Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
What seems to have changed is it was a MAGA conspiracy theory (or at least it was only MAGA that really wanted to go down the rabbit hole as bit dicey for some high profile Democrats) now its everybody....
Trump was happy to march his men (supporters) to the top of the hill, to play into QAnon/pizzagate-adjacent conspiracy theories, because it suited his purposes. But now they won't march back down the hill, and saying there isn't actually any little black book and that Epstein committed suicide doesn't work on people deep into a conspiracy theory.
The limitations currently being placed on peaceful protest are draconian, unreasonable and counter-productive. Yvette Cooper should issue an edict to all police forces that peaceful 'support for Palestine/Gaza' should not be automatically interpreted as support for, or membership of, a specific group called Palestine Action.
I am still of the opinion that is there was something really big against Trump it would have been used by now. The media have had 12 years to use it. Instead it will be drip drip of rather embarrassing here is Trump at an event and so is Epstein. But of course we know so was all the rich and famous.
Trump and Epstein were much closer friends than a casual meet up on the NY social scene.
One thing we see in a lot of these scandals, similar to the UK ones in TV entertainment, are some of the changing ideas about sex with young, often underage girls. In the Seventies and Eighties it wasn't considered a big deal. Just men being men, and sexual liberation, even in mainstream films such as Pretty Woman, or Rita, Sue and Bob Too.
One thing people forget with Eighties nostalgia is how dark things could be at the time.
But it hasn't changed that much since Me Too. If they had something really bad it surely would have been deployed to stop him ever being president again. And the Democrats (who will have been at a lot of the events) paid for research on him, law officials have dug into his affairs* and the media go over everything in minute detail for 12 years.
* I mean the criminal conviction they got him on was overstating the value of property to get a loan which he paid back. I mean that seems pretty small beer if they had Epstein material to connect him.
Me Too was a load of horse manure
Says an older man...
The exposures of what went on with Al-Fayad, and also in my own profession* shows that predatory sexual behaviour of older men on younger women (and men) is not unusual at all. Indeed it has probably been so throughout history and across many societies.
The question is, should we tolerate it for the future?
Yawn, there speaks a CHUMP. 20 -30 years later plenty jump on band wagon as some rich bloke is shown to have used money and power to get his wicked way with people. Why did they accept it then , either punch his lights out or move jobs. Name one thing that Me Too has done other than enrich a few z listers. It was not ever going to stop rich establishment people doing what they want. They have their chums and the justice system to help, jsut like the rape gangs we see every other day in the papers. Do they do anything about real current abuse , NO.
Yes, it has made a change. When women report this stuff now, companies and organisations are afraid.
Afraid enough to do something.
Reputational and legal risk has reached “the talent” and the CEOs.
There are numerous examples of people at the top being binned for this shit.
Indeed. We no longer have a company Christmas party because (I understand) there were various occurrences of harassment at the past and the company would now be liable if they were to occur now under the current law. I think there were some recent changes - employment lawyers on the board would know. The one thing that scares Directors above all else is being held legally accountable for anything.
The US attitude towards such things is bizarre. OTOH, companies fire people for having (entirely consensual), relationships with co-workers. On the other, you get President Pussygrabber and Epstein.
It combines two fundamentals of US culture.
Protestant moral censorship with deference to big money.
People need to get a grip. You can support Palestine and be against Israeli actions without supporting the absolute whoppers who caused millions of pounds of damage to public military equipment.
Palestine Action are a poor hill to die upon.
For supporters or HMG to get its knickers in a twist over, or both?
Both. PA seem to be up for committing criminal damage at the behest of various actors. See the damage to stuff for export to Ukraine.
They are vandals for hire, it seems.
They should be treated and prosecuted like that. There’s plenty of laws for that.
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Palestine Action were banned because of what they did being seen as a threat to national security. I have no issue with that - they caused hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage.
So those numbers imply that around 40% of Republicans are MAGA. You can see why, god help us, they own the party. I'm hard pushed to think of a more simultaneously malign and successful insurgent movement in a mature western democracy.
The limitations currently being placed on peaceful protest are draconian, unreasonable and counter-productive. Yvette Cooper should issue an edict to all police forces that peaceful 'support for Palestine/Gaza' should not be automatically interpreted as support for, or membership of, a specific group called Palestine Action.
Which would be sensible. However you just know that some would push the boundaries, as always happens.
I am still of the opinion that is there was something really big against Trump it would have been used by now. The media have had 12 years to use it. Instead it will be drip drip of rather embarrassing here is Trump at an event and so is Epstein. But of course we know so was all the rich and famous.
I don't follow this stuff closely, but it's weird how it's flipped. Epstein has been a cause célèbre for nutters on the right who think there's been a big cover up.
I don’t think you need to be a butter of any description to think that there has been a coverup.
Epstein was a pimp. Due to the especially gross nature of his operation, his clients are all criminals as well. Of an especially egregious kind. None have even been arrested.
The phrase “too big to fail” comes to mind.
The argument that "if there was something there it would already have come out" is pretty ridiculous in the light of what we know of Epstein's activities.
And the idea that any kind of full investigation or disclosure is likely under the most corrupt administration in living memory, even more so.
I'm fairly confident in predicting that most of those involved will be dead, the majority of them of natural causes, before more than a handful of Epstein's clients/associates are revealed.
It’s worth remembering that Epstein was arrested and got his first conviction and was arrested again, under state and federal governments of both parties.
It seems there is no appetite for going after his client list - because his client list was so broad. He (almost certainly deliberately) mixed in the rich, the famous and the politically connected.
So I’ve just had an expensive consultant offer me hallucinations from their AI agent as the solution to a problem - it’s basically saying do x, software provider says x doesn’t exist
To say I’m utterly unimpressed would be an understatement
I am still of the opinion that is there was something really big against Trump it would have been used by now. The media have had 12 years to use it. Instead it will be drip drip of rather embarrassing here is Trump at an event and so is Epstein. But of course we know so was all the rich and famous.
Trump and Epstein were much closer friends than a casual meet up on the NY social scene.
One thing we see in a lot of these scandals, similar to the UK ones in TV entertainment, are some of the changing ideas about sex with young, often underage girls. In the Seventies and Eighties it wasn't considered a big deal. Just men being men, and sexual liberation, even in mainstream films such as Pretty Woman, or Rita, Sue and Bob Too.
One thing people forget with Eighties nostalgia is how dark things could be at the time.
But it hasn't changed that much since Me Too. If they had something really bad it surely would have been deployed to stop him ever being president again. And the Democrats (who will have been at a lot of the events) paid for research on him, law officials have dug into his affairs* and the media go over everything in minute detail for 12 years.
* I mean the criminal conviction they got him on was overstating the value of property to get a loan which he paid back. I mean that seems pretty small beer if they had Epstein material to connect him.
Me Too was a load of horse manure
Says an older man...
The exposures of what went on with Al-Fayad, and also in my own profession* shows that predatory sexual behaviour of older men on younger women (and men) is not unusual at all. Indeed it has probably been so throughout history and across many societies.
The question is, should we tolerate it for the future?
Yawn, there speaks a CHUMP. 20 -30 years later plenty jump on band wagon as some rich bloke is shown to have used money and power to get his wicked way with people. Why did they accept it then , either punch his lights out or move jobs. Name one thing that Me Too has done other than enrich a few z listers. It was not ever going to stop rich establishment people doing what they want. They have their chums and the justice system to help, jsut like the rape gangs we see every other day in the papers. Do they do anything about real current abuse , NO.
Yes, it has made a change. When women report this stuff now, companies and organisations are afraid.
Afraid enough to do something.
Reputational and legal risk has reached “the talent” and the CEOs.
There are numerous examples of people at the top being binned for this shit.
Indeed. We no longer have a company Christmas party because (I understand) there were various occurrences of harassment at the past and the company would now be liable if they were to occur now under the current law. I think there were some recent changes - employment lawyers on the board would know. The one thing that scares Directors above all else is being held legally accountable for anything.
That and the repair bill for photocopiers after mainly female staff had sat on them.
In the case of Jobcentres, alcohol was banned after someone fell out of a window at a Christmas party. (They also banned "working late" at least on your own after someone who was finishing off work before a bank holiday died at his desk and wasn't found until Tuesday by which time he was a bit smelly. That seemed a bit of an overreaction, as I pointed out it was better he did that rather than died while driving home)
What seems to have changed is it was a MAGA conspiracy theory (or at least it was only MAGA that really wanted to go down the rabbit hole as bit dicey for some high profile Democrats) now its everybody....
Trump was happy to march his men (supporters) to the top of the hill, to play into QAnon/pizzagate-adjacent conspiracy theories, because it suited his purposes. But now they won't march back down the hill, and saying there isn't actually any little black book and that Epstein committed suicide doesn't work on people deep into a conspiracy theory.
Their heads will explode when they learn of Ghislaine's forthcoming suicide.
I understand that annual CCTV routine maintenance is scheduled for next Tuesday.
People need to get a grip. You can support Palestine and be against Israeli actions without supporting the absolute whoppers who caused millions of pounds of damage to public military equipment.
Palestine Action are a poor hill to die upon.
Amnesty and the Refugee Council, as well as Oxfam and Christian Aid and the wider 3rd sector, which extends politically into Labour and the Greens, view it as a totem for their values. It gets extensive media coverage because they have a large activist base that is energetic and well-connected.
Small Boats, which far more people are interested in bringing under control, they view as a threat to those values - and there's 20+ years of legislation, legal infrastructure and social taboos about it that now carry serious professional risk if not navigated carefully that prevents the necessary dialogue and action.
If forced to engage their only response is to make it safer and easier and to "welcome" anyone who does arrive.
The limitations currently being placed on peaceful protest are draconian, unreasonable and counter-productive. Yvette Cooper should issue an edict to all police forces that peaceful 'support for Palestine/Gaza' should not be automatically interpreted as support for, or membership of, a specific group called Palestine Action.
