring, gauche, woke, stupid or less good than other sports, those who genuinely don't like sports, the club-before-country hardliners, those who cannot stand Gary Lineker, and so on) equates to a good 50% of the country.
This is going to be a long-term story - static caravan owners being fleeced by site operators operating rules which are questionable.
I don't know if we have any static van owners on PB; the sector is a bit of a wild west. I had one friend who had one that she rented out; she came through intact but it took a lot of careful navigation of site owner demands.
The objections to Kemi calling for a public enquiry are ludicrous. 1. It may highlight her own incompetence - OK, that's an objection how? 2. She should have called for it long ago - OK, is it too late now and she should just shut her face? Ridiculous argument - the ramifications of what happened still need to be recognised nationally and acted upon. The victims (for the most part) are very much still with us and deserve justice. 3. She's jumping on the Reform/Musk bandwagon - actually she seems slightly to have beaten Nigel to the punch, fair play. She has also made a lot of noise about culture, and reform of public institutions, so I don’t see that this is in any from the left field.
Well done Kemi. GO FOR HIM at PMQs.*
*But do your research and have an answer when he blames the Tories - fairly simple 'If we're to blame, have the enquiry'.
So she's advocating a national enquiry to cover all the old ground previous enquiries have covered which have worked to implementations already.
A national enquiry that would cost hundreds of millions and years to achieve what exactly.
She is not offering an ounce of common sense just playing juvenile debating games.
She's totally out of her depth.
She says it's too early for policies but wants to chat for years about policies on this topic that are already being implemented
This is going to be a long-term story - static caravan owners being fleeced by site operators operating rules which are questionable.
I don't know if we have any static van owners on PB; the sector is a bit of a wild west. I had one friend who had one that she rented out; she came through intact but it took a lot of careful navigation of site owner demands.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Musk, from his feed today, certainly doesn’t seem to have mastered the skill of where to stop
It has been suggested that Musk is trying to make up with the MAGA crowd after they rowed over H1b visas, but it may just be Musk being a nutter.
Please, this is a thread on education failure. Adding to that theme, proper nouns like "Ukraine" are always capitalised. Don't they teach grammar in Vladivostok Grammar School?
They are not Russian.
Are there large differences between Russian and Ukranian - so far as I can see
О becomes И (Kharkiv/Kharkov)
&
Г transliterated as "h" rather than "g" in Ukranian ?
About the same linguistic distance as Spanish/Portuguese, the transliteration differences are largely a matter of tradition and whether the words come to English via German or not.
The Ukrainian alphabet has four letters that Russian doesn't and Russian has two letters and one non-phonetic orthographic device (tvyordiy znak lit. "hard sign") that Ukrainian doesn't.
Ukrainian: ґ, є, ї, і Russian: ы, ё, ъ
I wrote a bit about it here which the Ultras didn't care for.
This is going to be a long-term story - static caravan owners being fleeced by site operators operating rules which are questionable.
I don't know if we have any static van owners on PB; the sector is a bit of a wild west. I had one friend who had one that she rented out; she came through intact but it took a lot of careful navigation of site owner demands.
Private Eye has been on the case for ages. Rather like it was with the Post Office!
The stories on the HPAG Facebook page are truly awful and the losses people have had and the behaviour of the sites. Including the big names, is appalling.
I think if there is any gap in Reform’s armour developing, it is its developing relationship with Musk.
I think Farage is a smart cookie, but if Musk writes him a cheque he won’t say no to it. And that immediately links him with the crazier stuff that Musk posts all over X. It leaves him as a rather large hostage to fortune. Will core Reform voters care? Probably not. But the voters who he needs to deliver him 150+ seats might.
As others have noted on here, plenty of voters are capable of backing Reform. But plenty could be turned away if they feel Reform is becoming more closely connected with characters like Tommy Robinson and, increasingly, Elon Musk.
I would have thought that even Farage is smart enough to know that if Musk becomes the leviathan donor to Reform that every time Musk posts some racist conspiracy, libellous comment, or simply demonstrates his incredible ignorance about the UK then Farage will be asked to defend it. And Musk is already way off the deep end and getting crazier by the day.
Hmm. I actually think he has a blind spot where Trump and Trump-adjacent folk are concerned. He has pretty much gone all-in since the election as being the Hon. Member for Mar-a-Lago. I dont think people care about that as much as some of his opponents would like to think they do, but it does make him a hostage to fortune somewhat.
People do sometimes succumb to a misty-eyed sense of identification with their 'nation' or their 'people'. I guess this is where the far right would claim that what they offer to their followers is 'deep'.
Mm. I have an essay of (actually only slightly political) thoughts on this to unpick with you here, Kinners, which I'd be fascinated to dig into your views on - but it must wait for another day because I'm off in ten minutes to the in-laws' to meet my gigantic infant nephew (along with several other less surprisingly-sized in-laws).
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Musk, from his feed today, certainly doesn’t seem to have mastered the skill of where to stop
It has been suggested that Musk is trying to make up with the MAGA crowd after they rowed over H1b visas, but it may just be Musk being a nutter.
Why would the MAGA crowd, who tend to be quite insular from what I see, care about it. I think he’s just becoming more and more bizarre.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Musk, from his feed today, certainly doesn’t seem to have mastered the skill of where to stop
He’s Asperger’s - self confessed - and he has many classic traits. One of them is a tin ear, saying the wrong thing, going way too far and not reading the room. This could be another example, he is certainly ranting
However this is not just Musk. This issue has exploded on social media partly because so many people in the USA, EU, elsewhere were honestly unaware of the existence and epic scale of the grooming gang scandal - and they are stupefied and outraged and bewildered how Britain has, apparently, reacted with an apathetic shrug. People - not Musk - are comparing it to war crimes
The origin of the explosion was the release on social media of some of the most horrifying evidence in one particular case
The objections to Kemi calling for a public enquiry are ludicrous. 1. It may highlight her own incompetence - OK, that's an objection how? 2. She should have called for it long ago - OK, is it too late now and she should just shut her face? Ridiculous argument - the ramifications of what happened still need to be recognised nationally and acted upon. The victims (for the most part) are very much still with us and deserve justice. 3. She's jumping on the Reform/Musk bandwagon - actually she seems slightly to have beaten Nigel to the punch, fair play. She has also made a lot of noise about culture, and reform of public institutions, so I don’t see that this is in any from the left field.
Well done Kemi. GO FOR HIM at PMQs.*
*But do your research and have an answer when he blames the Tories - fairly simple 'If we're to blame, have the enquiry'.
So she's advocating a national enquiry to cover all the old ground previous enquiries have covered which have worked to implementations already.
A national enquiry that would cost hundreds of millions and years to achieve what exactly.
She is not offering an ounce of common sense just playing juvenile debating games.
She's totally out of her depth.
She says it's too early for policies but wants to chat for years about policies on this topic that are already being implemented
Surely Starmer's answer should be: "I quite agree with the Hon Lady; the fact that previous administrations have ignored for so long is shameful. I look forward to her Party's full co-operation with the Inquiry which will be set up shortly."
Very awkward for Badenoch, calling for an inquiry when those who ran the previous inquiries your government commissioned into the same thing are accusing your government of failing to act on their recommendations.
Well, just because the Tories did the wrong thing for 14 years doesn't mean they can't do the right thing now.
An inquiry into what has gone on with these grooming gangs should be beyond party and I'm very surprised that Labour is so adamant there shouldn't be one....
It's not that there 'shouldn't be one' - it's that we've already had several, whose recommendations are yet to be fully implemented. And inquiries, done properly can take an absolute age and cost tens, in one case hundreds of millions of pounds.
This would very much be at the more complex end given if we just count the police forces and councils already criticised in previous inquiries or reports, that's already several. Before we get to other allegations that might be made about failures to tackle abuse to see their merit. It would have to hear from thousands of individuals, and the Maxwellisation process would be something to behold.
If we're doing that then we could be waiting another decade for its conclusions, which may well end up saying the same thing as the ones we've conducted already. And of course like most inquiries, if it doesn't say the explicit thing those loudly calling for it want it to say (and these things usually don't as even when scathing are careful with their words) - it'll be rejected by them as a whitewash.
So if you've already had previous (damning) inquiries and reports which the previous government didn't act on. Then it's on those to explain why the previous policy of local inquiries should be changed, past reports should be thrown in the bin and start up a process that's going to be very long, gruelling with no guarantee it'll give you the answers you want.
If it's because one can point to real flaws in the methodology and conclusions of the past inquiries and reports, fine. If it's "because Elon Musk is mouthing off about it online", it's a chance to bash the government, and you're worried by being outflanked by the far right's ability to say things without having to follow through on consequences, then that's not really serious or useful.
I don't think I've heard Badenoch make the former case, and if so why her views have suddenly changed from previous policy.
So in simple PLAIN ENGLISH that even the Reform boneheads and Kemi can understand the situation is this.
These issues were disgusting and widespread but not restricted to Muslim Communities
That various Enquiries were set up, reported, recommendations made and implemented and significant progress in some cases made, but also not fully implemented and loose ends in others.
The Conservative Government 2010 - 2024 (with LD's to 2015) decided in 2022 that REGIONAL investigations and reporting was the way to go. Kemi Badenoch and all then Tory MP's backed this.
SKS as DoPP was respected by the then Tory Government on his departure from DoPP as having made significant progress in dealing with the issue and raising it's profile and implementing change.
In October 2024 the new Junior Minister Jess Phillips routinely decided in answer to a quetion in the HoC and also in terms on Labour Government POlicy to IMPLEMENT and CONTINUE Tory Governments Guidelines as voted on in the HoC
There are / were NO MANIFESTO commitments on this on either side to change the status quo.
EARLIER THIS WEEK GB News attacked the Phillips decision retrospectively!!!!!!
MUSK decided to attack Starmer for his role as DoPP , called for Jess Phillips to be imprisoned and Tommy Robinson to be released.
Kemi Badenoch decided to jump on the bandwagon
MUSK who has associations to Jeffrey Epstein and Gisela Maxwell turns it in to a further attack on our democratically elected Government and it's policies and by definition and fact the policies of the previous Conservative Government of which Badenoch, Philip and others were Members
----
So it you support Musk, Farage , Trump and Tommy Robinson and want to instigate Riots again and Civil Disobedience that aim is clear - an unadulterated attempt to destroy the elected UK Govenment
If like Badenoch you completely go against your Governments Policy on this, you are complicit in supporting Musk, Farage , Trump and Tommy Robinson
If like Starmer and Labour you stand up to Musk, Farage , Trump and Tommy Robinson - I suspect that you will be backed and supported to the vast majority of the UK population who wish to deal with THE ISSUE and not the politics and to actually DEFEND UK democracy.
It strikes me sadly that MUSK wants Civil War and Mass disobedience on the streets of the major European and American Cities to foster his own sick and depraived mind.
MUSK must be stopped and those complicit in supporting him must be STOPPED and every Legal means by Police and Judiciary should be mobilised NOW to start that process around the Globe.
He is a massive danger to democratically elected longstanding Western democracies.
Good morning
The problem is no.matter how much you 'shout' about Musk he is not going away and it is likely to accelerate post Trump's inauguration
The big question in politics today is just how public opinion views Musks interventions, and how much it affects Farage and Reform
As far as Kemi is concerned she has to distance herself from Farage, but also focus on attacking this highly unpopular Labour government that saw 20 of its councillors defect yesterday in disgust at the leadership of Labour
FPT, we more or less know the answer to this big question. It isn't, therefore much of a question. Musk is spectacularly unpopular.
