The 1930 election for the US House of Representatives had an odd outcome: "While the Democrats gained 52 seats in the 1930 midterm elections, Republicans retained a narrow one-seat majority of 218 seats after the polls closed versus the Democrats' 216 seats; however, during the 13 months between these elections and the end of the 72nd Congress,[4] 14 members-elect died (including incumbent Speaker Nicholas Longworth), and the Democrats gained an additional three seats in the special elections called to fill these vacancies, thus gaining control of the House (they held a 219–212 advantage over the Republicans when the new Congress convened)." (Links omitted.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections
(Could something similar happen this year or next? Sure, though as of now, I would say the odds are against it. To get a good estimate, you'd need and expert look at life expectancies in both parties, and state rules on special elections.)
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
What happens, if U.K. and France form a security alliance that includes a bunch of European states and Ukraine? Complete with a nuclear guarantee.
If in a deal from talks, Putin doesn’t sign such a deal, so the war goes on. The only deal Putin will sign is a deal leaving a weak and exposed Ukraine his country can interfere with.
The security guarantees you suggest outside of negotiated deal? To be honest, UK and France won’t sign that, or anything with security guarantees from them that could easily trigger a bigger crisis than this one, drag them into this or a larger conflict. If I’m right, then yes, all these hugs are very short termist and very hollow.
How would you answer the question of how independent is the UK nuclear deterrent, to be able to commit it as you suggest? All the Chagos investigation I have been doing, has left me with impression UK defence and security is so very much woven in with the US. UK has down the decades become locked and interlocked with US on defence and intelligence, I think it is in part what has led us to the Chagos Deal US and India want us to sign, and leaves a genuine question how quickly UK could untangle itself from US and become independent, if it really needed to. If I am right in that as well, we have to acknowledge the part it plays in all Whitehall decisions taken.
I don’t see any posts to PB taking into account how deeply UK is in bed with US on military technology and intelligence, and acknowledging the huge impact this has on political decision making.
I literally posted exactly this with regard to Five Eyes earlier this afternoon. A repeat of the same posting I made yesterday.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
Not at all. Russia is already struggling - why do you think they are relying on North Korea to provide cannon fodder? What is important is to do what Ukraine wants and keep them in the game. Make sure they can continue to fight this war and force Russia into concessions. It doesn't ned Putin to agree to Ukraine joining NATO, not at the moment. That can come later. What it needs is for NATO minus the USA to give Ukraine they need to carry on the fight.
Setting aside the fact that US volunteer fighters have died defending Ukraine, this U-turn is so sharp, I'm surprised it didn't dislocate his neck.
Lindsey Graham on Feb. 14: "You're the ally I've been hoping for all my life. Not one American has d*ed defending Ukraine."
Lindsey Graham on Feb. 28: "I don't know if we can ever do business with Zelensky again. I think most Americans saw a guy that they would not wanna go in business with." https://x.com/PolymarketIntel/status/1895920750491828493
Governor Josh Shapiro: He went from being the leader of the Free World to now, in just one month, wanting to be a leader of a single hemisphere, leaving China and Russia in charge of the other hemispheres. That is deeply, deeply dangerous for America’s national security interests. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1895953699811275105
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
Not at all. Russia is already struggling - why do you think they are relying on North Korea to provide cannon fodder? What is important is to do what Ukraine wants and keep them in the game. Make sure they can continue to fight this war and force Russia into concessions. It doesn't ned Putin to agree to Ukraine joining NATO, not at the moment. That can come later. What it needs is for NATO minus the USA to give Ukraine they need to carry on the fight.
What weapons would those be, from our run-down stocks? We can give Ukraine money to buy American arms, but those sales would need American government approval – and to be in time for use, would need to come from US Army stocks. Arms manufacturing pipelines are long and slow. Taiwan is currently taking delivery of weapons it bought during the first Trump presidency.
Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield, despite its huge death tolls, or at least is not losing. The Russian economy has not collapsed, despite sanctions, and as soon as peace breaks out and sanctions are lifted, Russia can rebuild its treasury by resuming exports of its dig-and-sell commodities, including gas and oil.
So what Ukraine needs is America back in the game, at least as backstop. With American support, Russia cannot win. Without it (and even with it under Trump) the best Ukraine can hope for is not to give too much away in any ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
So in the short term, America needs Starmer and Lammy and Mandelson, and also Healey through Nato, to patch things up with the White House, at least to get things back to where they were before Vance and Zelensky started arguing.
JUST IN: Judge Jackson rules that it is constitutional for the Office of Special Counsel to assert independence from the President. He has legitimate authority to act free of removal by the President without cause, she rules.
Governor Josh Shapiro: He went from being the leader of the Free World to now, in just one month, wanting to be a leader of a single hemisphere, leaving China and Russia in charge of the other hemispheres. That is deeply, deeply dangerous for America’s national security interests. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1895953699811275105
Maybe. It is true of Russia, but America is still arming Taiwan. Trump's beef against China goes back decades.
The paradox is, that if Taiwan falls, America loses access to its chips so it may be in America's selfish interest to onshore Taiwan's chip-making (and any other manufacturing) industry, and once it has done that, defending Taiwan is less important. We are already starting to see this technology transfer.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
An unremarked point in all this is that the UK has got this premier role in global politics at the moment because of Brexit. The UK sitting outside the EU is allowing for the EU to be sidelined in all of this. Were we still EU members and all other things being equal, there would be absolutely huge pressure on the PM and Macron to coordinate everything through some EU based response which would make it all watered down and worthless. By virtue of not being in the EU the UK has allowed France to also sidestep needing to corral 27 countries into a unified response. As it stands the UK is working directly with France as the other recognised European nuclear abs military power and there's no pressure on either party to consult with Von der Layen and all of the other useless EU commissioners.
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
That’s some extreme straw clutching, there.
The response from around Europe has mostly been fast, and resolute, with the two from the senior EU people being the strongest of all.
And the logical fail in your post is the references to France taking its own position while inside the EU. There is no reason why the UK couldn’t have done the same had we still been a member. Defence remains a matter of national rather than EU politics.
Governor Josh Shapiro: He went from being the leader of the Free World to now, in just one month, wanting to be a leader of a single hemisphere, leaving China and Russia in charge of the other hemispheres. That is deeply, deeply dangerous for America’s national security interests. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1895953699811275105
Maybe. It is true of Russia, but America is still arming Taiwan. Trump's beef against China goes back decades.
The paradox is, that if Taiwan falls, America loses access to its chips so it may be in America's selfish interest to onshore Taiwan's chip-making (and any other manufacturing) industry, and once it has done that, defending Taiwan is less important. We are already starting to see this technology transfer.
If you were Taiwanese, would you rely on Trump right now ?
The 'technology transfer" will take a decade or more, if it ever happens. The new US plants are not the leading edge; Intel has a better shot of providing that this decade.
The US has a huge strategic interest in defending Taiwan's independence, but with Trump, who the hell knows ?
An unremarked point in all this is that the UK has got this premier role in global politics at the moment because of Brexit. The UK sitting outside the EU is allowing for the EU to be sidelined in all of this. Were we still EU members and all other things being equal, there would be absolutely huge pressure on the PM and Macron to coordinate everything through some EU based response which would make it all watered down and worthless. By virtue of not being in the EU the UK has allowed France to also sidestep needing to corral 27 countries into a unified response. As it stands the UK is working directly with France as the other recognised European nuclear abs military power and there's no pressure on either party to consult with Von der Layen and all of the other useless EU commissioners.
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
That’s some extreme straw clutching, there.
The response from around Europe has mostly been fast, and resolute, with the two from the senior EU people being the strongest of all.
And the logical fail in your post is the references to France taking its own position while inside the EU. There is no reason why the UK couldn’t have done the same had we still been a member. Defence remains a matter of national rather than EU politics.
I think this crisis shows the irrelevance of the Brexit debate. All that energy expended for very little achieved and really not all that much changed.
Governor Josh Shapiro: He went from being the leader of the Free World to now, in just one month, wanting to be a leader of a single hemisphere, leaving China and Russia in charge of the other hemispheres. That is deeply, deeply dangerous for America’s national security interests. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1895953699811275105
Maybe. It is true of Russia, but America is still arming Taiwan. Trump's beef against China goes back decades.
The paradox is, that if Taiwan falls, America loses access to its chips so it may be in America's selfish interest to onshore Taiwan's chip-making (and any other manufacturing) industry, and once it has done that, defending Taiwan is less important. We are already starting to see this technology transfer.
If you were Taiwanese, would you rely on Trump right now ?
The 'technology transfer" will take a decade or more, if it ever happens. The new US plants are not the leading edge; Intel has a better shot of providing that this decade.
The US has a huge strategic interest in defending Taiwan's independence, but with Trump, who the hell knows ?
TBF I think not answering that question was US policy up until Biden. Biden answered it but then his staff sort-of walked it back towards ambiguity by saying the position hadn't changed and it was never clear if Biden had moved to away from strategic ambiguity on purpose or if he was just failing to nail the line because he was always bad at nailing lines and got worse as he got older.
Governor Josh Shapiro: He went from being the leader of the Free World to now, in just one month, wanting to be a leader of a single hemisphere, leaving China and Russia in charge of the other hemispheres. That is deeply, deeply dangerous for America’s national security interests. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1895953699811275105
Maybe. It is true of Russia, but America is still arming Taiwan. Trump's beef against China goes back decades.
The paradox is, that if Taiwan falls, America loses access to its chips so it may be in America's selfish interest to onshore Taiwan's chip-making (and any other manufacturing) industry, and once it has done that, defending Taiwan is less important. We are already starting to see this technology transfer.
If you were Taiwanese, would you rely on Trump right now ?
The 'technology transfer" will take a decade or more, if it ever happens. The new US plants are not the leading edge; Intel has a better shot of providing that this decade.
The US has a huge strategic interest in defending Taiwan's independence, but with Trump, who the hell knows ?
TBF I think not answering that question was US policy up until Biden. Biden answered it but then his staff sort-of walked it back towards ambiguity by saying the position hadn't changed and it was never clear if Biden had moved to away from strategic ambiguity on purpose or if he was just failing to nail the line because he was always bad at nailing lines and got worse as he got older.
Oh, I understand that. It’s the context the question is being asked in that gives it its force.
For now, military aid continues to Taiwan, but I very much hope Xi doesn’t have a gambling streak in him.
F1: for anyone who missed it, you can back Piastri on Ladbrokes each way at 13 (boosted to 14). He now has a lay down to 10 on Betfair, which means you can just guarantee profit on the straight title win/loss, or you can go each way and have the chance for both to pay out if he's 2nd or 3rd.
Governor Josh Shapiro: He went from being the leader of the Free World to now, in just one month, wanting to be a leader of a single hemisphere, leaving China and Russia in charge of the other hemispheres. That is deeply, deeply dangerous for America’s national security interests. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1895953699811275105
Maybe. It is true of Russia, but America is still arming Taiwan. Trump's beef against China goes back decades.
The paradox is, that if Taiwan falls, America loses access to its chips so it may be in America's selfish interest to onshore Taiwan's chip-making (and any other manufacturing) industry, and once it has done that, defending Taiwan is less important. We are already starting to see this technology transfer.
If you were Taiwanese, would you rely on Trump right now ?
The 'technology transfer" will take a decade or more, if it ever happens. The new US plants are not the leading edge; Intel has a better shot of providing that this decade.
The US has a huge strategic interest in defending Taiwan's independence, but with Trump, who the hell knows ?
It's very clear that Trump's sympathies would be with China if it invaded Taiwan.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
Not at all. Russia is already struggling - why do you think they are relying on North Korea to provide cannon fodder? What is important is to do what Ukraine wants and keep them in the game. Make sure they can continue to fight this war and force Russia into concessions. It doesn't ned Putin to agree to Ukraine joining NATO, not at the moment. That can come later. What it needs is for NATO minus the USA to give Ukraine they need to carry on the fight.
What weapons would those be, from our run-down stocks? We can give Ukraine money to buy American arms, but those sales would need American government approval – and to be in time for use, would need to come from US Army stocks. Arms manufacturing pipelines are long and slow. Taiwan is currently taking delivery of weapons it bought during the first Trump presidency.
Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield, despite its huge death tolls, or at least is not losing. The Russian economy has not collapsed, despite sanctions, and as soon as peace breaks out and sanctions are lifted, Russia can rebuild its treasury by resuming exports of its dig-and-sell commodities, including gas and oil.
So what Ukraine needs is America back in the game, at least as backstop. With American support, Russia cannot win. Without it (and even with it under Trump) the best Ukraine can hope for is not to give too much away in any ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
So in the short term, America needs Starmer and Lammy and Mandelson, and also Healey through Nato, to patch things up with the White House, at least to get things back to where they were before Vance and Zelensky started arguing.
Ukraine has developed long-range drones capable of trashing the Russian economy. It needs European/friendly help in making their production facilities safe from being hit - and building at scale. So production facilities outside Ukraine at a scale that not only arms Ukraine, but also its allies. Russia's oil and gas exports are already greatly suffering - maybe 15-20% of storage and refining capacity is out. The owners haven't the cash to repair and can't afford 21% interest rates to borrow. Putin cannot defy economic reality for another year.
