So the question is do you want another million immigrants to reduce wages, increase housing costs and wander aimlessly around your town centre ?
Is immigration "better or worse" since Brexit?
I know the racists won the vote, but this was a discussion about economics.
Brexit is a failure on both.
The question is do you want more immigration because rejoining the single market will lead to more immigration.
But if you want to talk about economics are you happy or unhappy that we now have full employment and pay rises rather than the mass unemployment and pay cuts you predicted leaving the EU would bring ?
Seeing as we have had more immigration since leaving the single market your confidence in your assertion seems misplaced.
So what ? Do you think any of that wouldn't have happened if we were in the EU ? Do you think that Hong Kongers or Ukrainians refugees or Chinese students or Nigerian nurses would not have migrated to the UK ?
So the questions are:
Do you think more people would move from the EU to the UK to work or vice versa ?
Do you think more people would move from the EU to the UK to aimlessly wander around town centres or vice versa ?
Now its possible to think that increased migration from the EU is overall a good thing - it might well be if you benefit from lower pay rates and higher housing costs.
But lets not have any pretending that re-joining the single market would not lead to substantially higher net immigration.
Increases in work visas from non-EU citizens since Brexit are substantially driving the overall increase in immigration. They don't just compensate for a reduction in EU migration, they massively over compensate. As a nation we may decide immigration is good - and it is one of the few levers the government has to mitigate slow growth partly due to Brexit - but we could have done that before Brexit too.
Rachel Reeves has been repeating for 24 hours that no full length runways have been built and opened since the 1940s. Both humans and AI chatbots say she is mistaken. In fact, says Mr Smith and Ms DeepSeek
“The last full-length runway built and opened in the UK was at **Manchester Airport**. The **second runway**, which is 3,048 meters (10,000 feet) long, was completed and officially opened in **February 2001**. This project marked the first full-length runway constructed at a major UK airport in over 50 years, designed to accommodate large commercial aircraft and increase capacity.”
I heard her say that on the radio, and it sounded odd at the time.
Without checking, what about Stansted?
And Good Morning one and all; Bright and sunny here, if a touch chilly.
Stansted was an old WW2 airfield, RAF Stansted Mounftichet, named after the nearby ancient Mountfitchet castle. The castle itself was built conveniently right beside Stansted Mounftichet railway station.
(Some facts in this comment are deliberately wrong, but not necessarily in the way you might think...)
Yes, after I posted (silly me) I went and checked. All the development seems to have been on the terminal and on making more parking and turning space for planes.
As far as the castle is concerned, it's a bit like Windsor, isn't it. As an American was heard to remark, you'd think they'd have built it away from the flight path to Heathrow! (Allegedly)
Stansted Mountfitchet castle is a great place to go with kids; it is right outside the station's car park. AFAIR it *is* the site of a Norman motte and bailey; but the castle itself was wooden and never rebuilt in stone, so over the years it disappeared. Then, in the eighties, it was rebuilt as a replica Norman wooden castle. So it is a replica on an original site. And from what I was told, the proximity of the station was a factor in it being rebuilt...
And the goats will have the food out of your bag if you aren't paying attention.
I was broadly in favour of us rejoining the EU as a long-term project, sometime in the 2030s. However, now I've read that Alan Sugar is also in favour of rejoining, I'm having second thoughts.
Alan Sugar might be Britain's most well known businessman.
Although some might say Richard Branson.
Thirty, even forty, years ago they would also have been contenders for that title.
Which perhaps highlights that something went wrong with the UK economy.
Who else has become a well known 'British businessman' since then ?
James Dyson and Jim Ratcliffe perhaps - both of whom are in their 70s.
Any others ?
Yougovs list in order is Sugar, Branson, Dyson, Meaden, Brady, Ashley
I suspect Martin Lewis and Jim Ratcliffe would beat Brady and Ashley if included. Peter Jones and Stephen Bartlett presumably similar ranking to Meaden.
Where is the question "join the EU as a full member including the euro and Schengen"?
That's not a relevant question. Getting the UK back in, with the eurosceptics more humiliated than they already are, would be such a victory and validation of The Project that the EU would bend or outright abandon the rules to make it happen.
Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't know the EU.
Britain gets an opt-out from Schengen because Ireland has one. Britain commits to joining the euro when the time is right. Which is never.
Still not happening any time soon, if ever.
Ireland has an opt out from Schengen because the UK had one. If we Rejoin, they'll lose their opt out too.
Why? I mean this Rejoin speculation is all a complete fantasy, but Ireland certainly can't be compelled to give up its optout, even if the rest of the EU for some reason wanted it to (which they wouldn't if they wanted the UK to rejoin). The argument that the EU would insist on Schengen to make sure the UK never leaves again (also made on PB today) makes no sense to me, leaving Schengen would be just about the simplest bit of leaving the EU.
Besides, if Germany actually introduces 'permanent' border controls rather than the 'temporary' ones in place now as Merz is promising, Schengen will be finished by the end of this year anyway.
I think we should join Schengen regardless of whether we’re in the EU. We’d get loads more global tourists, and international travel would be much more pleasant.
How we can be talking about ridiculous rules with bats, newts and fish and yet simultaneously about rejoining the organisation that made all these ridiculous rules in the first place?
Until we can act like the French and just not see anything inconvenient I don't see how it will help.
We need to fix the country ourselves and not hope against hope that someone else will do it for us.
Where is the question "join the EU as a full member including the euro and Schengen"?
That's not a relevant question. Getting the UK back in, with the eurosceptics more humiliated than they already are, would be such a victory and validation of The Project that the EU would bend or outright abandon the rules to make it happen.
Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't know the EU.
Hah. If we ask to Rejoin, they're going to make damn sure we can never try to Leave again. That means euro and Schengen membership.
To be clear, if rejoining proves possible without euro and Shengen membership, are ypu in favour?
The Prince of Wales was subjected to chants of “Lizzie’s in a box” and “If you hate the Royal family, clap your hands” by Celtic fans during Aston Villa’s Champions League clash with the Scottish club.
Away supporters also displayed a banner in the stands glorifying an intruder who found his way into Queen Elizabeth II’s Buckingham Palace bedroom, days after Prince William was born.
The Prince of Wales, Villa’s most famous fan, attended Wednesday night’s match and was seen celebrating wildly as Villa raced into a 2-0 lead.
Even if you're into that sort of thing. It's a crap chant. Yeah she is in a box, she died in her late 90s of natural causes nearly 3 years ago. Unless they believe Liz Truss genuinely did bump her off.
As a fair minded and objective republican I am disgusted at the chant, fuck’s sack the guy’s granny died and you’re taking the piss, wind your necks in, there’s an inherent lack of class on the part of some Scots.
I think Her late Maj be more exorcised about Charlie going against her wishes with HMS Achilles tbh
Republic now!
HMS Agincourt
HMS Waterloo
HMS Trafalgar
HMS Mers-el-Kébir
HMS You’d Be Speaking German If It Wasn’t For Us
Are the names I want.
HMS Cromwell (see Churchill vs the King on that)
Also rename the Ministry of Defence, The War Office
I think we should take inspiration from those early-war codenames we had before the WO issued a directive to stop it because you couldn't tell someone's parents that they had been killed on "Operation Whoopsie-Daisy".
Yes, this isn't suiting us. It's lonely. We're cold and scared. It's time to swallow our pride and go home. No need for apologies. The flounce happened for a reason. It was part of growing up.
Why are you such a hard core Leaver?
That’s basically an ad for Farage.
No, it's the essential big picture truth. It had to happen to show it was stupid. There was no other way.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
This doesn’t even begin to make sense, and I dare say I’m probably Britain’s most popular businessman
I was broadly in favour of us rejoining the EU as a long-term project, sometime in the 2030s. However, now I've read that Alan Sugar is also in favour of rejoining, I'm having second thoughts.
Alan Sugar might be Britain's most well known businessman.
Although some might say Richard Branson.
Thirty, even forty, years ago they would also have been contenders for that title.
Which perhaps highlights that something went wrong with the UK economy.
Who else has become a well known 'British businessman' since then ?
James Dyson and Jim Ratcliffe perhaps - both of whom are in their 70s.
Any others ?
Yougovs list in order is Sugar, Branson, Dyson, Meaden, Brady, Ashley
I suspect Martin Lewis and Jim Ratcliffe would beat Brady and Ashley if included. Peter Jones and Stephen Bartlett presumably similar ranking to Meaden.
So the question is do you want another million immigrants to reduce wages, increase housing costs and wander aimlessly around your town centre ?
Is immigration "better or worse" since Brexit?
I know the racists won the vote, but this was a discussion about economics.
Brexit is a failure on both.
The question is do you want more immigration because rejoining the single market will lead to more immigration.
But if you want to talk about economics are you happy or unhappy that we now have full employment and pay rises rather than the mass unemployment and pay cuts you predicted leaving the EU would bring ?
Seeing as we have had more immigration since leaving the single market your confidence in your assertion seems misplaced.
