Those people that said a European army was a bad reason to remain are looking very stupid today.
Nope. It was a bad idea then and it is a bad idea now. At least in the form it was suggested which was an EU army. As I pointed out yesterday it would exclude some of our most important allies, would be utterly ineffective as it would include countries like Hungary who are openly favourable to Russia and would be riven with disagreement about what actions it should or should not take.
Far more effective to reconfigure either the JEF or NATO without the obvious trouble makers.
The point is the United States used to be one of our most important allies. There is no guarantee that the French, the Germans, the Finns, the Poles might not turn in the future, particularly if Russia's influence is allowed to grow.
I'm sceptical of the need for an increase in defence spending, if our European/Commonwealth allies hold. But I would support if it if some of our more essential functions are taken in-house, including an independent Trident, defending energy/telecoms cables in the North Sea, increasing industrial capacity for armanents and so on. None of this arbitrary %age of GDP nonsense.
Unusual for me, but this is one area where I feel integrating closely with Europe could go as badly wrong as it has with the Americans.
Nothing to see here, especially if you are not looking for it.
All the more reason to break away from Five Eyes. The US simply can no longer be trsuted to be a secure ally with whom we can share intelligence.
We don't always see eye to eye on here but I always respect your analysis.
You have been extremely bullish since last night. I want to agree with you but cannot see the practicalities of it.
So a question - on what timescale would you suggest we break away, and how do you envisage it working?
Or is your response led by your gut, without thinking through the practicalities? (Which I would also respect given the last 24 hours btw)
I did outline the practicalities myself yesterday. I had lunch on Thursday with my neighbour who is retired RAF officer who spent much of his time prior to retirement in intelligence and planning at NATO. He agrees that we need to break away from Five Eyes but also pointed out there is a currently a massive, perhaps insurmountable, issue. Most of the framework infrastructure that forms the backbone of Five Eyes including Satellite Imagery and interception and a lot of the monitoring systems around the world are built, run and owned by the US. He is not sure it is at all practical at present for Five Eyes to continue without the US.
So what we need to be doing is building a new network and infrastructure separate from the US which willl allow us to isolate them from our intelligence networks. This would have to include France for sure.
The question right now though is whether continuing with Five Eyes with the serious likelihood that much of our intelligence is ending up in Moscow via Trump is any less of a risk than cutting ourselves off from the network?
Those people that said a European army was a bad reason to remain are looking very stupid today.
A European army is a bad idea.
Military action can’t be driven by consensus
It needs to be a smaller group of key partners IHT an intergovernmental structure
As the LibDem MP for Tunbridge Wells (an army veteran) is proposing, what is needed is a European defence framework not dissimilar to NATO. Nations retain their own armed forces - as we do now, within NATO - but with a much greater degree of standarisation and co-ordination of command and control.
"the LibDem MP for Tunbridge Wells"
Never thought I'd see that in print, referring to an actual person.
There are sufficient black landrovers with a police escort leaving the airport as to confirm Z is on British soil. It looks like they've skipped baggage reclaim.
At least Zelenskyy is with friends now he has landed in UK
Sky saying some hopes talks may resume, but frankly after yesterday I wouldn't trust a single thing Trump or his administration says or promises ever again
Starner should invite Trump and Zekensky to a meeting in London.
For what? The USA is not going to help Ukraine. They are making it very clear even if we don't want to hear it. We have to help them ourselves as best we can and hope we can outlast the insanity over the pond.
To give Trump enough rope...
He is (effectively) not accountable to anyone. Just as Kim Jong Un can proclaim whatever he likes, then change his mind back and forth without dissent or murmur, so can Trump.
That is only true up to a certain point (he says, hopefully)
North Koreans are used to their current deprivation
Fat Americans are not going to put up with the New King wrecking their comfortable lifestyles forever
More importantly, who was the great hairy twat of a journalist that queried Zelensky's attire?
"Why aren't you wearing a suit"?
I mean, really? Really? Zelensky is a war leader, they often wear combats and the like to express that status, and fair play, it's not like Zelensky is lying. He was in Kyiv as the bombs fell and as the Russians tried to hunt him down and kill him
It's that ignorant and insulting question that introduces the first discordant note and changes the mood, and you can see how it riles Zelensky (and I don't blame him) - he mentions it several times later (before the Goodfellas out-take)
Conversely, Zelensky was criticised before for addressing Congress without wearing a suit. Everyone else adores the sweatshirt because it's war leader cosplay, in America some don't. A wise choice might have been to develop a sort of general's version of it with a shirt and tie underneath, elbow patch jumper on top, and some decorations and gold braid here and there.
An argument that might have a bit more strength if, just this last week, Musky Baby had not attended cabinet dressed like a hobo.
There was zero criticism of him from the same people who are apparently offended by Zelenskyy's attire.
Because it's ridiculous criticism; designed solely to attack Z.
Well, quite.
And if clothes snobbery is to be a thing, can we point out that during Trump's state visit he turned up at the state dinner in his white tie but had a waistcoat far too long for his jacket so that he just looked like a fat waiter in some fading mittel-European hotel handing round a 27-page menu and then telling you everything bar the omelette is off.
Try to simultaneously "enhance:" Britain's role and standing, that should say there.
Starmer seems to have his ear.
You are being incredibly naive if you think Starmer has his ear. He will be polite to Starmer (for the moment). He will not listen to Starmer.
That might be true, and if might be that all Starner could hope for, is a trade deal that's terrible for Britain.
On the other hand, in such a precarious and important international scenario, if you have even a hint of influence on both sides, you have to try and maximise that ; for your own country's status, but also more importantly for the collective sekf-interest of the West.
Struck me Trump is now so weak he had to have Captain Guyliner there to double-team Zelensky.
Weak and cowardly. That's Trump and anyone who demanded his re-election (like, um, Jenrick) need to explain their actions as well as condemning his. Otherwise it just looks like they are idiots (Jenrick and Badenoch) or bought and paid for (Farage).
There’s no point in demanding people apologise for their past misjudgements.
Badenoch, Jenrick and other leading Tories were strong last night in support of Ukraine and Zelensky. That’s what matters - don’t make it harder for them to do the right thing
In general I agree, as u-turning can be a good thing and should be encouraged where it is, though it can depend on how forcefully someone was pushing a previous position and whether they acknowledge they have in fact changed position.
OT I’ve had a bizarre double of being abused for being “English” two nights in a row. Thursday night I was informed that a woman I had been introduced me hates me because I’m “so English”, very beautiful welsh woman who could have chosen many reasons to dislike me but being “so English” was a new one.
Then last night a Scottish landlady of a bar had a rant at me for being English. Very bizarre and unprovoked.
The funny thing is that I’m not English and they are interlopers here so should probably fuck off home if they don’t like people who sound English.
My favourite Scottish hospitality story is being told:
'You can have red, or you can have whhhhiiiiite', when I asked for a wine list in a Highland pub.
My second favourite is when an obviously open tea room with spare tables was 'closed, now, dear', when I tried to go in with a group of 5 (female) uni pals.....
Starner should invite Trump and Zekensky to a meeting in London.
For what? The USA is not going to help Ukraine. They are making it very clear even if we don't want to hear it. We have to help them ourselves as best we can and hope we can outlast the insanity over the pond.
To give Trump enough rope...
He is (effectively) not accountable to anyone. Just as Kim Jong Un can proclaim whatever he likes, then change his mind back and forth without dissent or murmur, so can Trump.
That is only true up to a certain point (he says, hopefully)
North Koreans are used to their current deprivation
Fat Americans are not going to put up with the New King wrecking their comfortable lifestyles forever
Hence the incredible rush to reshape things so the levers of power can be effectively used when(if) popular support drops.
If he even wants to commit crimes in pursuit of that he has the greenlight from the top court.
OT I’ve had a bizarre double of being abused for being “English” two nights in a row. Thursday night I was informed that a woman I had been introduced me hates me because I’m “so English”, very beautiful welsh woman who could have chosen many reasons to dislike me but being “so English” was a new one.
Then last night a Scottish landlady of a bar had a rant at me for being English. Very bizarre and unprovoked.