The US alone lifting sanctions will not be enough to allow China back to trade with Russia for the hydrocarbons currently suspended. It cannot afford to lose European/friendly country markets. Driving a wedge between China and Russia is a sound policy - much as it may piss off MAGA 'murica.
An unremarked point in all this is that the UK has got this premier role in global politics at the moment because of Brexit. The UK sitting outside the EU is allowing for the EU to be sidelined in all of this. Were we still EU members and all other things being equal, there would be absolutely huge pressure on the PM and Macron to coordinate everything through some EU based response which would make it all watered down and worthless. By virtue of not being in the EU the UK has allowed France to also sidestep needing to corral 27 countries into a unified response. As it stands the UK is working directly with France as the other recognised European nuclear abs military power and there's no pressure on either party to consult with Von der Layen and all of the other useless EU commissioners.
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
That’s some extreme straw clutching, there.
The response from around Europe has mostly been fast, and resolute, with the two from the senior EU people being the strongest of all.
And the logical fail in your post is the references to France taking its own position while inside the EU. There is no reason why the UK couldn’t have done the same had we still been a member. Defence remains a matter of national rather than EU politics.
The three strongest have a position irrespective of the EU. Smaller EU members have been infiltrated by Russia so as to be flies in the EU ointment. If Russia thought Brexit would peel off the UK from standing by a NATO-ex USA grouping, that has proven a forlorn hope.
Te EU is a straw man regarding Ukraine. It's about doing the right to protect Europe from Russian aggression - including Moscow-friendly EU members.
The EU may need to look at suspending countries such as Hungary. Let them suffer lack of EU support - until they discover Russia can't help them economically.
An unremarked point in all this is that the UK has got this premier role in global politics at the moment because of Brexit. The UK sitting outside the EU is allowing for the EU to be sidelined in all of this. Were we still EU members and all other things being equal, there would be absolutely huge pressure on the PM and Macron to coordinate everything through some EU based response which would make it all watered down and worthless. By virtue of not being in the EU the UK has allowed France to also sidestep needing to corral 27 countries into a unified response. As it stands the UK is working directly with France as the other recognised European nuclear abs military power and there's no pressure on either party to consult with Von der Layen and all of the other useless EU commissioners.
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
That’s some extreme straw clutching, there.
The response from around Europe has mostly been fast, and resolute, with the two from the senior EU people being the strongest of all.
And the logical fail in your post is the references to France taking its own position while inside the EU. There is no reason why the UK couldn’t have done the same had we still been a member. Defence remains a matter of national rather than EU politics.
The three strongest have a position irrespective of the EU. Smaller EU members have been infiltrated by Russia so as to be flies in the EU ointment. If Russia thought Brexit would peel off the UK from standing by a NATO-ex USA grouping, that has proven a forlorn hope.
Te EU is a straw man regarding Ukraine. It's about doing the right to protect Europe from Russian aggression - including Moscow-friendly EU members.
The EU may need to look at suspending countries such as Hungary. Let them suffer lack of EU support - until they discover Russia can't help them economically.
Which smaller states? Most are now fiercely anti Putin...
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
OK, sure. I agree there are problems with this sort of polling. So, do you think there is a mechanism between elections “so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker”, as per rcs1000’s suggestion?
Yes: every week there should be a byelection in a random seat. That means that - over the course of a four year parliament - there are about 220 byelections.
Wouldn’t the likely result of that be voters voting against the incumbent, leading to perpetual hung parliaments or small majorities, dependent on shifting coalitions? Some degree of stability is a good thing.
There has always been a strong undercurrent of isolationism in the United States, especially in Republican ranks. It seems unlikely that Elon Musk would make such an announcement on behalf of the government but it might show which way the winds are blowing.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
Not at all. Russia is already struggling - why do you think they are relying on North Korea to provide cannon fodder? What is important is to do what Ukraine wants and keep them in the game. Make sure they can continue to fight this war and force Russia into concessions. It doesn't ned Putin to agree to Ukraine joining NATO, not at the moment. That can come later. What it needs is for NATO minus the USA to give Ukraine they need to carry on the fight.
What weapons would those be, from our run-down stocks? We can give Ukraine money to buy American arms, but those sales would need American government approval – and to be in time for use, would need to come from US Army stocks. Arms manufacturing pipelines are long and slow. Taiwan is currently taking delivery of weapons it bought during the first Trump presidency.
Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield, despite its huge death tolls, or at least is not losing. The Russian economy has not collapsed, despite sanctions, and as soon as peace breaks out and sanctions are lifted, Russia can rebuild its treasury by resuming exports of its dig-and-sell commodities, including gas and oil.
So what Ukraine needs is America back in the game, at least as backstop. With American support, Russia cannot win. Without it (and even with it under Trump) the best Ukraine can hope for is not to give too much away in any ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
So in the short term, America needs Starmer and Lammy and Mandelson, and also Healey through Nato, to patch things up with the White House, at least to get things back to where they were before Vance and Zelensky started arguing.
That's true and not true.
Every critique of Ukraine is also true of Russia:
It can't win without foreign assistance. It's economy is faltering. There's a limited stock of weapons for them to draw down.
Ultimately, the "bear case" for Ukraine is that it cannot win because Russia has so many more resources. But is that true? Russia has 3x the population of Ukraine, but attacking is much harder than defending, and holding territory is hard.
It seems that neither side can actually land a knock out blow. The problem, ultimately, is that Putin can't sell the current situation as a win to his people, and therefore is obliged to push on, despite losses that aren't that different to British ones in the worst parts of WW1, and for what?
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
What happens, if U.K. and France form a security alliance that includes a bunch of European states and Ukraine? Complete with a nuclear guarantee.
If in a deal from talks, Putin doesn’t sign such a deal, so the war goes on. The only deal Putin will sign is a deal leaving a weak and exposed Ukraine his country can interfere with.
The security guarantees you suggest outside of negotiated deal? To be honest, UK and France won’t sign that, or anything with security guarantees from them that could easily trigger a bigger crisis than this one, drag them into this or a larger conflict. If I’m right, then yes, all these hugs are very short termist and very hollow.
How would you answer the question of how independent is the UK nuclear deterrent, to be able to commit it as you suggest? All the Chagos investigation I have been doing, has left me with impression UK defence and security is so very much woven in with the US. UK has down the decades become locked and interlocked with US on defence and intelligence, I think it is in part what has led us to the Chagos Deal US and India want us to sign, and leaves a genuine question how quickly UK could untangle itself from US and become independent, if it really needed to. If I am right in that as well, we have to acknowledge the part it plays in all Whitehall decisions taken.
I don’t see any posts to PB taking into account how deeply UK is in bed with US on military technology and intelligence, and acknowledging the huge impact this has on political decision making.
I literally posted exactly this with regard to Five Eyes earlier this afternoon. A repeat of the same posting I made yesterday.
Correct. It's a very well known problem, that we already encountered a year or more ago with Storm Shadow, with Biden saying "not over Russia". There were reports in summer 2024 about how the US was refusing to allow its capabilities, which were needed, to be used.
Given that the USA has turned something between indifferent and hostile, Europe will need sovereign capabilities across the board over time - and to isolate an isolationist USA.
This is ITAR regs (internation Traffic in Arms Regulations), which have been in a thing since 1976, and I have been reading articles about in the trade press since the 1980s. The USA have used them to control supply of arms to third countries, sometimes to benefit their own industry, and in missiles, for example, there has been an emphasis in Europe of making arms ITAR-proof for a couple of decades. It was one of their perks for providing overarching security, reserve currency etc - Trump and Vance burnt that down, and the world is changing, including for them.
Here's an Economist piece from 2008 about how that had THEN driven a fall in US share of the satellite market from 83% to 50%:
The result is a system that is too successful in keeping American technology out of foreign hands. Before 1999, when the State Department took over the export regulation of satellites, America dominated commercial satellite-making with an average market share of 83%. Since then, this share has declined to 50%, according to Space Review. ITAR's critics blame the change in export controls. As bidding opened in July this year for the €3.4 billion ($5 billion) of contracts for Galileo, a constellation of 30 positioning satellites being built by the European Union and the European Space Agency, European officials cited export controls as a reason for avoiding anything to do with America wherever possible. https://archive.is/DWCxN#selection-1211.1-1215.372
I've been pointing out for some time that one of President Chump's problems is that the USA is nothing like as dominant in reality as it is in his head, which is stuck somewhere between the 1950s and the 1970s. They had 40% of world GDP in 1960; now it is under 25%.
He just walked into a lamp post wrt 'I can pull a peace settlement out of thin air in one day', and felt he had to deflect blame onto Zelenskyy because of his overblown ego, which has resulted in him looking globally like the self-obsessed he has become. There are a lot more lamp posts down the road.
The problem we face is that the right wing bubble keeping Reform afloat is largely impenetrable. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says.
Huzzah!
Reform never strong enough to win, but strong enough to cancel out the Tories, so the right out of power for many years, maybe decades.
Ed Davey gains votes as frustration with the impotent right grows. The locals in a few weeks will see Reform votes up, but the Lib Dems will do better.
If the administration carries on the way it’s started, the midterms will be brutal for them, whatever efforts they might make at ballot suppression.
This reflects the tension at the top between the Vance wanting to protect American jobs and Musk wanting to sack everyone. Musk has the upper hand because sacking everyone aligns with the tax cuts for billionaires faction.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
Not at all. Russia is already struggling - why do you think they are relying on North Korea to provide cannon fodder? What is important is to do what Ukraine wants and keep them in the game. Make sure they can continue to fight this war and force Russia into concessions. It doesn't ned Putin to agree to Ukraine joining NATO, not at the moment. That can come later. What it needs is for NATO minus the USA to give Ukraine they need to carry on the fight.
What weapons would those be, from our run-down stocks? We can give Ukraine money to buy American arms, but those sales would need American government approval – and to be in time for use, would need to come from US Army stocks. Arms manufacturing pipelines are long and slow. Taiwan is currently taking delivery of weapons it bought during the first Trump presidency.
Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield, despite its huge death tolls, or at least is not losing. The Russian economy has not collapsed, despite sanctions, and as soon as peace breaks out and sanctions are lifted, Russia can rebuild its treasury by resuming exports of its dig-and-sell commodities, including gas and oil.
So what Ukraine needs is America back in the game, at least as backstop. With American support, Russia cannot win. Without it (and even with it under Trump) the best Ukraine can hope for is not to give too much away in any ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
So in the short term, America needs Starmer and Lammy and Mandelson, and also Healey through Nato, to patch things up with the White House, at least to get things back to where they were before Vance and Zelensky started arguing.
That's true and not true.
Every critique of Ukraine is also true of Russia:
It can't win without foreign assistance. It's economy is faltering. There's a limited stock of weapons for them to draw down.
Ultimately, the "bear case" for Ukraine is that it cannot win because Russia has so many more resources. But is that true? Russia has 3x the population of Ukraine, but attacking is much harder than defending, and holding territory is hard.
It seems that neither side can actually land a knock out blow. The problem, ultimately, is that Putin can't sell the current situation as a win to his people, and therefore is obliged to push on, despite losses that aren't that different to British ones in the worst parts of WW1, and for what?
Trenches and machine guns brought an end to mounted troops and the more mobile warfare of earlier years. Tanks restored mobility to war, but it does look as if drones will have the opposite effect. The videos coming back from the front in Ukraine demonstrate how easily the Russians get shot up whenever they try to move, on foot or by vehicle. The arrival of the new German RCH-155s this year will make Russian deployment even more problematic.
Starmer should keep her abreast of all developments. To be fair to her she has equivocated less than other senior RefConners over Trump, and thus by definition Putin.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
Not at all. Russia is already struggling - why do you think they are relying on North Korea to provide cannon fodder? What is important is to do what Ukraine wants and keep them in the game. Make sure they can continue to fight this war and force Russia into concessions. It doesn't ned Putin to agree to Ukraine joining NATO, not at the moment. That can come later. What it needs is for NATO minus the USA to give Ukraine they need to carry on the fight.
What weapons would those be, from our run-down stocks? We can give Ukraine money to buy American arms, but those sales would need American government approval – and to be in time for use, would need to come from US Army stocks. Arms manufacturing pipelines are long and slow. Taiwan is currently taking delivery of weapons it bought during the first Trump presidency.
Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield, despite its huge death tolls, or at least is not losing. The Russian economy has not collapsed, despite sanctions, and as soon as peace breaks out and sanctions are lifted, Russia can rebuild its treasury by resuming exports of its dig-and-sell commodities, including gas and oil.
So what Ukraine needs is America back in the game, at least as backstop. With American support, Russia cannot win. Without it (and even with it under Trump) the best Ukraine can hope for is not to give too much away in any ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
So in the short term, America needs Starmer and Lammy and Mandelson, and also Healey through Nato, to patch things up with the White House, at least to get things back to where they were before Vance and Zelensky started arguing.
That's true and not true.
Every critique of Ukraine is also true of Russia:
It can't win without foreign assistance. It's economy is faltering. There's a limited stock of weapons for them to draw down.
Ultimately, the "bear case" for Ukraine is that it cannot win because Russia has so many more resources. But is that true? Russia has 3x the population of Ukraine, but attacking is much harder than defending, and holding territory is hard.