Now you might argue his interventions would improve his standing but it seems vanishingly unlikely given the ham-fisted, moronic nature of them. Popular with Robinson and his goons maybe, who themselves are among the most hated people in Britain. I think it unlikely them having a cringeworthy billionaire fanboy going through some kind of mental meltdown and getting dangerously close to going full neo-Nazi is changing these things.
As for 20 Labour councillors defecting, you'd rather they didn't - but isn't it a typical internal Labour row about who gets to stand? Not a happy party, but not the disaster you're making out.
The thing about Musk is he is an individual. He has no Party or infrastructure being him. He's latched on to MAGA for now.
He's latching on the extreme Right Political and non political Groups across Europe.
He can therefore as a cult be made to go away.
Simple economic sanctioning of all of his businesses and social media
Banning him from EU and UK
If he continues to be a threat then add him to the sort of list Bin Laden was on.
I'd argue he increasingly poses a greater threat to Western Democracy than Bin Laden
He is a like a rampant cancer, western democracy is the body and have no doubt he can ravage it.
Don't define him by nationality, religion, political extremity. Classify him by what he is... A one man global threat poisoning minds
I am not finding this Leon incarnation particularly amusing.
Very awkward for Badenoch, calling for an inquiry when those who ran the previous inquiries your government commissioned into the same thing are accusing your government of failing to act on their recommendations.
Well, just because the Tories did the wrong thing for 14 years doesn't mean they can't do the right thing now.
An inquiry into what has gone on with these grooming gangs should be beyond party and I'm very surprised that Labour is so adamant there shouldn't be one....
It's not that there 'shouldn't be one' - it's that we've already had several, whose recommendations are yet to be fully implemented. And inquiries, done properly can take an absolute age and cost tens, in one case hundreds of millions of pounds.
This would very much be at the more complex end given if we just count the police forces and councils already criticised in previous inquiries or reports, that's already several. Before we get to other allegations that might be made about failures to tackle abuse to see their merit. It would have to hear from thousands of individuals, and the Maxwellisation process would be something to behold.
If we're doing that then we could be waiting another decade for its conclusions, which may well end up saying the same thing as the ones we've conducted already. And of course like most inquiries, if it doesn't say the explicit thing those loudly calling for it want it to say (and these things usually don't as even when scathing are careful with their words) - it'll be rejected by them as a whitewash.
So if you've already had previous (damning) inquiries and reports which the previous government didn't act on. Then it's on those to explain why the previous policy of local inquiries should be changed, past reports should be thrown in the bin and start up a process that's going to be very long, gruelling with no guarantee it'll give you the answers you want.
If it's because one can point to real flaws in the methodology and conclusions of the past inquiries and reports, fine. If it's "because Elon Musk is mouthing off about it online", it's a chance to bash the government, and you're worried by being outflanked by the far right's ability to say things without having to follow through on consequences, then that's not really serious or useful.
I don't think I've heard Badenoch make the former case, and if so why her views have suddenly changed from previous policy.
So in simple PLAIN ENGLISH that even the Reform boneheads and Kemi can understand the situation is this.
These issues were disgusting and widespread but not restricted to Muslim Communities
That various Enquiries were set up, reported, recommendations made and implemented and significant progress in some cases made, but also not fully implemented and loose ends in others.
The Conservative Government 2010 - 2024 (with LD's to 2015) decided in 2022 that REGIONAL investigations and reporting was the way to go. Kemi Badenoch and all then Tory MP's backed this.
SKS as DoPP was respected by the then Tory Government on his departure from DoPP as having made significant progress in dealing with the issue and raising it's profile and implementing change.
In October 2024 the new Junior Minister Jess Phillips routinely decided in answer to a quetion in the HoC and also in terms on Labour Government POlicy to IMPLEMENT and CONTINUE Tory Governments Guidelines as voted on in the HoC
There are / were NO MANIFESTO commitments on this on either side to change the status quo.
EARLIER THIS WEEK GB News attacked the Phillips decision retrospectively!!!!!!
MUSK decided to attack Starmer for his role as DoPP , called for Jess Phillips to be imprisoned and Tommy Robinson to be released.
Kemi Badenoch decided to jump on the bandwagon
MUSK who has associations to Jeffrey Epstein and Gisela Maxwell turns it in to a further attack on our democratically elected Government and it's policies and by definition and fact the policies of the previous Conservative Government of which Badenoch, Philip and others were Members
----
So it you support Musk, Farage , Trump and Tommy Robinson and want to instigate Riots again and Civil Disobedience that aim is clear - an unadulterated attempt to destroy the elected UK Govenment
If like Badenoch you completely go against your Governments Policy on this, you are complicit in supporting Musk, Farage , Trump and Tommy Robinson
If like Starmer and Labour you stand up to Musk, Farage , Trump and Tommy Robinson - I suspect that you will be backed and supported to the vast majority of the UK population who wish to deal with THE ISSUE and not the politics and to actually DEFEND UK democracy.
It strikes me sadly that MUSK wants Civil War and Mass disobedience on the streets of the major European and American Cities to foster his own sick and depraived mind.
MUSK must be stopped and those complicit in supporting him must be STOPPED and every Legal means by Police and Judiciary should be mobilised NOW to start that process around the Globe.
He is a massive danger to democratically elected longstanding Western democracies.
Good morning
The problem is no.matter how much you 'shout' about Musk he is not going away and it is likely to accelerate post Trump's inauguration
The big question in politics today is just how public opinion views Musks interventions, and how much it affects Farage and Reform
As far as Kemi is concerned she has to distance herself from Farage, but also focus on attacking this highly unpopular Labour government that saw 20 of its councillors defect yesterday in disgust at the leadership of Labour
FPT, we more or less know the answer to this big question. It isn't, therefore much of a question. Musk is spectacularly unpopular.
Now you might argue his interventions would improve his standing but it seems vanishingly unlikely given the ham-fisted, moronic nature of them. Popular with Robinson and his goons maybe, who themselves are among the most hated people in Britain. I think it unlikely them having a cringeworthy billionaire fanboy going through some kind of mental meltdown and getting dangerously close to going full neo-Nazi is changing these things.
As for 20 Labour councillors defecting, you'd rather they didn't - but isn't it a typical internal Labour row about who gets to stand? Not a happy party, but not the disaster you're making out.
The thing about Musk is he is an individual. He has no Party or infrastructure being him. He's latched on to MAGA for now.
He's latching on the extreme Right Political and non political Groups across Europe.
He can therefore as a cult be made to go away.
Simple economic sanctioning of all of his businesses and social media
Banning him from EU and UK
If he continues to be a threat then add him to the sort of list Bin Laden was on.
I'd argue he increasingly poses a greater threat to Western Democracy than Bin Laden
He is a like a rampant cancer, western democracy is the body and have no doubt he can ravage it.
Don't define him by nationality, religion, political extremity. Classify him by what he is... A one man global threat poisoning minds
I am not finding this Leon incarnation particularly amusing.
I have feck all to do with Leon
I can confirm this. The allegation is tedious and insulting to @Shecorns88
Very awkward for Badenoch, calling for an inquiry when those who ran the previous inquiries your government commissioned into the same thing are accusing your government of failing to act on their recommendations.
Well, just because the Tories did the wrong thing for 14 years doesn't mean they can't do the right thing now.
An inquiry into what has gone on with these grooming gangs should be beyond party and I'm very surprised that Labour is so adamant there shouldn't be one....
It's not that there 'shouldn't be one' - it's that we've already had several, whose recommendations are yet to be fully implemented. And inquiries, done properly can take an absolute age and cost tens, in one case hundreds of millions of pounds.
This would very much be at the more complex end given if we just count the police forces and councils already criticised in previous inquiries or reports, that's already several. Before we get to other allegations that might be made about failures to tackle abuse to see their merit. It would have to hear from thousands of individuals, and the Maxwellisation process would be something to behold.
If we're doing that then we could be waiting another decade for its conclusions, which may well end up saying the same thing as the ones we've conducted already. And of course like most inquiries, if it doesn't say the explicit thing those loudly calling for it want it to say (and these things usually don't as even when scathing are careful with their words) - it'll be rejected by them as a whitewash.
So if you've already had previous (damning) inquiries and reports which the previous government didn't act on. Then it's on those to explain why the previous policy of local inquiries should be changed, past reports should be thrown in the bin and start up a process that's going to be very long, gruelling with no guarantee it'll give you the answers you want.
If it's because one can point to real flaws in the methodology and conclusions of the past inquiries and reports, fine. If it's "because Elon Musk is mouthing off about it online", it's a chance to bash the government, and you're worried by being outflanked by the far right's ability to say things without having to follow through on consequences, then that's not really serious or useful.
I don't think I've heard Badenoch make the former case, and if so why her views have suddenly changed from previous policy.
So in simple PLAIN ENGLISH that even the Reform boneheads and Kemi can understand the situation is this.
These issues were disgusting and widespread but not restricted to Muslim Communities
That various Enquiries were set up, reported, recommendations made and implemented and significant progress in some cases made, but also not fully implemented and loose ends in others.
The Conservative Government 2010 - 2024 (with LD's to 2015) decided in 2022 that REGIONAL investigations and reporting was the way to go. Kemi Badenoch and all then Tory MP's backed this.
SKS as DoPP was respected by the then Tory Government on his departure from DoPP as having made significant progress in dealing with the issue and raising it's profile and implementing change.
In October 2024 the new Junior Minister Jess Phillips routinely decided in answer to a quetion in the HoC and also in terms on Labour Government POlicy to IMPLEMENT and CONTINUE Tory Governments Guidelines as voted on in the HoC
There are / were NO MANIFESTO commitments on this on either side to change the status quo.
EARLIER THIS WEEK GB News attacked the Phillips decision retrospectively!!!!!!
MUSK decided to attack Starmer for his role as DoPP , called for Jess Phillips to be imprisoned and Tommy Robinson to be released.
Kemi Badenoch decided to jump on the bandwagon
MUSK who has associations to Jeffrey Epstein and Gisela Maxwell turns it in to a further attack on our democratically elected Government and it's policies and by definition and fact the policies of the previous Conservative Government of which Badenoch, Philip and others were Members
----
So it you support Musk, Farage , Trump and Tommy Robinson and want to instigate Riots again and Civil Disobedience that aim is clear - an unadulterated attempt to destroy the elected UK Govenment
If like Badenoch you completely go against your Governments Policy on this, you are complicit in supporting Musk, Farage , Trump and Tommy Robinson
If like Starmer and Labour you stand up to Musk, Farage , Trump and Tommy Robinson - I suspect that you will be backed and supported to the vast majority of the UK population who wish to deal with THE ISSUE and not the politics and to actually DEFEND UK democracy.
It strikes me sadly that MUSK wants Civil War and Mass disobedience on the streets of the major European and American Cities to foster his own sick and depraived mind.
MUSK must be stopped and those complicit in supporting him must be STOPPED and every Legal means by Police and Judiciary should be mobilised NOW to start that process around the Globe.
He is a massive danger to democratically elected longstanding Western democracies.