The funny thing is that I’m not English and they are interlopers here so should probably fuck off home if they don’t like people who sound English.
With an attitude like that expressed in your last paragraph they may be onto something.
Ash Sarkar and Aaron Bastani came up last night. For those interested in Sarkar's views, this is an interesting listen. For the avoidance of doubt I'm not a fan of Sarkar particularly, but I think she adds interesting views to the debate that aren't always heard elsewhere: https://pca.st/episode/8031d8ee-548b-4566-99d4-7e97b84cc303 (about 45 mins)
TL;DL - amongst other things (about 35 mins in) she calls out the tendency of those with privilege to defer always to the most marginalised person in the room, and fragility on the left. In that respect, at least, I think she has an excellent point and makes it with credibility.
She’s plugging her new book which has received mixed reviews
Some think she’s seen the way the wind is blowing and moved, others think she’s moving on from previous views. A sinner repenteth.
The story about Eco loon Roger Hallam addressing a bunch of lefties is interesting and seems to have made her genuinely think.
More importantly, who was the great hairy twat of a journalist that queried Zelensky's attire?
"Why aren't you wearing a suit"?
I mean, really? Really? Zelensky is a war leader, they often wear combats and the like to express that status, and fair play, it's not like Zelensky is lying. He was in Kyiv as the bombs fell and as the Russians tried to hunt him down and kill him
It's that ignorant and insulting question that introduces the first discordant note and changes the mood, and you can see how it riles Zelensky (and I don't blame him) - he mentions it several times later (before the Goodfellas out-take)
Conversely, Zelensky was criticised before for addressing Congress without wearing a suit. Everyone else adores the sweatshirt because it's war leader cosplay, in America some don't. A wise choice might have been to develop a sort of general's version of it with a shirt and tie underneath, elbow patch jumper on top, and some decorations and gold braid here and there.
An argument that might have a bit more strength if, just this last week, Musky Baby had not attended cabinet dressed like a hobo.
There was zero criticism of him from the same people who are apparently offended by Zelenskyy's attire.
Because it's ridiculous criticism; designed solely to attack Z.
Well, quite.
And if clothes snobbery is to be a thing, can we point out that during Trump's state visit he turned up at the state dinner in his white tie but had a waistcoat far too long for his jacket so that he just looked like a fat waiter in some fading mittel-European hotel handing round a 27-page menu and then telling you everything bar the omelette is off.
We have that to look forward to again .....
Will we serve Big Macs at the state dinner? And Coca-Cola (I hesitate to refer to it as coke)! If not, what will Trump eat and drink?
More importantly, who was the great hairy twat of a journalist that queried Zelensky's attire?
"Why aren't you wearing a suit"?
I mean, really? Really? Zelensky is a war leader, they often wear combats and the like to express that status, and fair play, it's not like Zelensky is lying. He was in Kyiv as the bombs fell and as the Russians tried to hunt him down and kill him
It's that ignorant and insulting question that introduces the first discordant note and changes the mood, and you can see how it riles Zelensky (and I don't blame him) - he mentions it several times later (before the Goodfellas out-take)
Suits are stupid anyway. Expensive, high maintenance, usually uncomfortable and not even particularly pleasing aethestically. I've never understood the rule that says the more impractical your clothes, the better the work you do or the more respect you show people you meet.
And as for ties, if they didn't exist, what madman would think of inventing them?
On this, as on much else, I stand with Zelensky and Ukraine.
I’ve read some bollocks on PB, I’ve typed a lot of it myself but this is a new bottom. Anyone who thinks suits aren’t aesthetically pleasing must either be fat and misshaped or a wearer terrible cheap suits.
As for ties, they are vital for being able to easily identify if someone is worth talking to depending on their colours and stripe combos, and being able to spot spivs with bad taste across a room.
Should we have an extra space next to our avatar for a tie? Then we'd know where we all stand.
[Goes back to ignoring world events and enjoying the spring sunshine]
Those people that said a European army was a bad reason to remain are looking very stupid today.
A European army is a bad idea.
Military action can’t be driven by consensus
It needs to be a smaller group of key partners IHT an intergovernmental structure
As the LibDem MP for Tunbridge Wells (an army veteran) is proposing, what is needed is a European defence framework not dissimilar to NATO. Nations retain their own armed forces - as we do now, within NATO - but with a much greater degree of standarisation and co-ordination of command and control.
As I say though it cannot be solely EU or even just European. It needs the flanks to be protected - which means Canada, Iceland and Turkey for a start.
The trouble with doing that is that it effectively forces the US out of NATO. Better to work on an EU+UK basis.
I think the US has forced itself out. I genuinely think we have come that far and I say that as someone who feels far closer to the US than to the EU.
But countries have joined and left NATO in the past - most notably France. And we already have the basis of other organisations such as the JEF which can be expanded until such times as the US returns to sanity.
The question now is whether staying tied to the US poses a greater risk to our security than breaking with them. Personally I think it does.
Those people that said a European army was a bad reason to remain are looking very stupid today.
A European army is a bad idea.
Military action can’t be driven by consensus
It needs to be a smaller group of key partners IHT an intergovernmental structure
As the LibDem MP for Tunbridge Wells (an army veteran) is proposing, what is needed is a European defence framework not dissimilar to NATO. Nations retain their own armed forces - as we do now, within NATO - but with a much greater degree of standarisation and co-ordination of command and control.
"the LibDem MP for Tunbridge Wells"
Never thought I'd see that in print, referring to an actual person.
Looking at the seat and its predecessor seats listed on wikipedia, one of them was Liberal for 2 years in the 1920s but otherwise Conservative since the 1850s, the other had been Conservative since 1885 apart from 4 years from 1906-1910.
Hands up if you are old enough to recall PB Johnsonians explaining what an embarrassment Starmer was to the UK because he was not invited to Trump's inauguration whilst a hat full of very senior Tories and Reformers flew to Washington to kiss Trump's ring in those dim, distant and heady days prior to January 20th 2025.
More importantly, who was the great hairy twat of a journalist that queried Zelensky's attire?
"Why aren't you wearing a suit"?
I mean, really? Really? Zelensky is a war leader, they often wear combats and the like to express that status, and fair play, it's not like Zelensky is lying. He was in Kyiv as the bombs fell and as the Russians tried to hunt him down and kill him
It's that ignorant and insulting question that introduces the first discordant note and changes the mood, and you can see how it riles Zelensky (and I don't blame him) - he mentions it several times later (before the Goodfellas out-take)
Suits are stupid anyway. Expensive, high maintenance, usually uncomfortable and not even particularly pleasing aethestically. I've never understood the rule that says the more impractical your clothes, the better the work you do or the more respect you show people you meet.
And as for ties, if they didn't exist, what madman would think of inventing them?
On this, as on much else, I stand with Zelensky and Ukraine.
Say what you like about Starmer, he wears a suit and his shirts look crisply pressed.
Not sure that's the best response to what had just been written about practicalities.
So Starmer cares about aesthetics but does nothing about what's actually practically important?
Are you saying Trump and Vance have the wrong priorities?
Look at almost any leader from Trump to Xi to Putin, to almost everyone, male or female – they wear suits because that's what leaders do and your own private aesthetic is neither here nor there.
Yes, of course I am saying they have the wrong priorities. Do you not say that?
Those people that said a European army was a bad reason to remain are looking very stupid today.
A European army is a bad idea.
Military action can’t be driven by consensus
It needs to be a smaller group of key partners IHT an intergovernmental structure
As the LibDem MP for Tunbridge Wells (an army veteran) is proposing, what is needed is a European defence framework not dissimilar to NATO. Nations retain their own armed forces - as we do now, within NATO - but with a much greater degree of standarisation and co-ordination of command and control.
As I say though it cannot be solely EU or even just European. It needs the flanks to be protected - which means Canada, Iceland and Turkey for a start.
The trouble with doing that is that it effectively forces the US out of NATO. Better to work on an EU+UK basis.
I think the US has forced itself out. I genuinely think we have come that far and I say that as someone who feels far closer to the US than to the EU.