It seems that neither side can actually land a knock out blow. The problem, ultimately, is that Putin can't sell the current situation as a win to his people, and therefore is obliged to push on, despite losses that aren't that different to British ones in the worst parts of WW1, and for what?
Is that population stat right? Seems off.
Anyway, I'd like to hear from Keir what we are spending our extra defence money on. Planes/drones/boats/men what? Maybe it should be manufacturing capacity for weapons since sounds like there will be a lot of European demand...
There has always been a strong undercurrent of isolationism in the United States, especially in Republican ranks. It seems unlikely that Elon Musk would make such an announcement on behalf of the government but it might show which way the winds are blowing.
If they are isolationists... they should just get on with it then. But they have been sticking their noses in everything more than ever. Go isolate and that would be fine, but they are actively interfering in elections and trying to support enemies. That is not isolationism
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
Not at all. Russia is already struggling - why do you think they are relying on North Korea to provide cannon fodder? What is important is to do what Ukraine wants and keep them in the game. Make sure they can continue to fight this war and force Russia into concessions. It doesn't ned Putin to agree to Ukraine joining NATO, not at the moment. That can come later. What it needs is for NATO minus the USA to give Ukraine they need to carry on the fight.
What weapons would those be, from our run-down stocks? We can give Ukraine money to buy American arms, but those sales would need American government approval – and to be in time for use, would need to come from US Army stocks. Arms manufacturing pipelines are long and slow. Taiwan is currently taking delivery of weapons it bought during the first Trump presidency.
Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield, despite its huge death tolls, or at least is not losing. The Russian economy has not collapsed, despite sanctions, and as soon as peace breaks out and sanctions are lifted, Russia can rebuild its treasury by resuming exports of its dig-and-sell commodities, including gas and oil.
So what Ukraine needs is America back in the game, at least as backstop. With American support, Russia cannot win. Without it (and even with it under Trump) the best Ukraine can hope for is not to give too much away in any ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
So in the short term, America needs Starmer and Lammy and Mandelson, and also Healey through Nato, to patch things up with the White House, at least to get things back to where they were before Vance and Zelensky started arguing.
That's true and not true.
Every critique of Ukraine is also true of Russia:
It can't win without foreign assistance. It's economy is faltering. There's a limited stock of weapons for them to draw down.
Ultimately, the "bear case" for Ukraine is that it cannot win because Russia has so many more resources. But is that true? Russia has 3x the population of Ukraine, but attacking is much harder than defending, and holding territory is hard.
It seems that neither side can actually land a knock out blow. The problem, ultimately, is that Putin can't sell the current situation as a win to his people, and therefore is obliged to push on, despite losses that aren't that different to British ones in the worst parts of WW1, and for what?
Is that population stat right? Seems off.
Anyway, I'd like to hear from Keir what we are spending our extra defence money on. Planes/drones/boats/men what? Maybe it should be manufacturing capacity for weapons since sounds like there will be a lot of European demand...
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
Not at all. Russia is already struggling - why do you think they are relying on North Korea to provide cannon fodder? What is important is to do what Ukraine wants and keep them in the game. Make sure they can continue to fight this war and force Russia into concessions. It doesn't ned Putin to agree to Ukraine joining NATO, not at the moment. That can come later. What it needs is for NATO minus the USA to give Ukraine they need to carry on the fight.
What weapons would those be, from our run-down stocks? We can give Ukraine money to buy American arms, but those sales would need American government approval – and to be in time for use, would need to come from US Army stocks. Arms manufacturing pipelines are long and slow. Taiwan is currently taking delivery of weapons it bought during the first Trump presidency.
Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield, despite its huge death tolls, or at least is not losing. The Russian economy has not collapsed, despite sanctions, and as soon as peace breaks out and sanctions are lifted, Russia can rebuild its treasury by resuming exports of its dig-and-sell commodities, including gas and oil.
So what Ukraine needs is America back in the game, at least as backstop. With American support, Russia cannot win. Without it (and even with it under Trump) the best Ukraine can hope for is not to give too much away in any ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
So in the short term, America needs Starmer and Lammy and Mandelson, and also Healey through Nato, to patch things up with the White House, at least to get things back to where they were before Vance and Zelensky started arguing.
That's true and not true.
Every critique of Ukraine is also true of Russia:
It can't win without foreign assistance. It's economy is faltering. There's a limited stock of weapons for them to draw down.
Ultimately, the "bear case" for Ukraine is that it cannot win because Russia has so many more resources. But is that true? Russia has 3x the population of Ukraine, but attacking is much harder than defending, and holding territory is hard.
It seems that neither side can actually land a knock out blow. The problem, ultimately, is that Putin can't sell the current situation as a win to his people, and therefore is obliged to push on, despite losses that aren't that different to British ones in the worst parts of WW1, and for what?
Is that population stat right? Seems off.
Anyway, I'd like to hear from Keir what we are spending our extra defence money on. Planes/drones/boats/men what? Maybe it should be manufacturing capacity for weapons since sounds like there will be a lot of European demand...
Working out what future warfare will need is the biggest challenge - Ukraine is providing useful lessons, but it's a changing scene and hence a moving target.
What we're least likely to need is what the military, in the past at least, has wanted the most - big prestige items like the aircraft carriers, which a few drone topedoes might quickly make irrelevant.
On the US: let's not look at protests and town halls as snippets of evidence yet, let's wait for signs of Trump's (and other) approval ratings tanking.
We're not yet heading in that direction in any meaningful way. Trump at -1.8 and still in post election honeymoon phase
Beyond the beltways there is a strong cohort who are yet distant from the effects and are quite enjoying the spectacle of the government and prior assumptions being gutted.
for anyone interested, in a little over an hour from now (~08.30), Firefly Aerospace are attempting to land an uncrewed probe on the Moon. Hopefully it'll be a good watch (some other landers have been (ahem) data poor for anyone watching).
There has always been a strong undercurrent of isolationism in the United States, especially in Republican ranks. It seems unlikely that Elon Musk would make such an announcement on behalf of the government but it might show which way the winds are blowing.
If they are isolationists... they should just get on with it then. But they have been sticking their noses in everything more than ever. Go isolate and that would be fine, but they are actively interfering in elections and trying to support enemies. That is not isolationism
Similarly, the US's desire not to be carrying the lion's share of defence costs is understandable, even reasonable - but ever since Eisenhower got the supreme commander position in the runup to D-Day, Europe has accepted US leadership, command and control on the basis that it is providing most of the manpower and resources. It follows from the US's desire to reduce its spending that it will also reduce its control, influence and leadership.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
What happens, if U.K. and France form a security alliance that includes a bunch of European states and Ukraine? Complete with a nuclear guarantee.
If in a deal from talks, Putin doesn’t sign such a deal, so the war goes on. The only deal Putin will sign is a deal leaving a weak and exposed Ukraine his country can interfere with.
The security guarantees you suggest outside of negotiated deal? To be honest, UK and France won’t sign that, or anything with security guarantees from them that could easily trigger a bigger crisis than this one, drag them into this or a larger conflict. If I’m right, then yes, all these hugs are very short termist and very hollow.
How would you answer the question of how independent is the UK nuclear deterrent, to be able to commit it as you suggest? All the Chagos investigation I have been doing, has left me with impression UK defence and security is so very much woven in with the US. UK has down the decades become locked and interlocked with US on defence and intelligence, I think it is in part what has led us to the Chagos Deal US and India want us to sign, and leaves a genuine question how quickly UK could untangle itself from US and become independent, if it really needed to. If I am right in that as well, we have to acknowledge the part it plays in all Whitehall decisions taken.
I don’t see any posts to PB taking into account how deeply UK is in bed with US on military technology and intelligence, and acknowledging the huge impact this has on political decision making.
I literally posted exactly this with regard to Five Eyes earlier this afternoon. A repeat of the same posting I made yesterday.
Correct. It's a very well known problem, that we already encountered a year or more ago with Storm Shadow, with Biden saying "not over Russia". There were reports in summer 2024 about how the US was refusing to allow its capabilities, which were needed, to be used.
Given that the USA has turned something between indifferent and hostile, Europe will need sovereign capabilities across the board over time - and to isolate an isolationist USA.
This is ITAR regs (internation Traffic in Arms Regulations), which have been in a thing since 1976, and I have been reading articles about in the trade press since the 1980s. The USA have used them to control supply of arms to third countries, sometimes to benefit their own industry, and in missiles, for example, there has been an emphasis in Europe of making arms ITAR-proof for a couple of decades. It was one of their perks for providing overarching security, reserve currency etc - Trump and Vance burnt that down, and the world is changing, including for them.
Here's an Economist piece from 2008 about how that had THEN driven a fall in US share of the satellite market from 83% to 50%:
The result is a system that is too successful in keeping American technology out of foreign hands. Before 1999, when the State Department took over the export regulation of satellites, America dominated commercial satellite-making with an average market share of 83%. Since then, this share has declined to 50%, according to Space Review. ITAR's critics blame the change in export controls. As bidding opened in July this year for the €3.4 billion ($5 billion) of contracts for Galileo, a constellation of 30 positioning satellites being built by the European Union and the European Space Agency, European officials cited export controls as a reason for avoiding anything to do with America wherever possible. https://archive.is/DWCxN#selection-1211.1-1215.372
I've been pointing out for some time that one of President Chump's problems is that the USA is nothing like as dominant in reality as it is in his head, which is stuck somewhere between the 1950s and the 1970s. They had 40% of world GDP in 1960; now it is under 25%.
He just walked into a lamp post wrt 'I can pull a peace settlement out of thin air in one day', and felt he had to deflect blame onto Zelenskyy because of his overblown ego, which has resulted in him looking globally like the self-obsessed he has become. There are a lot more lamp posts down the road.
On the US: let's not look at protests and town halls as snippets of evidence yet, let's wait for signs of Trump's (and other) approval ratings tanking.
We're not yet heading in that direction in any meaningful way. Trump at -1.8 and still in post election honeymoon phase
Beyond the beltways there is a strong cohort who are yet distant from the effects and are quite enjoying the spectacle of the government and prior assumptions being gutted.
An unremarked point in all this is that the UK has got this premier role in global politics at the moment because of Brexit. The UK sitting outside the EU is allowing for the EU to be sidelined in all of this. Were we still EU members and all other things being equal, there would be absolutely huge pressure on the PM and Macron to coordinate everything through some EU based response which would make it all watered down and worthless. By virtue of not being in the EU the UK has allowed France to also sidestep needing to corral 27 countries into a unified response. As it stands the UK is working directly with France as the other recognised European nuclear abs military power and there's no pressure on either party to consult with Von der Layen and all of the other useless EU commissioners.
Not only is this a tangible Brexit benefit, it's actually a very substantial one. The landscape would be totally different inside the EU and I think significantly more difficult to Trump back in the room.
That’s some extreme straw clutching, there.
The response from around Europe has mostly been fast, and resolute, with the two from the senior EU people being the strongest of all.
And the logical fail in your post is the references to France taking its own position while inside the EU. There is no reason why the UK couldn’t have done the same had we still been a member. Defence remains a matter of national rather than EU politics.
The three strongest have a position irrespective of the EU. Smaller EU members have been infiltrated by Russia so as to be flies in the EU ointment. If Russia thought Brexit would peel off the UK from standing by a NATO-ex USA grouping, that has proven a forlorn hope.
Te EU is a straw man regarding Ukraine. It's about doing the right to protect Europe from Russian aggression - including Moscow-friendly EU members.
The EU may need to look at suspending countries such as Hungary. Let them suffer lack of EU support - until they discover Russia can't help them economically.
Which smaller states? Most are now fiercely anti Putin...
On the US: let's not look at protests and town halls as snippets of evidence yet, let's wait for signs of Trump's (and other) approval ratings tanking.
We're not yet heading in that direction in any meaningful way. Trump at -1.8 and still in post election honeymoon phase
Beyond the beltways there is a strong cohort who are yet distant from the effects and are quite enjoying the spectacle of the government and prior assumptions being gutted.
Kids are dying of measles. Egg prices are skyrocketing. Bird flu is out of control. Planes are falling out of the sky. Inflation is rising. Tariffs are coming. Consumer confidence is collapsing. A recession is now likely. The stock market is dropping.
The problem we face is that the right wing bubble keeping Reform afloat is largely impenetrable. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says.
Huzzah!
Reform never strong enough to win, but strong enough to cancel out the Tories, so the right out of power for many years, maybe decades.
Ed Davey gains votes as frustration with the impotent right grows. The locals in a few weeks will see Reform votes up, but the Lib Dems will do better.
Most likely, people on the right vote for whichever of Reform or Conservative is best-placed to defeat Labour.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
Not at all. Russia is already struggling - why do you think they are relying on North Korea to provide cannon fodder? What is important is to do what Ukraine wants and keep them in the game. Make sure they can continue to fight this war and force Russia into concessions. It doesn't ned Putin to agree to Ukraine joining NATO, not at the moment. That can come later. What it needs is for NATO minus the USA to give Ukraine they need to carry on the fight.
What weapons would those be, from our run-down stocks? We can give Ukraine money to buy American arms, but those sales would need American government approval – and to be in time for use, would need to come from US Army stocks. Arms manufacturing pipelines are long and slow. Taiwan is currently taking delivery of weapons it bought during the first Trump presidency.
Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield, despite its huge death tolls, or at least is not losing. The Russian economy has not collapsed, despite sanctions, and as soon as peace breaks out and sanctions are lifted, Russia can rebuild its treasury by resuming exports of its dig-and-sell commodities, including gas and oil.
So what Ukraine needs is America back in the game, at least as backstop. With American support, Russia cannot win. Without it (and even with it under Trump) the best Ukraine can hope for is not to give too much away in any ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
So in the short term, America needs Starmer and Lammy and Mandelson, and also Healey through Nato, to patch things up with the White House, at least to get things back to where they were before Vance and Zelensky started arguing.
Looking at maps of the front line now, and the front line on 2nd March 2024, the changes are miniscule, at a cost of about 300,000 Russian casualties. I don't think Russia is winning on the battlefield at all.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
Not at all. Russia is already struggling - why do you think they are relying on North Korea to provide cannon fodder? What is important is to do what Ukraine wants and keep them in the game. Make sure they can continue to fight this war and force Russia into concessions. It doesn't ned Putin to agree to Ukraine joining NATO, not at the moment. That can come later. What it needs is for NATO minus the USA to give Ukraine they need to carry on the fight.
What weapons would those be, from our run-down stocks? We can give Ukraine money to buy American arms, but those sales would need American government approval – and to be in time for use, would need to come from US Army stocks. Arms manufacturing pipelines are long and slow. Taiwan is currently taking delivery of weapons it bought during the first Trump presidency.
Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield, despite its huge death tolls, or at least is not losing. The Russian economy has not collapsed, despite sanctions, and as soon as peace breaks out and sanctions are lifted, Russia can rebuild its treasury by resuming exports of its dig-and-sell commodities, including gas and oil.
So what Ukraine needs is America back in the game, at least as backstop. With American support, Russia cannot win. Without it (and even with it under Trump) the best Ukraine can hope for is not to give too much away in any ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
So in the short term, America needs Starmer and Lammy and Mandelson, and also Healey through Nato, to patch things up with the White House, at least to get things back to where they were before Vance and Zelensky started arguing.
That's true and not true.
Every critique of Ukraine is also true of Russia:
It can't win without foreign assistance. It's economy is faltering. There's a limited stock of weapons for them to draw down.
Ultimately, the "bear case" for Ukraine is that it cannot win because Russia has so many more resources. But is that true? Russia has 3x the population of Ukraine, but attacking is much harder than defending, and holding territory is hard.
It seems that neither side can actually land a knock out blow. The problem, ultimately, is that Putin can't sell the current situation as a win to his people, and therefore is obliged to push on, despite losses that aren't that different to British ones in the worst parts of WW1, and for what?
Is that population stat right? Seems off.
Anyway, I'd like to hear from Keir what we are spending our extra defence money on. Planes/drones/boats/men what? Maybe it should be manufacturing capacity for weapons since sounds like there will be a lot of European demand...
At the start of the war it was Russia 143m vs Ukraine 43m roughly.
Apropos of nothing, historically that is Russia ~20% less than the USSR at the start of WW2, and Ukraine ~ the same as the UK at the start of WW1.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
I note that Pete Hesgeth's pastor, Doug Wilson, has "interesting" views on slavery.
"Slavery produced in the South a genuine affection between the races that we believe we can say has never existed in any nation before the War or since. There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world. Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes and good medical care."
On the US: let's not look at protests and town halls as snippets of evidence yet, let's wait for signs of Trump's (and other) approval ratings tanking.
We're not yet heading in that direction in any meaningful way. Trump at -1.8 and still in post election honeymoon phase
Beyond the beltways there is a strong cohort who are yet distant from the effects and are quite enjoying the spectacle of the government and prior assumptions being gutted.
The problem we face is that the right wing bubble keeping Reform afloat is largely impenetrable. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says.
Huzzah!
Reform never strong enough to win, but strong enough to cancel out the Tories, so the right out of power for many years, maybe decades.
Ed Davey gains votes as frustration with the impotent right grows. The locals in a few weeks will see Reform votes up, but the Lib Dems will do better.
Most likely, people on the right vote for whichever of Reform or Conservative is best-placed to defeat Labour.
The problem the right have to solve is that much of their movement is aligned to Russia. The motivation to defeat Labour, no matter what, could put Putin in number 10.
Starmer should keep her abreast of all developments. To be fair to her she has equivocated less than other senior RefConners over Trump, and thus by definition Putin.
That's fine imo, though she is still keeping her commentary narrowed to aspects where she can say positive things that fit in - and there are a range of political issues for her only that will need attention lurking just off camera.
Perhaps we will see a move if Farage faceplants? His balancing act is getting ever more tricky as he rides an increasing number of horses going in diverging directions.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
Not at all. Russia is already struggling - why do you think they are relying on North Korea to provide cannon fodder? What is important is to do what Ukraine wants and keep them in the game. Make sure they can continue to fight this war and force Russia into concessions. It doesn't ned Putin to agree to Ukraine joining NATO, not at the moment. That can come later. What it needs is for NATO minus the USA to give Ukraine they need to carry on the fight.
What weapons would those be, from our run-down stocks? We can give Ukraine money to buy American arms, but those sales would need American government approval – and to be in time for use, would need to come from US Army stocks. Arms manufacturing pipelines are long and slow. Taiwan is currently taking delivery of weapons it bought during the first Trump presidency.
Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield, despite its huge death tolls, or at least is not losing. The Russian economy has not collapsed, despite sanctions, and as soon as peace breaks out and sanctions are lifted, Russia can rebuild its treasury by resuming exports of its dig-and-sell commodities, including gas and oil.
So what Ukraine needs is America back in the game, at least as backstop. With American support, Russia cannot win. Without it (and even with it under Trump) the best Ukraine can hope for is not to give too much away in any ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
So in the short term, America needs Starmer and Lammy and Mandelson, and also Healey through Nato, to patch things up with the White House, at least to get things back to where they were before Vance and Zelensky started arguing.
Ukraine has developed long-range drones capable of trashing the Russian economy. It needs European/friendly help in making their production facilities safe from being hit - and building at scale. So production facilities outside Ukraine at a scale that not only arms Ukraine, but also its allies. Russia's oil and gas exports are already greatly suffering - maybe 15-20% of storage and refining capacity is out. The owners haven't the cash to repair and can't afford 21% interest rates to borrow. Putin cannot defy economic reality for another year.
The US alone lifting sanctions will not be enough to allow China back to trade with Russia for the hydrocarbons currently suspended. It cannot afford to lose European/friendly country markets. Driving a wedge between China and Russia is a sound policy - much as it may piss off MAGA 'murica.
Do the Russians need a lot of storage and refIning capacity to export crude oil?
Somewhere between 70-90% of the support we've provided Ukraine since Russia's illegal invasion was spent *in the U.S.* as American defense workers built or replaced weapons we sent over.
All those jobs are about to disappear, and most of them are skilled blue collar positions.
That face-eating leopard is sooooo hungry.
I doubt all, or even many, of those jobs will disappear.
There might be a big drop in overtime though.
Given that the Trump administration is planning on cutting military spending by around 8% this year, and that it is a lot easier to cut procurement than soldiers, my guess is that the defense industry might see more than a drop in overtime.
They seem to be firing a lot of soldiers from politically disfavoured groups which should be a hiring opportunity for European armies that clearly don't have enough people for the world they now live in.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
Not at all. Russia is already struggling - why do you think they are relying on North Korea to provide cannon fodder? What is important is to do what Ukraine wants and keep them in the game. Make sure they can continue to fight this war and force Russia into concessions. It doesn't ned Putin to agree to Ukraine joining NATO, not at the moment. That can come later. What it needs is for NATO minus the USA to give Ukraine they need to carry on the fight.
What weapons would those be, from our run-down stocks? We can give Ukraine money to buy American arms, but those sales would need American government approval – and to be in time for use, would need to come from US Army stocks. Arms manufacturing pipelines are long and slow. Taiwan is currently taking delivery of weapons it bought during the first Trump presidency.
Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield, despite its huge death tolls, or at least is not losing. The Russian economy has not collapsed, despite sanctions, and as soon as peace breaks out and sanctions are lifted, Russia can rebuild its treasury by resuming exports of its dig-and-sell commodities, including gas and oil.
So what Ukraine needs is America back in the game, at least as backstop. With American support, Russia cannot win. Without it (and even with it under Trump) the best Ukraine can hope for is not to give too much away in any ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
So in the short term, America needs Starmer and Lammy and Mandelson, and also Healey through Nato, to patch things up with the White House, at least to get things back to where they were before Vance and Zelensky started arguing.
That's true and not true.
Every critique of Ukraine is also true of Russia:
It can't win without foreign assistance. It's economy is faltering. There's a limited stock of weapons for them to draw down.
Ultimately, the "bear case" for Ukraine is that it cannot win because Russia has so many more resources. But is that true? Russia has 3x the population of Ukraine, but attacking is much harder than defending, and holding territory is hard.
It seems that neither side can actually land a knock out blow. The problem, ultimately, is that Putin can't sell the current situation as a win to his people, and therefore is obliged to push on, despite losses that aren't that different to British ones in the worst parts of WW1, and for what?
Is that population stat right? Seems off.
Anyway, I'd like to hear from Keir what we are spending our extra defence money on. Planes/drones/boats/men what? Maybe it should be manufacturing capacity for weapons since sounds like there will be a lot of European demand...
At the start of the war it was Russia 143m vs Ukraine 43m roughly.
Apropos of nothing, historically that is Russia ~20% less than the USSR at the start of WW2, and Ukraine ~ the same as the UK at the start of WW1.
Ukraine has lost many millions - women and kids fleeing, men draft dodging, more millions occupied and now “Russian”
Ukraine’s population may now be under 35m or lower
The problem we face is that the right wing bubble keeping Reform afloat is largely impenetrable. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says.
Huzzah!
Reform never strong enough to win, but strong enough to cancel out the Tories, so the right out of power for many years, maybe decades.
Ed Davey gains votes as frustration with the impotent right grows. The locals in a few weeks will see Reform votes up, but the Lib Dems will do better.
Most likely, people on the right vote for whichever of Reform or Conservative is best-placed to defeat Labour.
I don't believe that was borne out by GE2024.
Those who are likely to install Trump-Putin shills into Downing Street are not specifically "right wing". They were lifelong Labour voters who once lent their vote to the Socialist Johnson to get Brexit over the line and kick out foreigners. Next time they will vote for whoever promises to kick.out foreigners.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
Idiot! That far back, that will be true for millions if not billions, especially for a prominent figure. Go back nearly 50 generations and both you and I have nearly 300,000,000,000,000 ancestors (based on 48). With population size back then, reversing the maths shows that likely almost all of us are descended from him, and everyone else. Not just once, but many multiples of times. The chances are still almost precisely 50:50 that I am more descended from him than you are.
The problem we face is that the right wing bubble keeping Reform afloat is largely impenetrable. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says.
Huzzah!
Reform never strong enough to win, but strong enough to cancel out the Tories, so the right out of power for many years, maybe decades.
Ed Davey gains votes as frustration with the impotent right grows. The locals in a few weeks will see Reform votes up, but the Lib Dems will do better.
Most likely, people on the right vote for whichever of Reform or Conservative is best-placed to defeat Labour.
Possibly. Though consider how long it took the centre-left to organise their votes efficiently.
Besides. For all that Ref and Con both hate Labour, they also hate each other. Establishment right and radical right aren't all that compatible. And any post-election arrangement tends to kill the junior partner.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
Not at all. Russia is already struggling - why do you think they are relying on North Korea to provide cannon fodder? What is important is to do what Ukraine wants and keep them in the game. Make sure they can continue to fight this war and force Russia into concessions. It doesn't ned Putin to agree to Ukraine joining NATO, not at the moment. That can come later. What it needs is for NATO minus the USA to give Ukraine they need to carry on the fight.
What weapons would those be, from our run-down stocks? We can give Ukraine money to buy American arms, but those sales would need American government approval – and to be in time for use, would need to come from US Army stocks. Arms manufacturing pipelines are long and slow. Taiwan is currently taking delivery of weapons it bought during the first Trump presidency.
Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield, despite its huge death tolls, or at least is not losing. The Russian economy has not collapsed, despite sanctions, and as soon as peace breaks out and sanctions are lifted, Russia can rebuild its treasury by resuming exports of its dig-and-sell commodities, including gas and oil.
So what Ukraine needs is America back in the game, at least as backstop. With American support, Russia cannot win. Without it (and even with it under Trump) the best Ukraine can hope for is not to give too much away in any ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
So in the short term, America needs Starmer and Lammy and Mandelson, and also Healey through Nato, to patch things up with the White House, at least to get things back to where they were before Vance and Zelensky started arguing.
Ukraine has developed long-range drones capable of trashing the Russian economy. It needs European/friendly help in making their production facilities safe from being hit - and building at scale. So production facilities outside Ukraine at a scale that not only arms Ukraine, but also its allies. Russia's oil and gas exports are already greatly suffering - maybe 15-20% of storage and refining capacity is out. The owners haven't the cash to repair and can't afford 21% interest rates to borrow. Putin cannot defy economic reality for another year.