Good morning
The problem is no.matter how much you 'shout' about Musk he is not going away and it is likely to accelerate post Trump's inauguration
The big question in politics today is just how public opinion views Musks interventions, and how much it affects Farage and Reform
As far as Kemi is concerned she has to distance herself from Farage, but also focus on attacking this highly unpopular Labour government that saw 20 of its councillors defect yesterday in disgust at the leadership of Labour
FPT, we more or less know the answer to this big question. It isn't, therefore much of a question. Musk is spectacularly unpopular.
Now you might argue his interventions would improve his standing but it seems vanishingly unlikely given the ham-fisted, moronic nature of them. Popular with Robinson and his goons maybe, who themselves are among the most hated people in Britain. I think it unlikely them having a cringeworthy billionaire fanboy going through some kind of mental meltdown and getting dangerously close to going full neo-Nazi is changing these things.
As for 20 Labour councillors defecting, you'd rather they didn't - but isn't it a typical internal Labour row about who gets to stand? Not a happy party, but not the disaster you're making out.
The thing about Musk is he is an individual. He has no Party or infrastructure being him. He's latched on to MAGA for now.
He's latching on the extreme Right Political and non political Groups across Europe.
He can therefore as a cult be made to go away.
Simple economic sanctioning of all of his businesses and social media
Banning him from EU and UK
If he continues to be a threat then add him to the sort of list Bin Laden was on.
I'd argue he increasingly poses a greater threat to Western Democracy than Bin Laden
He is a like a rampant cancer, western democracy is the body and have no doubt he can ravage it.
Don't define him by nationality, religion, political extremity. Classify him by what he is... A one man global threat poisoning minds
I am not finding this Leon incarnation particularly amusing.
I have feck all to do with Leon
I can confirm this. The allegation is tedious and insulting to @Shecorns88
Agreed, shecorns88 is the standard we should aspire to.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Musk, from his feed today, certainly doesn’t seem to have mastered the skill of where to stop
It has been suggested that Musk is trying to make up with the MAGA crowd after they rowed over H1b visas, but it may just be Musk being a nutter.
Why would the MAGA crowd, who tend to be quite insular from what I see, care about it. I think he’s just becoming more and more bizarre.
I agree with you about Musk becoming more and more bizarre.
I understand Tommy Robinson is a big hit with the MAGA crowd. Musk can signal he’s racist and hates the right people after the MAGA crowd were upset he wasn’t being racist towards Indians.
Very awkward for Badenoch, calling for an inquiry when those who ran the previous inquiries your government commissioned into the same thing are accusing your government of failing to act on their recommendations.
Well, just because the Tories did the wrong thing for 14 years doesn't mean they can't do the right thing now.
An inquiry into what has gone on with these grooming gangs should be beyond party and I'm very surprised that Labour is so adamant there shouldn't be one....
It's not that there 'shouldn't be one' - it's that we've already had several, whose recommendations are yet to be fully implemented. And inquiries, done properly can take an absolute age and cost tens, in one case hundreds of millions of pounds.
This would very much be at the more complex end given if we just count the police forces and councils already criticised in previous inquiries or reports, that's already several. Before we get to other allegations that might be made about failures to tackle abuse to see their merit. It would have to hear from thousands of individuals, and the Maxwellisation process would be something to behold.
If we're doing that then we could be waiting another decade for its conclusions, which may well end up saying the same thing as the ones we've conducted already. And of course like most inquiries, if it doesn't say the explicit thing those loudly calling for it want it to say (and these things usually don't as even when scathing are careful with their words) - it'll be rejected by them as a whitewash.
So if you've already had previous (damning) inquiries and reports which the previous government didn't act on. Then it's on those to explain why the previous policy of local inquiries should be changed, past reports should be thrown in the bin and start up a process that's going to be very long, gruelling with no guarantee it'll give you the answers you want.
If it's because one can point to real flaws in the methodology and conclusions of the past inquiries and reports, fine. If it's "because Elon Musk is mouthing off about it online", it's a chance to bash the government, and you're worried by being outflanked by the far right's ability to say things without having to follow through on consequences, then that's not really serious or useful.
I don't think I've heard Badenoch make the former case, and if so why her views have suddenly changed from previous policy.
So in simple PLAIN ENGLISH that even the Reform boneheads and Kemi can understand the situation is this.
These issues were disgusting and widespread but not restricted to Muslim Communities
That various Enquiries were set up, reported, recommendations made and implemented and significant progress in some cases made, but also not fully implemented and loose ends in others.
The Conservative Government 2010 - 2024 (with LD's to 2015) decided in 2022 that REGIONAL investigations and reporting was the way to go. Kemi Badenoch and all then Tory MP's backed this.
SKS as DoPP was respected by the then Tory Government on his departure from DoPP as having made significant progress in dealing with the issue and raising it's profile and implementing change.
In October 2024 the new Junior Minister Jess Phillips routinely decided in answer to a quetion in the HoC and also in terms on Labour Government POlicy to IMPLEMENT and CONTINUE Tory Governments Guidelines as voted on in the HoC
There are / were NO MANIFESTO commitments on this on either side to change the status quo.
EARLIER THIS WEEK GB News attacked the Phillips decision retrospectively!!!!!!
MUSK decided to attack Starmer for his role as DoPP , called for Jess Phillips to be imprisoned and Tommy Robinson to be released.
Kemi Badenoch decided to jump on the bandwagon
MUSK who has associations to Jeffrey Epstein and Gisela Maxwell turns it in to a further attack on our democratically elected Government and it's policies and by definition and fact the policies of the previous Conservative Government of which Badenoch, Philip and others were Members
----
So it you support Musk, Farage , Trump and Tommy Robinson and want to instigate Riots again and Civil Disobedience that aim is clear - an unadulterated attempt to destroy the elected UK Govenment
If like Badenoch you completely go against your Governments Policy on this, you are complicit in supporting Musk, Farage , Trump and Tommy Robinson
If like Starmer and Labour you stand up to Musk, Farage , Trump and Tommy Robinson - I suspect that you will be backed and supported to the vast majority of the UK population who wish to deal with THE ISSUE and not the politics and to actually DEFEND UK democracy.
It strikes me sadly that MUSK wants Civil War and Mass disobedience on the streets of the major European and American Cities to foster his own sick and depraived mind.
MUSK must be stopped and those complicit in supporting him must be STOPPED and every Legal means by Police and Judiciary should be mobilised NOW to start that process around the Globe.
He is a massive danger to democratically elected longstanding Western democracies.
Good morning
The problem is no.matter how much you 'shout' about Musk he is not going away and it is likely to accelerate post Trump's inauguration
The big question in politics today is just how public opinion views Musks interventions, and how much it affects Farage and Reform
As far as Kemi is concerned she has to distance herself from Farage, but also focus on attacking this highly unpopular Labour government that saw 20 of its councillors defect yesterday in disgust at the leadership of Labour
FPT, we more or less know the answer to this big question. It isn't, therefore much of a question. Musk is spectacularly unpopular.
Now you might argue his interventions would improve his standing but it seems vanishingly unlikely given the ham-fisted, moronic nature of them. Popular with Robinson and his goons maybe, who themselves are among the most hated people in Britain. I think it unlikely them having a cringeworthy billionaire fanboy going through some kind of mental meltdown and getting dangerously close to going full neo-Nazi is changing these things.
As for 20 Labour councillors defecting, you'd rather they didn't - but isn't it a typical internal Labour row about who gets to stand? Not a happy party, but not the disaster you're making out.
The thing about Musk is he is an individual. He has no Party or infrastructure being him. He's latched on to MAGA for now.
He's latching on the extreme Right Political and non political Groups across Europe.
He can therefore as a cult be made to go away.
Simple economic sanctioning of all of his businesses and social media
Banning him from EU and UK
If he continues to be a threat then add him to the sort of list Bin Laden was on.
I'd argue he increasingly poses a greater threat to Western Democracy than Bin Laden
He is a like a rampant cancer, western democracy is the body and have no doubt he can ravage it.
Don't define him by nationality, religion, political extremity. Classify him by what he is... A one man global threat poisoning minds
I am not finding this Leon incarnation particularly amusing.
I have feck all to do with Leon
I can confirm this. The allegation is tedious and insulting to @Shecorns88
Agreed, shecorns88 is the standard we should aspire to.
I enjoy @Shecorns88’s comments. I see them as a kind of free form political poetry
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
The objections to Kemi calling for a public enquiry are ludicrous. 1. It may highlight her own incompetence - OK, that's an objection how? 2. She should have called for it long ago - OK, is it too late now and she should just shut her face? Ridiculous argument - the ramifications of what happened still need to be recognised nationally and acted upon. The victims (for the most part) are very much still with us and deserve justice. 3. She's jumping on the Reform/Musk bandwagon - actually she seems slightly to have beaten Nigel to the punch, fair play. She has also made a lot of noise about culture, and reform of public institutions, so I don’t see that this is in any from the left field.
Well done Kemi. GO FOR HIM at PMQs.*
*But do your research and have an answer when he blames the Tories - fairly simple 'If we're to blame, have the enquiry'.
I think people are entitled to raise criticisms of her past statements (or lack thereof) or performance on any issue they want. Same as they are entitled to criticise Jess Phillips and a whole host of Labour politicians who seem to have curiously forgotten some of the things they said in opposition once they got their feet under the table.
It shouldn’t de-legitimise or prevent her from calling for things though, I agree.
Of course not.
But it provides context to ask how this enquiry would be different from the IICSA enquiry already held, and what would be its purpose. https://www.iicsa.org.uk
What does she mean by "long overdue". and "joining the dots" ?
None of this was explained in either her statements, or the subsequent interviews with her shadow cabinet members.
"Calling for an enquiry" is just a cheap soundbite. Any such thing would likely take the rest of this parliament, and cost £100m plus. If it's a serious suggestion, then put forward a serious case for it.
I think if there is any gap in Reform’s armour developing, it is its developing relationship with Musk.
I think Farage is a smart cookie, but if Musk writes him a cheque he won’t say no to it. And that immediately links him with the crazier stuff that Musk posts all over X. It leaves him as a rather large hostage to fortune. Will core Reform voters care? Probably not. But the voters who he needs to deliver him 150+ seats might.
As others have noted on here, plenty of voters are capable of backing Reform. But plenty could be turned away if they feel Reform is becoming more closely connected with characters like Tommy Robinson and, increasingly, Elon Musk.
I would have thought that even Farage is smart enough to know that if Musk becomes the leviathan donor to Reform that every time Musk posts some racist conspiracy, libellous comment, or simply demonstrates his incredible ignorance about the UK then Farage will be asked to defend it. And Musk is already way off the deep end and getting crazier by the day.
Hmm. I actually think he has a blind spot where Trump and Trump-adjacent folk are concerned. He has pretty much gone all-in since the election as being the Hon. Member for Mar-a-Lago. I dont think people care about that as much as some of his opponents would like to think they do, but it does make him a hostage to fortune somewhat.
There is a meaningful portion of the UK electorate who do approve of / back Trump, and a lot of them already vote Reform. Farage aligning himself there makes a fair deal of political sense (though *is* a hostage to fortune: opinions can and do change).
As for a £100m donation from Musk. Well, yes, that too is a hostage to fortune but it'd be enough to keep Reform running for years. Farage could cut ties if necessary later on. Musk won't ask for his money back - and if he did Farage wouldn't have to comply.
Ruddy hell. Musks feed today. He’s losing it, he really is. I do get how the grooming gangs issue and the institutional cover ups looks to those on the outside but some of his comments are just so wide of left field. His comment about Jess Phillips, a politician I personally have no time for at all, is appalling. He’s just playing to the gallery now.