But countries have joined and left NATO in the past - most notably France. And we already have the basis of other organisations such as the JEF which can be expanded until such times as the US returns to sanity.
The question now is whether staying tied to the US poses a greater risk to our security than breaking with them. Personally I think it does.
France was only ever semi-detached, and wasn't it principally to maintain its own independent nuclear deterrant?
There is a logic in the US looking after the Pacific and leaving the rest of us to worry about the Atlantic and Europe. It's not as if we're in any position to do anything militarily about China, after all, and keep sending our leaking aircraft carrier out to the Pacific just makes us look silly.
Those people that said a European army was a bad reason to remain are looking very stupid today.
A European army is a bad idea.
Military action can’t be driven by consensus
It needs to be a smaller group of key partners IHT an intergovernmental structure
As the LibDem MP for Tunbridge Wells (an army veteran) is proposing, what is needed is a European defence framework not dissimilar to NATO. Nations retain their own armed forces - as we do now, within NATO - but with a much greater degree of standarisation and co-ordination of command and control.
As I say though it cannot be solely EU or even just European. It needs the flanks to be protected - which means Canada, Iceland and Turkey for a start.
The trouble with doing that is that it effectively forces the US out of NATO. Better to work on an EU+UK basis.
I think the US has forced itself out. I genuinely think we have come that far and I say that as someone who feels far closer to the US than to the EU.
But countries have joined and left NATO in the past - most notably France. And we already have the basis of other organisations such as the JEF which can be expanded until such times as the US returns to sanity.
The question now is whether staying tied to the US poses a greater risk to our security than breaking with them. Personally I think it does.
And even if not, the question needs to be seriously considered.
The USA seems to be voluntarily trying to reject its allies and diminish its long term influence for the sake of short term dick waving power displays.
They already had many world leaders being deferential, without trying to enforce it more obviously.
Hands up if you are old enough to recall PB Johnsonians explaining what an embarrassment Starmer was to the UK because he was not invited to Trump's inauguration whilst a hat full of very senior Tories and Reformers flew to Washington to kiss Trump's ring in those dim, distant and heady days prior to January 20th 2025.
More importantly, who was the great hairy twat of a journalist that queried Zelensky's attire?
"Why aren't you wearing a suit"?
I mean, really? Really? Zelensky is a war leader, they often wear combats and the like to express that status, and fair play, it's not like Zelensky is lying. He was in Kyiv as the bombs fell and as the Russians tried to hunt him down and kill him
It's that ignorant and insulting question that introduces the first discordant note and changes the mood, and you can see how it riles Zelensky (and I don't blame him) - he mentions it several times later (before the Goodfellas out-take)
Suits are stupid anyway. Expensive, high maintenance, usually uncomfortable and not even particularly pleasing aethestically. I've never understood the rule that says the more impractical your clothes, the better the work you do or the more respect you show people you meet.
And as for ties, if they didn't exist, what madman would think of inventing them?
On this, as on much else, I stand with Zelensky and Ukraine.
Say what you like about Starmer, he wears a suit and his shirts look crisply pressed.
Not sure that's the best response to what had just been written about practicalities.
So Starmer cares about aesthetics but does nothing about what's actually practically important?
Are you saying Trump and Vance have the wrong priorities?
Look at almost any leader from Trump to Xi to Putin, to almost everyone, male or female – they wear suits because that's what leaders do and your own private aesthetic is neither here nor there.
Nothing to see here, especially if you are not looking for it.
All the more reason to break away from Five Eyes. The US simply can no longer be trsuted to be a secure ally with whom we can share intelligence.
We don't always see eye to eye on here but I always respect your analysis.
You have been extremely bullish since last night. I want to agree with you but cannot see the practicalities of it.
So a question - on what timescale would you suggest we break away, and how do you envisage it working?
Or is your response led by your gut, without thinking through the practicalities? (Which I would also respect given the last 24 hours btw)
I did outline the practicalities myself yesterday. I had lunch on Thursday with my neighbour who is retired RAF officer who spent much of his time prior to retirement in intelligence and planning at NATO. He agrees that we need to break away from Five Eyes but also pointed out there is a currently a massive, perhaps insurmountable, issue. Most of the framework infrastructure that forms the backbone of Five Eyes including Satellite Imagery and interception and a lot of the monitoring systems around the world are built, run and owned by the US. He is not sure it is at all practical at present for Five Eyes to continue without the US.
So what we need to be doing is building a new network and infrastructure separate from the US which willl allow us to isolate them from our intelligence networks. This would have to include France for sure.
The question right now though is whether continuing with Five Eyes with the serious likelihood that much of our intelligence is ending up in Moscow via Trump is any less of a risk than cutting ourselves off from the network?
Ah yes, apologies, I did read that. We're on the same page then, I think. Thanks.
Those people that said a European army was a bad reason to remain are looking very stupid today.
Nope. It was a bad idea then and it is a bad idea now. At least in the form it was suggested which was an EU army. As I pointed out yesterday it would exclude some of our most important allies, would be utterly ineffective as it would include countries like Hungary who are openly favourable to Russia and would be riven with disagreement about what actions it should or should not take.
Far more effective to reconfigure either the JEF or NATO without the obvious trouble makers.
The point is the United States used to be one of our most important allies. There is no guarantee that the French, the Germans, the Finns, the Poles might not turn in the future, particularly if Russia's influence is allowed to grow.
I'm sceptical of the need for an increase in defence spending, if our European/Commonwealth allies hold. But I would support if it if some of our more essential functions are taken in-house, including an independent Trident, defending energy/telecoms cables in the North Sea, increasing industrial capacity for armanents and so on. None of this arbitrary %age of GDP nonsense.
Unusual for me, but this is one area where I feel integrating closely with Europe could go as badly wrong as it has with the Americans.
You have to integrate if you want to be effective. Which is why NATO was effective until it suddenly wasn't. My view is that there's no point re-integrating as a European force in the short term because it would be a distraction. Right now aim to coordinate what you have.
The EU will be an important player because it is really good at herding cats to achieve a strategic outcome; because as an institution it is on the right side of the Ukraine/democracy versus Russia/autocracy debate; because it has its own sizeable budget.
OT I’ve had a bizarre double of being abused for being “English” two nights in a row. Thursday night I was informed that a woman I had been introduced me hates me because I’m “so English”, very beautiful welsh woman who could have chosen many reasons to dislike me but being “so English” was a new one.
Then last night a Scottish landlady of a bar had a rant at me for being English. Very bizarre and unprovoked.
The funny thing is that I’m not English and they are interlopers here so should probably fuck off home if they don’t like people who sound English.
With an attitude like that expressed in your last paragraph they may be onto something.
As I like to point out to anecdotalists recounting being once called an English cnut in Glasgow hostelries, these were possibly two unrelated observations.
The USA seems to be voluntarily trying to reject its allies and diminish its long term influence for the sake of short term dick waving power displays.
The USA seems to be voluntarily trying to reject its allies and diminish its long term influence for the sake of short term dick waving power displays.
More importantly, who was the great hairy twat of a journalist that queried Zelensky's attire?
"Why aren't you wearing a suit"?
I mean, really? Really? Zelensky is a war leader, they often wear combats and the like to express that status, and fair play, it's not like Zelensky is lying. He was in Kyiv as the bombs fell and as the Russians tried to hunt him down and kill him
It's that ignorant and insulting question that introduces the first discordant note and changes the mood, and you can see how it riles Zelensky (and I don't blame him) - he mentions it several times later (before the Goodfellas out-take)
Suits are stupid anyway. Expensive, high maintenance, usually uncomfortable and not even particularly pleasing aethestically. I've never understood the rule that says the more impractical your clothes, the better the work you do or the more respect you show people you meet.
And as for ties, if they didn't exist, what madman would think of inventing them?
On this, as on much else, I stand with Zelensky and Ukraine.
Say what you like about Starmer, he wears a suit and his shirts look crisply pressed.
Not sure that's the best response to what had just been written about practicalities.
So Starmer cares about aesthetics but does nothing about what's actually practically important?
Are you saying Trump and Vance have the wrong priorities?