The US alone lifting sanctions will not be enough to allow China back to trade with Russia for the hydrocarbons currently suspended. It cannot afford to lose European/friendly country markets. Driving a wedge between China and Russia is a sound policy - much as it may piss off MAGA 'murica.
Do the Russians need a lot of storage and refIning capacity to export crude oil?
Crude oil needs vast infrastructure to handle. Facilities are measured by the square mile.
Refining is the most complicated. Perfect targets in modern warfare, really.
And refining is often not easily substituted - a refinery is generally designed to take a particular type of crude oil. You can’t just take any oil to any refinery.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique (tho fuck knows how Google reached that number)
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
It's worth PBers noting that "The Spectator Index" is not connected with The Spectator magazine.
On Twitter it's bigger than the Times or Good Morning Britain, but this news source has no reporters, no fact-checkers – and until now, its owner has never been named. Who is behind The Spectator Index?
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
Idiot! That far back, that will be true for millions if not billions, especially for a prominent figure. Go back nearly 50 generations and both you and I have nearly 300,000,000,000,000 ancestors (based on 48). With population size back then, reversing the maths shows that likely almost all of us are descended from him, and everyone else.
Yes Mrs Ian but as I just said the difference is we have a definitive paper trail
It occurs to me you suffer from a kind of inverse-Wykehamist Fallacy, you are not intelligent enough to understand how much brighter I am, than you
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
No. All Europeans today are definitely descendants of Rollo (if he has any living descendants)
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique (tho fuck knows how Google reached that number)
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
Still wrong.
Everyond who lived a thousand years ago who has any European descendants today is an ancestor of every European.
It's worth PBers noting that "The Spectator Index" is not connected with The Spectator magazine.
On Twitter it's bigger than the Times or Good Morning Britain, but this news source has no reporters, no fact-checkers – and until now, its owner has never been named. Who is behind The Spectator Index?
It’s some Australian dude I think. Who randomly got famous
I’d be really surprised if Elon said something THAT crass - leave NATO and the UN? My guess is there is, at least, some context missing. An hypothetical
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
Idiot! That far back, that will be true for millions if not billions, especially for a prominent figure. Go back nearly 50 generations and both you and I have nearly 300,000,000,000,000 ancestors (based on 48). With population size back then, reversing the maths shows that likely almost all of us are descended from him, and everyone else.
Yes Mrs Ian but as I just said the difference is we have a definitive paper trail
It occurs to me you suffer from a kind of inverse-Wykehamist Fallacy, you are not intelligent enough to understand how much brighter I am, than you
If you have any more dumb thoughts, best keep quiet.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
No. All Europeans today are definitely descendants of Rollo (if he has any living descendants)
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique (tho fuck knows how Google reached that number)
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
Still wrong.
Everyond who lived a thousand years ago who has any European descendants today is an ancestor of every European.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
Not at all. Russia is already struggling - why do you think they are relying on North Korea to provide cannon fodder? What is important is to do what Ukraine wants and keep them in the game. Make sure they can continue to fight this war and force Russia into concessions. It doesn't ned Putin to agree to Ukraine joining NATO, not at the moment. That can come later. What it needs is for NATO minus the USA to give Ukraine they need to carry on the fight.
What weapons would those be, from our run-down stocks? We can give Ukraine money to buy American arms, but those sales would need American government approval – and to be in time for use, would need to come from US Army stocks. Arms manufacturing pipelines are long and slow. Taiwan is currently taking delivery of weapons it bought during the first Trump presidency.
Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield, despite its huge death tolls, or at least is not losing. The Russian economy has not collapsed, despite sanctions, and as soon as peace breaks out and sanctions are lifted, Russia can rebuild its treasury by resuming exports of its dig-and-sell commodities, including gas and oil.
So what Ukraine needs is America back in the game, at least as backstop. With American support, Russia cannot win. Without it (and even with it under Trump) the best Ukraine can hope for is not to give too much away in any ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
So in the short term, America needs Starmer and Lammy and Mandelson, and also Healey through Nato, to patch things up with the White House, at least to get things back to where they were before Vance and Zelensky started arguing.
That's true and not true.
Every critique of Ukraine is also true of Russia:
It can't win without foreign assistance. It's economy is faltering. There's a limited stock of weapons for them to draw down.
Ultimately, the "bear case" for Ukraine is that it cannot win because Russia has so many more resources. But is that true? Russia has 3x the population of Ukraine, but attacking is much harder than defending, and holding territory is hard.
It seems that neither side can actually land a knock out blow. The problem, ultimately, is that Putin can't sell the current situation as a win to his people, and therefore is obliged to push on, despite losses that aren't that different to British ones in the worst parts of WW1, and for what?
Is that population stat right? Seems off.
Anyway, I'd like to hear from Keir what we are spending our extra defence money on. Planes/drones/boats/men what? Maybe it should be manufacturing capacity for weapons since sounds like there will be a lot of European demand...
At the start of the war it was Russia 143m vs Ukraine 43m roughly.
Apropos of nothing, historically that is Russia ~20% less than the USSR at the start of WW2, and Ukraine ~ the same as the UK at the start of WW1.
Ukraine has lost many millions - women and kids fleeing, men draft dodging, more millions occupied and now “Russian”
Ukraine’s population may now be under 35m or lower
About 4m went to Western Europe and 2m went to Russia. Maybe a few hundred thousand have come back.
This was very apparent on my trip there. Once east of Poltava, there is no c-nt there with many izbas totally deserted and looted. You can buy them for almost nothing if anybody fancies a dacha that experiences only intermittent missile strikes.
Ukraine will need to lower the conscription age at some point if they want to keep swinging. They aren't yet at the point where need people more than money and weapons, but it's coming.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
No. All Europeans today are definitely descendants of Rollo (if he has any living descendants)
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique (tho fuck knows how Google reached that number)
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
Still wrong.
Everyond who lived a thousand years ago who has any European descendants today is an ancestor of every European.
Both maths and DNA evidence tell you this.
No, I’m talking about direct descendants
The claim you’re referencing relates to genealogical ancestors, not necessarily genetic ones
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
No. All Europeans today are definitely descendants of Rollo (if he has any living descendants)
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique (tho fuck knows how Google reached that number)
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
Still wrong.
Everyond who lived a thousand years ago who has any European descendants today is an ancestor of every European.
Both maths and DNA evidence tell you this.
No, I’m talking about direct descendants
The claim you’re referencing relates to genealogical ancestors, not necessarily genetic ones
Starmer should keep her abreast of all developments. To be fair to her she has equivocated less than other senior RefConners over Trump, and thus by definition Putin.
Starmer spent the past few PMQs pointing out Kemi had not taken up confidential briefings on Ukraine. Presumably she has now.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
No. All Europeans today are definitely descendants of Rollo (if he has any living descendants)
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique (tho fuck knows how Google reached that number)
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
Still wrong.
Everyond who lived a thousand years ago who has any European descendants today is an ancestor of every European.
Both maths and DNA evidence tell you this.
+1
That's our village idiot properly pwned.
Np, @kamsko is making a common mistake confusing genealogical ancestor with direct ancestry
Its a tough thing to spoof as SNL are much less chaotic and absurd than the real thing.
2 good moments though from that sketch, Trump "I have all the cards… I have get out of jail free, the Supreme Court gave me that one" and Mike Myers/Dr Evil as Elon.
I am going to stick my neck out and say that he will honour his pledge. I don't like Starmer or his politics but I think he has a brain and he also has a moral code. I am going to do something very rare and trust him to be doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Of course on all other matters my normal cynicism is maintained but in this instance I think he is genuine.
I disagree, I’m the other way. There is absolutely no way Putin will agree to allow what’s left of Ukraine to join NATO, will never sign anything allowing that, so Starmer and Europe are locked on course to selling out Ukraine. Wave after wave of talks will fall on the question of NATO membership until Starmer and Europe will insist Ukraine cuts a deal that will never be justified or fair, in order to make the war stop.
There is no “win win” or lasting peace option from where it is now, so all hugs in Downing Street and elsewhere in Europe have to be seen as ultimately leading to that betrayal and an unfair deal for Ukraine forced on them. that in itself will set the precedent sovereign borders can be redrawn, that will be music to the Kremlin’s ears.
Not at all. Russia is already struggling - why do you think they are relying on North Korea to provide cannon fodder? What is important is to do what Ukraine wants and keep them in the game. Make sure they can continue to fight this war and force Russia into concessions. It doesn't ned Putin to agree to Ukraine joining NATO, not at the moment. That can come later. What it needs is for NATO minus the USA to give Ukraine they need to carry on the fight.
What weapons would those be, from our run-down stocks? We can give Ukraine money to buy American arms, but those sales would need American government approval – and to be in time for use, would need to come from US Army stocks. Arms manufacturing pipelines are long and slow. Taiwan is currently taking delivery of weapons it bought during the first Trump presidency.
Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield, despite its huge death tolls, or at least is not losing. The Russian economy has not collapsed, despite sanctions, and as soon as peace breaks out and sanctions are lifted, Russia can rebuild its treasury by resuming exports of its dig-and-sell commodities, including gas and oil.
So what Ukraine needs is America back in the game, at least as backstop. With American support, Russia cannot win. Without it (and even with it under Trump) the best Ukraine can hope for is not to give too much away in any ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
So in the short term, America needs Starmer and Lammy and Mandelson, and also Healey through Nato, to patch things up with the White House, at least to get things back to where they were before Vance and Zelensky started arguing.
Ukraine has developed long-range drones capable of trashing the Russian economy. It needs European/friendly help in making their production facilities safe from being hit - and building at scale. So production facilities outside Ukraine at a scale that not only arms Ukraine, but also its allies. Russia's oil and gas exports are already greatly suffering - maybe 15-20% of storage and refining capacity is out. The owners haven't the cash to repair and can't afford 21% interest rates to borrow. Putin cannot defy economic reality for another year.
The US alone lifting sanctions will not be enough to allow China back to trade with Russia for the hydrocarbons currently suspended. It cannot afford to lose European/friendly country markets. Driving a wedge between China and Russia is a sound policy - much as it may piss off MAGA 'murica.
Do the Russians need a lot of storage and refIning capacity to export crude oil?
All oil producers do.
Refineries need a constant suppy of a specific type of oil for which that refinery is set up. Light or heavy oil, low or high sulphur. Mess up that supply and your refineries, 24-7 plants, become inefficient or even inoperable.
They are very finely tuned pieces of engineering. Hydrocarbon facilities are about as bad a piece of kit for working under the threat of being slammed with high explosives as you can imagine.
Once your refining capacity gets taken out of production, you need storage for the oil being produced. That can be stored in the shadow fleet - but currently, China and India are not accepting deliveries from that fleet. (Plus, that fleet seems to be suffering some unusual explosion-related incidents.) So that source of storage gets blocked up.
If you lose storage, then you have to stop producing oil from the fields across Russia. Stop that production and once shut-in, it can take years to restart that production. (If you have waxy crude, stop the through-flow and you can find your pipelines to that storage has turned into a hundred mile long candle.
So yes, Russia needs storage. Without it, a hydrocarbons-based economy is stuffed.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
No. All Europeans today are definitely descendants of Rollo (if he has any living descendants)
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique (tho fuck knows how Google reached that number)
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
Still wrong.
Everyond who lived a thousand years ago who has any European descendants today is an ancestor of every European.
Both maths and DNA evidence tell you this.
No, I’m talking about direct descendants
The claim you’re referencing relates to genealogical ancestors, not necessarily genetic ones
You're really not understanding this, are you?
Everyone in Europe today is likely a genealogical descendant of Rollo of Normandy (assuming he has living descendants, which he certainly does), but they are definitely not all direct descendants.
The distinction:
Genealogical descendant means you appear somewhere, anywhere, in their family tree. After roughly a thousand years, someone like Rollo would statistically become a common genealogical ancestor to almost everyone with European roots
Direct descendant suggests a clear, direct lineage (father to son or daughter, continuously down generations). Only a tiny subset of people today can demonstrate or trace that explicitly direct lineage back to Rollo. Someone like, say, me
In short, nearly everyone in Europe today is a genealogical descendant of Rollo, but only certain noble, gifted, virile, handsome witty, popular and clearly aristocratic individuals who have friends (ie the opposite of you) can claim the more prestigious-sounding direct descent often through documented noble line
Article here from The New Movie Magazine, April 1930. I ran across it because I was looking for a comparison for Trump and Vance, but Laurel and Hardy are pleasant - even in character.
I have watched Laurel and Hardy being funny in four languages, and it is something I will never forget, although I saw the shelling of Paris when Big Bertha was dropping them regularly, but, as I recall it, the people wore gay and carefree expressions on their faces in comparison to the expressions I saw and heard in and around Culver City, California.
This is the way Messieurs Laurel and Hardy do it. They have their “tutors,” as they are called, three of them: Spanish, French and German. Señors Laurel and Hardy make the scene first in English, and then they turn on the heat and make it all over again in German.
It's worth PBers noting that "The Spectator Index" is not connected with The Spectator magazine.
On Twitter it's bigger than the Times or Good Morning Britain, but this news source has no reporters, no fact-checkers – and until now, its owner has never been named. Who is behind The Spectator Index?
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
No. All Europeans today are definitely descendants of Rollo (if he has any living descendants)
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique (tho fuck knows how Google reached that number)
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
Still wrong.