He's a nut, and if he's so concerned about sexual abuse why did he bankroll Trump?
The objections to Kemi calling for a public enquiry are ludicrous. 1. It may highlight her own incompetence - OK, that's an objection how? 2. She should have called for it long ago - OK, is it too late now and she should just shut her face? Ridiculous argument - the ramifications of what happened still need to be recognised nationally and acted upon. The victims (for the most part) are very much still with us and deserve justice. 3. She's jumping on the Reform/Musk bandwagon - actually she seems slightly to have beaten Nigel to the punch, fair play. She has also made a lot of noise about culture, and reform of public institutions, so I don’t see that this is in any from the left field.
Well done Kemi. GO FOR HIM at PMQs.*
*But do your research and have an answer when he blames the Tories - fairly simple 'If we're to blame, have the enquiry'.
I think people are entitled to raise criticisms of her past statements (or lack thereof) or performance on any issue they want. Same as they are entitled to criticise Jess Phillips and a whole host of Labour politicians who seem to have curiously forgotten some of the things they said in opposition once they got their feet under the table.
It shouldn’t de-legitimise or prevent her from calling for things though, I agree.
Of course not.
But it provides context to ask how this enquiry would be different from the IICSA enquiry already held, and what would be its purpose. https://www.iicsa.org.uk
What does she mean by "long overdue". and "joining the dots" ?
None of this was explained in either her statements, or the subsequent interviews with her shadow cabinet members.
"Calling for an enquiry" is just a cheap soundbite. Any such thing would likely take the rest of this parliament, and cost £100m plus. If it's a serious suggestion, then put forward a serious case for it.
Ruddy hell. Musks feed today. He’s losing it, he really is. I do get how the grooming gangs issue and the institutional cover ups looks to those on the outside but some of his comments are just so wide of left field. His comment about Jess Phillips, a politician I personally have no time for at all, is appalling. He’s just playing to the gallery now.
He's a nut, and if he's so concerned about sexual abuse why did he bankroll Trump?
Musk also praised the choice of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, who f***ed an underage prostitute.
Please, this is a thread on education failure. Adding to that theme, proper nouns like "Ukraine" are always capitalised. Don't they teach grammar in Vladivostok Grammar School?
They are not Russian.
Are there large differences between Russian and Ukranian - so far as I can see
О becomes И (Kharkiv/Kharkov)
&
Г transliterated as "h" rather than "g" in Ukranian ?
About the same linguistic distance as Spanish/Portuguese, the transliteration differences are largely a matter of tradition and whether the words come to English via German or not.
The Ukrainian alphabet has four letters that Russian doesn't and Russian has two letters and one non-phonetic orthographic device (tvyordiy znak lit. "hard sign") that Ukrainian doesn't.
Ukrainian: ґ, є, ї, і Russian: ы, ё, ъ
I wrote a bit about it here which the Ultras didn't care for.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
Massie might be a loon, but he does have the facility to turn a phrase.
"I thought they were voting for libertarian Republicans," Massie said of the Republican voters who had delivered the Tea Party victories. "But after some soul-searching, I realized when they voted for Rand and Ron [Paul] and me in these primaries, they weren't voting for libertarian ideas. They were voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race. And Donald Trump won best in class."
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Musk, from his feed today, certainly doesn’t seem to have mastered the skill of where to stop
He’s Asperger’s - self confessed - and he has many classic traits. One of them is a tin ear, saying the wrong thing, going way too far and not reading the room. This could be another example, he is certainly ranting
However this is not just Musk. This issue has exploded on social media partly because so many people in the USA, EU, elsewhere were honestly unaware of the existence and epic scale of the grooming gang scandal - and they are stupefied and outraged and bewildered how Britain has, apparently, reacted with an apathetic shrug. People - not Musk - are comparing it to war crimes
The origin of the explosion was the release on social media of some of the most horrifying evidence in one particular case
In fairness, what has been disclosed in respect of these prosecutions and the various reports on the matter is a subject of national and indeed international shame.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Musk, from his feed today, certainly doesn’t seem to have mastered the skill of where to stop
He’s Asperger’s - self confessed - and he has many classic traits. One of them is a tin ear, saying the wrong thing, going way too far and not reading the room. This could be another example, he is certainly ranting
However this is not just Musk. This issue has exploded on social media partly because so many people in the USA, EU, elsewhere were honestly unaware of the existence and epic scale of the grooming gang scandal - and they are stupefied and outraged and bewildered how Britain has, apparently, reacted with an apathetic shrug. People - not Musk - are comparing it to war crimes
The origin of the explosion was the release on social media of some of the most horrifying evidence in one particular case
In fairness, what has been disclosed in respect of these prosecutions and the various reports on the matter is a subject of national and indeed international shame.
It really really is. Which is why we DO need some kind of inquiry. But it has to be different to all the others, which were various mixtures of half-arsed can-kicking, whitewashing or “what can you do”
We need more of a national catharsis. This is like Britain’s Chernobyl and we need to address it. Somehow
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
To be fair, we are quite fascinated with American politics.
Given the common language and the Internet it shouldn't be too surprising that people spending too long online end of interested in the other nations politics.
Plus British politics has always been more interesting to Americans (because of language/history) than any other nation. See how many references there are to British politics and society in We Didn't Start The Fire for example.
Ruddy hell. Musks feed today. He’s losing it, he really is. I do get how the grooming gangs issue and the institutional cover ups looks to those on the outside but some of his comments are just so wide of left field. His comment about Jess Phillips, a politician I personally have no time for at all, is appalling. He’s just playing to the gallery now.
He's a nut, and if he's so concerned about sexual abuse why did he bankroll Trump?
Musk also praised the choice of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, who f***ed an underage prostitute.
Lionised him as The Hammer Of Justice.
Which taken in a different way is what he could well have been.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
If only we hadn't voted for Brexit, we'd have that German Tesla factory in the UK, and a much happier relationship...
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
Only since the general election.
I wonder what changed...?
Not true. He’s been invested emotionally in UK politics for a while. There are various theories why - not least his British ancestry
Ruddy hell. Musks feed today. He’s losing it, he really is. I do get how the grooming gangs issue and the institutional cover ups looks to those on the outside but some of his comments are just so wide of left field. His comment about Jess Phillips, a politician I personally have no time for at all, is appalling. He’s just playing to the gallery now.
He's a nut, and if he's so concerned about sexual abuse why did he bankroll Trump?
Musk also praised the choice of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, who f***ed an underage prostitute.
Do you think the age of consent in the UK is too low?
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
To be fair, we are quite fascinated with American politics.
Given the common language and the Internet it shouldn't be too surprising that people spending too long online end of interested in the other nations politics.
Plus British politics has always been more interesting to Americans (because of language/history) than any other nation. See how many references there are to British politics and society in We Didn't Start The Fire for example.
British media is OVERLY fascinated with American politics. It’s boring
I see The Truss is now weighing in on the 'grooming gangs', saying that we need to restore the role of Lord Chancellor. That's an interesting angle to take. Why bring that up?
Ruddy hell. Musks feed today. He’s losing it, he really is. I do get how the grooming gangs issue and the institutional cover ups looks to those on the outside but some of his comments are just so wide of left field. His comment about Jess Phillips, a politician I personally have no time for at all, is appalling. He’s just playing to the gallery now.
He's a nut, and if he's so concerned about sexual abuse why did he bankroll Trump?
Musk also praised the choice of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, who f***ed an underage prostitute.
Do you think the age of consent in the UK is too low?
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
Only since the general election.
I wonder what changed...?
Not true. He’s been invested emotionally in UK politics for a while. There are various theories why - not least his British ancestry
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
To be fair, we are quite fascinated with American politics.
Given the common language and the Internet it shouldn't be too surprising that people spending too long online end of interested in the other nations politics.
Plus British politics has always been more interesting to Americans (because of language/history) than any other nation. See how many references there are to British politics and society in We Didn't Start The Fire for example.
British media is OVERLY fascinated with American politics. It’s boring
Considering that American politics and economics seriously affects Britain, I don't think it's overly anything.
America sneezes and Europe catches a cold is as true as its ever been.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
To be fair, we are quite fascinated with American politics.
Given the common language and the Internet it shouldn't be too surprising that people spending too long online end of interested in the other nations politics.
Plus British politics has always been more interesting to Americans (because of language/history) than any other nation. See how many references there are to British politics and society in We Didn't Start The Fire for example.
British media is OVERLY fascinated with American politics. It’s boring
It is particularly tiresome that so few of them seem to be capable of explaining or even speaking to the 50% of the population who voted for Trump. We get a distinctly liberal, coastal view and it is seriously misleading.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
I get the impression that he'd like to be King of the World. His role in the Trump govt is just one part of that; it's never been his limit.
Ruddy hell. Musks feed today. He’s losing it, he really is. I do get how the grooming gangs issue and the institutional cover ups looks to those on the outside but some of his comments are just so wide of left field. His comment about Jess Phillips, a politician I personally have no time for at all, is appalling. He’s just playing to the gallery now.
He's a nut, and if he's so concerned about sexual abuse why did he bankroll Trump?
Musk also praised the choice of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, who f***ed an underage prostitute.
Do you think the age of consent in the UK is too low?
Buying sex with an individual under 18 is illegal in the UK.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
To be fair, we are quite fascinated with American politics.
Given the common language and the Internet it shouldn't be too surprising that people spending too long online end of interested in the other nations politics.
Plus British politics has always been more interesting to Americans (because of language/history) than any other nation. See how many references there are to British politics and society in We Didn't Start The Fire for example.
British media is OVERLY fascinated with American politics. It’s boring
Considering that American politics and economics seriously affects Britain, I don't think it's overly anything.
America sneezes and Europe catches a cold is as true as its ever been.
But we take relatively trivial events from the USA and make them headline news in the UK. It’s pathological and dull
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
If only we hadn't voted for Brexit, we'd have that German Tesla factory in the UK, and a much happier relationship...
I doubt that. Tesla are in Berlin so they can poach engineering talent from BMW and Porsche at Leipzig.
Increasingly looks like Johnson doesn’t have the numbers. The question is, does anyone else? Can Trump persuade the whole party to get behind someone he endorses, once Johnson loses the vote?
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
To be fair, we are quite fascinated with American politics.
Given the common language and the Internet it shouldn't be too surprising that people spending too long online end of interested in the other nations politics.
Plus British politics has always been more interesting to Americans (because of language/history) than any other nation. See how many references there are to British politics and society in We Didn't Start The Fire for example.
British media is OVERLY fascinated with American politics. It’s boring
It is particularly tiresome that so few of them seem to be capable of explaining or even speaking to the 50% of the population who voted for Trump. We get a distinctly liberal, coastal view and it is seriously misleading.
Very good point. All we get is the Jon Sopel worldview - the east/west coast liberal. So even tho our media is pitifully obsessed with American politics they STILL manage to be ill-informed. Worst of all worlds
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Musk, from his feed today, certainly doesn’t seem to have mastered the skill of where to stop
He’s Asperger’s - self confessed - and he has many classic traits. One of them is a tin ear, saying the wrong thing, going way too far and not reading the room. This could be another example, he is certainly ranting
However this is not just Musk. This issue has exploded on social media partly because so many people in the USA, EU, elsewhere were honestly unaware of the existence and epic scale of the grooming gang scandal - and they are stupefied and outraged and bewildered how Britain has, apparently, reacted with an apathetic shrug. People - not Musk - are comparing it to war crimes
The origin of the explosion was the release on social media of some of the most horrifying evidence in one particular case
In fairness, what has been disclosed in respect of these prosecutions and the various reports on the matter is a subject of national and indeed international shame.