Look at almost any leader from Trump to Xi to Putin, to almost everyone, male or female – they wear suits because that's what leaders do and your own private aesthetic is neither here nor there.
Zelensky not wearing a suit is an image choice to make a point, rather derogatorily referred to as cosplaying by foolish people. He could do otherwise with little pushback, I am sure, but it remains utterly inconsequential in terms of other leaders - who know it's not a question of not respecting them.
More importantly, who was the great hairy twat of a journalist that queried Zelensky's attire?
"Why aren't you wearing a suit"?
I mean, really? Really? Zelensky is a war leader, they often wear combats and the like to express that status, and fair play, it's not like Zelensky is lying. He was in Kyiv as the bombs fell and as the Russians tried to hunt him down and kill him
It's that ignorant and insulting question that introduces the first discordant note and changes the mood, and you can see how it riles Zelensky (and I don't blame him) - he mentions it several times later (before the Goodfellas out-take)
Conversely, Zelensky was criticised before for addressing Congress without wearing a suit. Everyone else adores the sweatshirt because it's war leader cosplay, in America some don't. A wise choice might have been to develop a sort of general's version of it with a shirt and tie underneath, elbow patch jumper on top, and some decorations and gold braid here and there.
An argument that might have a bit more strength if, just this last week, Musky Baby had not attended cabinet dressed like a hobo.
There was zero criticism of him from the same people who are apparently offended by Zelenskyy's attire.
Because it's ridiculous criticism; designed solely to attack Z.
Well, quite.
And if clothes snobbery is to be a thing, can we point out that during Trump's state visit he turned up at the state dinner in his white tie but had a waistcoat far too long for his jacket so that he just looked like a fat waiter in some fading mittel-European hotel handing round a 27-page menu and then telling you everything bar the omelette is off.
We have that to look forward to again .....
Will we serve Big Macs at the state dinner? And Coca-Cola (I hesitate to refer to it as coke)! If not, what will Trump eat and drink?
I believe he's more of a McDonalds man, which I can at least get on board with.
What actually was this? Was it a press conference? Why was it done in front of the media?
This is the level of PB analysis
What is the point?
It was a genuine question. If this was an occasion where actual disagreements needed to be hammered out and people needed to speak frankly why was it done in front of the world's media? Surely even you would concede that was a poor decision on Trump's part.
Jeez
This is how it works in the White House. There is nearly always a press conference with the invited leader - Trump had one with Skyr Toolmakersson and Madame Macron this week. Think this was in the East Room, like those, as is usual
It's how the Americans do democracy
So if this was a press conference why was was the press conference that was scheduled to follow cancelled?
America always has a press conference on the way into the meeting like this, then afterwards another one (typically at podiums) afterwards.
Due to the breakdown the afterwards one was cancelled, but having this press conference was not unusual - what was unusual was what happened in it, not that it was held.
Amusingly, the mini "introduce us" presser on the way in, which is normally just a couple of questions and here turned into a larger scrum, is referred to as (I think) a "pool spray".
Given it's Mr Chump, they may as well call it a Golden Shower.
Those people that said a European army was a bad reason to remain are looking very stupid today.
Nope. It was a bad idea then and it is a bad idea now. At least in the form it was suggested which was an EU army. As I pointed out yesterday it would exclude some of our most important allies, would be utterly ineffective as it would include countries like Hungary who are openly favourable to Russia and would be riven with disagreement about what actions it should or should not take.
Far more effective to reconfigure either the JEF or NATO without the obvious trouble makers.
The point is the United States used to be one of our most important allies. There is no guarantee that the French, the Germans, the Finns, the Poles might not turn in the future, particularly if Russia's influence is allowed to grow.
I'm sceptical of the need for an increase in defence spending, if our European/Commonwealth allies hold. But I would support if it if some of our more essential functions are taken in-house, including an independent Trident, defending energy/telecoms cables in the North Sea, increasing industrial capacity for armanents and so on. None of this arbitrary %age of GDP nonsense.
Unusual for me, but this is one area where I feel integrating closely with Europe could go as badly wrong as it has with the Americans.
You have to integrate if you want to be effective. Which is why NATO was effective until it suddenly wasn't. My view is that there's no point re-integrating as a European force in the short term because it would be a distraction. Right now aim to coordinate what you have.
The EU will be an important player because it is really good at herding cats to achieve a strategic outcome; because as an institution it is on the right side of the Ukraine/democracy versus Russia/autocracy debate; because it has its own sizeable budget.
It is not good at herding cats. It takes years to achieve anything and when it does get anywhere the result is always massively watered down.
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.
There are sufficient black landrovers with a police escort leaving the airport as to confirm Z is on British soil. It looks like they've skipped baggage reclaim.
Shame. Trump chucked Churchill's bust at Z on his way out...
The USA seems to be voluntarily trying to reject its allies and diminish its long term influence for the sake of short term dick waving power displays.
Trump's an old guy with a terrible diet
Short term dick waving is all he can do...
In personal lifestyle comparison, and self-image, not necessarily politics, is Herr Goring a good comparison?
A larger gentleman obsessed with self-image, his own importance, and corruptly / criminally making himself rich.
With the difference that Herman Goering was a faithful and devoted husband. Trump is more liek Goebbels in that respect.
Those people that said a European army was a bad reason to remain are looking very stupid today.
Nope. It was a bad idea then and it is a bad idea now. At least in the form it was suggested which was an EU army. As I pointed out yesterday it would exclude some of our most important allies, would be utterly ineffective as it would include countries like Hungary who are openly favourable to Russia and would be riven with disagreement about what actions it should or should not take.
Far more effective to reconfigure either the JEF or NATO without the obvious trouble makers.
The point is the United States used to be one of our most important allies. There is no guarantee that the French, the Germans, the Finns, the Poles might not turn in the future, particularly if Russia's influence is allowed to grow.
I'm sceptical of the need for an increase in defence spending, if our European/Commonwealth allies hold. But I would support if it if some of our more essential functions are taken in-house, including an independent Trident, defending energy/telecoms cables in the North Sea, increasing industrial capacity for armanents and so on. None of this arbitrary %age of GDP nonsense.
Unusual for me, but this is one area where I feel integrating closely with Europe could go as badly wrong as it has with the Americans.
You have to integrate if you want to be effective. Which is why NATO was effective until it suddenly wasn't. My view is that there's no point re-integrating as a European force in the short term because it would be a distraction. Right now aim to coordinate what you have.
The EU will be an important player because it is really good at herding cats to achieve a strategic outcome; because as an institution it is on the right side of the Ukraine/democracy versus Russia/autocracy debate; because it has its own sizeable budget.
It is not good at herding cats. It takes years to achieve anything and when it does get anywhere the result is always massively watered down.
But actually the only outfit herding cats in Europe to achieve strategic outcomes. A couple of EU Commission successes relating to the Russia / Ukraine situation. International sanctions an coordinated energy policy that minimised the effect of Russia turning its gas taps off. The second one in opposition to Germany.
More importantly, who was the great hairy twat of a journalist that queried Zelensky's attire?
"Why aren't you wearing a suit"?
I mean, really? Really? Zelensky is a war leader, they often wear combats and the like to express that status, and fair play, it's not like Zelensky is lying. He was in Kyiv as the bombs fell and as the Russians tried to hunt him down and kill him
It's that ignorant and insulting question that introduces the first discordant note and changes the mood, and you can see how it riles Zelensky (and I don't blame him) - he mentions it several times later (before the Goodfellas out-take)
Conversely, Zelensky was criticised before for addressing Congress without wearing a suit. Everyone else adores the sweatshirt because it's war leader cosplay, in America some don't. A wise choice might have been to develop a sort of general's version of it with a shirt and tie underneath, elbow patch jumper on top, and some decorations and gold braid here and there.
An argument that might have a bit more strength if, just this last week, Musky Baby had not attended cabinet dressed like a hobo.
There was zero criticism of him from the same people who are apparently offended by Zelenskyy's attire.
Because it's ridiculous criticism; designed solely to attack Z.
Well, quite.
And if clothes snobbery is to be a thing, can we point out that during Trump's state visit he turned up at the state dinner in his white tie but had a waistcoat far too long for his jacket so that he just looked like a fat waiter in some fading mittel-European hotel handing round a 27-page menu and then telling you everything bar the omelette is off.