Do you believe all this is the legacy of long-Corbyn? The fear within Labour that pointing a finger at Bibi will be seen, as Bibi sees it, as anti-Semitic.
Fck me, I'm going to end up a PB Tory if this carries on.
🏴 🇺🇦 🇵🇸 @MhairiHunter Kit Malthouse is not the only Tory to have a clear eyed view of Gaza, Ben Wallace also called it like it is back in 2023. People of all political persuasions can see the reality. It is blindingly obvious. The question is why so few have challenged the government narrative.
I am still of the opinion that is there was something really big against Trump it would have been used by now. The media have had 12 years to use it. Instead it will be drip drip of rather embarrassing here is Trump at an event and so is Epstein. But of course we know so was all the rich and famous.
I don't follow this stuff closely, but it's weird how it's flipped. Epstein has been a cause célèbre for nutters on the right who think there's been a big cover up.
I don’t think you need to be a butter of any description to think that there has been a coverup.
Epstein was a pimp. Due to the especially gross nature of his operation, his clients are all criminals as well. Of an especially egregious kind. None have even been arrested.
The phrase “too big to fail” comes to mind.
The argument that "if there was something there it would already have come out" is pretty ridiculous in the light of what we know of Epstein's activities.
And the idea that any kind of full investigation or disclosure is likely under the most corrupt administration in living memory, even more so.
I'm fairly confident in predicting that most of those involved will be dead, the majority of them of natural causes, before more than a handful of Epstein's clients/associates are revealed.
It’s worth remembering that Epstein was arrested and got his first conviction and was arrested again, under state and federal governments of both parties.
It seems there is no appetite for going after his client list - because his client list was so broad. He (almost certainly deliberately) mixed in the rich, the famous and the politically connected.
Agreed. There are almost certainly politicians of both parties who would very much prefer the whole thing be forgotten about.
The attitude of most voters (albeit a smaller majority of Republicans) is that they should all get their comeuppance, whatever their politics.
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Kit Malthouse was grandstanding. Neither Lammy nor Starmer is guilty of war crimes, and to suggest it is frankly juvenile.
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Palestine Action were banned because of what they did being seen as a threat to national security. I have no issue with that - they caused hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage.
The argument is, they did no harm to people, which is normally the trigger for branding a pain-in-the- arse- nutjob group as "terrorists".
Are you fired up after Malthouse's revelation that Lammy should face the War Crimes Tribunal for ethnic cleansing in Gaza? Will Kemi take this on herself?
Fck me, I'm going to end up a PB Tory if this carries on.
🏴 🇺🇦 🇵🇸 @MhairiHunter Kit Malthouse is not the only Tory to have a clear eyed view of Gaza, Ben Wallace also called it like it is back in 2023. People of all political persuasions can see the reality. It is blindingly obvious. The question is why so few have challenged the government narrative.
Fck me, I'm going to end up a PB Tory if this carries on.
🏴 🇺🇦 🇵🇸 @MhairiHunter Kit Malthouse is not the only Tory to have a clear eyed view of Gaza, Ben Wallace also called it like it is back in 2023. People of all political persuasions can see the reality. It is blindingly obvious. The question is why so few have challenged the government narrative.
The limitations currently being placed on peaceful protest are draconian, unreasonable and counter-productive. Yvette Cooper should issue an edict to all police forces that peaceful 'support for Palestine/Gaza' should not be automatically interpreted as support for, or membership of, a specific group called Palestine Action.
Do you believe all this is the legacy of long-Corbyn? The fear within Labour that pointing a finger at Bibi will be seen, as Bibi sees it, as anti-Semitic.
I think there's some of that, yes. Ditto with the recent re-punishing of Diane Abbott. The other key factor imo is the identification of Red Wall Con19 to Lab24 switchers as the most important voter group for FPTP electoral prospects.
I am still of the opinion that is there was something really big against Trump it would have been used by now. The media have had 12 years to use it. Instead it will be drip drip of rather embarrassing here is Trump at an event and so is Epstein. But of course we know so was all the rich and famous.
I don't follow this stuff closely, but it's weird how it's flipped. Epstein has been a cause célèbre for nutters on the right who think there's been a big cover up.
I don’t think you need to be a butter of any description to think that there has been a coverup.
Epstein was a pimp. Due to the especially gross nature of his operation, his clients are all criminals as well. Of an especially egregious kind. None have even been arrested.
The phrase “too big to fail” comes to mind.
The argument that "if there was something there it would already have come out" is pretty ridiculous in the light of what we know of Epstein's activities.
And the idea that any kind of full investigation or disclosure is likely under the most corrupt administration in living memory, even more so.
I'm fairly confident in predicting that most of those involved will be dead, the majority of them of natural causes, before more than a handful of Epstein's clients/associates are revealed.
It’s worth remembering that Epstein was arrested and got his first conviction and was arrested again, under state and federal governments of both parties.
It seems there is no appetite for going after his client list - because his client list was so broad. He (almost certainly deliberately) mixed in the rich, the famous and the politically connected.
The big scandal around Epstein was what happened when Epstein was first investigated in 2005. Despite ample evidence of serious crimes, the DA Alexander Acosta agreed a very lenient plea deal for reasons that remain somewhat unclear. Legal Eagle did a good video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xuu7Jtt-ik
Acosta went on to be appointed Secretary of Labor by Trump in his first term. Epstein went on to re-offend.
People need to get a grip. You can support Palestine and be against Israeli actions without supporting the absolute whoppers who caused millions of pounds of damage to public military equipment.
Palestine Action are a poor hill to die upon.
Amnesty and the Refugee Council, as well as Oxfam and Christian Aid and the wider 3rd sector, which extends politically into Labour and the Greens, view it as a totem for their values. It gets extensive media coverage because they have a large activist base that is energetic and well-connected.
Small Boats, which far more people are interested in bringing under control, they view as a threat to those values - and there's 20+ years of legislation, legal infrastructure and social taboos about it that now carry serious professional risk if not navigated carefully that prevents the necessary dialogue and action.
If forced to engage their only response is to make it safer and easier and to "welcome" anyone who does arrive.
The way I see it, "antisemitism!" is used to shut down debate re. Israeli policy in Gaza. And "racism!" is used to shut down debate re. policy towards Small boats.
Two former City traders who were at the centre of one of the biggest scandals of the financial crisis have had their convictions quashed.
Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo were jailed following trials for manipulating the interest rates used for loans between banks.
They were among 19 City traders convicted in the US and UK for manipulating those Libor and Euribor interest rates, which are used to set interest rates on mortgages and commercial loans.
After serving their time, the US courts threw out the convictions, but they remained convicted criminals in the UK.
Fck me, I'm going to end up a PB Tory if this carries on.
🏴 🇺🇦 🇵🇸 @MhairiHunter Kit Malthouse is not the only Tory to have a clear eyed view of Gaza, Ben Wallace also called it like it is back in 2023. People of all political persuasions can see the reality. It is blindingly obvious. The question is why so few have challenged the government narrative.
Fck me, I'm going to end up a PB Tory if this carries on.
🏴 🇺🇦 🇵🇸 @MhairiHunter Kit Malthouse is not the only Tory to have a clear eyed view of Gaza, Ben Wallace also called it like it is back in 2023. People of all political persuasions can see the reality. It is blindingly obvious. The question is why so few have challenged the government narrative.
The limitations currently being placed on peaceful protest are draconian, unreasonable and counter-productive. Yvette Cooper should issue an edict to all police forces that peaceful 'support for Palestine/Gaza' should not be automatically interpreted as support for, or membership of, a specific group called Palestine Action.
Do you believe all this is the legacy of long-Corbyn? The fear within Labour that pointing a finger at Bibi will be seen, as Bibi sees it, as anti-Semitic.
Not really, no. And I think much of the criticism of Lammy is unfair - he's been fairly unequivocal in condemning what's going on in Gaza. But the government as a whole lacks the moral courage to directly criticise Bibi/Israel - not that it would make any difference.
The limitations currently being placed on peaceful protest are draconian, unreasonable and counter-productive. Yvette Cooper should issue an edict to all police forces that peaceful 'support for Palestine/Gaza' should not be automatically interpreted as support for, or membership of, a specific group called Palestine Action.
The guy waving the Private Eye cartoon could be said to be supporting PA. Presumably, once a group has been banned, expressing the view that it should not have been banned, or should be unbanned, is expressing support.
PA just about crosses the legal definition of a terrorist organisation. Damage to RAF aircraft probably counts as serious criminal damage, and I have heard stories of threats to companies exporting to Israel and their employees.
So to fix it, we have to repeal the law that says you can't express support for terrorist organisations. Of course, support for ISIS was always treason "adhering to the King's enemies, giving them aid and comfort, in the realm or elsewhere" but they seem unwilling to throw the book at people and instead make up laws.
Two former City traders who were at the centre of one of the biggest scandals of the financial crisis have had their convictions quashed.
Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo were jailed following trials for manipulating the interest rates used for loans between banks.
They were among 19 City traders convicted in the US and UK for manipulating those Libor and Euribor interest rates, which are used to set interest rates on mortgages and commercial loans.
After serving their time, the US courts threw out the convictions, but they remained convicted criminals in the UK.
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
Doesn't surprise me. If you aren't active mentally and physically bad things happen, you can't store fitness and I am sure little to no mental stimulation is similar. And if you didn't live in a detached home with a garden, every day will have been stressful.
When i talk to friends who are teachers they say developmentally kids seem well behind in both mental and social skills.
From British schoolchildren to American airline passengers, something has gone wrong:-
Incidents where airline passengers have disrupted flights with threatening or violent behavior are an ongoing problem and airlines have seen rapid growth in occurrences since 2021. https://www.faa.gov/unruly
Is 2021 a good baseline, given there were still substantial Covid restrictions then?