Yep, I wish England all the best in coming to terms with this ‘Chernobyl’* of national shame and unhappy self examination.
*no prizes for guessing which PBer hyperbolised this metaphor into existence.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
The way Musk is going I would not be surprised if Starmer does end up getting some money from him. Jess Philips too.
Britain is inevitably intertwined with America, but we need more French and German influence to balance this.
Our films have become far more anglo-american in tone, sometimes optimistically, and sometimes banally, and our televisual culture is now the missing the sophistication of Continental Europe, that it could frequently match in the 1980's. European politics also gets shallow coverage in the British media.
We need to remember to find the balance between Anerican expansiveness and European sophistication again.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
I get the impression that he'd like to be King of the World. His role in the Trump govt is just one part of that; it's never been his limit.
Jeez, not another one. At least Boris was skint. This one could go on for ages.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
If only we hadn't voted for Brexit, we'd have that German Tesla factory in the UK, and a much happier relationship...
I doubt that. Tesla are in Berlin so they can poach engineering talent from BMW and Porsche at Leipzig.
But surely Tesla would be similarly poaching engineering talent from Brita…oh, I see.
I see The Truss is now weighing in on the 'grooming gangs', saying that we need to restore the role of Lord Chancellor. That's an interesting angle to take. Why bring that up?
I have not seen the latest missive from La Truss, but it might be something to do with the fact that the Lord Chancellor used to occupy a very weird role straddling government, the judiciary and the HoL. One wonders if what she is getting at is she’d like the government to exert more control over the judiciary.
Of course, the Lord Chancellor still exists (Tony Blair realised the role couldn’t be abolished by executive fiat, once he tried to do so), it’s just that it lost a lot of its weird hybrid role and now is attached to the position of Justice Secretary.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Musk, from his feed today, certainly doesn’t seem to have mastered the skill of where to stop
He’s Asperger’s - self confessed - and he has many classic traits. One of them is a tin ear, saying the wrong thing, going way too far and not reading the room. This could be another example, he is certainly ranting
However this is not just Musk. This issue has exploded on social media partly because so many people in the USA, EU, elsewhere were honestly unaware of the existence and epic scale of the grooming gang scandal - and they are stupefied and outraged and bewildered how Britain has, apparently, reacted with an apathetic shrug. People - not Musk - are comparing it to war crimes
The origin of the explosion was the release on social media of some of the most horrifying evidence in one particular case
In fairness, what has been disclosed in respect of these prosecutions and the various reports on the matter is a subject of national and indeed international shame.
It really really is. Which is why we DO need some kind of inquiry. But it has to be different to all the others, which were various mixtures of half-arsed can-kicking, whitewashing or “what can you do”
We need more of a national catharsis. This is like Britain’s Chernobyl and we need to address it. Somehow
No.
We don't need to learn lessons. We don't need to move forward. We don't need racism, pogroms or any other damn stupid thing.
1) We need to prosecute absolutely everyone on the basis of "do the crime, do the time" - this is being done 2) The enablers (police, social services etc) of the crimes hide behind procedure and the destruction of evidence. Fine. Put them all on the relevant sex offenders registry. All the Home Sec needs to do is sign at the bottom of a list of names. No recourse to the courts.
2) will ensure that no-one covers up an allegation for a generation. Then we will probably need to repeat.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
If only we hadn't voted for Brexit, we'd have that German Tesla factory in the UK, and a much happier relationship...
I doubt that. Tesla are in Berlin so they can poach engineering talent from BMW and Porsche at Leipzig.
I think he might well have gone for the UK's more compliant (in this particular case) planning. And we'd probably have bunged him more cash.
The cost of employing someone on the minimum wage rises by £2,367 this year
All thanks to Reeves disastrous budget.
This will have a dramatic impact on the jobs market and wages. The money has to come from somewhere. Corbynites just cry ‘take it from profits’. Why should they ?
Or, without the hyperbole: wages, unemployment and prices will all go up a bit.
Though given that one of the current issues is the need to import so many workers, maybe reducing the demand for workers is a necessary thing.
We really do need to find the sweet spot where companies (and the civil service) are happy to invest in productivity improvements instead of throwing more people at an issue
Are airlines the only industry that makes extensive use of training bonds?
The company pays your training bill on condition that you stay for x period afterwards. If you leave early of your own accord then you owe them a pro-rata outstanding based on the agreed time period remaining.
No,
Engineering companies do. I had one when I was younger and I know others who have been sponsored to study and had to,sign to,that effect
Hmm. I was sponsored through University by an Engineering Company, on a thin sandwich course.
The word from the company was that they had more than made their investment back just from the work done by the sponsored students in the industrial periods. Plus they got the chance to keep a dozen students per year on our site who would not need the traditional 12 month run-in period to become a positive, since we had all already been in about 15 departments and were ingrained with the culture and practice.
It's circumstances and cases I think. I can see that an airline pilot would be substantially greater for both risk and return.
What the airlines normally sponsor is a ‘type rating’, that qualifies a pilot to fly a specific type of aircraft (B737, A320 etc). This costs something like £30k, even though it’s almost all in the classroom and simulator, with the work in the real plane allowed to be done under supervision on commercial flights.
They want you to stay typically for three years in exchange for this.
Sadly the days of airlines sponsoring flight training from scratch are mostly in the past. BA did until a few years ago offer 100 annual commercial licence (c.£150k) scholarships - which typically attracted 25,000 applications, many of whom had family contacts and already a private pilots’ licence, so good luck with that!
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
If only we hadn't voted for Brexit, we'd have that German Tesla factory in the UK, and a much happier relationship...
I doubt that. Tesla are in Berlin so they can poach engineering talent from BMW and Porsche at Leipzig.
I think he might well have gone for the UK's more compliant (in this particular case) planning. And we'd probably have bunged him more cash.
Merkel (it has been said) made it clear that if Tesla chose outside the EU (UK), then Germany would push to tax the cars as foreign imports.
She wanted the shock value of Tesla appearing in Germany to wake up the German auto manufacturers out of the their slumber regarding EVs. Didn't work (sufficiently).
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
To be fair, we are quite fascinated with American politics.
Given the common language and the Internet it shouldn't be too surprising that people spending too long online end of interested in the other nations politics.
Plus British politics has always been more interesting to Americans (because of language/history) than any other nation. See how many references there are to British politics and society in We Didn't Start The Fire for example.
British media is OVERLY fascinated with American politics. It’s boring
It is particularly tiresome that so few of them seem to be capable of explaining or even speaking to the 50% of the population who voted for Trump. We get a distinctly liberal, coastal view and it is seriously misleading.
Very good point. All we get is the Jon Sopel worldview - the east/west coast liberal. So even tho our media is pitifully obsessed with American politics they STILL manage to be ill-informed. Worst of all worlds
No we don't. We get the Justin Webb worldview, which is just uninformed in all respects.
Sarah Smith - who took over from Sopel some three years back (and is a bit better than Webb) - reports on MAGA quite a lot.
This is going to be a long-term story - static caravan owners being fleeced by site operators operating rules which are questionable.
I don't know if we have any static van owners on PB; the sector is a bit of a wild west. I had one friend who had one that she rented out; she came through intact but it took a lot of careful navigation of site owner demands.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Musk, from his feed today, certainly doesn’t seem to have mastered the skill of where to stop
He’s Asperger’s - self confessed - and he has many classic traits. One of them is a tin ear, saying the wrong thing, going way too far and not reading the room. This could be another example, he is certainly ranting
However this is not just Musk. This issue has exploded on social media partly because so many people in the USA, EU, elsewhere were honestly unaware of the existence and epic scale of the grooming gang scandal - and they are stupefied and outraged and bewildered how Britain has, apparently, reacted with an apathetic shrug. People - not Musk - are comparing it to war crimes
The origin of the explosion was the release on social media of some of the most horrifying evidence in one particular case
In fairness, what has been disclosed in respect of these prosecutions and the various reports on the matter is a subject of national and indeed international shame.
It really really is. Which is why we DO need some kind of inquiry. But it has to be different to all the others, which were various mixtures of half-arsed can-kicking, whitewashing or “what can you do”
We need more of a national catharsis. This is like Britain’s Chernobyl and we need to address it. Somehow
No.
We don't need to learn lessons. We don't need to move forward. We don't need racism, pogroms or any other damn stupid thing.
1) We need to prosecute absolutely everyone on the basis of "do the crime, do the time" - this is being done 2) The enablers (police, social services etc) of the crimes hide behind procedure and the destruction of evidence. Fine. Put them all on the relevant sex offenders registry. All the Home Sec needs to do is sign at the bottom of a list of names. No recourse to the courts.
2) will ensure that no-one covers up an allegation for a generation. Then we will probably need to repeat.
What, you want to put thousands of coppers, politicians, councillors, civil servants… on a sex offenders registry. Just like that. And this will sort it out?
No, what we need is a truly independent inquiry - taken away from the Home Office, police, councils, government. Put someone like Maggie Oliver in charge, and give her wide ranging powers. She’s one of the brave and original whistleblowers
Honestly the spectacle Britain is presenting on social media right now is shameful and grotesque. It’s not just Musk - it’s people in Italy and France and Australia and everywhere staring in horrified amazement at what happened. In our country
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
I get the impression that he'd like to be King of the World. His role in the Trump govt is just one part of that; it's never been his limit.
Jeez, not another one. At least Boris was skint. This one could go on for ages.
He potentially could do it though, after a fashion. In theory anyway. I don't think he has the skills to, and even if he did, puppet-mastering dictators is no simple matter. But the first thing is to get them all on the same page and then write the public out of it. He's not a million miles from there.
The cost of employing someone on the minimum wage rises by £2,367 this year
All thanks to Reeves disastrous budget.
This will have a dramatic impact on the jobs market and wages. The money has to come from somewhere. Corbynites just cry ‘take it from profits’. Why should they ?
Or, without the hyperbole: wages, unemployment and prices will all go up a bit.
Though given that one of the current issues is the need to import so many workers, maybe reducing the demand for workers is a necessary thing.
We really do need to find the sweet spot where companies (and the civil service) are happy to invest in productivity improvements instead of throwing more people at an issue
Are airlines the only industry that makes extensive use of training bonds?
The company pays your training bill on condition that you stay for x period afterwards. If you leave early of your own accord then you owe them a pro-rata outstanding based on the agreed time period remaining.
No,
Engineering companies do. I had one when I was younger and I know others who have been sponsored to study and had to,sign to,that effect
Hmm. I was sponsored through University by an Engineering Company, on a thin sandwich course.
The word from the company was that they had more than made their investment back just from the work done by the sponsored students in the industrial periods. Plus they got the chance to keep a dozen students per year on our site who would not need the traditional 12 month run-in period to become a positive, since we had all already been in about 15 departments and were ingrained with the culture and practice.
It's circumstances and cases I think. I can see that an airline pilot would be substantially greater for both risk and return.
What the airlines normally sponsor is a ‘type rating’, that qualifies a pilot to fly a specific type of aircraft (B737, A320 etc). This costs something like £30k, even though it’s almost all in the classroom and simulator, with the work in the real plane allowed to be done under supervision on commercial flights.