So what ? Do you think any of that wouldn't have happened if we were in the EU ? Do you think that Hong Kongers or Ukrainians refugees or Chinese students or Nigerian nurses would not have migrated to the UK ?
So the questions are:
Do you think more people would move from the EU to the UK to work or vice versa ?
Do you think more people would move from the EU to the UK to aimlessly wander around town centres or vice versa ?
Now its possible to think that increased migration from the EU is overall a good thing - it might well be if you benefit from lower pay rates and higher housing costs.
But lets not have any pretending that re-joining the single market would not lead to substantially higher net immigration.
Increases in work visas from non-EU citizens since Brexit are substantially driving the overall increase in immigration. They don't just compensate for a reduction in EU migration, they massively over compensate. As a nation we may decide immigration is good - and it is one of the few levers the government has to mitigate slow growth partly due to Brexit - but we could have done that before Brexit too.
The fall in EU migration to Britain is partly driven by Brexit, but also partly a result of Sterling weakness and UK wages not being high enough to justify moving. Most of Eastern Europe had closed the gap so the gravitational pull is no longer there.
I know from colleagues here that living in working in London now brings in less after housing costs than doing the same back in countries like Serbia, Croatia, Poland, Czechia.
I was broadly in favour of us rejoining the EU as a long-term project, sometime in the 2030s. However, now I've read that Alan Sugar is also in favour of rejoining, I'm having second thoughts.
Alan Sugar might be Britain's most well known businessman.
Although some might say Richard Branson.
Thirty, even forty, years ago they would also have been contenders for that title.
Which perhaps highlights that something went wrong with the UK economy.
Who else has become a well known 'British businessman' since then ?
James Dyson and Jim Ratcliffe perhaps - both of whom are in their 70s.
Any others ?
Yougovs list in order is Sugar, Branson, Dyson, Meaden, Brady, Ashley
I suspect Martin Lewis and Jim Ratcliffe would beat Brady and Ashley if included. Peter Jones and Stephen Bartlett presumably similar ranking to Meaden.
Rachel Reeves has been repeating for 24 hours that no full length runways have been built and opened since the 1940s. Both humans and AI chatbots say she is mistaken. In fact, says Mr Smith and Ms DeepSeek
“The last full-length runway built and opened in the UK was at **Manchester Airport**. The **second runway**, which is 3,048 meters (10,000 feet) long, was completed and officially opened in **February 2001**. This project marked the first full-length runway constructed at a major UK airport in over 50 years, designed to accommodate large commercial aircraft and increase capacity.”
I heard her say that on the radio, and it sounded odd at the time.
Without checking, what about Stansted?
And Good Morning one and all; Bright and sunny here, if a touch chilly.
Stansted was an old WW2 airfield, RAF Stansted Mounftichet, named after the nearby ancient Mountfitchet castle. The castle itself was built conveniently right beside Stansted Mounftichet railway station.
(Some facts in this comment are deliberately wrong, but not necessarily in the way you might think...)
Yes, after I posted (silly me) I went and checked. All the development seems to have been on the terminal and on making more parking and turning space for planes.
As far as the castle is concerned, it's a bit like Windsor, isn't it. As an American was heard to remark, you'd think they'd have built it away from the flight path to Heathrow! (Allegedly)
Stansted Mountfitchet castle is a great place to go with kids; it is right outside the station's car park. AFAIR it *is* the site of a Norman motte and bailey; but the castle itself was wooden and never rebuilt in stone, so over the years it disappeared. Then, in the eighties, it was rebuilt as a replica Norman wooden castle. So it is a replica on an original site. And from what I was told, the proximity of the station was a factor in it being rebuilt...
Thanks for the reminder. I do recall the story now.
The Prince of Wales was subjected to chants of “Lizzie’s in a box” and “If you hate the Royal family, clap your hands” by Celtic fans during Aston Villa’s Champions League clash with the Scottish club.
Away supporters also displayed a banner in the stands glorifying an intruder who found his way into Queen Elizabeth II’s Buckingham Palace bedroom, days after Prince William was born.
The Prince of Wales, Villa’s most famous fan, attended Wednesday night’s match and was seen celebrating wildly as Villa raced into a 2-0 lead.
Even if you're into that sort of thing. It's a crap chant. Yeah she is in a box, she died in her late 90s of natural causes nearly 3 years ago. Unless they believe Liz Truss genuinely did bump her off.
As a fair minded and objective republican I am disgusted at the chant, fuck’s sack the guy’s granny died and you’re taking the piss, wind your necks in, there’s an inherent lack of class on the part of some Scots.
The weird thing about Celtic fans isn't that so many of them are twats - that's true of fans of lots of teams - but that they have this weird tendency to take the moral high ground as if Rangers fans are unspeakably awful and Celtic fans are paragons of virtue.
The North West of England is not short of its share of twattish football fans, but AFAICS there is at least a smidgen of self-awareness about them all.
Hung out a lot at McChuils have you? As an Aberdeen fan for my sins, on the moral high ground thing I can observe a difference is that Rangers fans tend to be the ones who live the dream, eg actually being up to their knees in Fenian blood after stabbing people with green and white on.
As another Aberdeen supporter, Celtic have several paranoias. In their minds they are victimised because they are of an Irish Catholic background in a predominantly Scottish / British Protestant society. The Scottish Football authorities favour Rangers as the establishment team. European and World football authorities favour England over Scotland. Therefore they are thrice fucked. The reality is that for reasons of money and support, both Celtic and Rangers are favoured over the rest of Scottish football. There’s a reason the rest of us call them the arse cheeks.
Where is the question "join the EU as a full member including the euro and Schengen"?
That's not a relevant question. Getting the UK back in, with the eurosceptics more humiliated than they already are, would be such a victory and validation of The Project that the EU would bend or outright abandon the rules to make it happen.
Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't know the EU.
Britain gets an opt-out from Schengen because Ireland has one. Britain commits to joining the euro when the time is right. Which is never.
Still not happening any time soon, if ever.
Ireland has an opt out from Schengen because the UK had one. If we Rejoin, they'll lose their opt out too.
Why? I mean this Rejoin speculation is all a complete fantasy, but Ireland certainly can't be compelled to give up its optout, even if the rest of the EU for some reason wanted it to (which they wouldn't if they wanted the UK to rejoin). The argument that the EU would insist on Schengen to make sure the UK never leaves again (also made on PB today) makes no sense to me, leaving Schengen would be just about the simplest bit of leaving the EU.
Besides, if Germany actually introduces 'permanent' border controls rather than the 'temporary' ones in place now as Merz is promising, Schengen will be finished by the end of this year anyway.
I think we should join Schengen regardless of whether we’re in the EU. We’d get loads more global tourists, and international travel would be much more pleasant.
That’s quite a tough sell just as Germany prepares to collapse Schengen
Where is the question "join the EU as a full member including the euro and Schengen"?
That's not a relevant question. Getting the UK back in, with the eurosceptics more humiliated than they already are, would be such a victory and validation of The Project that the EU would bend or outright abandon the rules to make it happen.
Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't know the EU.
Britain gets an opt-out from Schengen because Ireland has one. Britain commits to joining the euro when the time is right. Which is never.
Still not happening any time soon, if ever.
Ireland has an opt out from Schengen because the UK had one. If we Rejoin, they'll lose their opt out too.
Why? I mean this Rejoin speculation is all a complete fantasy, but Ireland certainly can't be compelled to give up its optout, even if the rest of the EU for some reason wanted it to (which they wouldn't if they wanted the UK to rejoin). The argument that the EU would insist on Schengen to make sure the UK never leaves again (also made on PB today) makes no sense to me, leaving Schengen would be just about the simplest bit of leaving the EU.
Besides, if Germany actually introduces 'permanent' border controls rather than the 'temporary' ones in place now as Merz is promising, Schengen will be finished by the end of this year anyway.
I think we should join Schengen regardless of whether we’re in the EU. We’d get loads more global tourists, and international travel would be much more pleasant.
There's certainly an argument for that, but I don't think the British people are ready to hear it any time soon.
Where is the question "join the EU as a full member including the euro and Schengen"?
That's not a relevant question. Getting the UK back in, with the eurosceptics more humiliated than they already are, would be such a victory and validation of The Project that the EU would bend or outright abandon the rules to make it happen.
Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't know the EU.
Hah. If we ask to Rejoin, they're going to make damn sure we can never try to Leave again. That means euro and Schengen membership.
To be clear, if rejoining proves possible without euro and Shengen membership, are ypu in favour?
There’s a parallel in France’s in-out relationship with NATO. In both cases driven by a different history and identity to the rest of the bloc, that is sometimes reconciled and sometimes not.
If I were Starmer I’d be proposing a swap deal. UK rejoins, Hungary and Slovakia are kicked out, and our contributions are offset by the EU spending saved by no longer having to subsidise those 2 countries.
Where is the question "join the EU as a full member including the euro and Schengen"?