From the FAA report, showing incidents of unruly behaviour before and after 2021:-
Odd, that; my recollection is that in 2021 it was still quite tough to travel, and Americans didn't really start doing so internationally until 2022. Are those domestic US incidents?
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Kit Malthouse was grandstanding. Neither Lammy nor Starmer is guilty of war crimes, and to suggest it is frankly juvenile.
No, Malthouse (and Leigh) have captured the zeitgeist. And this is a phenomenal opportunity for the Conservatives to pile on the pressure against Labour (and Reform). Will they take it? Most likely, not.
Government foreign policy has unraveled in the last week. First Healey's Afghan injunction outrage, which Cartlidge outed brilliantly, and now Malthouse's assertion of Labour complicity in ethnic cleansing of Gazans.
PB Tories would be better advised to follow these paths of Government outrage rather than their "ooh, has Starmer given the Isle of Wight away to the EU yet?"
I am still of the opinion that is there was something really big against Trump it would have been used by now. The media have had 12 years to use it. Instead it will be drip drip of rather embarrassing here is Trump at an event and so is Epstein. But of course we know so was all the rich and famous.
I don't follow this stuff closely, but it's weird how it's flipped. Epstein has been a cause célèbre for nutters on the right who think there's been a big cover up.
Well its because Trump egged them on and they didn't consider that perhaps the great leader moved in the same circles as all the well known Democrats and general rich and famous at that point in history so it was highly likely he was at plenty of events together.
I don' think it is massive tin foil hat stuff to say that Epstein whole story doesn't really add up. His seemingly limitless wealth doesn't really seem to tally with some two bit financial con jobs (and there is tangible assets like the island, many crazy homes, etc so it wasn't all just made up magic money BS) and the way he got access to absolutely everybody.
He did work for the mutlti-billionaire bloke who owned Victoria Secret, so there definitely could have been further financial impropriety there.
The second Epstein conspiracy theory is that he was working for a foreign intelligence agency with a big cheque book who could use third parties to channel funds his way. Older British readers will recall similar speculation about Robert Maxwell having been a Mossad asset although it is hard to see any parallels between Cap'n Bob, murky finances, his friends in high places, his mysterious suicide/murder on his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, and Jeffrey Epstein.
The limitations currently being placed on peaceful protest are draconian, unreasonable and counter-productive. Yvette Cooper should issue an edict to all police forces that peaceful 'support for Palestine/Gaza' should not be automatically interpreted as support for, or membership of, a specific group called Palestine Action.
Do you believe all this is the legacy of long-Corbyn? The fear within Labour that pointing a finger at Bibi will be seen, as Bibi sees it, as anti-Semitic.
I think there's some of that, yes. Ditto with the recent re-punishing of Diane Abbott. The other key factor imo is the identification of Red Wall Con19 to Lab24 switchers as the most important voter group for FPTP electoral prospects.
Starmer was perfectly entitled to chuck out Abbott. She essentially explained that her earlier apology was an error.
I am still of the opinion that is there was something really big against Trump it would have been used by now. The media have had 12 years to use it. Instead it will be drip drip of rather embarrassing here is Trump at an event and so is Epstein. But of course we know so was all the rich and famous.
Trump and Epstein were much closer friends than a casual meet up on the NY social scene.
One thing we see in a lot of these scandals, similar to the UK ones in TV entertainment, are some of the changing ideas about sex with young, often underage girls. In the Seventies and Eighties it wasn't considered a big deal. Just men being men, and sexual liberation, even in mainstream films such as Pretty Woman, or Rita, Sue and Bob Too.
One thing people forget with Eighties nostalgia is how dark things could be at the time.
But it hasn't changed that much since Me Too. If they had something really bad it surely would have been deployed to stop him ever being president again. And the Democrats (who will have been at a lot of the events) paid for research on him, law officials have dug into his affairs* and the media go over everything in minute detail for 12 years.
* I mean the criminal conviction they got him on was overstating the value of property to get a loan which he paid back. I mean that seems pretty small beer if they had Epstein material to connect him.
Me Too was a load of horse manure
Says an older man...
The exposures of what went on with Al-Fayad, and also in my own profession* shows that predatory sexual behaviour of older men on younger women (and men) is not unusual at all. Indeed it has probably been so throughout history and across many societies.
The question is, should we tolerate it for the future?
Yawn, there speaks a CHUMP. 20 -30 years later plenty jump on band wagon as some rich bloke is shown to have used money and power to get his wicked way with people. Why did they accept it then , either punch his lights out or move jobs. Name one thing that Me Too has done other than enrich a few z listers. It was not ever going to stop rich establishment people doing what they want. They have their chums and the justice system to help, jsut like the rape gangs we see every other day in the papers. Do they do anything about real current abuse , NO.
Yes, it has made a change. When women report this stuff now, companies and organisations are afraid.
Afraid enough to do something.
Reputational and legal risk has reached “the talent” and the CEOs.
There are numerous examples of people at the top being binned for this shit.
I understand that Malcolm is retired so I am not sure how he claims to have any idea whatsoever what the workplace is like these days.
You blithering idiot I am still working , old codgers are needed to correct the mistakes of the feckless graduates who are less than useful for years.
Fck me, I'm going to end up a PB Tory if this carries on.
🏴 🇺🇦 🇵🇸 @MhairiHunter Kit Malthouse is not the only Tory to have a clear eyed view of Gaza, Ben Wallace also called it like it is back in 2023. People of all political persuasions can see the reality. It is blindingly obvious. The question is why so few have challenged the government narrative.
Those challenging its veracity apparently overlooked the fact that half the information in it comes from details of the Israeli aid effort provided by the Israeli government and the "Gaza Humanitarian Foundation".
Morning all. Some polling to start the day from More In Commons weekly poll conducted 18-20 Jul
Ref 29 (+2) Lab 22 (-2) Con 21 (+1) LD 15 (+1) Green 8 (-1) SNP 2 (-1)
Everything fairly steady, Labour starting to fall back from their mini recovery back to their post election lows perhaps
Lab / Con near cross over though which would put the cat among the pigeons
Con would be more effective at 'stopping Reform" if they ever claimed second regularly, Lab defectors for Reform are implaccably opposed to returning according to polling, Cons less so. Its not quite as clear what happens to Reform 'stop Labour' voters if Labour stop being the opponents - not that I predict Con second regularly at this time Corbyns handful of % might yet be hilariously impactful
The limitations currently being placed on peaceful protest are draconian, unreasonable and counter-productive. Yvette Cooper should issue an edict to all police forces that peaceful 'support for Palestine/Gaza' should not be automatically interpreted as support for, or membership of, a specific group called Palestine Action.
The guy waving the Private Eye cartoon could be said to be supporting PA. Presumably, once a group has been banned, expressing the view that it should not have been banned, or should be unbanned, is expressing support.
PA just about crosses the legal definition of a terrorist organisation. Damage to RAF aircraft probably counts as serious criminal damage, and I have heard stories of threats to companies exporting to Israel and their employees.
So to fix it, we have to repeal the law that says you can't express support for terrorist organisations. Of course, support for ISIS was always treason "adhering to the King's enemies, giving them aid and comfort, in the realm or elsewhere" but they seem unwilling to throw the book at people and instead make up laws.
As I've said before go after the organisers. Is that too expensive? Much cheaper to just ban the organisation. But then the people will just go elsewhere.
The limitations currently being placed on peaceful protest are draconian, unreasonable and counter-productive. Yvette Cooper should issue an edict to all police forces that peaceful 'support for Palestine/Gaza' should not be automatically interpreted as support for, or membership of, a specific group called Palestine Action.
Do you believe all this is the legacy of long-Corbyn? The fear within Labour that pointing a finger at Bibi will be seen, as Bibi sees it, as anti-Semitic.
Not really, no. And I think much of the criticism of Lammy is unfair - he's been fairly unequivocal in condemning what's going on in Gaza. But the government as a whole lacks the moral courage to directly criticise Bibi/Israel - not that it would make any difference.
My view of the current Government would vastly improve if they were to unequivocally condemn Netanyahu, as Malthouse and Leigh have done, and curtail any arms exports to Israel whilst ethnic cleansing is in progress.
The limitations currently being placed on peaceful protest are draconian, unreasonable and counter-productive. Yvette Cooper should issue an edict to all police forces that peaceful 'support for Palestine/Gaza' should not be automatically interpreted as support for, or membership of, a specific group called Palestine Action.
Do you believe all this is the legacy of long-Corbyn? The fear within Labour that pointing a finger at Bibi will be seen, as Bibi sees it, as anti-Semitic.
I think there's some of that, yes. Ditto with the recent re-punishing of Diane Abbott. The other key factor imo is the identification of Red Wall Con19 to Lab24 switchers as the most important voter group for FPTP electoral prospects.
Starmer was perfectly entitled to chuck out Abbott. She essentially explained that her earlier apology was an error.
It's just another example of Starmer’s inability to handle dissenting viewpoints. It's particularly absurd because Abbott's point, that people who are visibly members of minority groups experience racism differently to those who aren't, is self evidently true.
I am still of the opinion that is there was something really big against Trump it would have been used by now. The media have had 12 years to use it. Instead it will be drip drip of rather embarrassing here is Trump at an event and so is Epstein. But of course we know so was all the rich and famous.
I don't follow this stuff closely, but it's weird how it's flipped. Epstein has been a cause célèbre for nutters on the right who think there's been a big cover up.
I don’t think you need to be a butter of any description to think that there has been a coverup.
Epstein was a pimp. Due to the especially gross nature of his operation, his clients are all criminals as well. Of an especially egregious kind. None have even been arrested.
The phrase “too big to fail” comes to mind.
It is notable that the only person in the nick for Epsteins crimes is a woman.