We have that to look forward to again .....
Will we serve Big Macs at the state dinner? And Coca-Cola (I hesitate to refer to it as coke)! If not, what will Trump eat and drink?
I believe he's more of a McDonalds man, which I can at least get on board with.
But since it’s at Buck House surely we should be serving Burger, King?
To attract Trump back to the UK to meet Zelensky before the state visit, you'd need something that appealed to his vanity, but also with the kind of aristocratic connotations he enjoys.
Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Churchill, birthplace of Chutchill, physically very beautiful setting, no Vance or Zelensky's team - just the two of them. If you're Starner you have to try every avenue like this.
More importantly, who was the great hairy twat of a journalist that queried Zelensky's attire?
"Why aren't you wearing a suit"?
I mean, really? Really? Zelensky is a war leader, they often wear combats and the like to express that status, and fair play, it's not like Zelensky is lying. He was in Kyiv as the bombs fell and as the Russians tried to hunt him down and kill him
It's that ignorant and insulting question that introduces the first discordant note and changes the mood, and you can see how it riles Zelensky (and I don't blame him) - he mentions it several times later (before the Goodfellas out-take)
Conversely, Zelensky was criticised before for addressing Congress without wearing a suit. Everyone else adores the sweatshirt because it's war leader cosplay, in America some don't. A wise choice might have been to develop a sort of general's version of it with a shirt and tie underneath, elbow patch jumper on top, and some decorations and gold braid here and there.
An argument that might have a bit more strength if, just this last week, Musky Baby had not attended cabinet dressed like a hobo.
There was zero criticism of him from the same people who are apparently offended by Zelenskyy's attire.
Because it's ridiculous criticism; designed solely to attack Z.
Well, quite.
And if clothes snobbery is to be a thing, can we point out that during Trump's state visit he turned up at the state dinner in his white tie but had a waistcoat far too long for his jacket so that he just looked like a fat waiter in some fading mittel-European hotel handing round a 27-page menu and then telling you everything bar the omelette is off.
We have that to look forward to again .....
Will we serve Big Macs at the state dinner? And Coca-Cola (I hesitate to refer to it as coke)! If not, what will Trump eat and drink?
I believe he's more of a McDonalds man, which I can at least get on board with.
But since it’s at Buck House surely we should be serving Burger, King?
To attract Trump back to the UK to meet Zelensky before the state visit, you'd need something that appealed to his vanity, but also with the kind of aristocratic connotations he enjoys.
Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Churchill, birthplace of Chutchill, physically very beautiful setting, no Vance or Zelensky's team - just the two of them. If you're Starner you have to try every avenue like this.
Burial place of Mr Churchill (more correctly the wee village kirkyard to the south, I forget the name).
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
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.
I do think that we are too prone to police speech in this country, but Vance needs to look to his own country’s sins.
We don’t, by and large, have local authorities trying to ban books, or the police summarily executing people for Driving While Black.
The USA seems to be voluntarily trying to reject its allies and diminish its long term influence for the sake of short term dick waving power displays.
Trump's an old guy with a terrible diet
Short term dick waving is all he can do...
In personal lifestyle comparison, and self-image, not necessarily politics, is Herr Goring a good comparison?
A larger gentleman obsessed with self-image, his own importance, and corruptly / criminally making himself rich.
With the difference that Herman Goering was a faithful and devoted husband. Trump is more liek Goebbels in that respect.
HG also a legitimate war hero, no bone spurs there.
Interestingly the American MAGA culture has left the country looking duplicitous, weak and alone. But in the American bubble unfortunately a lot believe they don’t need anyone - any conflict, wherever it is, somehow doesn’t affect them. It’s just odd.
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.
Maybe but in some cases the hurty words thing is real. In the last week or so, a man drew six months for sending abusive emails to Jess Phillips whereas Mike Amesbury got his sentence for actual fisticuffs suspended.
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
No, they are getting jail time for encouraging and planning riots - that is a different thing.
To attract Trump back to the UK to meet Zelensky before the state visit, you'd need something that appealed to his vanity, but also with the kind of aristocratic connotations he enjoys.
Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Churchill, birthplace of Chutchill, physically very beautiful setting, no Vance or Zelensky's team - just the two of them. If you're Starner you have to try every avenue like this.
Burial place of Mr Churchill (more correctly the wee village kirkyard to the south, I forget the name).
Amongst all this, the biggest imponderable is what makes Starmer tick, what is his game here. Let me try.
There is a reception area at my daughter's ballet school and people, kids and parents come and go. One girl, top end of primary school age comes and talks to the adults, mainly women, on equal, mature terms, kind and thoughtful, discussing life and the world. The kind you notice and think her parents must be so proud, and a bit of third party, I'd be so proud of she were my daughter.
And yet, the conversation occasionally turns. There is a services worker in her family and one day she gave a clear, unemotional description of an RTA that was ultimately fatal. And, in all that maturity you realise it is all not quite right, it has been forged in family trauma and the pieces are not quite connected. The word preternatural is not one with wholly positive connotations for a reason, the maturity comes from something being wrong.
And Starmer reminds me of that. The article a year or so back of Starmer the tortoise, forged in the medical crises of his mother and brother, having to be old, to just do what needed to be done from a very young age, to get through each day. That's why the toolmaker story looms so large.
Just doing what needed to be done each day from such a young age - it's something most of us learn as adults not as kids. But even in his 60s, Starmer's manner in this presents a little as a kid, not as a result of conscious adult decisions. The why remains disconnected, preternatural - it is just how he has always acted. The handshake with Trump, there is something in Starmer's face in the photo - he almost looks 11 doing it.
And lastly his troubles. The family wants Taylor Swift tickets, sounds like a good idea, get it done. I don't think law told him to ask is it legal, then OK. I think the thought process predates his career, his being a lawyer themselves from that thought process, not the other way round.
Nothing to see here, especially if you are not looking for it.
All the more reason to break away from Five Eyes. The US simply can no longer be trsuted to be a secure ally with whom we can share intelligence.
One imagines most of the intelligence is gathered by American satellites and spy planes and ships. We can complement but not compete.
What little knowledge I have is that this is not really the case, and is why Five Eyes exists following the intelligence failures in the 1990s where the US became dependent on satellites which turned out to be worth bugger all for what was needed.
I think a big risk factor for Five Eyes, as with UK military forces, is speed of disintegration.
We have all adopted specialisms, with the US providing overarching facilities such as global satellites, and is it pulls apart in a short period non-US parties lost the framework, whilst the US loses sectors. The UK aiui has traditionally been Humint and Sigint, the former in particular areas of the world.
It's the same issue as if an integrated military pulls apart - how do we (and more broadly other allies where the lynchpin of the alliance has been remover) bridge the gap.
A rapid disintegration may be part of the tactic for taking Europe out of the game as a strategic competitor - which would fit in with the USA Govt's attack on areas where Europe is committed, such as International Rule of Law, addressing Climate Change *, and so on.
* The more progress we achieve on Climate Change, the more it removes out dependency on fossil fuels.
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
There's something really rather sad and pathetic about their demise. Buttler is a magnificent batsman and appears to be a likeable and decent bloke, but the side has disintegrated under him.
They just have to start again with a new captain and a new script.
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
Free speech is not under attack.
What is becoming more important is considering the consequences of your free speech.
Amongst all this, the biggest imponderable is what makes Starmer tick, what is his game here. Let me try.
There is a reception area at my daughter's ballet school and people, kids and parents come and go. One girl, top end of primary school age comes and talks to the adults, mainly women, on equal, mature terms, kind and thoughtful, discussing life and the world. The kind you notice and think her parents must be so proud, and a bit of third party, I'd be so proud of she were my daughter.
And yet, the conversation occasionally turns. There is a services worker in her family and one day she gave a clear, unemotional description of an RTA that was ultimately fatal. And, in all that maturity you realise it is all not quite right, it has been forged in family trauma and the pieces are not quite connected. The word preternatural is not one with wholly positive connotations for a reason, the maturity comes from something being wrong.