They want you to stay typically for three years in exchange for this.
Sadly the days of airlines sponsoring flight training from scratch are mostly in the past. BA did until a few years ago offer 100 annual commercial licence (c.£150k) scholarships - which typically attracted 25,000 applications, many of whom had family contacts and already a private pilots’ licence, so good luck with that!
See the hideous "pay to fly" stuff some of the lower cost airlines are using.
Yes, your pilot may have a mortgage worth of money he's invested in learning to fly, and actual pay that doesn't cover that (really). He's somewhat stressed about it. What could go wrong?
When it comes to inquiries not being forgotten, I would pass a law stating that the government has to respond within a month of the report's publication, stating how they are moving forwards with every single recommendation within the report, and a date for completion.
They might say: "We disagree with this recommendation," or "this recommendation is already covered by xyz". But at least then it will be clear what the government thinks, and progress can at least be tracked, and we can see if it is going down /dev/null
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Musk, from his feed today, certainly doesn’t seem to have mastered the skill of where to stop
He’s Asperger’s - self confessed - and he has many classic traits. One of them is a tin ear, saying the wrong thing, going way too far and not reading the room. This could be another example, he is certainly ranting
However this is not just Musk. This issue has exploded on social media partly because so many people in the USA, EU, elsewhere were honestly unaware of the existence and epic scale of the grooming gang scandal - and they are stupefied and outraged and bewildered how Britain has, apparently, reacted with an apathetic shrug. People - not Musk - are comparing it to war crimes
The origin of the explosion was the release on social media of some of the most horrifying evidence in one particular case
In fairness, what has been disclosed in respect of these prosecutions and the various reports on the matter is a subject of national and indeed international shame.
It really really is. Which is why we DO need some kind of inquiry. But it has to be different to all the others, which were various mixtures of half-arsed can-kicking, whitewashing or “what can you do”
We need more of a national catharsis. This is like Britain’s Chernobyl and we need to address it. Somehow
No.
We don't need to learn lessons. We don't need to move forward. We don't need racism, pogroms or any other damn stupid thing.
1) We need to prosecute absolutely everyone on the basis of "do the crime, do the time" - this is being done 2) The enablers (police, social services etc) of the crimes hide behind procedure and the destruction of evidence. Fine. Put them all on the relevant sex offenders registry. All the Home Sec needs to do is sign at the bottom of a list of names. No recourse to the courts.
2) will ensure that no-one covers up an allegation for a generation. Then we will probably need to repeat.
What, you want to put thousands of coppers, politicians, councillors, civil servants… on a sex offenders registry. Just like that. And this will sort it out?
No, what we need is a truly independent inquiry - taken away from the Home Office, police, councils, government. Put someone like Maggie Oliver in charge, and give her wide ranging powers. She’s one of the brave and original whistleblowers
Honestly the spectacle Britain is presenting on social media right now is shameful and grotesque. It’s not just Musk - it’s people in Italy and France and Australia and everywhere staring in horrified amazement at what happened. In our country
What, you want to put thousands of coppers, politicians, councillors, civil servants… on a sex offenders registry. Just like that. And this will sort it out?
Yes. Because, suddenly, a way to punish the actually guilty will appear.
Especially, since one effect of being put on such registers is that they will risk having their own children taken into care.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Musk, from his feed today, certainly doesn’t seem to have mastered the skill of where to stop
He’s Asperger’s - self confessed - and he has many classic traits. One of them is a tin ear, saying the wrong thing, going way too far and not reading the room. This could be another example, he is certainly ranting
However this is not just Musk. This issue has exploded on social media partly because so many people in the USA, EU, elsewhere were honestly unaware of the existence and epic scale of the grooming gang scandal - and they are stupefied and outraged and bewildered how Britain has, apparently, reacted with an apathetic shrug. People - not Musk - are comparing it to war crimes
The origin of the explosion was the release on social media of some of the most horrifying evidence in one particular case
In fairness, what has been disclosed in respect of these prosecutions and the various reports on the matter is a subject of national and indeed international shame.
It really really is. Which is why we DO need some kind of inquiry. But it has to be different to all the others, which were various mixtures of half-arsed can-kicking, whitewashing or “what can you do”
We need more of a national catharsis. This is like Britain’s Chernobyl and we need to address it. Somehow
No.
We don't need to learn lessons. We don't need to move forward. We don't need racism, pogroms or any other damn stupid thing.
1) We need to prosecute absolutely everyone on the basis of "do the crime, do the time" - this is being done 2) The enablers (police, social services etc) of the crimes hide behind procedure and the destruction of evidence. Fine. Put them all on the relevant sex offenders registry. All the Home Sec needs to do is sign at the bottom of a list of names. No recourse to the courts.
2) will ensure that no-one covers up an allegation for a generation. Then we will probably need to repeat.
What, you want to put thousands of coppers, politicians, councillors, civil servants… on a sex offenders registry. Just like that. And this will sort it out?
No, what we need is a truly independent inquiry - taken away from the Home Office, police, councils, government. Put someone like Maggie Oliver in charge, and give her wide ranging powers. She’s one of the brave and original whistleblowers
Honestly the spectacle Britain is presenting on social media right now is shameful and grotesque. It’s not just Musk - it’s people in Italy and France and Australia and everywhere staring in horrified amazement at what happened. In our country
And we are horrified at the Vatican and Aborgines child sex scandals and the French drug rape gang.
Out of interest, did anyone anywhere call for a public inquiry into the 'grooming gangs' before this week? I could be wrong but I've no recollection of it ever being mentioned. That's odd considering it's now being regarded as a panacea. Was there some sort of weird mass myopia at play?
When it comes to inquiries not being forgotten, I would pass a law stating that the government has to respond within a month of the report's publication, stating how they are moving forwards with every single recommendation within the report, and a date for completion.
They might say: "We disagree with this recommendation," or "this recommendation is already covered by xyz". But at least then it will be clear what the government thinks, and progress can at least be tracked, and we can see if it is going down /dev/null
They’d just write lots of “we’re looking into how to implement this” stuff. It would be another pointless law for show.
What you need is opposition politicians ready to do the hard graft of holding the government to account when they fail to follow recommendations. What you don’t need is Farage or Badenoch echoing social media froth.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
To be fair, we are quite fascinated with American politics.
Given the common language and the Internet it shouldn't be too surprising that people spending too long online end of interested in the other nations politics.
Plus British politics has always been more interesting to Americans (because of language/history) than any other nation. See how many references there are to British politics and society in We Didn't Start The Fire for example.
British media is OVERLY fascinated with American politics. It’s boring
Considering that American politics and economics seriously affects Britain, I don't think it's overly anything.
America sneezes and Europe catches a cold is as true as its ever been.
But we take relatively trivial events from the USA and make them headline news in the UK. It’s pathological and dull
Of which a perfect example in yesterday's BBC bulletins. The street terrorism in New Orleans was top story and was given 8 minutes on the 8am report (plus later interviews, correspondent reports and what passes for analysis). The murders of a similar number of people in Montenegro was given 20 seconds, with no on-the-ground reporter. The flooding across large parts of northern England - a domestic story affecting millions, albeit mostly at a low level of traffic disruption) wasn't mentioned at all.
An excellent thread header and much food for thought.
I am tempted to suggest that in education, there ought to be an objectively “correct” answer to getting the system right that delivers the best outcomes (if we accept that one of those outcomes is critical thinking and exposure to a range of views, and not culture war style indoctrination into only one).
It is just possible that teachers are better placed to find that solution than politicians or civil servants miles away from the job.
One thing that would make everything much easier is if we could, as a nation, take time to decide what we wanted from our education system rather than endlessly meddling with it.
That may or may not lead to what you suggest, but at least it would eliminate much of the one-size-doesn’t-quite-do-anything right muddle we have now.
But that would mean that vast numbers of Proper Generalist Managers and Consultants would have nothing to do. Without 600 page reports full of bullshit, their lives would have no meaning.
They might go all MAGA, or something.
No, because there is no right answer to the question. Why do our schoolchildren need to know how Oxbow lakes are formed? Past primary-level 3Rs, we have made some almost arbitrary choices. Most subjects taught only really matter to specialists and might just as easily be left for university.
Why physics, chemistry and biology rather than, say, geology, engineering and computer science? Why history instead of sociology? Look at modern languages, where German has been displaced by Spanish. Or the on-off nature of Classics.
And while we are here, let us remember teachers are not experts in learning: psychologists are.
This is going to be a long-term story - static caravan owners being fleeced by site operators operating rules which are questionable.
I don't know if we have any static van owners on PB; the sector is a bit of a wild west. I had one friend who had one that she rented out; she came through intact but it took a lot of careful navigation of site owner demands.
Been ongoing for some time, not necessarily this specific story but certainly in terms of the sector being a snakepit, and various rogue site operators, so it is already a long-running story. In the Guardian, Which, and so on. But that only reinforces your point.
Since this is a group legal action, it might get some traction.
One rule is the arbitary "Caravans over 10 years old are not allowed on here", and limitation on who can do removals and moves (ie the site operator). That maximises depreciation - so a static that cost £20-40k may suddenly only be worth a few thousand.
The first rule of not being fleeced is to minimise exposure by buying a second hand static that is already there and in good condition, for £5k or so.
There's a parallel as to how developers operate. If a landowner has Planning Permission, it has a 3 year life then turns into a pumpkin if a certified start has not been made - which engages another £100k or whatever of costs to get it renewed. So selling is a very high risk process. The developer plays out the purchasing process, perhaps trying for an exclusive option agreement, until no one else has the time to do the 6 or 12 months for due diligence, and then makes derisory offers as the deadline approaches. It's very much a big boys' game.
I had one for a bit. Site owner was a proper little Napoleon and fleeced everyone for what she could take. I went in with my eyes open and got what I wanted from it, but nothing would please me more than to see her bankrupted, paying our compensation.
Sounds rather similar to the retirement home issues, where there’s a massive difference between the buy price and the sell price which isn’t obviously evident without a lot of reading the small print.
Out of interest, did anyone anywhere call for a public inquiry into the 'grooming gangs' before this week? I could be wrong but I've no recollection of it ever being mentioned. That's odd considering it's now being regarded as a panacea. Was there some sort of weird mass myopia at play?
Multiple enquires at various scales, over the years. @Cyclefree can probably give you a list that will exceed the max length of a PB post.
I can sum them up for you
1) Bad stuff happened 2) People did nothing for a hard to define set of reasons. 3) Not enough evidence for the people at (2) to even be spoken to harshly. Except some junior people who were following instructions.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
To be fair, we are quite fascinated with American politics.
Given the common language and the Internet it shouldn't be too surprising that people spending too long online end of interested in the other nations politics.
Plus British politics has always been more interesting to Americans (because of language/history) than any other nation. See how many references there are to British politics and society in We Didn't Start The Fire for example.
British media is OVERLY fascinated with American politics. It’s boring
Considering that American politics and economics seriously affects Britain, I don't think it's overly anything.
America sneezes and Europe catches a cold is as true as its ever been.
But we take relatively trivial events from the USA and make them headline news in the UK. It’s pathological and dull
Of which a perfect example in yesterday's BBC bulletins. The street terrorism in New Orleans was top story and was given 8 minutes on the 8am report (plus later interviews, correspondent reports and what passes for analysis). The murders of a similar number of people in Montenegro was given 20 seconds, with no on-the-ground reporter. The flooding across large parts of northern England - a domestic story affecting millions, albeit mostly at a low level of traffic disruption) wasn't mentioned at all.