Also odd she is not singing like a canary, though probably prefers that she can walk out some day. Unlikely she is in anything other than a cushy cell.
Fck me, I'm going to end up a PB Tory if this carries on.
🏴 🇺🇦 🇵🇸 @MhairiHunter Kit Malthouse is not the only Tory to have a clear eyed view of Gaza, Ben Wallace also called it like it is back in 2023. People of all political persuasions can see the reality. It is blindingly obvious. The question is why so few have challenged the government narrative.
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Kit Malthouse was grandstanding. Neither Lammy nor Starmer is guilty of war crimes, and to suggest it is frankly juvenile.
No, Malthouse (and Leigh) have captured the zeitgeist. And this is a phenomenal opportunity for the Conservatives to pile on the pressure against Labour (and Reform). Will they take it? Most likely, not.
Government foreign policy has unraveled in the last week. First Healey's Afghan injunction outrage, which Cartlidge outed brilliantly, and now Malthouse's assertion of Labour complicity in ethnic cleansing of Gazans.
PB Tories would be better advised to follow these paths of Government outrage rather than their "ooh, has Starmer given the Isle of Wight away to the EU yet?"
The 'zeitgeist'? You think people's priority right now in the UK is a conflict going on 2000 miles away?
Todd Blanche filed his notice of appearance in the Ghislaine Maxwell docket NOT as Deputy Attorney General (tho that's how he signed his unseal request), but as Donald Trump's personal defense attorney.
The reality is, I think, that neither Trump nor his minion draws any distinction between the two roles. The independence of law officers and legal agencies from the executive is rapidly becoming a quaint old tradition that no longer applies.
The limitations currently being placed on peaceful protest are draconian, unreasonable and counter-productive. Yvette Cooper should issue an edict to all police forces that peaceful 'support for Palestine/Gaza' should not be automatically interpreted as support for, or membership of, a specific group called Palestine Action.
Do you believe all this is the legacy of long-Corbyn? The fear within Labour that pointing a finger at Bibi will be seen, as Bibi sees it, as anti-Semitic.
I think there's some of that, yes. Ditto with the recent re-punishing of Diane Abbott. The other key factor imo is the identification of Red Wall Con19 to Lab24 switchers as the most important voter group for FPTP electoral prospects.
Starmer was perfectly entitled to chuck out Abbott. She essentially explained that her earlier apology was an error.
It's just another example of Starmer’s inability to handle dissenting viewpoints. It's particularly absurd because Abbott's point, that people who are visibly members of minority groups experience racism differently to those who aren't, is self evidently true.
Whereas the visibility issue is undoubtedly true, Abbott is diminishing racism against Jews and other (white) minorities. Her view is racism does not apply to people who don't look like her which is patently absurd.
People need to get a grip. You can support Palestine and be against Israeli actions without supporting the absolute whoppers who caused millions of pounds of damage to public military equipment.
Palestine Action are a poor hill to die upon.
Amnesty and the Refugee Council, as well as Oxfam and Christian Aid and the wider 3rd sector, which extends politically into Labour and the Greens, view it as a totem for their values. It gets extensive media coverage because they have a large activist base that is energetic and well-connected.
Small Boats, which far more people are interested in bringing under control, they view as a threat to those values - and there's 20+ years of legislation, legal infrastructure and social taboos about it that now carry serious professional risk if not navigated carefully that prevents the necessary dialogue and action.
If forced to engage their only response is to make it safer and easier and to "welcome" anyone who does arrive.
The way I see it, "antisemitism!" is used to shut down debate re. Israeli policy in Gaza. And "racism!" is used to shut down debate re. policy towards Small boats.
So those numbers imply that around 40% of Republicans are MAGA. You can see why, god help us, they own the party. I'm hard pushed to think of a more simultaneously malign and successful insurgent movement in a mature western democracy.
It's nearer 50% of Republicans that identify as MAGA. And 15% of all US adult citizens.
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Kit Malthouse was grandstanding. Neither Lammy nor Starmer is guilty of war crimes, and to suggest it is frankly juvenile.
No, Malthouse (and Leigh) have captured the zeitgeist. And this is a phenomenal opportunity for the Conservatives to pile on the pressure against Labour (and Reform). Will they take it? Most likely, not.
Government foreign policy has unraveled in the last week. First Healey's Afghan injunction outrage, which Cartlidge outed brilliantly, and now Malthouse's assertion of Labour complicity in ethnic cleansing of Gazans.
PB Tories would be better advised to follow these paths of Government outrage rather than their "ooh, has Starmer given the Isle of Wight away to the EU yet?"
The 'zeitgeist'? You think people's priority right now in the UK is a conflict going on 2000 miles away?
It’s all they ever talk about down the Dog and Duck
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Kit Malthouse was grandstanding. Neither Lammy nor Starmer is guilty of war crimes, and to suggest it is frankly juvenile.
No, Malthouse (and Leigh) have captured the zeitgeist. And this is a phenomenal opportunity for the Conservatives to pile on the pressure against Labour (and Reform). Will they take it? Most likely, not.
Government foreign policy has unraveled in the last week. First Healey's Afghan injunction outrage, which Cartlidge outed brilliantly, and now Malthouse's assertion of Labour complicity in ethnic cleansing of Gazans.
PB Tories would be better advised to follow these paths of Government outrage rather than their "ooh, has Starmer given the Isle of Wight away to the EU yet?"
The 'zeitgeist'? You think people's priority right now in the UK is a conflict going on 2000 miles away?
Gaza, Ukraine or both?
Given that the current (whipped-up) priority seems to be where are all these not Britishers flocking from, you’d hope people might be able to work out that many are flocking from conflicts 2000 miles and more away.
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Kit Malthouse was grandstanding. Neither Lammy nor Starmer is guilty of war crimes, and to suggest it is frankly juvenile.
No, Malthouse (and Leigh) have captured the zeitgeist. And this is a phenomenal opportunity for the Conservatives to pile on the pressure against Labour (and Reform). Will they take it? Most likely, not.
Government foreign policy has unraveled in the last week. First Healey's Afghan injunction outrage, which Cartlidge outed brilliantly, and now Malthouse's assertion of Labour complicity in ethnic cleansing of Gazans.
PB Tories would be better advised to follow these paths of Government outrage rather than their "ooh, has Starmer given the Isle of Wight away to the EU yet?"
The 'zeitgeist'? You think people's priority right now in the UK is a conflict going on 2000 miles away?
The small boats would top the list. However do I believe ethnic cleansing in Gaza is rising in national concern? Yes.
I am still of the opinion that is there was something really big against Trump it would have been used by now. The media have had 12 years to use it. Instead it will be drip drip of rather embarrassing here is Trump at an event and so is Epstein. But of course we know so was all the rich and famous.
I don't follow this stuff closely, but it's weird how it's flipped. Epstein has been a cause célèbre for nutters on the right who think there's been a big cover up.
I don’t think you need to be a butter of any description to think that there has been a coverup.
Epstein was a pimp. Due to the especially gross nature of his operation, his clients are all criminals as well. Of an especially egregious kind. None have even been arrested.
The phrase “too big to fail” comes to mind.
The argument that "if there was something there it would already have come out" is pretty ridiculous in the light of what we know of Epstein's activities.
And the idea that any kind of full investigation or disclosure is likely under the most corrupt administration in living memory, even more so.
I'm fairly confident in predicting that most of those involved will be dead, the majority of them of natural causes, before more than a handful of Epstein's clients/associates are revealed.
It’s worth remembering that Epstein was arrested and got his first conviction and was arrested again, under state and federal governments of both parties.
It seems there is no appetite for going after his client list - because his client list was so broad. He (almost certainly deliberately) mixed in the rich, the famous and the politically connected.
Agreed. There are almost certainly politicians of both parties who would very much prefer the whole thing be forgotten about.
The attitude of most voters (albeit a smaller majority of Republicans) is that they should all get their comeuppance, whatever their politics.
Not just politicians and not just the rich - media, talking heads, movers and shakers in lots of other fields.
"Covid was bad for our brains (even for those who didn’t catch it)
The emotional strain of the pandemic, including isolation and uncertainty about the future, took a toll on the population’s health, a study has suggested" (£)
Doesn't surprise me. If you aren't active mentally and physically bad things happen, you can't store fitness and I am sure little to no mental stimulation is similar. And if you didn't live in a detached home with a garden, every day will have been stressful.
When i talk to friends who are teachers they say developmentally kids seem well behind in both mental and social skills.
From British schoolchildren to American airline passengers, something has gone wrong:-
Incidents where airline passengers have disrupted flights with threatening or violent behavior are an ongoing problem and airlines have seen rapid growth in occurrences since 2021. https://www.faa.gov/unruly
Is 2021 a good baseline, given there were still substantial Covid restrictions then?
From the FAA report, showing incidents of unruly behaviour before and after 2021:-
Odd, that; my recollection is that in 2021 it was still quite tough to travel, and Americans didn't really start doing so internationally until 2022. Are those domestic US incidents?
Usonians have started travelling internationally - what happened?
They'll need to, as no one is going there any more *.
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Kit Malthouse was grandstanding. Neither Lammy nor Starmer is guilty of war crimes, and to suggest it is frankly juvenile.
No, Malthouse (and Leigh) have captured the zeitgeist. And this is a phenomenal opportunity for the Conservatives to pile on the pressure against Labour (and Reform). Will they take it? Most likely, not.
Government foreign policy has unraveled in the last week. First Healey's Afghan injunction outrage, which Cartlidge outed brilliantly, and now Malthouse's assertion of Labour complicity in ethnic cleansing of Gazans.
PB Tories would be better advised to follow these paths of Government outrage rather than their "ooh, has Starmer given the Isle of Wight away to the EU yet?"
The 'zeitgeist'? You think people's priority right now in the UK is a conflict going on 2000 miles away?