That's not a relevant question. Getting the UK back in, with the eurosceptics more humiliated than they already are, would be such a victory and validation of The Project that the EU would bend or outright abandon the rules to make it happen.
Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't know the EU.
Hah. If we ask to Rejoin, they're going to make damn sure we can never try to Leave again. That means euro and Schengen membership.
To be clear, if rejoining proves possible without euro and Shengen membership, are ypu in favour?
Where is the question "join the EU as a full member including the euro and Schengen"?
That's not a relevant question. Getting the UK back in, with the eurosceptics more humiliated than they already are, would be such a victory and validation of The Project that the EU would bend or outright abandon the rules to make it happen.
Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't know the EU.
Britain gets an opt-out from Schengen because Ireland has one. Britain commits to joining the euro when the time is right. Which is never.
Still not happening any time soon, if ever.
Ireland has an opt out from Schengen because the UK had one. If we Rejoin, they'll lose their opt out too.
Why? I mean this Rejoin speculation is all a complete fantasy, but Ireland certainly can't be compelled to give up its optout, even if the rest of the EU for some reason wanted it to (which they wouldn't if they wanted the UK to rejoin). The argument that the EU would insist on Schengen to make sure the UK never leaves again (also made on PB today) makes no sense to me, leaving Schengen would be just about the simplest bit of leaving the EU.
Besides, if Germany actually introduces 'permanent' border controls rather than the 'temporary' ones in place now as Merz is promising, Schengen will be finished by the end of this year anyway.
I think we should join Schengen regardless of whether we’re in the EU. We’d get loads more global tourists, and international travel would be much more pleasant.
That’s quite a tough sell just as Germany prepares to collapse Schengen
I’m not suggesting it would be easy or even remotely possible to sell, but it would be good. As think you’ve commented in the past.
I was broadly in favour of us rejoining the EU as a long-term project, sometime in the 2030s. However, now I've read that Alan Sugar is also in favour of rejoining, I'm having second thoughts.
Alan Sugar might be Britain's most well known businessman.
Although some might say Richard Branson.
Thirty, even forty, years ago they would also have been contenders for that title.
Which perhaps highlights that something went wrong with the UK economy.
Who else has become a well known 'British businessman' since then ?
James Dyson and Jim Ratcliffe perhaps - both of whom are in their 70s.
Any others ?
Yougovs list in order is Sugar, Branson, Dyson, Meaden, Brady, Ashley
I suspect Martin Lewis and Jim Ratcliffe would beat Brady and Ashley if included. Peter Jones and Stephen Bartlett presumably similar ranking to Meaden.
Martin Lewis isn't a businessman...
Isn't his business "Money Saving Expert"?
He's a journalist who monetised his journalism. I'm not at all sure that makes him a businessman, and he hasn't owned MSE for over a decade.
FWIW, Wiki doesn't describe him as a businessman, just as a journalist and broadcaster.
Where is the question "join the EU as a full member including the euro and Schengen"?
That's not a relevant question. Getting the UK back in, with the eurosceptics more humiliated than they already are, would be such a victory and validation of The Project that the EU would bend or outright abandon the rules to make it happen.
Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't know the EU.
Hah. If we ask to Rejoin, they're going to make damn sure we can never try to Leave again. That means euro and Schengen membership.
To be clear, if rejoining proves possible without euro and Shengen membership, are ypu in favour?
Yes; bit sad to the pound go, but it's not the same since £sd went.
The Brexit numbers are pretty fucking amazing but we're going to need another three or four bad flu seasons to cull the leaver herd even more before the ever-cautious SKS will move to a new policy position. It's coming. Just not yet.
I think they're amazing for Leave - the 30% sticking to their guns is pretty remarkable for a result that's been dumped on and disastrously mishandled by all and sundry since the vote was announced. I'm very buoyed up by these numbers actually - and us about to enter the Farage era too. Thanks TSE!
It will be interesting to see how Brexity Nigel is when/if he becomes PM. Of course, that fruit has already been sucked pretty dry, but my hunch is that Nigel will not want to be seen as Mr Brexit. Instead he'll take on a more centrist persona, portraying himself as a wise old head who could have made Brexit a goer but was shunned by the zealots.
How we can be talking about ridiculous rules with bats, newts and fish and yet simultaneously about rejoining the organisation that made all these ridiculous rules in the first place?
Until we can act like the French and just not see anything inconvenient I don't see how it will help.
We need to fix the country ourselves and not hope against hope that someone else will do it for us.
Quite - the Process State is nearly entirely on us.
Put a paragraph in the bill -
“This bill encompasses and supersedes all requirements for reports and investigations required by other legislation.”
Or some such.
Then the Fox Killer can go to the Supreme Court, to be told again that Parliament is Sovereign.
I was broadly in favour of us rejoining the EU as a long-term project, sometime in the 2030s. However, now I've read that Alan Sugar is also in favour of rejoining, I'm having second thoughts.
Alan Sugar might be Britain's most well known businessman.
Although some might say Richard Branson.
Thirty, even forty, years ago they would also have been contenders for that title.
Which perhaps highlights that something went wrong with the UK economy.
Who else has become a well known 'British businessman' since then ?
James Dyson and Jim Ratcliffe perhaps - both of whom are in their 70s.
Any others ?
Yougovs list in order is Sugar, Branson, Dyson, Meaden, Brady, Ashley
I suspect Martin Lewis and Jim Ratcliffe would beat Brady and Ashley if included. Peter Jones and Stephen Bartlett presumably similar ranking to Meaden.
Martin Lewis isn't a businessman...
Isn't his business "Money Saving Expert"?
He's a journalist who monetised his journalism. I'm not at all sure that makes him a businessman, and he hasn't owned MSE for over a decade.
FWIW, Wiki doesn't describe him as a businessman, just as a journalist and broadcaster.
Call me old fashioned but starting your own business with £100 and selling it less than a decade later for £87m makes him a businessman.
Where is the question "join the EU as a full member including the euro and Schengen"?
That's not a relevant question. Getting the UK back in, with the eurosceptics more humiliated than they already are, would be such a victory and validation of The Project that the EU would bend or outright abandon the rules to make it happen.
Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't know the EU.
Hah. If we ask to Rejoin, they're going to make damn sure we can never try to Leave again. That means euro and Schengen membership.
To be clear, if rejoining proves possible without euro and Shengen membership, are ypu in favour?
There’s a parallel in France’s in-out relationship with NATO. In both cases driven by a different history and identity to the rest of the bloc, that is sometimes reconciled and sometimes not.
If I were Starmer I’d be proposing a swap deal. UK rejoins, Hungary and Slovakia are kicked out, and our contributions are offset by the EU spending saved by no longer having to subsidise those 2 countries.
I think the EU has the same problem as NATO - no way to kick a country out.
There wasn't even a way for a country to leave of their own volition for the first half century (Greenland bodge excluded in the 1980s iirc), and then it was deliberately designed to be as difficult as possible.
The controversial Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields ruled unlawful by Scottish Court . Consent for development quashed. The gove must now consider the full environmental impact of the emissions from the fields…
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
The controversial Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields ruled unlawful by Scottish Court . Consent for development quashed. The gove must now consider the full environmental impact of the emissions from the fields…
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Just "squat"ting in someone else's land as a previous poster put it.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
I'd be more likely to go and hear Bad Al and Rory the Tory than I would say the News Agents.
I know that in some areas they have significant specialist and personal knowledge beyond what I have, whereas Maitlis, Lewis Goodall et al seem to be repeating fairly general current affairs stuff I was aware of a fortnight previously.
The News Agents are more like a "Portrait of the Week" column, with relatively little depth.
I'm more questioning of the format than the quality.
People are paying £40 or so a time to go and see these three twats sit on stage and pontificate in theatres. They have just announced another three "gigs" so they must have some sort of appeal/fan base for their generic bland centrist Dad chatting.
The controversial Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields ruled unlawful by Scottish Court . Consent for development quashed. The gove must now consider the full environmental impact of the emissions from the fields…
I was broadly in favour of us rejoining the EU as a long-term project, sometime in the 2030s. However, now I've read that Alan Sugar is also in favour of rejoining, I'm having second thoughts.
Alan Sugar might be Britain's most well known businessman.
Although some might say Richard Branson.
Thirty, even forty, years ago they would also have been contenders for that title.
Which perhaps highlights that something went wrong with the UK economy.
Who else has become a well known 'British businessman' since then ?
James Dyson and Jim Ratcliffe perhaps - both of whom are in their 70s.
Any others ?
We’ve gone from Laura Ashley or Anita Roddick to Michelle Mone…
Likewise from an era of John Harvey-Jones to one of Mike Ashley.
I was broadly in favour of us rejoining the EU as a long-term project, sometime in the 2030s. However, now I've read that Alan Sugar is also in favour of rejoining, I'm having second thoughts.
Alan Sugar might be Britain's most well known businessman.
Although some might say Richard Branson.
Thirty, even forty, years ago they would also have been contenders for that title.
Which perhaps highlights that something went wrong with the UK economy.