Yes. It’s one reason I’ve essentially abandoned BBC News
Y Doethur - Have you, by any chance, read some of the better critiques of American education, for example, "The War Against Boys" by Christina Hoff Sommers, or "Our Underachieving Colleges" by Derek Bok?
(The Afterword in the second illustrates the problem, unintentionally, I assume. Bok was called in to be president of Harvard again, replacing a controversial predecessor, who had said something that is true. Bok never mentions what got his predecessor fired.)
Regarding the sudden interest from the US in European politics, I missed this from yesterday. Is Vance a liar, or just ignorant ?
I’m not endorsing a party in the German elections, as it’s not my country and we hope to have good relations with all Germans. But this is an interesting piece.
Also interesting; American media slanders AfD as Nazi-lite, But AfD is most popular in the same areas of Germany that were most resistant to the Nazis. https://x.com/JDVance/status/1874894133862769149
When it comes to inquiries not being forgotten, I would pass a law stating that the government has to respond within a month of the report's publication, stating how they are moving forwards with every single recommendation within the report, and a date for completion.
They might say: "We disagree with this recommendation," or "this recommendation is already covered by xyz". But at least then it will be clear what the government thinks, and progress can at least be tracked, and we can see if it is going down /dev/null
Rory and Al were recently musing on TRIP about the recommendations of public inquiries. Seems that they're completely ignored more often than they're implemented.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
If only we hadn't voted for Brexit, we'd have that German Tesla factory in the UK, and a much happier relationship...
I doubt that. Tesla are in Berlin so they can poach engineering talent from BMW and Porsche at Leipzig.
But surely Tesla would be similarly poaching engineering talent from Brita…oh, I see.
Seems niche to poach talent from a water filter jug company.
Out of interest, did anyone anywhere call for a public inquiry into the 'grooming gangs' before this week? I could be wrong but I've no recollection of it ever being mentioned. That's odd considering it's now being regarded as a panacea. Was there some sort of weird mass myopia at play?
Multiple enquires at various scales, over the years. @Cyclefree can probably give you a list that will exceed the max length of a PB post.
I can sum them up for you
1) Bad stuff happened 2) People did nothing for a hard to define set of reasons. 3) Not enough evidence for the people at (2) to even be spoken to harshly. Except some junior people who were following instructions.
That is not what the various inquiries said. They made multiple concrete recommendations. They provided a bunch of answers.
What the inquiries didn’t say, however, is that it’s all the fault of Muslims. Some will keep calling for inquiries until they get that answer.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Musk, from his feed today, certainly doesn’t seem to have mastered the skill of where to stop
He’s Asperger’s - self confessed - and he has many classic traits. One of them is a tin ear, saying the wrong thing, going way too far and not reading the room. This could be another example, he is certainly ranting
However this is not just Musk. This issue has exploded on social media partly because so many people in the USA, EU, elsewhere were honestly unaware of the existence and epic scale of the grooming gang scandal - and they are stupefied and outraged and bewildered how Britain has, apparently, reacted with an apathetic shrug. People - not Musk - are comparing it to war crimes
The origin of the explosion was the release on social media of some of the most horrifying evidence in one particular case
In fairness, what has been disclosed in respect of these prosecutions and the various reports on the matter is a subject of national and indeed international shame.
Yep, I wish England all the best in coming to terms with this ‘Chernobyl’* of national shame and unhappy self examination.
*no prizes for guessing which PBer hyperbolised this metaphor into existence.
As I look forward to starting another year prosecuting in our High Court where more than 80% of all offenders and trials will be of sex offenders I would suggest that you cut back on the smugness just a tad. The number of cases I have dealt with where the local authority, schools and social workers are notable only for their absence is depressingly high.
When it comes to inquiries not being forgotten, I would pass a law stating that the government has to respond within a month of the report's publication, stating how they are moving forwards with every single recommendation within the report, and a date for completion.
They might say: "We disagree with this recommendation," or "this recommendation is already covered by xyz". But at least then it will be clear what the government thinks, and progress can at least be tracked, and we can see if it is going down /dev/null
They’d just write lots of “we’re looking into how to implement this” stuff. It would be another pointless law for show.
What you need is opposition politicians ready to do the hard graft of holding the government to account when they fail to follow recommendations. What you don’t need is Farage or Badenoch echoing social media froth.
They would have a month to say how they are going to implement it, and they have to give a date for completion. The latter is the important part, as it gives another date for people to concentrate on. And I think a month is fair, as many recommendations reports are going to make can be discerned as an inquiry progresses.
AIUI this often happens after RAIB reports, although by agreement and negotiation, not law.
Regarding the sudden interest from the US in European politics, I missed this from yesterday. Is Vance a liar, or just ignorant ?
I’m not endorsing a party in the German elections, as it’s not my country and we hope to have good relations with all Germans. But this is an interesting piece.
Also interesting; American media slanders AfD as Nazi-lite, But AfD is most popular in the same areas of Germany that were most resistant to the Nazis. https://x.com/JDVance/status/1874894133862769149
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
I get you but I'm not quite there (yet). Trump has no redeeming features, not a single one, and that is pretty special. Least Musk does his cars and rockets.
Trump's redeeming features, within context, are that he's an obese late-Septugenarian who's intellectually lazy. If the world fed him a constant diet of hamburgers, porn actresses and media reviews - whether real or faked - he'd be no threat to the world. The main reason he wants to be president now, apart from the glamour and adulation, is immunity.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
We'll find out soon enough. But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
On the other hand, Elon has just praised Kemi Badenoch (for her inquiry call). So maybe the Tories will get the £100m. It certainly won’t be Starmer
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
To be fair, we are quite fascinated with American politics.
Given the common language and the Internet it shouldn't be too surprising that people spending too long online end of interested in the other nations politics.
Plus British politics has always been more interesting to Americans (because of language/history) than any other nation. See how many references there are to British politics and society in We Didn't Start The Fire for example.
British media is OVERLY fascinated with American politics. It’s boring
Considering that American politics and economics seriously affects Britain, I don't think it's overly anything.
America sneezes and Europe catches a cold is as true as its ever been.
But we take relatively trivial events from the USA and make them headline news in the UK. It’s pathological and dull
Of which a perfect example in yesterday's BBC bulletins. The street terrorism in New Orleans was top story and was given 8 minutes on the 8am report (plus later interviews, correspondent reports and what passes for analysis). The murders of a similar number of people in Montenegro was given 20 seconds, with no on-the-ground reporter. The flooding across large parts of northern England - a domestic story affecting millions, albeit mostly at a low level of traffic disruption) wasn't mentioned at all.
Likewise, and at the other end of the scale, French politics and society only tend to get much coverage at moments of crisis, or election.
The result is that British people often have the wholly false view that France is in a permanent state of unsustainable crisis, while America is more multi-dimensional.
Talking of the Telegraph this headline poses the real question
Why Musks love in with Tommy Robinson presents a problem for Farage
Yup. I've thought that as well. All of the LABOUR ARE EVIL posts on there, WE NEED REFORM. And then a rapid pivot to FREE TOMMY ROBINSON complete with SYL looking less thuggish with a Lion and a smart suit superimposed over a flag and the white cliffs of Dover.
Why does SYL hold such a thrall over some people? Because (a) there is a kernel of truth in his analysis before he pivoting off into "and the solution is deport the muslims", and (b) his presentation is just slick enough to enthral morons.
Farage knows that offering up kernels of truth and then pivoting off into "lets abolish the NHS" will win a lot of votes. But he also knows that SYL and the other hardcore racists will lose him votes. And yet his boss President Musk just wants to agitate. How do you tell the new boss that he needs to be nuanced, when his movement is about rile up the mob and watch them tear it all down?
It wouldn't be surprised if Musk continues to pick out individual MPs he hates some Thomas Mair character might act on it. It has happened before. This is one of the reasons I believe Badenoch is unwise to jump onto every passing Musk bandwagon. How long before she starts demanding to "free the Yaxley-Lennon one"?
Even on here, as I have previously noted, people I thought of as fairly sober but solidly right wrong posters, those who now go on every single day about how crap Labour are in every tiniest respect, jumped in very willingly during the riots with two tier Keir and more than that direct echoing of the lies of actual neo-Nazis to politically point score. After the first 5 weeks of going on about how crap Labour were in every tiniest respect before they'd actually done anything.
Now PB Tories are a rump of what they once were, but as a grouping most of them now mirror the Corbynites - their hatred of Labour is so blind, so total, that they deserve to be on Prevent's Brownshirt watch - not active neo-Nazis or anything like today but, come the brownshirt revolution, quite susceptible to falling into line.
So, perhaps with these analytics, Musk is right and Farage is wrong -the basic rump right are already so far down the rabbit hole that his message will hit home.
Terrible though Muslim bombers and this generation of care home abusers are, the Momentum of Labour haters led by Republican expulsionists is the clearest, most present danger to ripping asunder the fabric of British society and to my own and my family's life because they seek to become once more the establishment. They seek damage in a way that no dodgy Labour tax rise can hope to replicate.
Yes, the greatest threat to British society now is not Muslim suicide bombers but PB Tories.
I try not to be a Tory hater, I have little trick with the Fatchtarati, and I am massively saddened to come to the point where I'm concluding this.
That's a bizarre view to take - the democratic Opposition is the problem.
That is, by the way, exactly how the MAGA crowd get to "We must nullify elections to protect Democracy".
It's a strong view for sure.
But the general principle that the in group going off the rails is far, far more dangerous than a small proportion of minority random extremists trying to cause havoc is one to which I hold. The world invited in by Leon and more illustrious writers terrifies me far more than taking my chances in a city centre Christmas market. And seeing even passing signs of it getting currency in supporters not of SYL or even Farage, but in the mainstream opposition is slightly chilling, especially with the prospect of 4 years of shit stirring to come from the US.
I did seriously consider the Leon challenge of, if you think Trump is that bad why not support nobbling / assassinating him. I've come to a fatalist conclusion, no precognition, by the time you know that he is bad enough to justify that it will inevitably be too late. You just have to trust that the collective memory of liberal democracy is enough to pull back after bad things happen. In democracy, there are rules to be followed, but the efforts to disqualify him as an insurrectionist failed because the institutional and democratic will to disqualify him wasn't strong enough. So, no MAGA style "protection of democracy" from me, we must go where we must go, whether in the US or the UK.
Your argument seems to be that it's an either/or: that the current world of periodic atrocities across the western world perpetuated by Islamic terrorists, peppered by background grimness exemplified by Rochdale and rape parties in Cologne and the like, is the price we must pay because the alternative is that someone like Trump or worse takes over. Is that right?
If so, my reaction would be that it doesn't have to be either/or. Ideally, the current mainstream parties would try to do something about the current unpleasantness. If we end up with Trumps and mini-Trumps and worse throughout the western world, it will be because the mainstream parties have given up trying to address these issues, and voters see no alternative.
Of course, I do agree with you that I would rather have even this current government which, rubbish though it is, is largely obeying democratic norms, than a Trump-like one. But come on, western establishments - just try to give the impression that you're on your populations' sides.