It’s all they ever talk about down the Dog and Duck
What about down the wine bars on the Fulham Road, or even it would seem, at the Groucho Club now.
So I’ve just had an expensive consultant offer me hallucinations from their AI agent as the solution to a problem - it’s basically saying do x, software provider says x doesn’t exist
To say I’m utterly unimpressed would be an understatement
I hope you told the consultant that any hope he'd get paid for that crock of shit is a hallucination too.
I saw this. It struck me as crazy. YouTube is a business and relies on ads. If it promotes drivel no one is interested in that won’t help it.
Why not also make this demand of Netflix and Disney+ and the others.
If people have little or no interest in PSB then that is that.
‘YouTube should give videos made by channels like the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 more promotion to help tackle a "serious threat" to the UK's public service broadcasting, according to media regulator Ofcom.
Children spend much more time watching YouTube than all of the public service broadcasters combined, but "the future of public service media is at risk" if young viewers don't start watching their output, Ofcom warned.
The watchdog suggested broadcasters should "work urgently with YouTube" to make sure their content is "prominent and easy to find" - and there's "a strong case" for the government to consider a law to make that happen.‘
I am still of the opinion that is there was something really big against Trump it would have been used by now. The media have had 12 years to use it. Instead it will be drip drip of rather embarrassing here is Trump at an event and so is Epstein. But of course we know so was all the rich and famous.
I don't follow this stuff closely, but it's weird how it's flipped. Epstein has been a cause célèbre for nutters on the right who think there's been a big cover up.
I don’t think you need to be a butter of any description to think that there has been a coverup.
Epstein was a pimp. Due to the especially gross nature of his operation, his clients are all criminals as well. Of an especially egregious kind. None have even been arrested.
The phrase “too big to fail” comes to mind.
The argument that "if there was something there it would already have come out" is pretty ridiculous in the light of what we know of Epstein's activities.
And the idea that any kind of full investigation or disclosure is likely under the most corrupt administration in living memory, even more so.
I'm fairly confident in predicting that most of those involved will be dead, the majority of them of natural causes, before more than a handful of Epstein's clients/associates are revealed.
It’s worth remembering that Epstein was arrested and got his first conviction and was arrested again, under state and federal governments of both parties.
It seems there is no appetite for going after his client list - because his client list was so broad. He (almost certainly deliberately) mixed in the rich, the famous and the politically connected.
The big scandal around Epstein was what happened when Epstein was first investigated in 2005. Despite ample evidence of serious crimes, the DA Alexander Acosta agreed a very lenient plea deal for reasons that remain somewhat unclear. Legal Eagle did a good video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xuu7Jtt-ik
Acosta went on to be appointed Secretary of Labor by Trump in his first term. Epstein went on to re-offend.
Indeed. The speculation, at the time, was that Epstein was providing the FBI and SEC with lots of financial deep background stuff as part of the deal.
Which of course leveraged into “I’m protected by the Fed Gov, and I can get them to go after anyone but you” - a very useful sales pitch to a certain kind of person.
So those numbers imply that around 40% of Republicans are MAGA. You can see why, god help us, they own the party. I'm hard pushed to think of a more simultaneously malign and successful insurgent movement in a mature western democracy.
Momentum? Although they didn’t quite make it they got awfully close
I'm on the move today, so here's one from yesterday. Sun, lake, sand, trees, dog, ball...what more do you need? Well, yes, insect repellent, obviously, but still...
Are you back in Scotland? Or is the west coast of Norway similar?
I don't think I've accused people on here of antisemitism for criticising Israel and I've been among Israel's staunchest supporters. But if one looks at the pro Palestine protest movement then the antisemitism seems pretty obvious in much of it. Remember the first big demo in London after 7 October happened BEFORE Israel had launched any serious kind of retaliation. And surely anyone who seriously cared about the plight of the Palestinians would be angry at the Soviet Union's decades long stoking of trouble in order to undermine the west, Iran's fanatical desire to destroy Israel and use the Palestinians as pawns and the most proximate immiserater of Palestinians, Hamas. Those who govern Gaza and show no regard for the lives of the people living there at all. Who treat them without dignity or concern because their only interest is their own genocidal fanaticism.
But no, all the blame is put on Israel. Only Israel. Why might this be?
First game in the series with "english conditions" - so bowling is OK as an option, not the sun drenched deck of either Lords or Edgbaston. India might still have opted to bat though.
I saw this. It struck me as crazy. YouTube is a business and relies on ads. If it promotes drivel no one is interested in that won’t help it.
Why not also make this demand of Netflix and Disney+ and the others.
If people have little or no interest in PSB then that is that.
‘YouTube should give videos made by channels like the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 more promotion to help tackle a "serious threat" to the UK's public service broadcasting, according to media regulator Ofcom.
Children spend much more time watching YouTube than all of the public service broadcasters combined, but "the future of public service media is at risk" if young viewers don't start watching their output, Ofcom warned.
The watchdog suggested broadcasters should "work urgently with YouTube" to make sure their content is "prominent and easy to find" - and there's "a strong case" for the government to consider a law to make that happen.‘
It is said Netflix regards its most dangerous competitor as not the broadcasters or rival streamers but YouTube.
The paradox for the broadcasters is that if we watch, say, ITV programmes via YouTube then, first, ITV will lose advertising revenue, second, ITV's own streaming platform will lose subscribers, third, ITV's catalogue will be off less value for overseas partnerships, and fourth, ITV's BARB (viewership) ratings will fall.
Against that will be some revenue-sharing with YouTube but I do not know how that works with YouTube subscribers who are not shown adverts.
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Palestine Action were banned because of what they did being seen as a threat to national security. I have no issue with that - they caused hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage.
Set an example , lock them up and throw away the keys, they deserve all they get the clowns.
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Kit Malthouse was grandstanding. Neither Lammy nor Starmer is guilty of war crimes, and to suggest it is frankly juvenile.
No, Malthouse (and Leigh) have captured the zeitgeist. And this is a phenomenal opportunity for the Conservatives to pile on the pressure against Labour (and Reform). Will they take it? Most likely, not.
Government foreign policy has unraveled in the last week. First Healey's Afghan injunction outrage, which Cartlidge outed brilliantly, and now Malthouse's assertion of Labour complicity in ethnic cleansing of Gazans.
PB Tories would be better advised to follow these paths of Government outrage rather than their "ooh, has Starmer given the Isle of Wight away to the EU yet?"
The 'zeitgeist'? You think people's priority right now in the UK is a conflict going on 2000 miles away?
Gaza, Ukraine or both?
Given that the current (whipped-up) priority seems to be where are all these not Britishers flocking from, you’d hope people might be able to work out that many are flocking from conflicts 2000 miles and more away.
Conflicts in the plural you put it. So why one particular conflict in one country the size of Wales that gets all the attention? Notice how there was pretty much no interest in the massacre against the Druze until Israel got involved. Then suddenly it becomes relevant.
First game in the series with "english conditions" - so bowling is OK as an option, not the sun drenched deck of either Lords or Edgbaston. India might still have opted to bat though.
Are you saying its a good job England India bat deep.
I'm on the move today, so here's one from yesterday. Sun, lake, sand, trees, dog, ball...what more do you need? Well, yes, insect repellent, obviously, but still...
Are you back in Scotland? Or is the west coast of Norway similar?
Finland! I am afraid that Finnish and Swedish biting flying insects make Scottish midges seem like jessies in comparison. And apparently they get waves of midges here, too, but in the autumn
The limitations currently being placed on peaceful protest are draconian, unreasonable and counter-productive. Yvette Cooper should issue an edict to all police forces that peaceful 'support for Palestine/Gaza' should not be automatically interpreted as support for, or membership of, a specific group called Palestine Action.
Do you believe all this is the legacy of long-Corbyn? The fear within Labour that pointing a finger at Bibi will be seen, as Bibi sees it, as anti-Semitic.
I think there's some of that, yes. Ditto with the recent re-punishing of Diane Abbott. The other key factor imo is the identification of Red Wall Con19 to Lab24 switchers as the most important voter group for FPTP electoral prospects.
Starmer was perfectly entitled to chuck out Abbott. She essentially explained that her earlier apology was an error.
No, I don't think so. To me she was just standing by her main (and valid) point about skin colour. She'd already been (rightly) sanctioned for the offensive nonsense about "red heads" and she didn't repeat that. To go piling in on her again is OTT and not necessary imo.
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Kit Malthouse was grandstanding. Neither Lammy nor Starmer is guilty of war crimes, and to suggest it is frankly juvenile.
No, Malthouse (and Leigh) have captured the zeitgeist. And this is a phenomenal opportunity for the Conservatives to pile on the pressure against Labour (and Reform). Will they take it? Most likely, not.
Government foreign policy has unraveled in the last week. First Healey's Afghan injunction outrage, which Cartlidge outed brilliantly, and now Malthouse's assertion of Labour complicity in ethnic cleansing of Gazans.
PB Tories would be better advised to follow these paths of Government outrage rather than their "ooh, has Starmer given the Isle of Wight away to the EU yet?"
The 'zeitgeist'? You think people's priority right now in the UK is a conflict going on 2000 miles away?
The small boats would top the list. However do I believe ethnic cleansing in Gaza is rising in national concern? Yes.
Give it a week or two and they will be back to I am a Celebrity or Love Island. How often do we hear Ukraine now, only an odd time in the passing. No woke clowns out protesting about them or the various African countries where bad things are going on , just seems to be some fetish for Palestine.
First game in the series with "english conditions" - so bowling is OK as an option, not the sun drenched deck of either Lords or Edgbaston. India might still have opted to bat though.
Are you saying its a good job England India bat deep.
Remember when Dawson last played Theresa May the Romans were in power.