And Starmer reminds me of that. The article a year or so back of Starmer the tortoise, forged in the medical crises of his mother and brother, having to be old, to just do what needed to be done from a very young age, to get through each day. That's why the toolmaker story looms so large.
Just doing what needed to be done each day from such a young age - it's something most of us learn as adults not as kids. But even in his 60s, Starmer's manner in this presents a little as a kid, not as a result of conscious adult decisions. The why remains disconnected, preternatural - it is just how he has always acted. The handshake with Trump, there is something in Starmer's face in the photo - he almost looks 11 doing it.
And lastly his troubles. The family wants Taylor Swift tickets, sounds like a good idea, get it done. I don't think law told him to ask is it legal, then OK. I think the thought process predates his career, his being a lawyer themselves from that thought process, not the other way round.
News: US has intelligence that Russia & China have recently directed their intelligence services to ramp up recruiting of US national security employees, targeting those who have been fired or feel they could be soon, sources tell @NatashaBertrand
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.
I do think that we are too prone to police speech in this country, but Vance needs to look to his own country’s sins.
We don’t, by and large, have local authorities trying to ban books, or the police summarily executing people for Driving While Black.
Yes, maybe Vance could start on the whole issue of Americans shooting other Americans in school etc.
I was never overly amused by the fact that my nephew and niece had to do drills to practice in case someone started trying to shoot them at school and would be a nice thing if Vance tried to civilise his own country before throwing brickbats at others.
There's something really rather sad and pathetic about their demise. Buttler is a magnificent batsman and appears to be a likeable and decent bloke, but the side has disintegrated under him.
They just have to start again with a new captain and a new script.
English sport has a habit of imploding spectacularly after periods of success rather than quietly fading away.
OT I’ve had a bizarre double of being abused for being “English” two nights in a row. Thursday night I was informed that a woman I had been introduced me hates me because I’m “so English”, very beautiful welsh woman who could have chosen many reasons to dislike me but being “so English” was a new one.
Then last night a Scottish landlady of a bar had a rant at me for being English. Very bizarre and unprovoked.
The funny thing is that I’m not English and they are interlopers here so should probably fuck off home if they don’t like people who sound English.
They probably both quite like you and are struggling with conflicting emotions. Take the implied compliment.
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
Free speech is not under attack.
Tell that to the teacher in Batley STILL IN HIDING WITH HIS FAMILY, you idiot
I think the one positive to come from this fiasco is that it has driven a lot of the non-MAGA right in the US away from Trump and particularly Vance who many are questioning this morning as being disrespectful to a world leader and president of another country and making America look spiteful.
There's also a lot of chatter among the MAGA right wingers about why Vance seems so intent on MRGA and how helping Russia advances the MAGA agenda.
Lots of confusion among right wing talking heads across YouTube this morning and among reliable Trump supporters. They want the war to end but they also don't want to give Putin a victory and yesterday they saw Vance trying to bounce Ukraine into handing Putin a victory.
I don't think this is going to work in favour of Trump except in all but the hardcore 10% of MAGA ultras who support Putin and it seems as though Vance is in that 10%.
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.
Maybe but in some cases the hurty words thing is real. In the last week or so, a man drew six months for sending abusive emails to Jess Phillips whereas Mike Amesbury got his sentence for actual fisticuffs suspended.
Never confuse the PB Centrist Dads with Actual Facts. It gives them vertigo
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
Free speech is not under attack.
Tell that to the teacher in Batley STILL IN HIDING WITH HIS FAMILY, you idiot
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.
I do think that we are too prone to police speech in this country, but Vance needs to look to his own country’s sins.
We don’t, by and large, have local authorities trying to ban books, or the police summarily executing people for Driving While Black.
Yes, Britain was probably never the great free-speech paragon of legend. Think of the figures from the 1960s counter-culture who ended up in the clink, or Mary Whitehouse's attempts to destroy careers and get writers and artists jailed.
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.
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
Free speech is not under attack.
Tell that to the teacher in Batley STILL IN HIDING WITH HIS FAMILY, you idiot
Anecdotes aren't useful data.
Anecdotes????
"What a teacher in hiding can tell us about our failure to tackle intolerance"
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
On the Facebook point.
You quoted an example yesterday of someone getting 3 years for posting on Facebook, without a case reference. Do you have a citation? (Serious queston - I think I know which case you, meant, but I would like to make a specific reply.)
Non-crime hate incidents have been a thing for about 30 years, I think one thing which has changed is that we have a couple of late middle-aged people shouting about it in the Telegraph and similar, and a number of bandwagon jumpers.
I'll be very interested to see how the Allison Pearson case develops, as her account seems to be significantly different from the police account.
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
On the Facebook point.
You quoted an example yesterday of someone getting 3 years for posting on Facebook, without a case reference. Do you have a citation? (Serious queston - I think I know which case you, meant, but I would like to make a specific reply.)
Non-crime hate incidents have been a thing for about 30 years, I think one thing which has changed is that we have a couple of late middle-aged people shouting about it in the Telegraph and similar, and a number of bandwagon jumpers.
I'll be very interested to see how the Allison Pearson case develops, as her account seems to be significantly different from the police account.
And for everyone saying that Starmer was wrong yesterday to not give outspoken support to Zelenskyy, the latest is that Zelenskyy is coming to London to speak to the PM because he's the only European leader who still has open dialogue with Trump.
I'm not a fan of Starmer as many of you know, yet it was the right decision to keep his own counsel last night and not hastily post some feel good virtue signalling nonsense on Twitter last night like the rest of Europe's leaders. He's being vindicated today, Zelenskyy has come to London, not to Paris. Starmer got real commitments from Trump and has clearly been able to work with Trump better than the rest of them. We need that more than ever right now, not to hastily throw it away to make ourselves feel better for 5 minutes for being "on the right side of history".
More importantly, who was the great hairy twat of a journalist that queried Zelensky's attire?
"Why aren't you wearing a suit"?
I mean, really? Really? Zelensky is a war leader, they often wear combats and the like to express that status, and fair play, it's not like Zelensky is lying. He was in Kyiv as the bombs fell and as the Russians tried to hunt him down and kill him
It's that ignorant and insulting question that introduces the first discordant note and changes the mood, and you can see how it riles Zelensky (and I don't blame him) - he mentions it several times later (before the Goodfellas out-take)
Suits are stupid anyway. Expensive, high maintenance, usually uncomfortable and not even particularly pleasing aethestically. I've never understood the rule that says the more impractical your clothes, the better the work you do or the more respect you show people you meet.
And as for ties, if they didn't exist, what madman would think of inventing them?
On this, as on much else, I stand with Zelensky and Ukraine.
I’ve read some bollocks on PB, I’ve typed a lot of it myself but this is a new bottom. Anyone who thinks suits aren’t aesthetically pleasing must either be fat and misshaped or a wearer terrible cheap suits.
As for ties, they are vital for being able to easily identify if someone is worth talking to depending on their colours and stripe combos, and being able to spot spivs with bad taste across a room.
Should we have an extra space next to our avatar for a tie? Then we'd know where we all stand.
[Goes back to ignoring world events and enjoying the spring sunshine]
Estate agent suit (blue, 3 inches short of the ankles) plus brown, pointed shoes with buckles, is a 100% reliable indicator of unpleasant human.
And for everyone saying that Starmer was wrong yesterday to not give outspoken support to Zelenskyy, the latest is that Zelenskyy is coming to London to speak to the PM because he's the only European leader who still has open dialogue with Trump.
I'm not a fan of Starmer as many of you know, yet it was the right decision to keep his own counsel last night and not hastily post some feel good virtue signalling nonsense on Twitter last night like the rest of Europe's leaders. He's being vindicated today, Zelenskyy has come to London, not to Paris. Starmer got real commitments from Trump and has clearly been able to work with Trump better than the rest of them. We need that more than ever right now, not to hastily throw it away to make ourselves feel better for 5 minutes for being "on the right side of history".
Yes, on that I agree - and I said so earlier
I despise Starmer, and loathed his fawning over Trump
But he was wise and sensible to keep relatively quiet after the White House Goodfellas Scene
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
Free speech is not under attack.