Who else has become a well known 'British businessman' since then ?
James Dyson and Jim Ratcliffe perhaps - both of whom are in their 70s.
Any others ?
Yougovs list in order is Sugar, Branson, Dyson, Meaden, Brady, Ashley
I suspect Martin Lewis and Jim Ratcliffe would beat Brady and Ashley if included. Peter Jones and Stephen Bartlett presumably similar ranking to Meaden.
Martin Lewis isn't a businessman...
Isn't his business "Money Saving Expert"?
He's a journalist who monetised his journalism. I'm not at all sure that makes him a businessman, and he hasn't owned MSE for over a decade.
FWIW, Wiki doesn't describe him as a businessman, just as a journalist and broadcaster.
Call me old fashioned but starting your own business with £100 and selling it less than a decade later for £87m makes him a businessman.
He's not running any business now, though, is he? So former businessman or retired businessman, perhaps.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Just "squat"ting in someone else's land as a previous poster put it.
Again, you could try giving us your solution to this problem
Hasn't the time to rejoin past? The effort to get up to speed again to rejoin would simply take cash and political bandwidth we don't have. Politics is difficult but reorienting business back to EU market would be even more so.
Time for some internal capacity building of state and business infrastructure before we relaunch into the wide, wide world again.
You can do two things when you make a mistake. You can correct it or you can live with it and move on. We're doing neither. We can't do either until we recognise as a country we screwed up and now need to do something different. None of the major parties is prepared to accept reality on this but the Lib Dems are probably the closest.
So what do you do about the lack of sovereignty? And the lack of direct control over immigration or trade policy?
All this polling shows is that things are a bit shit and people blame what the media writes about. Not necessarily the facts.
To be fair, that last point is how we ended up doing Brexit in the first place!
The controversial Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields ruled unlawful by Scottish Court . Consent for development quashed. The gove must now consider the full environmental impact of the emissions from the fields…
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
There's this thing in some (all?) Christian psyches about believing the Biblical tale about God giving the Land of Israel to the Jews. And that all the Jews were expelled by the Romans. So the 'Palestinians' moved into take 'Jewish' land.
So once the Jews got a foothold in the Promised Land, the Palestinians should have packed up and gone back from whence they came.
Rejoin though... I don't think this will - nor should be - a matter of debate until at least the next general election. Let's first try to get things a bit in order here before we look at whether it's worth discussing looking into rejoining.
I was a remainer. We lost. Around a decade from the actual leaving is a reasonable time to evaluate whether we should rejoin. Not before.
Not on the radar, usually - does anyone remember Father Calvin Robinson?
He was the Continuing Anglican priest (connected to the Far Right, says teh Daily Mail) who was chucked out of GB News for conspiracy theories and supporting Dan Wootton, and ran away to the USA.
He's just been chucked out of his church for making an Elon Salute at an anti-abortion rally. Oooops.
Apparently, "this is the last stand for Christendom".
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
I'd be more likely to go and hear Bad Al and Rory the Tory than I would say the News Agents.
I know that in some areas they have significant specialist and personal knowledge beyond what I have, whereas Maitlis, Lewis Goodall et al seem to be repeating fairly general current affairs stuff I was aware of a fortnight previously.
The News Agents are more like a "Portrait of the Week" column, with relatively little depth.
I'm more questioning of the format than the quality.
People are paying £40 or so a time to go and see these three twats sit on stage and pontificate in theatres. They have just announced another three "gigs" so they must have some sort of appeal/fan base for their generic bland centrist Dad chatting.
1,000 tickets at £40 each, minus a couple of grand in room hire and staging. Not a bad gig if you can get it.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
I don't have anything new and wacky, I'm afraid. Boring old goal of a free and sovereign Palestine co-existing peacefully with Israel. It's never looked further off but it remains the only long-term sustainable outcome.
The controversial Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields ruled unlawful by Scottish Court . Consent for development quashed. The gove must now consider the full environmental impact of the emissions from the fields…
So we'll just continue to import it, at an even greater environmental cost.
It’s utterly depressing
It’s like Britain is determined to commit economic suicide because the elite has been ideologically captured by a cabal of halfwits that hates Britain
Nigel is our only hope
This country is heading down the crapper and totally and utterly deserves to be going there.
We, the people, deserve it for our political choices that have brought this about.
Welcome to managed decline. We deserve it.
The decision hinges on applying a later ruling retrospectively.
From the BBC article.
As part of the original consenting process, environmental impact assessments were carried out to identify, describe and assess "the direct and indirect effects" of the projects.
Those assessments took into account emissions generated by the process of extracting oil and gas but not the greenhouse gases which would be released when those fossil fuels were eventually burned - known as "downstream" or "Scope 3" emissions.
But last June, in a dispute about oil wells near London's Gatwick Airport, the UK Supreme Court ruled that environmental impact assessments must also include downstream emissions.
Now Lord Ericht has ruled that the decision in that case – Finch v Surrey County Council – should apply retrospectively to Rosebank and Jackdaw.
As a result, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and the regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (formerly known as the Oil and Gas Authority), must reconsider whether or not to grant consent, taking into account those downstream emissions.
The Prince of Wales was subjected to chants of “Lizzie’s in a box” and “If you hate the Royal family, clap your hands” by Celtic fans during Aston Villa’s Champions League clash with the Scottish club.
Away supporters also displayed a banner in the stands glorifying an intruder who found his way into Queen Elizabeth II’s Buckingham Palace bedroom, days after Prince William was born.
The Prince of Wales, Villa’s most famous fan, attended Wednesday night’s match and was seen celebrating wildly as Villa raced into a 2-0 lead.
Even if you're into that sort of thing. It's a crap chant. Yeah she is in a box, she died in her late 90s of natural causes nearly 3 years ago. Unless they believe Liz Truss genuinely did bump her off.
As a fair minded and objective republican I am disgusted at the chant, fuck’s sack the guy’s granny died and you’re taking the piss, wind your necks in, there’s an inherent lack of class on the part of some Scots.
The weird thing about Celtic fans isn't that so many of them are twats - that's true of fans of lots of teams - but that they have this weird tendency to take the moral high ground as if Rangers fans are unspeakably awful and Celtic fans are paragons of virtue.
The North West of England is not short of its share of twattish football fans, but AFAICS there is at least a smidgen of self-awareness about them all.
Hung out a lot at McChuils have you? As an Aberdeen fan for my sins, on the moral high ground thing I can observe a difference is that Rangers fans tend to be the ones who live the dream, eg actually being up to their knees in Fenian blood after stabbing people with green and white on.
As another Aberdeen supporter, Celtic have several paranoias. In their minds they are victimised because they are of an Irish Catholic background in a predominantly Scottish / British Protestant society. The Scottish Football authorities favour Rangers as the establishment team. European and World football authorities favour England over Scotland. Therefore they are thrice fucked. The reality is that for reasons of money and support, both Celtic and Rangers are favoured over the rest of Scottish football. There’s a reason the rest of us call them the arse cheeks.
Pretty accurate. I guess since there’s a fair bit of aggro between Dons & Rangers supporters I may be biased but another difference between the Old Firm fans I observe is that a handy chunk of Blues absolutely detest Catholics to an irrational level while I don’t see Greens hating on Prods the same way (Rangers fans maybe).
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
I'd be more likely to go and hear Bad Al and Rory the Tory than I would say the News Agents.
I know that in some areas they have significant specialist and personal knowledge beyond what I have, whereas Maitlis, Lewis Goodall et al seem to be repeating fairly general current affairs stuff I was aware of a fortnight previously.
The News Agents are more like a "Portrait of the Week" column, with relatively little depth.
I'm more questioning of the format than the quality.
People are paying £40 or so a time to go and see these three twats sit on stage and pontificate in theatres. They have just announced another three "gigs" so they must have some sort of appeal/fan base for their generic bland centrist Dad chatting.
1,000 tickets at £40 each, minus a couple of grand in room hire and staging. Not a bad gig if you can get it.
Not bad at all especially when you consider it is just 3 people sitting in a chair talking so would have far fewer overheads than a musical or play where you have a full cast plus many people behind the scenes.
No wonder people go into Podcasting. If you can make it work you can make a good living.
It seems to be mainly the centrists and the left in the UK dominating. The US seems to be more spread across the political range.
Mind you I would guess if GB News looked to do this the online left wing activists would bombard all of the venues with demands the shows are not held and the shows would not be allowed to go ahead.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
I don't have anything new and wacky, I'm afraid. Boring old goal of a free and sovereign Palestine co-existing peacefully with Israel. It's never looked further off but it remains the only long-term sustainable outcome.
There you go. What you want is not achievable for Palestine. Maybe it was once but not any more. But it makes you feel better to trot out this vapid bilge
So the guy actually giving Palestinians a decent humane alternative to death, misery and squalor is Donald Trump. Not you. Think about that
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
I don't have anything new and wacky, I'm afraid. Boring old goal of a free and sovereign Palestine co-existing peacefully with Israel. It's never looked further off but it remains the only long-term sustainable outcome.