Well, that was interesting (and thank you for posting). I'm not a fan of Kemi, but that's because I don't like her policies. I didn't realise that a lot of the people in the Conservative Party don't like her as a person (anchor baby???). And I think we can all agree that in her first year she has not understood the problems nor conceived nor implemented a plan to fix them (shades of Starmer).
But I hadn't picked up on the author's other point: namely that Kemi's culture war obsessions (trans, abortion) have been overtaken by events and that the current right-wing obsessions of "migration, ethnicity, identity, belonging and economic failure" have overtaken those obsessions. She got the job because she tickled the Conservative Party's hopes and prejudices. But they have moved on and she no longer does so. And she hasn't got a plan B.
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Kit Malthouse was grandstanding. Neither Lammy nor Starmer is guilty of war crimes, and to suggest it is frankly juvenile.
No, Malthouse (and Leigh) have captured the zeitgeist. And this is a phenomenal opportunity for the Conservatives to pile on the pressure against Labour (and Reform). Will they take it? Most likely, not.
Government foreign policy has unraveled in the last week. First Healey's Afghan injunction outrage, which Cartlidge outed brilliantly, and now Malthouse's assertion of Labour complicity in ethnic cleansing of Gazans.
PB Tories would be better advised to follow these paths of Government outrage rather than their "ooh, has Starmer given the Isle of Wight away to the EU yet?"
The 'zeitgeist'? You think people's priority right now in the UK is a conflict going on 2000 miles away?
The small boats would top the list. However do I believe ethnic cleansing in Gaza is rising in national concern? Yes.
Give it a week or two and they will be back to I am a Celebrity or Love Island. How often do we hear Ukraine now, only an odd time in the passing. No woke clowns out protesting about them or the various African countries where bad things are going on , just seems to be some fetish for Palestine.
Indeed, for some.
One thing I note on Twix et al; the importance of Gaza seems inversely proportional to their concern for Ukraine.
Which IMV is odd, as right-and-wrong in the Ukraine war is fairly simple. Ukraine is in the right; Russia in the wrong. The situation in the Middle East and Gaza is much, much more complicated. Yet some seem only concerned by Gaza and the Palestinians, not the plight of the Ukrainians. And the actions of Hamas et al, and their Iranian friends, can be ignored.
(But incidentally, many 'woke' leftists are indeed very noisily pro-Ukraine, and even raise funds for them. One YouTuber stated how the war turned him from a war-never position to a Russia-must-be-stopped one.)
So those numbers imply that around 40% of Republicans are MAGA. You can see why, god help us, they own the party. I'm hard pushed to think of a more simultaneously malign and successful insurgent movement in a mature western democracy.
Momentum? Although they didn’t quite make it they got awfully close
Well ok - but not nearly as successful or (for me at least) as malign. There were some grizzled old trots in there but outnumbered by young idealists. The economics might have been ruinous (you'll no doubt think so) but it wasn't a movement of fear and rage like MAGA.
I saw this. It struck me as crazy. YouTube is a business and relies on ads. If it promotes drivel no one is interested in that won’t help it.
Why not also make this demand of Netflix and Disney+ and the others.
If people have little or no interest in PSB then that is that.
‘YouTube should give videos made by channels like the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 more promotion to help tackle a "serious threat" to the UK's public service broadcasting, according to media regulator Ofcom.
Children spend much more time watching YouTube than all of the public service broadcasters combined, but "the future of public service media is at risk" if young viewers don't start watching their output, Ofcom warned.
The watchdog suggested broadcasters should "work urgently with YouTube" to make sure their content is "prominent and easy to find" - and there's "a strong case" for the government to consider a law to make that happen.‘
It is said Netflix regards its most dangerous competitor as not the broadcasters or rival streamers but YouTube.
The paradox for the broadcasters is that if we watch, say, ITV programmes via YouTube then, first, ITV will lose advertising revenue, second, ITV's own streaming platform will lose subscribers, third, ITV's catalogue will be off less value for overseas partnerships, and fourth, ITV's BARB (viewership) ratings will fall.
Against that will be some revenue-sharing with YouTube but I do not know how that works with YouTube subscribers who are not shown adverts.
I’m currently watching an episode of The Persuaders on YouTube on the ITV Retro channel.
It is a relatively new channel so they have put their toe in the water to see how it works.
I believe, from subscribers, they get money. The episode I am watching has been up 6 days and got 77,000 views so far. Others fare less well. An episode of Press Gang has 508 views.
Channel 5 and Channel 4 also stream.
However it looks like OFCOM just wants YouTube to make the public service element, which they do post on YouTube, more prominent rather than just making prominent videos the algorithm says we may like
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Kit Malthouse was grandstanding. Neither Lammy nor Starmer is guilty of war crimes, and to suggest it is frankly juvenile.
No, Malthouse (and Leigh) have captured the zeitgeist. And this is a phenomenal opportunity for the Conservatives to pile on the pressure against Labour (and Reform). Will they take it? Most likely, not.
Government foreign policy has unraveled in the last week. First Healey's Afghan injunction outrage, which Cartlidge outed brilliantly, and now Malthouse's assertion of Labour complicity in ethnic cleansing of Gazans.
PB Tories would be better advised to follow these paths of Government outrage rather than their "ooh, has Starmer given the Isle of Wight away to the EU yet?"
The 'zeitgeist'? You think people's priority right now in the UK is a conflict going on 2000 miles away?
The small boats would top the list. However do I believe ethnic cleansing in Gaza is rising in national concern? Yes.
Give it a week or two and they will be back to I am a Celebrity or Love Island. How often do we hear Ukraine now, only an odd time in the passing. No woke clowns out protesting about them or the various African countries where bad things are going on , just seems to be some fetish for Palestine.
Indeed, for some.
One thing I note on Twix et al; the importance of Gaza seems inversely proportional to their concern for Ukraine.
Which IMV is odd, as right-and-wrong in the Ukraine war is fairly simple. Ukraine is in the right; Russia in the wrong. The situation in the Middle East and Gaza is much, much more complicated. Yet some seem only concerned by Gaza and the Palestinians, not the plight of the Ukrainians. And the actions of Hamas et al, and their Iranian friends, can be ignored.
(But incidentally, many 'woke' leftists are indeed very noisily pro-Ukraine, and even raise funds for them. One YouTuber stated how the war turned him from a war-never position to a Russia-must-be-stopped one.)
I do come across pro Palestine pro Ukraine types. One has to remember that x is a global community which includes all sorts. I guess they are of the 'anti imperialist' bent.
There is an awful lot of glee from MAGA spanners who seem convinced that "Barak Hussein Obama" is about to be arrested for "Treason".
Erm, remember that total presidential immunity granted by the Supreme Court?
Even if Obama had conspired with Russia to defame Trump (stop laughing at the back), he is now immune.
I guess there will be some “reasons” why it’s different, maybe it’s not retrospective - I can’t be bothered to look it up but who knows. Of course as MAGA can prove Obama was born in Kenya and so couldn’t be president then as he wasn’t legally president he isn’t covered by total presidential immunity.
Excellent legal reasoning. Are you a Cambridge-educated lawyer, perchance? Is there a bookmaker offering a price against boulay being the first PBer appointed Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America?
Id assume his immunity only covers things he allegedly did whilst president, not anything after midday Jan 20th 2017
Not sure.
But it would be evaluated by the current Supreme Court, perhaps?
I saw this. It struck me as crazy. YouTube is a business and relies on ads. If it promotes drivel no one is interested in that won’t help it.
Why not also make this demand of Netflix and Disney+ and the others.
If people have little or no interest in PSB then that is that.
‘YouTube should give videos made by channels like the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 more promotion to help tackle a "serious threat" to the UK's public service broadcasting, according to media regulator Ofcom.
Children spend much more time watching YouTube than all of the public service broadcasters combined, but "the future of public service media is at risk" if young viewers don't start watching their output, Ofcom warned.
The watchdog suggested broadcasters should "work urgently with YouTube" to make sure their content is "prominent and easy to find" - and there's "a strong case" for the government to consider a law to make that happen.‘
It is said Netflix regards its most dangerous competitor as not the broadcasters or rival streamers but YouTube.
The paradox for the broadcasters is that if we watch, say, ITV programmes via YouTube then, first, ITV will lose advertising revenue, second, ITV's own streaming platform will lose subscribers, third, ITV's catalogue will be off less value for overseas partnerships, and fourth, ITV's BARB (viewership) ratings will fall.
Against that will be some revenue-sharing with YouTube but I do not know how that works with YouTube subscribers who are not shown adverts.
I’m currently watching an episode of The Persuaders on YouTube on the ITV Retro channel.
It is a relatively new channel so they have put their toe in the water to see how it works.
I believe, from subscribers, they get money. The episode I am watching has been up 6 days and got 77,000 views so far. Others fare less well. An episode of Press Gang has 508 views.
Channel 5 and Channel 4 also stream.
However it looks like OFCOM just wants YouTube to make the public service element, which they do post on YouTube, more prominent rather than just making prominent videos the algorithm says we may like
Wall to wall Paw Patrol on Paramount for us. No concerns for Ryder over Adventure Bay's emergency services funding.
So those numbers imply that around 40% of Republicans are MAGA. You can see why, god help us, they own the party. I'm hard pushed to think of a more simultaneously malign and successful insurgent movement in a mature western democracy.
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Kit Malthouse was grandstanding. Neither Lammy nor Starmer is guilty of war crimes, and to suggest it is frankly juvenile.
No, Malthouse (and Leigh) have captured the zeitgeist. And this is a phenomenal opportunity for the Conservatives to pile on the pressure against Labour (and Reform). Will they take it? Most likely, not.
Government foreign policy has unraveled in the last week. First Healey's Afghan injunction outrage, which Cartlidge outed brilliantly, and now Malthouse's assertion of Labour complicity in ethnic cleansing of Gazans.