What is becoming more important is considering the consequences of your free speech.
Noone is stopping you from speaking freely.
Hmm. I can believe it being under attack to the level Vance and co suggest is wrong, but I do think there are examples of formal or informal restrictions. Non-hate crime incidents and the like are a blight - regardless of how long they have been about.
In matters of free speech we do need to be overcautious rather than complacent, since the consequences of going the wrong way are disastrous - so even if there are overreactions that's better than the alternative in my book.
And for everyone saying that Starmer was wrong yesterday to not give outspoken support to Zelenskyy, the latest is that Zelenskyy is coming to London to speak to the PM because he's the only European leader who still has open dialogue with Trump.
I'm not a fan of Starmer as many of you know, yet it was the right decision to keep his own counsel last night and not hastily post some feel good virtue signalling nonsense on Twitter last night like the rest of Europe's leaders. He's being vindicated today, Zelenskyy has come to London, not to Paris. Starmer got real commitments from Trump and has clearly been able to work with Trump better than the rest of them. We need that more than ever right now, not to hastily throw it away to make ourselves feel better for 5 minutes for being "on the right side of history".
He was also presumably coming over anyway because of the event tomorrow? But I hope the point is true.
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
Free speech is not under attack.
Tell that to the teacher in Batley STILL IN HIDING WITH HIS FAMILY, you idiot
Anecdotes aren't useful data.
Anecdotes????
"What a teacher in hiding can tell us about our failure to tackle intolerance"
Yes, anecdotes. Single points of data. You are intelligent, don't pretend not to be.
I actually agree with you to an extent i.e. that we have a difficult balancing act to defend free speech in a multicultural and atomised society.
And I agree the example of the teacher is scary.
But edge cases make bad policy - if we had, say, statistics that indicated that increasing numbers of teachers were either (a) being hounded into hiding or (b) self-censoring then that would be useful to see if the problem is getting worse.
(b) isn't my experience in school, but that's another anecdote and doesn't mean much.
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
And for everyone saying that Starmer was wrong yesterday to not give outspoken support to Zelenskyy, the latest is that Zelenskyy is coming to London to speak to the PM because he's the only European leader who still has open dialogue with Trump.
I'm not a fan of Starmer as many of you know, yet it was the right decision to keep his own counsel last night and not hastily post some feel good virtue signalling nonsense on Twitter last night like the rest of Europe's leaders. He's being vindicated today, Zelenskyy has come to London, not to Paris. Starmer got real commitments from Trump and has clearly been able to work with Trump better than the rest of them. We need that more than ever right now, not to hastily throw it away to make ourselves feel better for 5 minutes for being "on the right side of history".
And for everyone saying that Starmer was wrong yesterday to not give outspoken support to Zelenskyy, the latest is that Zelenskyy is coming to London to speak to the PM because he's the only European leader who still has open dialogue with Trump.
I'm not a fan of Starmer as many of you know, yet it was the right decision to keep his own counsel last night and not hastily post some feel good virtue signalling nonsense on Twitter last night like the rest of Europe's leaders. He's being vindicated today, Zelenskyy has come to London, not to Paris. Starmer got real commitments from Trump and has clearly been able to work with Trump better than the rest of them. We need that more than ever right now, not to hastily throw it away to make ourselves feel better for 5 minutes for being "on the right side of history".
Wasn’t London pre arranged, ie pre the disrespecting the White House bollox?
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.
There's something really rather sad and pathetic about their demise. Buttler is a magnificent batsman and appears to be a likeable and decent bloke, but the side has disintegrated under him.
They just have to start again with a new captain and a new script.
English sport has a habit of imploding spectacularly after periods of success rather than quietly fading away.
Part of our gift to the world for inventing/codifying many sports is also to never dominate any of them for any length of 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
Free speech is not under attack.
Tell that to the teacher in Batley STILL IN HIDING WITH HIS FAMILY, you idiot
Anecdotes aren't useful data.
Anecdotes????
"What a teacher in hiding can tell us about our failure to tackle intolerance"
Yes, anecdotes. Single points of data. You are intelligent, don't pretend not to be.
I actually agree with you to an extent i.e. that we have a difficult balancing act to defend free speech in a multicultural and atomised society.
And I agree the example of the teacher is scary.
But edge cases make bad policy - if we had, say, statistics that indicated that increasing numbers of teachers were either (a) being hounded into hiding or (b) self-censoring then that would be useful to see if the problem is getting worse.
(b) isn't my experience in school, but that's another anecdote and doesn't mean much.
Struck me Trump is now so weak he had to have Captain Guyliner there to double-team Zelensky.
Weak and cowardly. That's Trump and anyone who demanded his re-election (like, um, Jenrick) need to explain their actions as well as condemning his. Otherwise it just looks like they are idiots (Jenrick and Badenoch) or bought and paid for (Farage).
There’s no point in demanding people apologise for their past misjudgements.
Badenoch, Jenrick and other leading Tories were strong last night in support of Ukraine and Zelensky. That’s what matters - don’t make it harder for them to do the right thing
In general I agree, as u-turning can be a good thing and should be encouraged where it is, though it can depend on how forcefully someone was pushing a previous position and whether they acknowledge they have in fact changed position.
I don't think supporting Trump’s re-election was remotely a misjudgement, and I doubt Jenrick or Badenoch regard it as such. That doesn't prevent them from being critical of Trump if he does something they disagree with - which is how UK politicians should be with all US presidents.
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
With Western Europe being the only region to show an improvement.
The decline in the overall index score in 2024 was driven by reversals in every region of the world with the exceptions of Western Europe, whose average index score improved by the smallest margin possible (0.01 points), and North America, whose score stayed the same. The other five regions registered a decline in their average index score, with the biggest regressions occurring in the Middle East and North Africa (-0.11) and Asia and Australasia (-0.10).
Comments
I'm sceptical of the need for an increase in defence spending, if our European/Commonwealth allies hold. But I would support if it if some of our more essential functions are taken in-house, including an independent Trident, defending energy/telecoms cables in the North Sea, increasing industrial capacity for armanents and so on. None of this arbitrary %age of GDP nonsense.
Unusual for me, but this is one area where I feel integrating closely with Europe could go as badly wrong as it has with the Americans.
So what we need to be doing is building a new network and infrastructure separate from the US which willl allow us to isolate them from our intelligence networks. This would have to include France for sure.
The question right now though is whether continuing with Five Eyes with the serious likelihood that much of our intelligence is ending up in Moscow via Trump is any less of a risk than cutting ourselves off from the network?
Never thought I'd see that in print, referring to an actual person.
The more pictures on a thread sees Vanilla shrink images to render the page its normal size.
Other option is to disable the ability to embed images.
Sky saying some hopes talks may resume, but frankly after yesterday I wouldn't trust a single thing Trump or his administration says or promises ever again
Trust is completely broken
North Koreans are used to their current deprivation
Fat Americans are not going to put up with the New King wrecking their comfortable lifestyles forever
And if clothes snobbery is to be a thing, can we point out that during Trump's state visit he turned up at the state dinner in his white tie but had a waistcoat far too long for his jacket so that he just looked like a fat waiter in some fading mittel-European hotel handing round a 27-page menu and then telling you everything bar the omelette is off.
We have that to look forward to again .....
On the other hand, in such a precarious and important international scenario, if you have even a hint of influence on both sides, you have to try and maximise that ; for your own country's status, but also more importantly for the collective sekf-interest of the West.
'You can have red, or you can have whhhhiiiiite', when I asked for a wine list in a Highland pub.
My second favourite is when an obviously open tea room with spare tables was 'closed, now, dear', when I tried to go in with a group of 5 (female) uni pals.....
If he even wants to commit crimes in pursuit of that he has the greenlight from the top court.
If not, what will Trump eat and drink?
Q: What is white and has two arseholes?
A: The White House
[Goes back to ignoring world events and enjoying the spring sunshine]
But countries have joined and left NATO in the past - most notably France. And we already have the basis of other organisations such as the JEF which can be expanded until such times as the US returns to sanity.