Apparently there are some Thai agricultural workers who were picked by Hamas on Oct 7th who 'might' get released this week. No dog in the fight, but they've been kept as 'hostages'. One wonders what Hamas thought the Thai government could or would do.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
I'd be more likely to go and hear Bad Al and Rory the Tory than I would say the News Agents.
I know that in some areas they have significant specialist and personal knowledge beyond what I have, whereas Maitlis, Lewis Goodall et al seem to be repeating fairly general current affairs stuff I was aware of a fortnight previously.
The News Agents are more like a "Portrait of the Week" column, with relatively little depth.
I'm more questioning of the format than the quality.
People are paying £40 or so a time to go and see these three twats sit on stage and pontificate in theatres. They have just announced another three "gigs" so they must have some sort of appeal/fan base for their generic bland centrist Dad chatting.
1,000 tickets at £40 each, minus a couple of grand in room hire and staging. Not a bad gig if you can get it.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
There's this thing in some (all?) Christian psyches about believing the Biblical tale about God giving the Land of Israel to the Jews. And that all the Jews were expelled by the Romans. So the 'Palestinians' moved into take 'Jewish' land.
So once the Jews got a foothold in the Promised Land, the Palestinians should have packed up and gone back from whence they came.
If only it were as simple!
Yes there's some crazy stuff gets talked about "promised lands" and "raptures" etc. All very unhelpful. Doesn't get you one iota nearer a settlement that would work in the Middle East today.
The controversial Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields ruled unlawful by Scottish Court . Consent for development quashed. The gove must now consider the full environmental impact of the emissions from the fields…
The controversial Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields ruled unlawful by Scottish Court . Consent for development quashed. The gove must now consider the full environmental impact of the emissions from the fields…
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
I don't have anything new and wacky, I'm afraid. Boring old goal of a free and sovereign Palestine co-existing peacefully with Israel. It's never looked further off but it remains the only long-term sustainable outcome.
There you go. What you want is not achievable for Palestine. Maybe it was once but not any more. But it makes you feel better to trot out this vapid bilge
So the guy actually giving Palestinians a decent humane alternative to death, misery and squalor is Donald Trump. Not you. Think about that
You only have to look at the trajectory here and Israeli public opinion.
The West Bank and Gaza will, sooner or later, same with the Golan Heights, become part of a greater Israel and the Palestinians will be moved elsewhere and we, along with the US and other western govts will happily go along with it and enable it.
People will have different views on this. I am not offering any opinion. This is a most contentious issue, but I just think this is the inevitability of it all. Especially as after the last 15 months Iran has been so enfeebled.
The Palestinian people will live to rue the day Yasser Arafat turned down a very reasonable settlement for both Israel and themselves.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
I don't have anything new and wacky, I'm afraid. Boring old goal of a free and sovereign Palestine co-existing peacefully with Israel. It's never looked further off but it remains the only long-term sustainable outcome.
There you go. What you want is not achievable for Palestine. Maybe it was once but not any more. But it makes you feel better to trot out this vapid bilge
So the guy actually giving Palestinians a decent humane alternative to death, misery and squalor is Donald Trump. Not you. Think about that
Do you think ‘cleaning out Gaza’ were the words of someone concerned about decent humane alternatives?
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
I'd be more likely to go and hear Bad Al and Rory the Tory than I would say the News Agents.
I know that in some areas they have significant specialist and personal knowledge beyond what I have, whereas Maitlis, Lewis Goodall et al seem to be repeating fairly general current affairs stuff I was aware of a fortnight previously.
The News Agents are more like a "Portrait of the Week" column, with relatively little depth.
I'm more questioning of the format than the quality.
People are paying £40 or so a time to go and see these three twats sit on stage and pontificate in theatres. They have just announced another three "gigs" so they must have some sort of appeal/fan base for their generic bland centrist Dad chatting.
1,000 tickets at £40 each, minus a couple of grand in room hire and staging. Not a bad gig if you can get it.
Not bad at all especially when you consider it is just 3 people sitting in a chair talking so would have far fewer overheads than a musical or play where you have a full cast plus many people behind the scenes.
No wonder people go into Podcasting. If you can make it work you can make a good living.
It seems to be mainly the centrists and the left in the UK dominating. The US seems to be more spread across the political range.
Mind you I would guess if GB News looked to do this the online left wing activists would bombard all of the venues with demands the shows are not held and the shows would not be allowed to go ahead.
The Right / Far Right tend to have larger Youtube followings - eg Mahar Tousi, Black Belt Barrister are both up around 750k.
Live shows tend to be more like the Tommy Robinson demonstration afaics.
Are there any former Tory pols who have done anything live, such as Fizzy Lizzy? Or perhaps they think it beneath them?
My surmise is that they might not like the optics. There would be a bit of a chance that elements of the audience could turn violent or start Sieg Heiling; a significant group of core supporters come from that or football backgrounds, and there's that faction there they do not want to draw attention to.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
I don't have anything new and wacky, I'm afraid. Boring old goal of a free and sovereign Palestine co-existing peacefully with Israel. It's never looked further off but it remains the only long-term sustainable outcome.
There you go. What you want is not achievable for Palestine. Maybe it was once but not any more. But it makes you feel better to trot out this vapid bilge
So the guy actually giving Palestinians a decent humane alternative to death, misery and squalor is Donald Trump. Not you. Think about that
You do adore that great big powerful man, don't you.
And to think you were rooting for him to lose on Nov 5th! I wonder if there's a touch of guilt-driven overcompensation going on now - like what happened with Owen Jones and Jezza after GE17.
Yes I rather think we might be onto something there.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
I don't have anything new and wacky, I'm afraid. Boring old goal of a free and sovereign Palestine co-existing peacefully with Israel. It's never looked further off but it remains the only long-term sustainable outcome.
There you go. What you want is not achievable for Palestine. Maybe it was once but not any more. But it makes you feel better to trot out this vapid bilge
So the guy actually giving Palestinians a decent humane alternative to death, misery and squalor is Donald Trump. Not you. Think about that
Do you think ‘cleaning out Gaza’ were the words of someone concerned about decent humane alternatives?
'Rebuilding" Gaza's towns is going to be a LOT more difficult than rebuilding Germany's or Poland's after WWII.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
I'd be more likely to go and hear Bad Al and Rory the Tory than I would say the News Agents.
I know that in some areas they have significant specialist and personal knowledge beyond what I have, whereas Maitlis, Lewis Goodall et al seem to be repeating fairly general current affairs stuff I was aware of a fortnight previously.
The News Agents are more like a "Portrait of the Week" column, with relatively little depth.
I'm more questioning of the format than the quality.
People are paying £40 or so a time to go and see these three twats sit on stage and pontificate in theatres. They have just announced another three "gigs" so they must have some sort of appeal/fan base for their generic bland centrist Dad chatting.
1,000 tickets at £40 each, minus a couple of grand in room hire and staging. Not a bad gig if you can get it.
Not bad at all especially when you consider it is just 3 people sitting in a chair talking so would have far fewer overheads than a musical or play where you have a full cast plus many people behind the scenes.
No wonder people go into Podcasting. If you can make it work you can make a good living.
It seems to be mainly the centrists and the left in the UK dominating. The US seems to be more spread across the political range.
Mind you I would guess if GB News looked to do this the online left wing activists would bombard all of the venues with demands the shows are not held and the shows would not be allowed to go ahead.
The Right / Far Right tend to have larger Youtube followings - eg Mahar Tousi, Black Belt Barrister are both up around 750k.
Live shows tend to be more like the Tommy Robinson demonstration.
Are there any former Tory pols who have done anything live, such as Fizzy Lizzy? Or perhaps they think it beneath them?
Is Black Belt Barrister far right ?
I used to watch his videos a year or so ago and he was interesting but apolotical. It was matters of law he commented on. Mundane stuff. Private Parking, TV License, Close pass cycling etc etc.
I think the assumption that we must Rejoin, and that it's only a question of time, is as wrong and as lazy as it was only a matter of time before we accepted 'Ever Closer Union' when we were in, and that it was only a case of the pace of change.
There is no gravitational or geopolitical inevitability about full membership of the EU, just as there isn't about anything in politics.
There is a subsection of lefty opinion - we see flashes of it on here - that actively WANTS Palestinian suffering to continue, as it gives them an orgasmically satisfying reason to hate Jews/israel/America/the west/the man
If all the Palestinians abruptly moved to luxury condos in Jakarta and stopped suffering these people would be thoroughly cheesed off
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
I don't have anything new and wacky, I'm afraid. Boring old goal of a free and sovereign Palestine co-existing peacefully with Israel. It's never looked further off but it remains the only long-term sustainable outcome.
Apparently there are some Thai agricultural workers who were picked by Hamas on Oct 7th who 'might' get released this week. No dog in the fight, but they've been kept as 'hostages'. One wonders what Hamas thought the Thai government could or would do.