PB Tories would be better advised to follow these paths of Government outrage rather than their "ooh, has Starmer given the Isle of Wight away to the EU yet?"
The 'zeitgeist'? You think people's priority right now in the UK is a conflict going on 2000 miles away?
Gaza, Ukraine or both?
Given that the current (whipped-up) priority seems to be where are all these not Britishers flocking from, you’d hope people might be able to work out that many are flocking from conflicts 2000 miles and more away.
Conflicts in the plural you put it. So why one particular conflict in one country the size of Wales that gets all the attention? Notice how there was pretty much no interest in the massacre against the Druze until Israel got involved. Then suddenly it becomes relevant.
What massacre against the Druze before Israel got involved? Israeli forces moved into Syria (that is, beyond the area in the Golan Heights that they have long occupied) and undertook air strikes on 8 Dec 2024. The first clashes between the new Syrian administration and the Druze weren't until 28 Feb 2025.
There have been several clashes between the Druze and the new government (since Israeli intervention). Estimates suggest about 300 Druze civilians have been killed and maybe 600 Druze fighters. The Hamas/Israel conflict has seen about 2000 Israelis and about 80,000+ Palestinians killed. The events in Syria against the Druze minority are significant and the many deaths regrettable, but I think it is understandable that a conflict that has killed about 90 times as many people has attracted more attention.
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
I bet a load of these sheep following the twitter account telling them to break law were totally down with banging up racist twitter lady....and vice versa, shouldn't bang her up, but PA supporters got to go.
We don't get to pick and choose the parts of the law we do and don't like without expecting it to be enforced.
In reality I doubt all these PA supporters will get much if any punishment. I think it will be a warning not to repeat the behaviour, many will repeatedly and in 6-12 months one of them will end up getting a proper punishment.
Some have already had them for actions involving trespassing and criminal damage at defence facilities, but it depends on what you mean. wrt which offences, and what you mean by "proper punishment".
eg.
"In August 2024, five Palestine Action activists were found guilty for the 2022 protest action against Thales UK in Govan, Glasgow, with four of the defendants receiving 12-month custodial sentences and the fifth receiving 14 months."
The 83 year old "Priest" is interesting; she's like a serial 'peaceful' protestor who has changed her techniques, and been involved across a whole series of causes (JSO / IB etc). Her technique is to try to create an "how dare you do it to someone morally untouchable like ME" narrative. She has nearly 30 arrests.
So those numbers imply that around 40% of Republicans are MAGA. You can see why, god help us, they own the party. I'm hard pushed to think of a more simultaneously malign and successful insurgent movement in a mature western democracy.
Thatcherism?
(ducks)
IMO no - Thatcher was rational and had consistency and some ethics, even if you disagreed existentially.
In practice, Maga is imo nihilistic in its outcomes, and has a irrationalist narrative which cannot be countered by argument because it is anchored in a fantasy world. And I don't mean "religion", I mean "what Maga have made of religion".
Well, that was interesting (and thank you for posting). I'm not a fan of Kemi, but that's because I don't like her policies. I didn't realise that a lot of the people in the Conservative Party don't like her as a person (anchor baby???). And I think we can all agree that in her first year she has not understood the problems nor conceived nor implemented a plan to fix them (shades of Starmer).
But I hadn't picked up on the author's other point: namely that Kemi's culture war obsessions (trans, abortion) have been overtaken by events and that the current right-wing obsessions of "migration, ethnicity, identity, belonging and economic failure" have overtaken those obsessions. She got the job because she tickled the Conservative Party's hopes and prejudices. But they have moved on and she no longer does so. And she hasn't got a plan B.
She might be rescued for a while if the Tories move back into 2nd place in the polls.
I saw this. It struck me as crazy. YouTube is a business and relies on ads. If it promotes drivel no one is interested in that won’t help it.
Why not also make this demand of Netflix and Disney+ and the others.
If people have little or no interest in PSB then that is that.
‘YouTube should give videos made by channels like the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 more promotion to help tackle a "serious threat" to the UK's public service broadcasting, according to media regulator Ofcom.
Children spend much more time watching YouTube than all of the public service broadcasters combined, but "the future of public service media is at risk" if young viewers don't start watching their output, Ofcom warned.
The watchdog suggested broadcasters should "work urgently with YouTube" to make sure their content is "prominent and easy to find" - and there's "a strong case" for the government to consider a law to make that happen.‘
It is said Netflix regards its most dangerous competitor as not the broadcasters or rival streamers but YouTube.
The paradox for the broadcasters is that if we watch, say, ITV programmes via YouTube then, first, ITV will lose advertising revenue, second, ITV's own streaming platform will lose subscribers, third, ITV's catalogue will be off less value for overseas partnerships, and fourth, ITV's BARB (viewership) ratings will fall.
Against that will be some revenue-sharing with YouTube but I do not know how that works with YouTube subscribers who are not shown adverts.
I’m currently watching an episode of The Persuaders on YouTube on the ITV Retro channel.
It is a relatively new channel so they have put their toe in the water to see how it works.
I believe, from subscribers, they get money. The episode I am watching has been up 6 days and got 77,000 views so far. Others fare less well. An episode of Press Gang has 508 views.
Channel 5 and Channel 4 also stream.
However it looks like OFCOM just wants YouTube to make the public service element, which they do post on YouTube, more prominent rather than just making prominent videos the algorithm says we may like
One thing to do that with something like The Persuaders!, where the costs of the show must have been paid off years ago, and any extra revenue now is a bonus. (See also: M*A*S*H, and anything on a Freeview channel with a two digit number.) Another to do it with new content that needs actual money spent on it.
Forget Gen-AI. The other threat for 21st century creatives is all the content created in the 20th century. Even if it's not as good, or it has dated social attitudes, it's also much much much cheaper.
Labour should welcome this, they want votes for 16 year olds.
Hmmm. That's a hostage to fortune. The first thing a thinking 19 year old should be aware of is the value of the experience he has not got. Without it, he will be his own worst enemy.
So those numbers imply that around 40% of Republicans are MAGA. You can see why, god help us, they own the party. I'm hard pushed to think of a more simultaneously malign and successful insurgent movement in a mature western democracy.
Thatcherism?
(ducks)
Now you're talking! A slowburn effect contributing mightily to some of our most intractable problems here in 2025. Prime example, housing.
So those numbers imply that around 40% of Republicans are MAGA. You can see why, god help us, they own the party. I'm hard pushed to think of a more simultaneously malign and successful insurgent movement in a mature western democracy.
Thatcherism?
(ducks)
IMO no - Thatcher was rational and had consistency and some ethics, even if you disagreed existentially.
In practice, Maga is imo nihilistic in its outcomes, and has a irrationalist narrative which cannot be countered by argument because it is anchored in a fantasy world. And I don't mean "religion", I mean "what Maga have made of religion".
Yep. You're one of PB's best analysts of Trump/MAGA btw.
The limitations currently being placed on peaceful protest are draconian, unreasonable and counter-productive. Yvette Cooper should issue an edict to all police forces that peaceful 'support for Palestine/Gaza' should not be automatically interpreted as support for, or membership of, a specific group called Palestine Action.
Do you believe all this is the legacy of long-Corbyn? The fear within Labour that pointing a finger at Bibi will be seen, as Bibi sees it, as anti-Semitic.
I think there's some of that, yes. Ditto with the recent re-punishing of Diane Abbott. The other key factor imo is the identification of Red Wall Con19 to Lab24 switchers as the most important voter group for FPTP electoral prospects.
Starmer was perfectly entitled to chuck out Abbott. She essentially explained that her earlier apology was an error.
It's just another example of Starmer’s inability to handle dissenting viewpoints. It's particularly absurd because Abbott's point, that people who are visibly members of minority groups experience racism differently to those who aren't, is self evidently true.
Whereas the visibility issue is undoubtedly true, Abbott is diminishing racism against Jews and other (white) minorities. Her view is racism does not apply to people who don't look like her which is patently absurd.
It would be absurd if it were her view but it isn’t.
Yet another example of the absurd and sinister shutting down of debate over the Israeli genocide in Gaza stemming from the proscription of Palestine Action, who are not a terrorist organisation under any common sense understanding of that term. This is only going to escalate as there are millions of people who feel exactly as this man does and the police can't arrest all of us.
So the outcome is no charges. The fact that you don't think Palestine Action should be labelled as a terrorist organisation is irrelevant - it has been labelled as such by the government in power. I have some sympathy for the plod who are usually not that bright. He was holding a placard with 'Palestine Action' all over it.
I seem to recall rather a lot of debate on Gaza on PB in recent days - I do not see any sinister shutting down of debate. If you want to go and protest in support of Palestinians you are free to do so, as so may have.
Banning Palestine Action is foolhardy, but a fairly minor infringement in the grand scheme of things. Particularly if one applies the Conservatives's ( via Kit Malthouse) suggestion that Lammy and Starmer should be facing the war crimes tribunal in the Hague for their, at least tacit, support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Kit Malthouse was grandstanding. Neither Lammy nor Starmer is guilty of war crimes, and to suggest it is frankly juvenile.
No, Malthouse (and Leigh) have captured the zeitgeist. And this is a phenomenal opportunity for the Conservatives to pile on the pressure against Labour (and Reform). Will they take it? Most likely, not.
Government foreign policy has unraveled in the last week. First Healey's Afghan injunction outrage, which Cartlidge outed brilliantly, and now Malthouse's assertion of Labour complicity in ethnic cleansing of Gazans.
PB Tories would be better advised to follow these paths of Government outrage rather than their "ooh, has Starmer given the Isle of Wight away to the EU yet?"
The 'zeitgeist'? You think people's priority right now in the UK is a conflict going on 2000 miles away?
The small boats would top the list. However do I believe ethnic cleansing in Gaza is rising in national concern? Yes.