Everyond who lived a thousand years ago who has any European descendants today is an ancestor of every European.
Both maths and DNA evidence tell you this.
No, I’m talking about direct descendants
The claim you’re referencing relates to genealogical ancestors, not necessarily genetic ones
I am definitely talking about genetic ancestors. How would the claim relate to 'genealogical ancestors'?
"Ubiquitous shared ancestry: We found that even people living on opposite sides of Europe are genealogically closely related to each other over the past thousand years. Even pairs of people as far apart as the UK and Turkey share a chunk of genomic material 20% of the time. Since the chance that two people inherit genetic material from any one shared ancestor from 1,000 years ago is incredibly unlikely (<10-10), to explain such sharing we need these pairs of individuals to share many ancestors. In fact, they need to share a number of ancestors that is far larger than the size of European population, indicating that any pair of individuals share as ancestors all of the individuals alive back at the time in Europe, each many times over.
This strange idea that everyone is everyone’s ancestor was actually predicted about ten years ago by Joseph Chang (and collaborators) using maths and simulations. In hindsight this is intuitively clear, due to the rapidly expanding number of ancestors you have as you go back further and further in time."
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
No. All Europeans today are definitely descendants of Rollo (if he has any living descendants)
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique (tho fuck knows how Google reached that number)
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
Still wrong.
Everyond who lived a thousand years ago who has any European descendants today is an ancestor of every European.
Both maths and DNA evidence tell you this.
+1
That's our village idiot properly pwned.
Np, @kamsko is making a common mistake confusing genealogical ancestor with direct ancestry
Why not think about it for a second before typing out more rubbish?
As I said above, it's a mathematical fact that both you and I have 300,000,000,000,000 direct ancestors if you go back 48 generations. If you went back to the tiny population back then, there will be a fair few people whose lines died out - statistically this will be people who had no children or whose children had no children (since once you go beyond that, the chances of an entire line dying out diminish toward zero very rapidly). For all the others, certainly in this end of Europe, we're all descended from all of them, and that 300,000,000,000,000 hits would have to be distributed over just a few tens of million people, with those whose lines haven't died out scoring an average of ten million hits each.
Both you and I are likely descended from Rollo some ten million times over.
Starmer should keep her abreast of all developments. To be fair to her she has equivocated less than other senior RefConners over Trump, and thus by definition Putin.
The problem we face is that the right wing bubble keeping Reform afloat is largely impenetrable. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says.
Huzzah!
Reform never strong enough to win, but strong enough to cancel out the Tories, so the right out of power for many years, maybe decades.
Ed Davey gains votes as frustration with the impotent right grows. The locals in a few weeks will see Reform votes up, but the Lib Dems will do better.
Most likely, people on the right vote for whichever of Reform or Conservative is best-placed to defeat Labour.
I don't believe that was borne out by GE2024.
Those who are likely to install Trump-Putin shills into Downing Street are not specifically "right wing". They were lifelong Labour voters who once lent their vote to the Socialist Johnson to get Brexit over the line and kick out foreigners. Next time they will vote for whoever promises to kick.out foreigners.
Edit; swiftly corrected "nonce" to "once". Sorry.
The polling suggests that a big chunk of the current Ref vote was formerly Tory. I suspect a lot of these are people like me who think that a Tory - Ref coalition would be a better outcome than either in power on their own. You need a substantial Ref contingent to make the Tories honest - no more "talk right, govern left". And you need some Tories because they understand how the world works (eg, Ref's heart is in the right place, suggesting moving the income tax thresholds up - but I'd hope the Tories have people who understand that's a really poor way to get growth from tax cuts, and they should use the same money to take out all the cliff edges and reduce the tax rates a bit instead).
I voted Ref at the last election. My Tory MP was going to lose anyway, and it was important to send a signal to CCHQ that their government was a total failure, and they needed to go back to the drawing board.
Next time round I will be thinking very carefully about my vote, and will be voting Ref or Tory depending on who is most likely to win my seat.
My take on Spatgate is that I don’t think there was a deliberate plan by anyone to sabotage the meeting. What happened was the result of thin skinned egotists losing it.
After about 30 mins the meeting which has been largely cordial is wrapping up. Vance makes a point targeted against Biden. Says Biden’s chest thumping didn’t stop Putin invading Ukraine. Vance says Trump has the answers - diplomacy (= dialogue) and dealing with Putin.
Z addresses Vance somewhat confrontationally. Makes the point that dealing with Putin doesn’t work. A deal was struck with Putin in 2022 and Putin went back on the deal. Z concludes to V “JD what kind of diplomacy you are speaking about? What do you mean?”
Vance is riled. He feels challenged by Z who is effectively saying Vance is wrong. Diplomacy doesn’t work with Putin.
Vance loses his cool. He is angry that Z has publicly disagreed with his one significant contribution to the meeting, challenging him in front of the whole world. He finds it disrespectful and petulantly reacts saying Zelensky is ungrateful. He raises his voice, points his finger, accuses Z of criticising America, says Ukraine is struggling in its war effort and calls Z disrespectful.
Z does not accept Vance’s portrayal of Ukraine struggling. Warns America that Putin could come for them next and that they will feel the influence (threat) of Russia
Trump - triggered initially by Vance saying Z is disrespecting America is further triggered by Z telling America what it feels and it all kicks off.
Vance pours oil onto the fire challenging Z by asking him if he has even thanked America for its help. Takes him to task for “campaigning for the Democrats in Pennsylvania”
It then further escalates.
Conclusion. Z was perhaps unwise to publicly challenge Vance’s “diplomacy thesis”. Vance felt belittled by this and reacted calling Z disrespectful and ungrateful. Trump was triggered by Vance and further triggered by Z forecasting America would in the future also fell threatened by Russia. Trump and Vance both lose it.
Both spacehopper and teh hillbilly have fragile egos. Both absolute arses.
Good evening Malcom!
As someone now unknown to enjoy a bust up yourself, what was your take on the Trump - Zelensky - Oval Office slanging match?
@gin1138 Hello GIN. I see it as two loudmouth Americans , the worst king of arseholes in the world just bullying someone who was not licking their boots. Personally I would have told orange man to feck off and vance to get back to his banjo. If you are not willing to grovel and fawn they just cannot understand it , they actually believe they are special but just don't realise it is not of the nice kind.
“How many living direct descendants does Rollo of Normandy have, living today?”
Answer:
“It’s impossible to be exact, but a reasonable estimate would place Rollo of Normandy’s living direct descendants at tens of thousands—possibly more.
Reasoning: • Rollo (c. 860–930 CE) lived around 1,100 years ago, which translates roughly to 35 generations. • Noble families like Rollo’s tended to have well-documented lineages through European royalty and aristocracy, who historically had numerous offspring. • Royal and noble descendants spread widely over Europe through marriage and reproduction.
Known facts: • William the Conqueror was Rollo’s great-great-great-grandson, and through William, Rollo’s descendants multiplied exponentially among European nobility. • Royal genealogists have identified thousands of documented direct descendants today—most European monarchs and aristocratic families trace ancestry to Rollo.
Given exponential growth, intermarriage, and known historical documentation, it’s very plausible that tens of thousands (possibly even hundreds of thousands) alive today could claim direct descent.
However, provable, documented direct descent is limited mainly to aristocratic or royal lineages, probably numbering in the thousands to tens of thousands at most.”
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
No. All Europeans today are definitely descendants of Rollo (if he has any living descendants)
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique (tho fuck knows how Google reached that number)
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
Still wrong.
Everyond who lived a thousand years ago who has any European descendants today is an ancestor of every European.
Both maths and DNA evidence tell you this.
No, I’m talking about direct descendants
The claim you’re referencing relates to genealogical ancestors, not necessarily genetic ones
You're really not understanding this, are you?
Everyone in Europe today is likely a genealogical descendant of Rollo of Normandy (assuming he has living descendants, which he certainly does), but they are definitely not all direct descendants.
The distinction:
Genealogical descendant means you appear somewhere, anywhere, in their family tree. After roughly a thousand years, someone like Rollo would statistically become a common genealogical ancestor to almost everyone with European roots
Direct descendant suggests a clear, direct lineage (father to son or daughter, continuously down generations). Only a tiny subset of people today can demonstrate or trace that explicitly direct lineage back to Rollo. Someone like, say, me
In short, nearly everyone in Europe today is a genealogical descendant of Rollo, but only certain noble, gifted, virile, handsome witty, popular and clearly aristocratic individuals who have friends (ie the opposite of you) can claim the more prestigious-sounding direct descent often through documented noble line
You're just wrong. We are all direct (genetic) descendants of Rollo (if he has any living descendants, which is likely).
Sorry if this fact punctures the only thing you thought you had going for you.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
No. All Europeans today are definitely descendants of Rollo (if he has any living descendants)
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique (tho fuck knows how Google reached that number)
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
Still wrong.
Everyond who lived a thousand years ago who has any European descendants today is an ancestor of every European.
Both maths and DNA evidence tell you this.
+1
That's our village idiot properly pwned.
Np, @kamsko is making a common mistake confusing genealogical ancestor with direct ancestry
Why not think about it for a second before typing out more rubbish?
As I said above, it's a mathematical fact that both you and I have 300,000,000,000,000 direct ancestors if you go back 48 generations. If you went back to the tiny population back then, there will be a fair few people whose lines died out - statistically this will be people who had no children or whose children had no children (since once you go beyond that, the chances of an entire line dying out diminish toward zero very rapidly). For all the others, certainly in this end of Europe, we're all descended from all of them, and that 300,000,000,000,000 hits would have to be distributed over just a few tens of million people, with those whose lines haven't died out scoring an average of ten million hits each.
Both you and I are likely descended from Rollo some ten million times over.
Read that bollox is 10 seconds of my life wasted, was Leon pissed.
The problem we face is that the right wing bubble keeping Reform afloat is largely impenetrable. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says.
Huzzah!
Reform never strong enough to win, but strong enough to cancel out the Tories, so the right out of power for many years, maybe decades.
Ed Davey gains votes as frustration with the impotent right grows. The locals in a few weeks will see Reform votes up, but the Lib Dems will do better.
Most likely, people on the right vote for whichever of Reform or Conservative is best-placed to defeat Labour.
I don't believe that was borne out by GE2024.
Those who are likely to install Trump-Putin shills into Downing Street are not specifically "right wing". They were lifelong Labour voters who once lent their vote to the Socialist Johnson to get Brexit over the line and kick out foreigners. Next time they will vote for whoever promises to kick.out foreigners.
Edit; swiftly corrected "nonce" to "once". Sorry.
Wrong. Reform and Brexit were both NOTA votes from the dispossessed and left behind. Dominic Cummings recognised this, hence levelling up which was ditched when he was.
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
No. All Europeans today are definitely descendants of Rollo (if he has any living descendants)
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique (tho fuck knows how Google reached that number)
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
Still wrong.
Everyond who lived a thousand years ago who has any European descendants today is an ancestor of every European.
Both maths and DNA evidence tell you this.
No, I’m talking about direct descendants
The claim you’re referencing relates to genealogical ancestors, not necessarily genetic ones
You're really not understanding this, are you?
Everyone in Europe today is likely a genealogical descendant of Rollo of Normandy (assuming he has living descendants, which he certainly does), but they are definitely not all direct descendants.
The distinction:
Genealogical descendant means you appear somewhere, anywhere, in their family tree. After roughly a thousand years, someone like Rollo would statistically become a common genealogical ancestor to almost everyone with European roots
Direct descendant suggests a clear, direct lineage (father to son or daughter, continuously down generations). Only a tiny subset of people today can demonstrate or trace that explicitly direct lineage back to Rollo. Someone like, say, me
There isn't any distinction, and saying the same thing in two different ways doesn't create one.
“How many living direct descendants does Rollo of Normandy have, living today?”
Answer:
“It’s impossible to be exact, but a reasonable estimate would place Rollo of Normandy’s living direct descendants at tens of thousands—possibly more.
Reasoning: • Rollo (c. 860–930 CE) lived around 1,100 years ago, which translates roughly to 35 generations. • Noble families like Rollo’s tended to have well-documented lineages through European royalty and aristocracy, who historically had numerous offspring. • Royal and noble descendants spread widely over Europe through marriage and reproduction.
Known facts: • William the Conqueror was Rollo’s great-great-great-grandson, and through William, Rollo’s descendants multiplied exponentially among European nobility. • Royal genealogists have identified thousands of documented direct descendants today—most European monarchs and aristocratic families trace ancestry to Rollo.
Given exponential growth, intermarriage, and known historical documentation, it’s very plausible that tens of thousands (possibly even hundreds of thousands) alive today could claim direct descent.
However, provable, documented direct descent is limited mainly to aristocratic or royal lineages, probably numbering in the thousands to tens of thousands at most.”
So you're just proving again that LLMs are full of shit.
"Their results, published today in PLOS Biology, both confirm Chang’s mathematical approach and enrich it. Even within the past thousand years, Ralph and Coop found, people on opposite sides of the continent share a lot of segments in common–so many, in fact, that it’s statistically impossible for them to have gotten them all from a single ancestor. Instead, someone in Turkey and someone in England have to share a lot of ancestors. In fact, as Chang suspected, the only way to explain the DNA is to conclude that everyone who lived a thousand years ago who has any descendants today is an ancestor of every European. Charlemagne for everyone!"