An absurd and sick situation. Let's hope they are released.
The controversial Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields ruled unlawful by Scottish Court . Consent for development quashed. The gove must now consider the full environmental impact of the emissions from the fields…
Women are suddenly dating much younger men… and here’s the real reason why An American study has found women, like men, prefer younger partners – so what does this mean for the battle of the sexes? ... ... the trend is worth noting – because, until recently, such age gaps were highly unusual. Men often dated much younger women, but women rarely dated much younger men. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2025/01/30/women-dating-younger-men/ (£££)
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
I'd be more likely to go and hear Bad Al and Rory the Tory than I would say the News Agents.
I know that in some areas they have significant specialist and personal knowledge beyond what I have, whereas Maitlis, Lewis Goodall et al seem to be repeating fairly general current affairs stuff I was aware of a fortnight previously.
The News Agents are more like a "Portrait of the Week" column, with relatively little depth.
I'm more questioning of the format than the quality.
People are paying £40 or so a time to go and see these three twats sit on stage and pontificate in theatres. They have just announced another three "gigs" so they must have some sort of appeal/fan base for their generic bland centrist Dad chatting.
1,000 tickets at £40 each, minus a couple of grand in room hire and staging. Not a bad gig if you can get it.
Not bad at all especially when you consider it is just 3 people sitting in a chair talking so would have far fewer overheads than a musical or play where you have a full cast plus many people behind the scenes.
No wonder people go into Podcasting. If you can make it work you can make a good living.
It seems to be mainly the centrists and the left in the UK dominating. The US seems to be more spread across the political range.
Mind you I would guess if GB News looked to do this the online left wing activists would bombard all of the venues with demands the shows are not held and the shows would not be allowed to go ahead.
The Right / Far Right tend to have larger Youtube followings - eg Mahar Tousi, Black Belt Barrister are both up around 750k.
Live shows tend to be more like the Tommy Robinson demonstration.
Are there any former Tory pols who have done anything live, such as Fizzy Lizzy? Or perhaps they think it beneath them?
Is Black Belt Barrister far right ?
I used to watch his videos a year or so ago and he was interesting but apolotical. It was matters of law he commented on. Mundane stuff. Private Parking, TV License, Close pass cycling etc etc.
The Black Belt Barrister has gone down the click route of tv licensing, I've stopped watching him now. I suspect he has/will succumb to the koolaid.
There is a subsection of lefty opinion - we see flashes of it on here - that actively WANTS Palestinian suffering to continue, as it gives them an orgasmically satisfying reason to hate Jews/israel/America/the west/the man
If all the Palestinians abruptly moved to luxury condos in Jakarta and stopped suffering these people would be thoroughly cheesed off
It's all performance politics.
Which is precisely where politics is at these days. No-one is interested in solutions, and that probably hasn't been the case since the early noughties.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
I don't have anything new and wacky, I'm afraid. Boring old goal of a free and sovereign Palestine co-existing peacefully with Israel. It's never looked further off but it remains the only long-term sustainable outcome.
The only problem with that is it requires both sides to be led by people who want to see it happen. And at present neither is. And whilst I can see a path to Netenyahu being replaced...
The Prince of Wales was subjected to chants of “Lizzie’s in a box” and “If you hate the Royal family, clap your hands” by Celtic fans during Aston Villa’s Champions League clash with the Scottish club.
Away supporters also displayed a banner in the stands glorifying an intruder who found his way into Queen Elizabeth II’s Buckingham Palace bedroom, days after Prince William was born.
The Prince of Wales, Villa’s most famous fan, attended Wednesday night’s match and was seen celebrating wildly as Villa raced into a 2-0 lead.
Even if you're into that sort of thing. It's a crap chant. Yeah she is in a box, she died in her late 90s of natural causes nearly 3 years ago. Unless they believe Liz Truss genuinely did bump her off.
As a fair minded and objective republican I am disgusted at the chant, fuck’s sack the guy’s granny died and you’re taking the piss, wind your necks in, there’s an inherent lack of class on the part of some Scots.
The weird thing about Celtic fans isn't that so many of them are twats - that's true of fans of lots of teams - but that they have this weird tendency to take the moral high ground as if Rangers fans are unspeakably awful and Celtic fans are paragons of virtue.
The North West of England is not short of its share of twattish football fans, but AFAICS there is at least a smidgen of self-awareness about them all.
Hung out a lot at McChuils have you? As an Aberdeen fan for my sins, on the moral high ground thing I can observe a difference is that Rangers fans tend to be the ones who live the dream, eg actually being up to their knees in Fenian blood after stabbing people with green and white on.
As another Aberdeen supporter, Celtic have several paranoias. In their minds they are victimised because they are of an Irish Catholic background in a predominantly Scottish / British Protestant society. The Scottish Football authorities favour Rangers as the establishment team. European and World football authorities favour England over Scotland. Therefore they are thrice fucked. The reality is that for reasons of money and support, both Celtic and Rangers are favoured over the rest of Scottish football. There’s a reason the rest of us call them the arse cheeks.
Pretty accurate. I guess since there’s a fair bit of aggro between Dons & Rangers supporters I may be biased but another difference between the Old Firm fans I observe is that a handy chunk of Blues absolutely detest Catholics to an irrational level while I don’t see Greens hating on Prods the same way (Rangers fans maybe).
Sectarianism was very powerful in Scottish football around the time that the modern game and leagues were being founded. Hence two teams in many places, not just Glasgow: Hearts/Hibernian in Edinburgh, Dundee United/Dundee FC and formerly Caledonian and Thistle in Inverness. Aberdeen, however has always only had one team, which at least partly reflects the lower Catholic population there in the late 19th century. So supporters of the Dandy Dons find sectarianism on both sides inimical, but the aggression of the Gers supporters is a particular turn off.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
I'd be more likely to go and hear Bad Al and Rory the Tory than I would say the News Agents.
I know that in some areas they have significant specialist and personal knowledge beyond what I have, whereas Maitlis, Lewis Goodall et al seem to be repeating fairly general current affairs stuff I was aware of a fortnight previously.
The News Agents are more like a "Portrait of the Week" column, with relatively little depth.
I'm more questioning of the format than the quality.
People are paying £40 or so a time to go and see these three twats sit on stage and pontificate in theatres. They have just announced another three "gigs" so they must have some sort of appeal/fan base for their generic bland centrist Dad chatting.
1,000 tickets at £40 each, minus a couple of grand in room hire and staging. Not a bad gig if you can get it.
Not bad at all especially when you consider it is just 3 people sitting in a chair talking so would have far fewer overheads than a musical or play where you have a full cast plus many people behind the scenes.
No wonder people go into Podcasting. If you can make it work you can make a good living.
It seems to be mainly the centrists and the left in the UK dominating. The US seems to be more spread across the political range.
Mind you I would guess if GB News looked to do this the online left wing activists would bombard all of the venues with demands the shows are not held and the shows would not be allowed to go ahead.
The Right / Far Right tend to have larger Youtube followings - eg Mahar Tousi, Black Belt Barrister are both up around 750k.
Live shows tend to be more like the Tommy Robinson demonstration.
Are there any former Tory pols who have done anything live, such as Fizzy Lizzy? Or perhaps they think it beneath them?
Is Black Belt Barrister far right ?
I used to watch his videos a year or so ago and he was interesting but apolotical. It was matters of law he commented on. Mundane stuff. Private Parking, TV License, Close pass cycling etc etc.
The Black Belt Barrister has gone down the click route of tv licensing, I've stopped watching him now. I suspect he has/will succumb to the koolaid.
What a shame as it was an informative channel when I watched it. A finance channel I used to follow went down the same route. It used to be informative but then it changed to clickbait headlines. So a new article would appear "TESLA Stock to fall 50%", you'd click on it to watch it and it would just be refuting what some obscure account on twitter said. Doesn't seem to have done the channel any harm even though it has lost my subscription.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
I don't have anything new and wacky, I'm afraid. Boring old goal of a free and sovereign Palestine co-existing peacefully with Israel. It's never looked further off but it remains the only long-term sustainable outcome.
The only problem with that is it requires both sides to be led by people who want to see it happen. And at present neither is. And whilst I can see a path to Netenyahu being replaced...
Depends who replaces him though. Could be someone even more hardline.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
I'd be more likely to go and hear Bad Al and Rory the Tory than I would say the News Agents.
I know that in some areas they have significant specialist and personal knowledge beyond what I have, whereas Maitlis, Lewis Goodall et al seem to be repeating fairly general current affairs stuff I was aware of a fortnight previously.
The News Agents are more like a "Portrait of the Week" column, with relatively little depth.
I'm more questioning of the format than the quality.
People are paying £40 or so a time to go and see these three twats sit on stage and pontificate in theatres. They have just announced another three "gigs" so they must have some sort of appeal/fan base for their generic bland centrist Dad chatting.
1,000 tickets at £40 each, minus a couple of grand in room hire and staging. Not a bad gig if you can get it.