Give it a week or two and they will be back to I am a Celebrity or Love Island. How often do we hear Ukraine now, only an odd time in the passing. No woke clowns out protesting about them or the various African countries where bad things are going on , just seems to be some fetish for Palestine.
Indeed, for some.
One thing I note on Twix et al; the importance of Gaza seems inversely proportional to their concern for Ukraine.
Which IMV is odd, as right-and-wrong in the Ukraine war is fairly simple. Ukraine is in the right; Russia in the wrong. The situation in the Middle East and Gaza is much, much more complicated. Yet some seem only concerned by Gaza and the Palestinians, not the plight of the Ukrainians. And the actions of Hamas et al, and their Iranian friends, can be ignored.
(But incidentally, many 'woke' leftists are indeed very noisily pro-Ukraine, and even raise funds for them. One YouTuber stated how the war turned him from a war-never position to a Russia-must-be-stopped one.)
I do come across pro Palestine pro Ukraine types. One has to remember that x is a global community which includes all sorts. I guess they are of the 'anti imperialist' bent.
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/09/palestine-action-britain-support-protest-law
The limitations currently being placed on peaceful protest are draconian, unreasonable and counter-productive. Yvette Cooper should issue an edict to all police forces that peaceful 'support for Palestine/Gaza' should not be automatically interpreted as support for, or membership of, a specific group called Palestine Action.
Protestant moral censorship with deference to big money.
They are vandals for hire, it seems.
They should be treated and prosecuted like that. There’s plenty of laws for that.
I pity the police in this. Its not an easy job.
It seems there is no appetite for going after his client list - because his client list was so broad. He (almost certainly deliberately) mixed in the rich, the famous and the politically connected.
To say I’m utterly unimpressed would be an understatement
I understand that annual CCTV routine maintenance is scheduled for next Tuesday.
Small Boats, which far more people are interested in bringing under control, they view as a threat to those values - and there's 20+ years of legislation, legal infrastructure and social taboos about it that now carry serious professional risk if not navigated carefully that prevents the necessary dialogue and action.
If forced to engage their only response is to make it safer and easier and to "welcome" anyone who does arrive.
🏴 🇺🇦 🇵🇸
@MhairiHunter
Kit Malthouse is not the only Tory to have a clear eyed view of Gaza, Ben Wallace also called it like it is back in 2023. People of all political persuasions can see the reality. It is blindingly obvious. The question is why so few have challenged the government narrative.
https://x.com/MhairiHunter/status/1947584047430902106
There are almost certainly politicians of both parties who would very much prefer the whole thing be forgotten about.
The attitude of most voters (albeit a smaller majority of Republicans) is that they should all get their comeuppance, whatever their politics.
Are you fired up after Malthouse's revelation that Lammy should face the War Crimes Tribunal for ethnic cleansing in Gaza? Will Kemi take this on herself?
Israel minister condemned for saying starvation of millions in Gaza might be ‘justified and moral’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/08/israel-finance-minister-bezalel-smotrich-gaza-starve-2m-people-comments
I am sure I will be labelled an antisemite for posting this.
Acosta went on to be appointed Secretary of Labor by Trump in his first term. Epstein went on to re-offend.
Two former City traders who were at the centre of one of the biggest scandals of the financial crisis have had their convictions quashed.
Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo were jailed following trials for manipulating the interest rates used for loans between banks.
They were among 19 City traders convicted in the US and UK for manipulating those Libor and Euribor interest rates, which are used to set interest rates on mortgages and commercial loans.
After serving their time, the US courts threw out the convictions, but they remained convicted criminals in the UK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr5vgqr8p14o
PA just about crosses the legal definition of a terrorist organisation. Damage to RAF aircraft probably counts as serious criminal damage, and I have heard stories of threats to companies exporting to Israel and their employees.
So to fix it, we have to repeal the law that says you can't express support for terrorist organisations. Of course, support for ISIS was always treason "adhering to the King's enemies, giving them aid and comfort, in the realm or elsewhere" but they seem unwilling to throw the book at people and instead make up laws.
Perhaps Jes Staley might get his job back at Barclays.
Government foreign policy has unraveled in the last week. First Healey's Afghan injunction outrage, which Cartlidge outed brilliantly, and now Malthouse's assertion of Labour complicity in ethnic cleansing of Gazans.
PB Tories would be better advised to follow these paths of Government outrage rather than their "ooh, has Starmer given the Isle of Wight away to the EU yet?"
I was reminded of that by some of the reaction to the Guardian article I posted yesterday.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/jul/22/food-aid-gaza-deaths-visual-story-ghf-israel
Those challenging its veracity apparently overlooked the fact that half the information in it comes from details of the Israeli aid effort provided by the Israeli government and the "Gaza Humanitarian Foundation".
Corbyns handful of % might yet be hilariously impactful
This may just be slovenly lawyering. Or it may be reality.
https://x.com/emptywheel/status/1947647114424496256
The reality is, I think, that neither Trump nor his minion draws any distinction between the two roles.
The independence of law officers and legal agencies from the executive is rapidly becoming a quaint old tradition that no longer applies.
By Will Lloyd
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2025/07/kemi-badenoch-isnt-working
Lol
Given that the current (whipped-up) priority seems to be where are all these not Britishers flocking from, you’d hope people might be able to work out that many are flocking from conflicts 2000 miles and more away.
They'll need to, as no one is going there any more *.
* OK, slight rhetorical exaggeration.
Why not also make this demand of Netflix and Disney+ and the others.
If people have little or no interest in PSB then that is that.
‘YouTube should give videos made by channels like the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 more promotion to help tackle a "serious threat" to the UK's public service broadcasting, according to media regulator Ofcom.
Children spend much more time watching YouTube than all of the public service broadcasters combined, but "the future of public service media is at risk" if young viewers don't start watching their output, Ofcom warned.
The watchdog suggested broadcasters should "work urgently with YouTube" to make sure their content is "prominent and easy to find" - and there's "a strong case" for the government to consider a law to make that happen.‘
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyl07nekzxo
Which of course leveraged into “I’m protected by the Fed Gov, and I can get them to go after anyone but you” - a very useful sales pitch to a certain kind of person.
But no, all the blame is put on Israel. Only Israel. Why might this be?
The paradox for the broadcasters is that if we watch, say, ITV programmes via YouTube then, first, ITV will lose advertising revenue, second, ITV's own streaming platform will lose subscribers, third, ITV's catalogue will be off less value for overseas partnerships, and fourth, ITV's BARB (viewership) ratings will fall.
Against that will be some revenue-sharing with YouTube but I do not know how that works with YouTube subscribers who are not shown adverts.
EnglandIndia bat deep.But I hadn't picked up on the author's other point: namely that Kemi's culture war obsessions (trans, abortion) have been overtaken by events and that the current right-wing obsessions of "migration, ethnicity, identity, belonging and economic failure" have overtaken those obsessions. She got the job because she tickled the Conservative Party's hopes and prejudices. But they have moved on and she no longer does so. And she hasn't got a plan B.
One thing I note on Twix et al; the importance of Gaza seems inversely proportional to their concern for Ukraine.
Which IMV is odd, as right-and-wrong in the Ukraine war is fairly simple. Ukraine is in the right; Russia in the wrong. The situation in the Middle East and Gaza is much, much more complicated. Yet some seem only concerned by Gaza and the Palestinians, not the plight of the Ukrainians. And the actions of Hamas et al, and their Iranian friends, can be ignored.
(But incidentally, many 'woke' leftists are indeed very noisily pro-Ukraine, and even raise funds for them. One YouTuber stated how the war turned him from a war-never position to a Russia-must-be-stopped one.)
It is a relatively new channel so they have put their toe in the water to see how it works.
I believe, from subscribers, they get money. The episode I am watching has been up 6 days and got 77,000 views so far. Others fare less well. An episode of Press Gang has 508 views.
Channel 5 and Channel 4 also stream.
However it looks like OFCOM just wants YouTube to make the public service element, which they do post on YouTube, more prominent rather than just making prominent videos the algorithm says we may like
But it would be evaluated by the current Supreme Court, perhaps?
(ducks)
There have been several clashes between the Druze and the new government (since Israeli intervention). Estimates suggest about 300 Druze civilians have been killed and maybe 600 Druze fighters. The Hamas/Israel conflict has seen about 2000 Israelis and about 80,000+ Palestinians killed. The events in Syria against the Druze minority are significant and the many deaths regrettable, but I think it is understandable that a conflict that has killed about 90 times as many people has attracted more attention.
It has one perfect sentence:
Polanski is gay, vegan and lives in Hackney.[10][11][12]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zack_Polanski
eg.
"In August 2024, five Palestine Action activists were found guilty for the 2022 protest action against Thales UK in Govan, Glasgow, with four of the defendants receiving 12-month custodial sentences and the fifth receiving 14 months."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Action
The 83 year old "Priest" is interesting; she's like a serial 'peaceful' protestor who has changed her techniques, and been involved across a whole series of causes (JSO / IB etc). Her technique is to try to create an "how dare you do it to someone morally untouchable like ME" narrative. She has nearly 30 arrests.
In practice, Maga is imo nihilistic in its outcomes, and has a irrationalist narrative which cannot be countered by argument because it is anchored in a fantasy world. And I don't mean "religion", I mean "what Maga have made of religion".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj61l526xlxo
Labour should welcome this, they want votes for 16 year olds.
Forget Gen-AI. The other threat for 21st century creatives is all the content created in the 20th century. Even if it's not as good, or it has dated social attitudes, it's also much much much cheaper.
Wait for the Model-Y numbers...It Looks Like the Tesla Model Y Refresh Has Bombed
The high-selling Model Y is crucial for both Elon Musk and Tesla, but a half-hearted reskin of the car hasn’t reversed the company’s sales woes.
https://www.wired.com/story/it-looks-like-the-tesla-model-y-refresh-has-bombed/