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
No. All Europeans today are definitely descendants of Rollo (if he has any living descendants)
What really seemed to upset Vance and Trump was Zelensky campaigning in Pennsylvania for the Democrats and that wasn't, in fairness, the smartest move. Thank goodness none of our parties were stupid enough to send supporters to campaign for Harris.
I agree this was definitely a trigger. In that context it's funny that Starmer got away with Labour's actions. Once again it shows that this was a hatchet job on Z.
Starmer didn't get away with anything Trump and Vance are seriously harsh about Starmer's restricting free speech and the Apple backdoor nonsense
Watch the WHOLE press conference
I mean specifically the Labour representatives going to campaign for Harris. I didn't see Trump or Vance use that against Starmer; did I miss it?
I think that all of this is a series of tactical exaggerations / misrepresentations, tbh.
Here is an FT piece about a group of Republicans coming to the UK in 2015 to help the Tories campaign in marginal seats. Campaigning with sister parties over the pond is just normal, and has been so since the time of Mrs Thatcher, and perhaps earlier (I wasn't around). https://www.ft.com/content/48d94f08-e82b-11e4-9960-00144feab7de
The President of Ukraine visiting a US Munitions plant with a representative of the US Govt to thank the workers for making shells for his country is actually exactly what Vance was demanding, ie gratitude. The issue is perhaps the Vance fantasises about the state as politicised against him. Vance's demands about "have you thanked us" are nonsense, the USA already having been thanked again at the start of the meeting. I say Vance's upset is entirely tactical.
The free speech stuff is weird. The examples in Vance's Munich speech were fabrications - whether because he's manipulating or because he's ignorant I cannot tell. "Facebook poster jailed for hurty words" claims I have seen have almost all been for far more serious offences, such as calling for hotels full of brown people to be burnt down with the brown people still in them. That's an attempted wedge issue by elements on the Right of our politics, in the hope of using talking points that used to belong to the BNP and similar to build a support base.
IMO it's all mainly Trump & Vance reacting to images they have projected on the inside of their own heads, or a deliberate political tactic. Vance gets seriously harsh when anyone refuses to kneel down and lick the boots.
Bollocks, people ARE doing jailtime for social media, and cops are knocking on doors for literally NON crime "hate incidents"
Free speech is under attack in the UK in a way we have not seen in many decades. Meanwhile we suddenly have a de facto blasphemy law that only protects Islam
There are many reasons to abhor Trump, one of them - for me - is this: his oafish, New Jersey Mafia Don impression is slowing the advance of the new right that will reverse all this shit. Cf Canada
It feels to me like Western Democracy - the amazing fruit of the Enlightenment - is dying.
What is clear is that Europe, plus Canada, Australia & NZ - these places will be the last bastions of Western Democracy, not the US.
The imminent failure of the US as key pillar of democarcy on the alt-right, no one else.
It really is dying. The stats don't lie
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
Not much of a surprise. Full democracies has never been as numerous as people in the West think, and several places are backsliding. Any going in the other direction need to be celebrated.
I believe, long term, that democracy is dead
Well, we need to change that - pronto - because one thing linked to the death of democracy is a lack of respect for the sanctity of life.
Extra-judicial killings and violence is normal. And that could include you.
A lot of people like the idea of a strong man leader, a leviathan who who won't be constrained by the slowness of democratic systems and will do exactly what they want.
The problem is that one is equally likely to get a strong man leader who shares none of your views and values and who hates people like you: so @Leon ends up with a Jeremy Corbyn strongman, not a Marine Le Pen one.
And, then, of course: how do you get rid of them? The messiness of democracy suddenly looks a lot less unattractive.
What I think we need, though, is to tweak our democratic system so that politicians get the message they're making a mistake quicker. The Chagos deal, for example, is liked by (as far as I can tell) Starmer and... umm... Starmer's mum.
How do we introduce feedback systems around - say EU membership, or Chagos, or shooting up immigration, so that politicians can make smaller decisions quicker (incrementalism) rather than making massive changes (often over-corrections) every four years.
54% say "don't know", and the ludicrous costs of the "deal" were not mentioned, let alone the spurious connection to far away Mauritius
Well, that’s democracy for you. You can think other people wrong, because they’re not considering the full facts of the situation or they have been misled. You can try to persuade people. But you also have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, other people may settle on a different view to you. Maybe after public debate, the demos will swing around to your point of view, and maybe they won’t.
My point is not to defend or argue against the Chagos deal. It’s to note that rcs1000’s view that no-one likes the Chagos deal, and to use that as an example of democracy failing, is in error. Lots of people, rightly or wrongly, like the deal. I don’t disagree with rcs1000’s broader point, but for democracy to be seen to be working, we need mechanisms by which people can express their views and we need to get out of our own media bubbles.
Okay, my point is the vacuity of this kind of polling
Don’t back down Geoff, I think you were spot on first time - over 54% don’t know suggests an awful lot of people don’t feel they truly understand it, or feel they do understand it enough to not give a damn.
It is odd though, considering there has been a lot of frothy hatred of Chagos deal in the dead tree media, and absolutely no one on PB (I’m aware of) defending it, that polling keeps throwing up polls of support for Chagos Deal, and over half merely shrugging not at all worked up. From this same poll “politics” section, Conservatives are against, but only by 37% to 21% with 42% don’t know.
Before I started looking into it, I would have answered agains the deal, believing I knew enough about it to think it bad for national security and bizarre we are willing to unnecessarily pay so much good money for no good reason. Now I understand Chagos Deal inside out, my answer would still be strongly opposed to it going ahead, though for very different reasoning - my own preferred position (impossible though it is due to our ties to US defence systems) is now identical to the view Lord Dannatt expressed: just gift ownership to the US and India and walk away never to get involved again.
Gut reaction should be oppose because it don’t make any sense, going from a gut reaction to knowing what it’s really about, should also be strongly oppose, so I don’t understand why polls pick up so much support and so much indifference.
eh? "back down"? But your own take might have had much to be said for it except that we now realise that the USA (and India for that matter) may not be our steadfast allies
US, India and France have rarely shirked a chance for shafting the old colonial power UK at any point in the last 100 years. For dealing with Trump 2.0, it’s simply matter of keeping calm and steering it. As UK Prime Minister you will take decisions and act on basis Trump is just a 4 year thing, a blip.
There wasn’t much in tight US election race despite the price of eggs. If Biden stuck to his word being a bridge president, announced intention not to run in 2023 and allowed a Democratic Primary, the tight election could have been even tighter, even a different outcome.
Trumps campaign of backing away from Project 25 only to implement it from day 1, was fraudulent. he has no moral authority or popular support for anything he is doing. Even before the ruinous idiocy of Trumpnomics kicks in, we may already have passed peak power and influence from Trump 2.0.
Mug of tea. Keep calm, carry on.
We colonised France? Surely they colonised us…well the England bit anyway.
Shh. They were Norsemen. Norse Men. Who just happened to speak French and pay homage to the French throne, it's totally different, we swear.
It was because that Rollo fell out with his brother; I saw it on TV.
Rollo of Normandy is my great gggggggggggggg grandfather via my dad and his great grandfather
And mine.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
1.5 million living descendants according to Google; so yeah I’m not exactly unique (tho fuck knows how Google reached that number)
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
Still wrong.
Everyond who lived a thousand years ago who has any European descendants today is an ancestor of every European.
Both maths and DNA evidence tell you this.
+1
That's our village idiot properly pwned.
Np, @kamsko is making a common mistake confusing genealogical ancestor with direct ancestry
Why not think about it for a second before typing out more rubbish?
As I said above, it's a mathematical fact that both you and I have 300,000,000,000,000 direct ancestors if you go back 48 generations. If you went back to the tiny population back then, there will be a fair few people whose lines died out - statistically this will be people who had no children or whose children had no children (since once you go beyond that, the chances of an entire line dying out diminish toward zero very rapidly). For all the others, certainly in this end of Europe, we're all descended from all of them, and that 300,000,000,000,000 hits would have to be distributed over just a few tens of million people, with those whose lines haven't died out scoring an average of ten million hits each.
Both you and I are likely descended from Rollo some ten million times over.
Read that bollox is 10 seconds of my life wasted, was Leon pissed.
Haaltbakk Bunkers, a large Norwegian marine supply company, has refused to refuel an American nuclear attack submarine, the Virginia, as a result of - direct quote from their press release - "the biggest shitshow ever presented "live on TV" by the current American President and his vice President".
Plus, Japanese-South Korean relations have improved dramatically as a consequence of the US no longer being seen as a reliabl ally.
Comments
"While the Democrats gained 52 seats in the 1930 midterm elections, Republicans retained a narrow one-seat majority of 218 seats after the polls closed versus the Democrats' 216 seats; however, during the 13 months between these elections and the end of the 72nd Congress,[4] 14 members-elect died (including incumbent Speaker Nicholas Longworth), and the Democrats gained an additional three seats in the special elections called to fill these vacancies, thus gaining control of the House (they held a 219–212 advantage over the Republicans when the new Congress convened)."
(Links omitted.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections
(Could something similar happen this year or next? Sure, though as of now, I would say the odds are against it. To get a good estimate, you'd need and expert look at life expectancies in both parties, and state rules on special elections.)
I love these ridiculous cultural collisions
Lindsey Graham on Feb. 14: "You're the ally I've been hoping for all my life. Not one American has d*ed defending Ukraine."
Lindsey Graham on Feb. 28: "I don't know if we can ever do business with Zelensky again. I think most Americans saw a guy that they would not wanna go in business with."
https://x.com/PolymarketIntel/status/1895920750491828493
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1895953699811275105
Russia is slowly winning on the battlefield, despite its huge death tolls, or at least is not losing. The Russian economy has not collapsed, despite sanctions, and as soon as peace breaks out and sanctions are lifted, Russia can rebuild its treasury by resuming exports of its dig-and-sell commodities, including gas and oil.
So what Ukraine needs is America back in the game, at least as backstop. With American support, Russia cannot win. Without it (and even with it under Trump) the best Ukraine can hope for is not to give too much away in any ceasefire agreement or peace deal.
So in the short term, America needs Starmer and Lammy and Mandelson, and also Healey through Nato, to patch things up with the White House, at least to get things back to where they were before Vance and Zelensky started arguing.
JUST IN: Judge Jackson rules that it is constitutional for the Office of Special Counsel to assert independence from the President. He has legitimate authority to act free of removal by the President without cause, she rules.
Next up, SCOTUS.
https://x.com/kyledcheney/status/1896012475444969838
The paradox is, that if Taiwan falls, America loses access to its chips so it may be in America's selfish interest to onshore Taiwan's chip-making (and any other manufacturing) industry, and once it has done that, defending Taiwan is less important. We are already starting to see this technology transfer.
The response from around Europe has mostly been fast, and resolute, with the two from the senior EU people being the strongest of all.
And the logical fail in your post is the references to France taking its own position while inside the EU. There is no reason why the UK couldn’t have done the same had we still been a member. Defence remains a matter of national rather than EU politics.
Trump declines to answer question about China and Taiwan
https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-declines-answer-question-about-china-taiwan-2025-02-26/
The 'technology transfer" will take a decade or more, if it ever happens. The new US plants are not the leading edge; Intel has a better shot of providing that this decade.
The US has a huge strategic interest in defending Taiwan's independence, but with Trump, who the hell knows ?
Someone had to pick up the reins.
JUST IN: Elon Musk says he agrees it is time for the US to leave NATO and the UN
https://x.com/spectatorindex/status/1896046033853169812
https://x.com/mattmfm/status/1895904839437316595
If the administration carries on the way it’s started, the midterms will be brutal for them, whatever efforts they might make at ballot suppression.
It’s the context the question is being asked in that gives it its force.
For now, military aid continues to Taiwan, but I very much hope Xi doesn’t have a gambling streak in him.
Betting PostGood morning, everyone.
F1: for anyone who missed it, you can back Piastri on Ladbrokes each way at 13 (boosted to 14). He now has a lay down to 10 on Betfair, which means you can just guarantee profit on the straight title win/loss, or you can go each way and have the chance for both to pay out if he's 2nd or 3rd.
The US alone lifting sanctions will not be enough to allow China back to trade with Russia for the hydrocarbons currently suspended. It cannot afford to lose European/friendly country markets. Driving a wedge between China and Russia is a sound policy - much as it may piss off MAGA 'murica.
Te EU is a straw man regarding Ukraine. It's about doing the right to protect Europe from Russian aggression - including Moscow-friendly EU members.
The EU may need to look at suspending countries such as Hungary. Let them suffer lack of EU support - until they discover Russia can't help them economically.
Every critique of Ukraine is also true of Russia:
It can't win without foreign assistance.
It's economy is faltering.
There's a limited stock of weapons for them to draw down.
Ultimately, the "bear case" for Ukraine is that it cannot win because Russia has so many more resources. But is that true? Russia has 3x the population of Ukraine, but attacking is much harder than defending, and holding territory is hard.
It seems that neither side can actually land a knock out blow. The problem, ultimately, is that Putin can't sell the current situation as a win to his people, and therefore is obliged to push on, despite losses that aren't that different to British ones in the worst parts of WW1, and for what?