Not bad at all especially when you consider it is just 3 people sitting in a chair talking so would have far fewer overheads than a musical or play where you have a full cast plus many people behind the scenes.
No wonder people go into Podcasting. If you can make it work you can make a good living.
It seems to be mainly the centrists and the left in the UK dominating. The US seems to be more spread across the political range.
Mind you I would guess if GB News looked to do this the online left wing activists would bombard all of the venues with demands the shows are not held and the shows would not be allowed to go ahead.
The Right / Far Right tend to have larger Youtube followings - eg Mahar Tousi, Black Belt Barrister are both up around 750k.
Live shows tend to be more like the Tommy Robinson demonstration.
Are there any former Tory pols who have done anything live, such as Fizzy Lizzy? Or perhaps they think it beneath them?
Is Black Belt Barrister far right ?
I used to watch his videos a year or so ago and he was interesting but apolotical. It was matters of law he commented on. Mundane stuff. Private Parking, TV License, Close pass cycling etc etc.
The Black Belt Barrister has gone down the click route of tv licensing, I've stopped watching him now. I suspect he has/will succumb to the koolaid.
What a shame as it was an informative channel when I watched it. A finance channel I used to follow went down the same route. It used to be informative but then it changed to clickbait headlines. So a new article would appear "TESLA Stock to fall 50%", you'd click on it to watch it and it would just be refuting what some obscure account on twitter said. Doesn't seem to have done the channel any harm even though it has lost my subscription.
It all feeds the algorithm.
There was an article posted yesterday that said the decline of social media started when Facebook invented the Like button and Twitter (as was) invented the Retweet button. I beg to differ - the real problem is the development of algorithms to drive engagement which required driving dissent. Those algorithms require like/share/retweet/etc but like/share/retweet/etc don't require there to be destructive algorithms.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
I don't have anything new and wacky, I'm afraid. Boring old goal of a free and sovereign Palestine co-existing peacefully with Israel. It's never looked further off but it remains the only long-term sustainable outcome.
The only problem with that is it requires both sides to be led by people who want to see it happen. And at present neither is. And whilst I can see a path to Netenyahu being replaced...
Depends who replaces him though. Could be someone even more hardline.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
I don't have anything new and wacky, I'm afraid. Boring old goal of a free and sovereign Palestine co-existing peacefully with Israel. It's never looked further off but it remains the only long-term sustainable outcome.
I doubt that a separate Palestinian state is viable - not geographically contiguous, the extreme Israelis and Palestinians would also constantly seek to undermine it and the Iranians would always to looking to cause trouble.
I think that the more sustainable outcome long term is for Israelis and Palestinian Arabs to coexist together in a Greater Israel/Palestine/Israeli-Palestinian Federation/whatever. Jews and Arabs coexisted in Palestine for centuries before Zionism (after the 8th century dispersals) and might be able to do so again. The 2 million Israeli Arabs whose ancestors survived ethnic cleansing in the 1940s show it is at least possible.
The extreme Israelis would have to give up the idea of Israeli as a Jewish state and move towards acceptance of multiculturalism and the extreme Palestinian juihadis would have to give up the idea of pushing the Jews out.
Would it be perfect or a panacea? No. Can I see an easy way to get there from here? Not really. But it would be a viable country with at least a chance of working.
We will never Rejoin because it will never be worth any UK government expending the political capital required (and this is setting aside problems like the euro, Schenghen, a decade of negotiation, fisheries, migration, possible veto by any one of 27 EU nations)
Think about it. Why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing well and you're high in the polls? You wouldn't take the risk, referendums are horribly risky, pointless
But then, why would you call a Rejoin referendum if you are doing badly and everyone hates you, again you are simply offering the voters a chance to give you a kicking and vote against anything you desire
The only way we might Rejoin is if we are literally starving to death and some national coalition proposes it as the only solution, but then the Europeans will surely veto us as a basket case that will drag down the EU economy
We are never going to Rejoin. It is not practical politics in the real world. Better to accept it
I think this looked to be true pre-Trump, and pre the time when Trumpism might shape the USA for the long term. I don't think it looks certain now.
Why? I know TRIP, the Rory and Campbell show, is not universally popular but the most recent discussion is pretty chilling on the evidence for the direction the USA is going in
Rory fucking Stewart is a fucking imbecile. Really. Alistair Campbell is a depressed alcoholic with a huge guilt trip about Iraq. Together they have the political acuity of a cheese toastie
However, I said 95% certain we won't rejoin and not 100% because, black swans
A massive world war, or the USA become a hostile dictatorship would indeed be a very black swan and easily enough to see us back in the EU (and there would probably be even greater sequelae)
But, I don't any of these as more than 5% possibilities, combined
Point taken, though it is possible to miss the wood for your ad hominem trees. (And Rory was my MP, and I wish he still was, and he is genuinely interesting. They are both, in TS Eliot's words 'wounded surgeons').
In probabilities, I think the chance of straight Rejoin EU is fairly small, but the chance (say in the next generation) of some sort of deal, the Switzerland or Norway sort, is more like 30%.
Additionally, the chances of America ceasing to be an active ally and turning its attention away from Europe and NATO are not negligible. Wait and see. We are only 10 days in to the new reality.
Their analysis of Trump (I just watched ten minutes of it) is on the level of a quite bright sixth former. I am regularly astonished by the way apparently clever people - such as you - buy this intellectual pap tricked out as powerful insight
Says the guy who voted for Starmer.
I'm watching more of it now, it's pure midwittery and entirely shite
Stewart has just said "Trump is calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza" which is such a ridiculous misreading it is either a deliberate lie OR more evidence that they really are quite dim
Trump thinks outside the box. He is saying "maybe the Gazans would be better off giving up on their shit lives in Gaza and having a much richer, more peaceful life elsewhere". And, of course, Trump has a very good point. Hamas wants the Palestinians trapped in Gaza forever, their misery endless, their suffering a constant source of grevance and militancy - because we all know Israel will never agree to a 2 state solution, not now
And yet Trump saying "Hey here's a better choice for Gazans than the endless pain that Hamas offers" is somehow Trump calling for ethnic cleansing?! According to Rory "wow who knew immigration was so high" Stewart?
Enuff. Only idiots are taken in by this pabulum. I am disappointed @algarkirk is one of them
I know two otherwise-sensible people who have paid actual money to see Stewart and Campbell in a theatre.
Destroying a region's infrastructure, blocking supplies and encouraging the inhabitants to seek refuge elsewhere so that other people (of a different ethnicity) can move in and build their own homes and infrastructure funded by government isn't ethnic cleansing? He may not be directly calling for it but he is tacitly supporting it.
Trump is offering a better future for Gazans than Hamas or the Palestinian Authority are offering. Its realpolitik
Also, it's not like this is some unprecedented evil; deliberate population movements - to solve intractable problems - happen all the time. Greeks and Turks after WW1, Muslims and Hindus at Partition, Germans after WW2, and many others
The alternative is that the Palestinians continue to squat there in perpetual misery because
1. Israel now won't ever yield to a two state solution
and
2. The Palestinians cannot defeat Israel, and nor can anyone else without nuking them (and getting nuked in return) and thereby rendering the entire Levant uninhabitable for 20,000 years
What wonderful examples of things that aren't 'ethnic cleansing'. Idiot.
Which is why I called it a “ridiculous misreading” of Trump
I mean, go ahead and call it “ethnic cleansing” if you want, that enables you to ignore the fact it’s actually an imaginative and humane solution to this hideous 70 year nightmare
In an ideal world Israelis would get over October 7 and ask for 2 states and Gazans would not be enraged anti Semites. But this is not an ideal world, and Trump has bruited the only possible solution that might make Palestinian lives a lot better and fast while giving Israel security
You and Trump may well be right, and this might be what happens. But as a thought experiment, post the same suggestion in reverse – that Israelis should abandon the Middle East and move en masse to set up a new state in America – and you will be cancelled for antisemitism. And that is what is wrong with Trump's idea.
The shoulder shrugging about Gaza and ideas like this from Trump rest on the belief that Palestinians are not 'proper people'.
Quite the opposite. It’s addressing them as human beings who want a life beyond eternal squalor poverty and martyrdom for Hamas
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
I don't have anything new and wacky, I'm afraid. Boring old goal of a free and sovereign Palestine co-existing peacefully with Israel. It's never looked further off but it remains the only long-term sustainable outcome.
The only problem with that is it requires both sides to be led by people who want to see it happen. And at present neither is. And whilst I can see a path to Netenyahu being replaced...
Depends who replaces him though. Could be someone even more hardline.
Whoever it is I can guarantee they won’t let Gaza control its own borders. Never again - not after October 7. So Gazans face an eternity in a vast open prison
The controversial Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields ruled unlawful by Scottish Court . Consent for development quashed. The gove must now consider the full environmental impact of the emissions from the fields…
There is a subsection of lefty opinion - we see flashes of it on here - that actively WANTS Palestinian suffering to continue, as it gives them an orgasmically satisfying reason to hate Jews/israel/America/the west/the man
If all the Palestinians abruptly moved to luxury condos in Jakarta and stopped suffering these people would be thoroughly cheesed off
Ah so we're doing amateur hour psychiatric projections are we. Let me have a bash.