The question now is whether staying tied to the US poses a greater risk to our security than breaking with them. Personally I think it does.
https://youtu.be/59j0pB4QSIo?t=4
There is a logic in the US looking after the Pacific and leaving the rest of us to worry about the Atlantic and Europe. It's not as if we're in any position to do anything militarily about China, after all, and keep sending our leaking aircraft carrier out to the Pacific just makes us look silly.
The USA seems to be voluntarily trying to reject its allies and diminish its long term influence for the sake of short term dick waving power displays.
They already had many world leaders being deferential, without trying to enforce it more obviously.
We're on the same page then, I think.
Thanks.
The EU will be an important player because it is really good at herding cats to achieve a strategic outcome; because as an institution it is on the right side of the Ukraine/democracy versus Russia/autocracy debate; because it has its own sizeable budget.
Short term dick waving is all he can do...
I think we’d already noticed that.
I wonder what The King is doing this afternoon?
Given it's Mr Chump, they may as well call it a Golden Shower.
Then keeping it there until at least Trump's visit.
“We now have three illiberal superpowers: Russia, China and the US,” De Villepin says. “America can no longer be considered an ally of Europe.”
"[Trump/Musk/Vance] understand that Europe is now the main obstacle for their vision. And this is, of course, not acceptable.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/01/trump-is-abandoning-ukraine-and-wants-a-weaker-eu-dominique-de-villepin-on-europes-moment-of-truth
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.
They've got Mercedes (just) second quickest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIQp-v8WD4c
A larger gentleman obsessed with self-image, his own importance, and corruptly / criminally making himself rich.
With the difference that Herman Goering was a faithful and devoted husband. Trump is more liek Goebbels in that respect.
They also reckon Ferrari are 4th. Well, Kravitz has doubts, but that's what not-Kravitz has heard.
I think Ferrari are 2nd.
A whopper seems somehow appropriate too…
Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Churchill, birthplace of Chutchill, physically very beautiful setting, no Vance or Zelensky's team - just the two of them. If you're Starner you have to try every avenue like this.
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
We don’t, by and large, have local authorities trying to ban books, or the police summarily executing people for Driving While Black.
There is a reception area at my daughter's ballet school and people, kids and parents come and go. One girl, top end of primary school age comes and talks to the adults, mainly women, on equal, mature terms, kind and thoughtful, discussing life and the world. The kind you notice and think her parents must be so proud, and a bit of third party, I'd be so proud of she were my daughter.
And yet, the conversation occasionally turns. There is a services worker in her family and one day she gave a clear, unemotional description of an RTA that was ultimately fatal. And, in all that maturity you realise it is all not quite right, it has been forged in family trauma and the pieces are not quite connected. The word preternatural is not one with wholly positive connotations for a reason, the maturity comes from something being wrong.
And Starmer reminds me of that. The article a year or so back of Starmer the tortoise, forged in the medical crises of his mother and brother, having to be old, to just do what needed to be done from a very young age, to get through each day. That's why the toolmaker story looms so large.
Just doing what needed to be done each day from such a young age - it's something most of us learn as adults not as kids. But even in his 60s, Starmer's manner in this presents a little as a kid, not as a result of conscious adult decisions. The why remains disconnected, preternatural - it is just how he has always acted. The handshake with Trump, there is something in Starmer's face in the
photo - he almost looks 11 doing it.
And lastly his troubles. The family wants Taylor Swift tickets, sounds like a good idea, get it done. I don't think law told him to ask is it legal, then OK. I think the thought process predates his career, his being a lawyer themselves from that thought process, not the other way round.
We have all adopted specialisms, with the US providing overarching facilities such as global satellites, and is it pulls apart in a short period non-US parties lost the framework, whilst the US loses sectors. The UK aiui has traditionally been Humint and Sigint, the former in particular areas of the world.
It's the same issue as if an integrated military pulls apart - how do we (and more broadly other allies where the lynchpin of the alliance has been remover) bridge the gap.
A rapid disintegration may be part of the tactic for taking Europe out of the game as a strategic competitor - which would fit in with the USA Govt's attack on areas where Europe is committed, such as International Rule of Law, addressing Climate Change *, and so on.
* The more progress we achieve on Climate Change, the more it removes out dependency on fossil fuels.
Maybe our bowlers can step up. After all, as my wife says, this IS cricket!
They just have to start again with a new captain and a new script.
Noone is stopping you from speaking freely.
https://www.ian-leslie.com/p/the-tortoise
@KatieBoLillis
News: US has intelligence that Russia & China have recently directed their intelligence services to ramp up recruiting of US national security employees, targeting those who have been fired or feel they could be soon, sources tell
@NatashaBertrand
@ZcohenCNN
and me.
https://x.com/KatieBoLillis/status/1895524069006880929
I was never overly amused by the fact that my nephew and niece had to do drills to practice in case someone started trying to shoot them at school and would be a nice thing if Vance tried to civilise his own country before throwing brickbats at others.
There's also a lot of chatter among the MAGA right wingers about why Vance seems so intent on MRGA and how helping Russia advances the MAGA agenda.
Lots of confusion among right wing talking heads across YouTube this morning and among reliable Trump supporters. They want the war to end but they also don't want to give Putin a victory and yesterday they saw Vance trying to bounce Ukraine into handing Putin a victory.
I don't think this is going to work in favour of Trump except in all but the hardcore 10% of MAGA ultras who support Putin and it seems as though Vance is in that 10%.
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.
"What a teacher in hiding can tell us about our failure to tackle intolerance"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/31/batley-school-what-teacher-in-hiding-can-tell-us-about-our-failure-to-tackle-intolerance
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/29/keir-starmers-concern-for-the-batley-grammar-teacher/
You quoted an example yesterday of someone getting 3 years for posting on Facebook, without a case reference. Do you have a citation? (Serious queston - I think I know which case you, meant, but I would like to make a specific reply.)
Non-crime hate incidents have been a thing for about 30 years, I think one thing which has changed is that we have a couple of late middle-aged people shouting about it in the Telegraph and similar, and a number of bandwagon jumpers.
I'll be very interested to see how the Allison Pearson case develops, as her account seems to be significantly different from the police account.
She did a podcast conversation about it this week, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBRBUfCc2Uc
I'm not a fan of Starmer as many of you know, yet it was the right decision to keep his own counsel last night and not hastily post some feel good virtue signalling nonsense on Twitter last night like the rest of Europe's leaders. He's being vindicated today, Zelenskyy has come to London, not to Paris. Starmer got real commitments from Trump and has clearly been able to work with Trump better than the rest of them. We need that more than ever right now, not to hastily throw it away to make ourselves feel better for 5 minutes for being "on the right side of history".
I despise Starmer, and loathed his fawning over Trump
But he was wise and sensible to keep relatively quiet after the White House Goodfellas Scene
In matters of free speech we do need to be overcautious rather than complacent, since the consequences of going the wrong way are disastrous - so even if there are overreactions that's better than the alternative in my book.
I actually agree with you to an extent i.e. that we have a difficult balancing act to defend free speech in a multicultural and atomised society.
And I agree the example of the teacher is scary.
But edge cases make bad policy - if we had, say, statistics that indicated that increasing numbers of teachers were either (a) being hounded into hiding or (b) self-censoring then that would be useful to see if the problem is getting worse.
(b) isn't my experience in school, but that's another anecdote and doesn't mean much.
EIU’s 2024 Democracy Index: trend of global democratic decline and strengthening authoritarianism continues through 2024
https://www.eiu.com/n/democracy-index-2024/
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-38458529
"Man charged with crime after burning Quran in Manchester"
https://humanists.uk/2025/02/04/man-charged-with-crime-after-burning-quran-in-manchester/
Is that enough data, for you? There are trillions of examples, and that's without even mentioning REDACTED
The decline in the overall index score in 2024 was driven by reversals in every region of the world with the exceptions of Western Europe, whose average index score improved by the smallest margin possible (0.01 points), and North America, whose score stayed the same. The other five regions registered a decline in their average index score, with the biggest regressions occurring in the Middle East and North Africa (-0.11) and Asia and Australasia (-0.10).
Warms your heart!