I don't think the argument made by the side you are arguing against, except in a very few cases, is that "we must have Trumps and mini-Trumps". It's that the level of establishment complacency is so astonishingly large, the denial of the problems we face is so great, that it's unsurprising that the non-establishment parties are attracting more interest.
Strong agree that it simply cannot be either/or.
But, mainstream solutions should always be about facts. After 9/11 so many loopholes were closed that terrorist tactics evolved into low grade attacks, we put the barriers in the minimise car attacks (and recent ones need looking at wrt weaknesses at ingress points). There is always more, as with all criminality it is a mix of whackamole and trying to stay ahead.
We are likely better now at looking at the abuse of those in care, which isn't to say that much, but at least we prosecute people these days, 40-50 years ago when the main abuse of kids in care was by white yeomen, most of those died free men. On this cycle it does seem to be very predominantly Asian Muslim men in northern towns (although I think the willingness to prosecute such cases as large trials with all the chain of perpetrators, but I cannot think where the same joint enterprise has been done for the abusers of trafficked girls and women, which may result in more varied sets of accusees, may bias this impression). And it needs addressing in the same way.
But, for all we do, for all we are not helpless, we are not at the stage where we can call the next terrorist attack, and certainly not the next abuse cycle, a never event.
So, there will be events the far right can hook onto, whether or not we are serious about this.
I think there is an element of war upon mainstream politics and we need to up our game in delivery, but also get serious and militarise and win our response in the communications war.
FPT: I have long suspected that nearly all of Jeffrey Epstein's victims did not have fathers in their lives to protect them. If any major news organization investigated that question, I missed their findings.
When the big bust up between Elon and Donald happens I'll probably side with Donald. Who wouldn't? It's got that bad.
The thing that Nigel and (prime) Donald have/had mastery of is knowing where to stop. The shock jock art of knowing how to be outrageous, but not too outrageous. The right wing media space is littered with the corpses of wannabes who kept going when they shouldn't have.
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
Musk, from his feed today, certainly doesn’t seem to have mastered the skill of where to stop
At some point the Tesla shareholders are going to want to see him spending more time on his businesses, and less time shitposting driving engagement on Twitter. They need to react to the new Chinese competition, and lobbying Trump to introduce US tariffs on them isn’t going to be sufficient.
Comments
Nigel has that skill; I'm not sure that Kemi or Bobby do. Which is only one of their problems.
The same emotional identification is used by adherents to various creeds. Common to see "I hate Flag Shaggers" waxing lyrical about the tenets of their replacement faith(s)
It shouldn’t de-legitimise or prevent her from calling for things though, I agree.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx4qZiiz7Cc
Blue Origin’s Drone Ship “Jacklyn” has left port ahead of the maiden flight and first landing attempt of New Glenn.
Flight is NET (No Earlier Than) Monday 6th
A national enquiry that would cost hundreds of millions and years to achieve what exactly.
She is not offering an ounce of common sense just playing juvenile debating games.
She's totally out of her depth.
She says it's too early for policies but wants to chat for years about policies on this topic that are already being implemented
The Ukrainian alphabet has four letters that Russian doesn't and Russian has two letters and one non-phonetic orthographic device (tvyordiy znak lit. "hard sign") that Ukrainian doesn't.
Ukrainian: ґ, є, ї, і
Russian: ы, ё, ъ
I wrote a bit about it here which the Ultras didn't care for.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4314301#Comment_4314301
Park Homes are regulated. Holiday homes are not.
Have a nice afternoon everyone
However this is not just Musk. This issue has
exploded on social media partly because so many people in the USA, EU, elsewhere were honestly unaware of the existence and epic scale of the grooming gang scandal - and they are stupefied and outraged and bewildered how Britain has, apparently, reacted with an apathetic shrug. People - not Musk - are comparing it to war crimes
The origin of the explosion was the release on social media of some of the most horrifying evidence in one particular case
I understand Tommy Robinson is a big hit with the MAGA crowd. Musk can signal he’s racist and hates the right people after the MAGA crowd were upset he wasn’t being racist towards Indians.
By contrast, Musk not only wants to do actually stuff but has shown extraordinary ability to. Whether that ability is a transferable skill into politics is another matter.
But it provides context to ask how this enquiry would be different from the IICSA enquiry already held, and what would be its purpose.
https://www.iicsa.org.uk
What does she mean by "long overdue". and "joining the dots" ?
None of this was explained in either her statements, or the subsequent interviews with her shadow cabinet members.
"Calling for an enquiry" is just a cheap soundbite. Any such thing would likely take the rest of this parliament, and cost £100m plus.
If it's a serious suggestion, then put forward a serious case for it.
As for a £100m donation from Musk. Well, yes, that too is a hostage to fortune but it'd be enough to keep Reform running for years. Farage could cut ties if necessary later on. Musk won't ask for his money back - and if he did Farage wouldn't have to comply.
LOL.
Look in the mirror, mate.
But he can't be taking his freelance Trump Admin role all that seriously if he's spending time getting involved in UK political spats.
"I thought they were voting for libertarian Republicans," Massie said of the Republican voters who had delivered the Tea Party victories. "But after some soul-searching, I realized when they voted for Rand and Ron [Paul] and me in these primaries, they weren't voting for libertarian ideas. They were voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race. And Donald Trump won best in class."
Musk’s fascination with British politics seems to be quite genuine, if somewhat unhinged. He sometimes tweets more about UK politics than US politics
I wonder what changed...?
We need more of a national catharsis. This is like Britain’s Chernobyl and we need to address it. Somehow
Given the common language and the Internet it shouldn't be too surprising that people spending too long online end of interested in the other nations politics.
Plus British politics has always been more interesting to Americans (because of language/history) than any other nation. See how many references there are to British politics and society in We Didn't Start The Fire for example.
Which taken in a different way is what he could well have been.
https://www.twz.com/land/railgun-ammo-firing-155mm-air-defense-cannon-set-to-be-awarded-to-bae-systems
America sneezes and Europe catches a cold is as true as its ever been.
*no prizes for guessing which PBer hyperbolised this metaphor into existence.
Britain is inevitably intertwined with
America, but we need more French and German influence to balance this.
Our films have become far more
anglo-american in tone, sometimes optimistically, and sometimes banally, and our televisual culture is now the missing the sophistication of Continental Europe, that it could frequently match in the 1980's. European politics also gets shallow coverage in the British media.
We need to remember to find the balance between Anerican expansiveness and European
sophistication again.
At least Boris was skint. This one could go on for ages.
Of course, the Lord Chancellor still exists (Tony Blair realised the role couldn’t be abolished by executive fiat, once he tried to do so), it’s just that it lost a lot of its weird hybrid role and now is attached to the position of Justice Secretary.
We don't need to learn lessons. We don't need to move forward. We don't need racism, pogroms or any other damn stupid thing.
1) We need to prosecute absolutely everyone on the basis of "do the crime, do the time" - this is being done
2) The enablers (police, social services etc) of the crimes hide behind procedure and the destruction of evidence. Fine. Put them all on the relevant sex offenders registry. All the Home Sec needs to do is sign at the bottom of a list of names. No recourse to the courts.
2) will ensure that no-one covers up an allegation for a generation. Then we will probably need to repeat.
They want you to stay typically for three years in exchange for this.
Sadly the days of airlines sponsoring flight training from scratch are mostly in the past. BA did until a few years ago offer 100 annual commercial licence (c.£150k) scholarships - which typically attracted 25,000 applications, many of whom had family contacts and already a private pilots’ licence, so good luck with that!
She wanted the shock value of Tesla appearing in Germany to wake up the German auto manufacturers out of the their slumber regarding EVs. Didn't work (sufficiently).
We get the Justin Webb worldview, which is just uninformed in all respects.
Sarah Smith - who took over from Sopel some three years back (and is a bit better than Webb) - reports on MAGA quite a lot.
How many people took the advice of a solicitor with relevant experience, before writing five-figure cheques for these static caravans?
No, what we need is a truly independent inquiry - taken away from the Home Office, police, councils, government. Put someone like Maggie Oliver in charge, and give her wide ranging powers. She’s one of the brave and original whistleblowers
Honestly the spectacle Britain is presenting on social media right now is shameful and grotesque. It’s not just Musk - it’s people in Italy and France and Australia and everywhere staring in horrified amazement at what happened. In our country
Yes, your pilot may have a mortgage worth of money he's invested in learning to fly, and actual pay that doesn't cover that (really). He's somewhat stressed about it. What could go wrong?
They might say: "We disagree with this recommendation," or "this recommendation is already covered by xyz". But at least then it will be clear what the government thinks, and progress can at least be tracked, and we can see if it is going down /dev/null
What, you want to put thousands of coppers, politicians, councillors, civil servants… on a sex offenders registry. Just like that. And this will sort it out?
Yes. Because, suddenly, a way to punish the actually guilty will appear.
Especially, since one effect of being put on such registers is that they will risk having their own children taken into care.
What you need is opposition politicians ready to do the hard graft of holding the government to account when they fail to follow recommendations. What you don’t need is Farage or Badenoch echoing social media froth.
Why physics, chemistry and biology rather than, say, geology, engineering and computer science? Why history instead of sociology? Look at modern languages, where German has been displaced by Spanish. Or the on-off nature of Classics.
And while we are here, let us remember teachers are not experts in learning: psychologists are.
I can sum them up for you
1) Bad stuff happened
2) People did nothing for a hard to define set of reasons.
3) Not enough evidence for the people at (2) to even be spoken to harshly. Except some junior people who were following instructions.
(The Afterword in the second illustrates the problem, unintentionally, I assume. Bok was called in to be president of Harvard again, replacing a controversial predecessor, who had said something that is true. Bok never mentions what got his predecessor fired.)
Is Vance a liar, or just ignorant ?
I’m not endorsing a party in the German elections, as it’s not my country and we hope to have good relations with all Germans. But this is an interesting piece.
Also interesting; American media slanders AfD as Nazi-lite, But AfD is most popular in the same areas of Germany that were most resistant to the Nazis.
https://x.com/JDVance/status/1874894133862769149
What the inquiries didn’t say, however, is that it’s all the fault of Muslims. Some will keep calling for inquiries until they get that answer.
AIUI this often happens after RAIB reports, although by agreement and negotiation, not law.
The result is that British people often have the wholly false view that France is in a permanent state of unsustainable crisis, while America is
more multi-dimensional.
But, mainstream solutions should always be about facts. After 9/11 so many loopholes were closed that terrorist tactics evolved into low grade attacks, we put the barriers in the minimise car attacks (and recent ones need looking at wrt weaknesses at ingress points). There is always more, as with all criminality it is a mix of whackamole and trying to stay ahead.
We are likely better now at looking at the abuse of those in care, which isn't to say that much, but at least we prosecute people these days, 40-50 years ago when the main abuse of kids in care was by white yeomen, most of those died free men. On this cycle it does seem to be very predominantly Asian Muslim men in northern towns (although I think the willingness to prosecute such cases as large trials with all the chain of perpetrators, but I cannot think where the same joint enterprise has been done for the abusers of trafficked girls and women, which may result in more varied sets of accusees, may bias this impression). And it needs addressing in the same way.
But, for all we do, for all we are not helpless, we are not at the stage where we can call the next terrorist attack, and certainly not the next abuse cycle, a never event.
So, there will be events the far right can hook onto, whether or not we are serious about this.
I think there is an element of war upon mainstream politics and we need to up our game in delivery, but also get serious and militarise and win our response in the communications war.