There is a subsection of hard right opinion - we see flashes of it on here - that views the Middle East as comprising a small bunch of plucky civilised white people surrounded by hordes of filthy backward arabs who'd cut your head off as soon as look at you.
Comments
https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/work-visas-and-migrant-workers-in-the-uk/
Until we can act like the French and just not see anything inconvenient I don't see how it will help.
We need to fix the country ourselves and not hope against hope that someone else will do it for us.
Rewrite it in English
I know from colleagues here that living in working in London now brings in less after housing costs than doing the same back in countries like Serbia, Croatia, Poland, Czechia.
The reality is that for reasons of money and support, both Celtic and Rangers are favoured over the rest of Scottish football. There’s a reason the rest of us call them the arse cheeks.
If I were Starmer I’d be proposing a swap deal. UK rejoins, Hungary and Slovakia are kicked out, and our contributions are offset by the EU spending saved by no longer having to subsidise those 2 countries.
FWIW, Wiki doesn't describe him as a businessman, just as a journalist and broadcaster.
Graves damaged by drivers using cemetery as shortcut
My photo quota:
"We'd been getting complaints from various members of the public about cars using the cemetery as a shortcut.
"It's not just the volume [of cars], it's the speed." Mr Calway said people have been driving along the 5mph (8km/h) road at "up to 35mph (56km/h).
Wooden bollards were initially installed to stop people using the road, but Mr Calway said they were removed by drivers and thrown into nearby hedges.
Funding via the liveable neighbourhood scheme has since enabled the installation of metal bollards.
But Mr Calway said some vehicles have been using the cemetery's narrow footpaths, where even hearses are not permitted.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2egj8ezm0no
Put a paragraph in the bill -
“This bill encompasses and supersedes all requirements for reports and investigations required by other legislation.”
Or some such.
Then the Fox Killer can go to the Supreme Court, to be told again that Parliament is Sovereign.
I'll leave you with it before I nip out to go under the knife today.
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1884827215856128254
There wasn't even a way for a country to leave of their own volition for the first half century (Greenland bodge excluded in the 1980s iirc), and then it was deliberately designed to be as difficult as possible.
The controversial Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields ruled unlawful by Scottish Court . Consent for development quashed. The gove must now consider the full environmental impact of the emissions from the fields…
https://x.com/alextomo/status/1884906748986663291?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Yes it’s unideal for them. But it is the only idea out there that might radically improve their lives and in short order
Alternatively you can suggest your idea
It’s like Britain is determined to commit economic suicide because the elite has been ideologically captured by a cabal of halfwits that hates Britain
Nigel is our only hope
Having a vitrectomy.
It also sounds painful
Good luck! 👍
Good luck
And that all the Jews were expelled by the Romans.
So the 'Palestinians' moved into take 'Jewish' land.
So once the Jews got a foothold in the Promised Land, the Palestinians should have packed up and gone back from whence they came.
If only it were as simple!
I was a remainer. We lost. Around a decade from the actual leaving is a reasonable time to evaluate whether we should rejoin. Not before.
He was the Continuing Anglican priest (connected to the Far Right, says teh Daily Mail) who was chucked out of GB News for conspiracy theories and supporting Dan Wootton, and ran away to the USA.
He's just been chucked out of his church for making an Elon Salute at an anti-abortion rally. Oooops.
Apparently, "this is the last stand for Christendom".
https://www.thedailybeast.com/right-wing-catholic-priest-father-calvin-robinson-hits-the-musk-salute-at-pro-life-talk/
Anyway got to go; play nicely.
We, the people, deserve it for our political choices that have brought this about.
Welcome to managed decline. We deserve it.
The decision hinges on applying a later ruling retrospectively.
From the BBC article.
As part of the original consenting process, environmental impact assessments were carried out to identify, describe and assess "the direct and indirect effects" of the projects.
Those assessments took into account emissions generated by the process of extracting oil and gas but not the greenhouse gases which would be released when those fossil fuels were eventually burned - known as "downstream" or "Scope 3" emissions.
But last June, in a dispute about oil wells near London's Gatwick Airport, the UK Supreme Court ruled that environmental impact assessments must also include downstream emissions.
Now Lord Ericht has ruled that the decision in that case – Finch v Surrey County Council – should apply retrospectively to Rosebank and Jackdaw.
As a result, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and the regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (formerly known as the Oil and Gas Authority), must reconsider whether or not to grant consent, taking into account those downstream emissions.
I guess since there’s a fair bit of aggro between Dons & Rangers supporters I may be biased but another difference between the Old Firm fans I observe is that a handy chunk of Blues absolutely detest Catholics to an irrational level while I don’t see Greens hating on Prods the same way (Rangers fans maybe).
Just the Chancellor of the Exchequer being made to look a fool by Richard Madeley 🤣
https://x.com/i/status/1884903286169362827
No wonder people go into Podcasting. If you can make it work you can make a good living.
It seems to be mainly the centrists and the left in the UK dominating. The US seems to be more spread across the political range.
Mind you I would guess if GB News looked to do this the online left wing activists would bombard all of the venues with demands the shows are not held and the shows would not be allowed to go ahead.
So the guy actually giving Palestinians a decent humane alternative to death, misery and squalor is Donald Trump. Not you. Think about that
No dog in the fight, but they've been kept as 'hostages'. One wonders what Hamas thought the Thai government could or would do.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/07/16/brexiteers-you-may-need-a-stiff-drink/
The West Bank and Gaza will, sooner or later, same with the Golan Heights, become part of a greater Israel and the Palestinians will be moved elsewhere and we, along with the US and other western govts will happily go along with it and enable it.
People will have different views on this. I am not offering any opinion. This is a most contentious issue, but I just think this is the inevitability of it all. Especially as after the last 15 months Iran has been so enfeebled.
The Palestinian people will live to rue the day Yasser Arafat turned down a very reasonable settlement for both Israel and themselves.
Live shows tend to be more like the Tommy Robinson demonstration afaics.
Are there any former Tory pols who have done anything live, such as Fizzy Lizzy? Or perhaps they think it beneath them?
My surmise is that they might not like the optics. There would be a bit of a chance that elements of the audience could turn violent or start Sieg Heiling; a significant group of core supporters come from that or football backgrounds, and there's that faction there they do not want to draw attention to.
And to think you were rooting for him to lose on Nov 5th! I wonder if there's a touch of guilt-driven overcompensation going on now - like what happened with Owen Jones and Jezza after GE17.
Yes I rather think we might be onto something there.
I used to watch his videos a year or so ago and he was interesting but apolotical. It was matters of law he commented on. Mundane stuff. Private Parking, TV License, Close pass cycling etc etc.
There is no gravitational or geopolitical inevitability about full membership of the EU, just as there isn't about anything in politics.
So that is a positive.
If all the Palestinians abruptly moved to luxury condos in Jakarta and stopped suffering these people would be thoroughly cheesed off
Those days are gone.
They aren't coming back.
It now makes virtually any infrastructure or energy project judiciable. If they want to change that, the legislation needs revision.
An American study has found women, like men, prefer younger partners – so what does this mean for the battle of the sexes?
...
... the trend is worth noting – because, until recently, such age gaps were highly unusual. Men often dated much younger women, but women rarely dated much younger men.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2025/01/30/women-dating-younger-men/ (£££)
Which is precisely where politics is at these days. No-one is interested in solutions, and that probably hasn't been the case since the early noughties.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10008507/mr-stop-brexit-steve-bray-man-parliament/
There was an article posted yesterday that said the decline of social media started when Facebook invented the Like button and Twitter (as was) invented the Retweet button. I beg to differ - the real problem is the development of algorithms to drive engagement which required driving dissent. Those algorithms require like/share/retweet/etc but like/share/retweet/etc don't require there to be destructive algorithms.
I think that the more sustainable outcome long term is for Israelis and Palestinian Arabs to coexist together in a Greater Israel/Palestine/Israeli-Palestinian Federation/whatever. Jews and Arabs coexisted in Palestine for centuries before Zionism (after the 8th century dispersals) and might be able to do so again. The 2 million Israeli Arabs whose ancestors survived ethnic cleansing in the 1940s show it is at least possible.
The extreme Israelis would have to give up the idea of Israeli as a Jewish state and move towards acceptance of multiculturalism and the extreme Palestinian juihadis would have to give up the idea of pushing the Jews out.
Would it be perfect or a panacea? No. Can I see an easy way to get there from here? Not really. But it would be a viable country with at least a chance of working.
Or a trumpian alternative away from Gaza
There is a subsection of hard right opinion - we see flashes of it on here - that views the Middle East as comprising a small bunch of plucky civilised white people surrounded by hordes of filthy backward arabs who'd cut your head off as soon as look at you.
Anything in that, do we think?