Given that the USA has turned something between indifferent and hostile, Europe will need sovereign capabilities across the board over time - and to isolate an isolationist USA.
This is ITAR regs (internation Traffic in Arms Regulations), which have been in a thing since 1976, and I have been reading articles about in the trade press since the 1980s. The USA have used them to control supply of arms to third countries, sometimes to benefit their own industry, and in missiles, for example, there has been an emphasis in Europe of making arms ITAR-proof for a couple of decades. It was one of their perks for providing overarching security, reserve currency etc - Trump and Vance burnt that down, and the world is changing, including for them.
Here's an Economist piece from 2008 about how that had THEN driven a fall in US share of the satellite market from 83% to 50%:
The result is a system that is too successful in keeping American technology out of foreign hands. Before 1999, when the State Department took over the export regulation of satellites, America dominated commercial satellite-making with an average market share of 83%. Since then, this share has declined to 50%, according to Space Review. ITAR's critics blame the change in export controls. As bidding opened in July this year for the €3.4 billion ($5 billion) of contracts for Galileo, a constellation of 30 positioning satellites being built by the European Union and the European Space Agency, European officials cited export controls as a reason for avoiding anything to do with America wherever possible.
https://archive.is/DWCxN#selection-1211.1-1215.372
I've been pointing out for some time that one of President Chump's problems is that the USA is nothing like as dominant in reality as it is in his head, which is stuck somewhere between the 1950s and the 1970s. They had 40% of world GDP in 1960; now it is under 25%.
He just walked into a lamp post wrt 'I can pull a peace settlement out of thin air in one day', and felt he had to deflect blame onto Zelenskyy because of his overblown ego, which has resulted in him looking globally like the self-obsessed he has become. There are a lot more lamp posts down the road.
Ed Davey gains votes as frustration with the impotent right grows. The locals in a few weeks will see Reform votes up, but the Lib Dems will do better.
Starmer should keep her abreast of all developments. To be fair to her she has equivocated less than other senior RefConners over Trump, and thus by definition Putin.
Anyway, I'd like to hear from Keir what we are spending our extra defence money on. Planes/drones/boats/men what? Maybe it should be manufacturing capacity for weapons since sounds like there will be a lot of European demand...
What we're least likely to need is what the military, in the past at least, has wanted the most - big prestige items like the aircraft carriers, which a few drone topedoes might quickly make irrelevant.
We're not yet heading in that direction in any meaningful way. Trump at -1.8 and still in post election honeymoon phase
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/donald-trump/
Beyond the beltways there is a strong cohort who are yet distant from the effects and are quite enjoying the spectacle of the government and prior assumptions being gutted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChEuA1AUJAY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRq1Ksh-32g
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/
Kids are dying of measles. Egg prices are skyrocketing. Bird flu is out of control. Planes are falling out of the sky. Inflation is rising. Tariffs are coming. Consumer confidence is collapsing. A recession is now likely. The stock market is dropping.
Donald Trump is golfing.
Apropos of nothing, historically that is Russia ~20% less than the USSR at the start of WW2, and Ukraine ~ the same as the UK at the start of WW1.
"Slavery produced in the South a genuine affection between the races that we believe we can say has never existed in any nation before the War or since. There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world. Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes and good medical care."
Which side will they jump?
Perhaps we will see a move if Farage faceplants? His balancing act is getting ever more tricky as he rides an increasing number of horses going in diverging directions.
In fact if Rollo has any living descendants than we all are.
Ukraine’s population may now be under 35m or lower
Those who are likely to install Trump-Putin shills into Downing Street are not specifically "right wing". They were lifelong Labour voters who once lent their vote to the Socialist Johnson to get Brexit over the line and kick out foreigners. Next time they will vote for whoever promises to kick.out foreigners.
Edit; swiftly corrected "nonce" to "once". Sorry.
Besides. For all that Ref and Con both hate Labour, they also hate each other. Establishment right and radical right aren't all that compatible. And any post-election arrangement tends to kill the junior partner.
Refining is the most complicated. Perfect targets in modern warfare, really.
And refining is often not easily substituted - a refinery is generally designed to take a particular type of crude oil. You can’t just take any oil to any refinery.
The uniqueness comes from the fact I have a traceable line - via one ultra posh “cornish” family
The family seat is still there, tho the 14th century manor was rebuilt after a calamitous fire and is now an exquisite regency mansion hard by the Helford River - a gorgeous corner of Britain
It sold for several million a few years ago
One extra piquant fact - my sister, niece, mum, nephew, cousins and brand new son-of-niece (2 weeks old!) all live within 10 miles or less of where “we” lived 800 years back
https://x.com/spectatorindex/status/1896046033853169812
It's worth PBers noting that "The Spectator Index" is not connected with The Spectator magazine.
On Twitter it's bigger than the Times or Good Morning Britain, but this news source has no reporters, no fact-checkers – and until now, its owner has never been named. Who is behind The Spectator Index?
https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2020/03/spectator-index-news-sources-who-behind
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectator_Index
Full NS article, which is fascinating as to how twitter accounts can develop online:
https://archive.is/20231025003952/https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2020/03/spectator-index-news-sources-who-behind
It occurs to me you suffer from a kind of inverse-Wykehamist Fallacy, you are not intelligent enough to understand how much brighter I am, than you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUpOMSJ1MdU
Everyond who lived a thousand years ago who has any European descendants today is an ancestor of every European.
Both maths and DNA evidence tell you this.
On Twitter it's bigger than the Times or Good Morning Britain, but this news source has no reporters, no fact-checkers – and until now, its owner has never been named. Who is behind The Spectator Index?
https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2020/03/spectator-index-news-sources-who-behind
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectator_Index
It’s some Australian dude I think. Who randomly got famous
I’d be really surprised if Elon said something THAT crass - leave NATO and the UN? My guess is there is, at least, some context missing. An hypothetical
That's our village idiot properly pwned.
This was very apparent on my trip there. Once east of Poltava, there is no c-nt there with many izbas totally deserted and looted. You can buy them for almost nothing if anybody fancies a dacha that experiences only intermittent missile strikes.
Ukraine will need to lower the conscription age at some point if they want to keep swinging. They aren't yet at the point where need people more than money and weapons, but it's coming.
The claim you’re referencing relates to genealogical ancestors, not necessarily genetic ones
2 good moments though from that sketch, Trump "I have all the cards… I have get out of jail free, the Supreme Court gave me that one" and Mike Myers/Dr Evil as Elon.
Refineries need a constant suppy of a specific type of oil for which that refinery is set up. Light or heavy oil, low or high sulphur. Mess up that supply and your refineries, 24-7 plants, become inefficient or even inoperable.
They are very finely tuned pieces of engineering. Hydrocarbon facilities are about as bad a piece of kit for working under the threat of being slammed with high explosives as you can imagine.
Once your refining capacity gets taken out of production, you need storage for the oil being produced. That can be stored in the shadow fleet - but currently, China and India are not accepting deliveries from that fleet. (Plus, that fleet seems to be suffering some unusual explosion-related incidents.) So that source of storage gets blocked up.
If you lose storage, then you have to stop producing oil from the fields across Russia. Stop that production and once shut-in, it can take years to restart that production. (If you have waxy crude, stop the through-flow and you can find your pipelines to that storage has turned into a hundred mile long candle.
So yes, Russia needs storage. Without it, a hydrocarbons-based economy is stuffed.
Everyone in Europe today is likely a genealogical descendant of Rollo of Normandy (assuming he has living descendants, which he certainly does), but they are definitely not all direct descendants.
The distinction:
Genealogical descendant means you appear somewhere, anywhere, in their family tree. After roughly a thousand years, someone like Rollo would statistically become a common genealogical ancestor to almost everyone with European roots
Direct descendant suggests a clear, direct lineage (father to son or daughter, continuously down generations). Only a tiny subset of people today can demonstrate or trace that explicitly direct lineage back to Rollo. Someone like, say, me
In short, nearly everyone in Europe today is a genealogical descendant of Rollo, but only certain noble, gifted, virile, handsome witty, popular and clearly aristocratic individuals who have friends (ie the opposite of you) can claim the more prestigious-sounding direct descent often through documented noble line
You never have any analysis or thought. It’s just “Starmer’s doing great.” Or “Labour’s going to win the next election”
At least they have the merit of being short.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZAMyu8wYmw
Article here from The New Movie Magazine, April 1930. I ran across it because I was looking for a comparison for Trump and Vance, but Laurel and Hardy are pleasant - even in character.
https://vintoz.com/blogs/vintage-movie-resources/stan-laurel-and-oliver-hardy-the-seriousness-of-being-funny-in-four-languages
I have watched Laurel and Hardy being funny in four languages, and it is something I will never forget, although I saw the shelling of Paris when Big Bertha was dropping them regularly, but, as I recall it, the people wore gay and carefree expressions on their faces in comparison to the expressions I saw and heard in and around Culver City, California.
This is the way Messieurs Laurel and Hardy do it. They have their “tutors,” as they are called, three of them: Spanish, French and German. Señors Laurel and Hardy make the scene first in English, and then they turn on the heat and make it all over again in German.
block quotes buggered
On Twitter it's bigger than the Times or Good Morning Britain, but this news source has no reporters, no fact-checkers – and until now, its owner has never been named. Who is behind The Spectator Index?
https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2020/03/spectator-index-news-sources-who-behind
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectator_Index
Full NS article, which is fascinating as to how twitter accounts can develop online:
https://archive.is/20231025003952/https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/2020/03/spectator-index-news-sources-who-behind
Where I do agree with Musk is that the UN is not worth persevering with - whilstever Russia has a blocking vote.
Start again.
Try this:
https://gcbias.org/european-genealogy-faq/
"Ubiquitous shared ancestry: We found that even people living on opposite sides of Europe are genealogically closely related to each other over the past thousand years. Even pairs of people as far apart as the UK and Turkey share a chunk of genomic material 20% of the time. Since the chance that two people inherit genetic material from any one shared ancestor from 1,000 years ago is incredibly unlikely (<10-10), to explain such sharing we need these pairs of individuals to share many ancestors. In fact, they need to share a number of ancestors that is far larger than the size of European population, indicating that any pair of individuals share as ancestors all of the individuals alive back at the time in Europe, each many times over.
This strange idea that everyone is everyone’s ancestor was actually predicted about ten years ago by Joseph Chang (and collaborators) using maths and simulations. In hindsight this is intuitively clear, due to the rapidly expanding number of ancestors you have as you go back further and further in time."
As I said above, it's a mathematical fact that both you and I have 300,000,000,000,000 direct ancestors if you go back 48 generations. If you went back to the tiny population back then, there will be a fair few people whose lines died out - statistically this will be people who had no children or whose children had no children (since once you go beyond that, the chances of an entire line dying out diminish toward zero very rapidly). For all the others, certainly in this end of Europe, we're all descended from all of them, and that 300,000,000,000,000 hits would have to be distributed over just a few tens of million people, with those whose lines haven't died out scoring an average of ten million hits each.
Both you and I are likely descended from Rollo some ten million times over.
I voted Ref at the last election. My Tory MP was going to lose anyway, and it was important to send a signal to CCHQ that their government was a total failure, and they needed to go back to the drawing board.
Next time round I will be thinking very carefully about my vote, and will be voting Ref or Tory depending on who is most likely to win my seat.
I can't imagine I'm that unusual.
Ask DeepSeek
“How many living direct descendants does Rollo of Normandy have, living today?”
Answer:
“It’s impossible to be exact, but a reasonable estimate would place Rollo of Normandy’s living direct descendants at tens of thousands—possibly more.
Reasoning:
• Rollo (c. 860–930 CE) lived around 1,100 years ago, which translates roughly to 35 generations.
• Noble families like Rollo’s tended to have well-documented lineages through European royalty and aristocracy, who historically had numerous offspring.
• Royal and noble descendants spread widely over Europe through marriage and reproduction.
Known facts:
• William the Conqueror was Rollo’s great-great-great-grandson, and through William, Rollo’s descendants multiplied exponentially among European nobility.
• Royal genealogists have identified thousands of documented direct descendants today—most European monarchs and aristocratic families trace ancestry to Rollo.
Given exponential growth, intermarriage, and known historical documentation, it’s very plausible that tens of thousands (possibly even hundreds of thousands) alive today could claim direct descent.
However, provable, documented direct descent is limited mainly to aristocratic or royal lineages, probably numbering in the thousands to tens of thousands at most.”
Sorry if this fact punctures the only thing you thought you had going for you.
Try this
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/charlemagnes-dna-and-our-universal-royalty
"Their results, published today in PLOS Biology, both confirm Chang’s mathematical approach and enrich it. Even within the past thousand years, Ralph and Coop found, people on opposite sides of the continent share a lot of segments in common–so many, in fact, that it’s statistically impossible for them to have gotten them all from a single ancestor. Instead, someone in Turkey and someone in England have to share a lot of ancestors. In fact, as Chang suspected, the only way to explain the DNA is to conclude that everyone who lived a thousand years ago who has any descendants today is an ancestor of every European. Charlemagne for everyone!"
Plus, Japanese-South Korean relations have improved dramatically as a consequence of the US no longer being seen as a reliabl ally.
Shitshow just got real.